whitepaper final-applying lean principles to software product dev

7/29/2019 Whitepaper Final-Applying Lean Principles to Software Product Dev

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Applying Lean Principles to

Sotware Product Development

Intelligent Sotware. Delivered


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To address requent changes in business requirements during sotware product

development, organizations resort to having more rigid processes in place to

ensure adherence to cost and time estimates. These actions result in centralization

o decision making, leading to urther increase rigidity and delay in decision

making. Changes to requirements may not be accommodated due to the loss o

exibility and the end result is delivery o a product that lacks some o the eatures

that are now demanded by customers. Thus, a linear sotware development

model that is so widely adopted (like waterall methodology) does not permit

iterative development and early testing. By the time requirements changes are

evaluated or implementation, changes may need to be done in design. This

can be expensive and time consuming. Applying principles o lean management

to sotware product development can help overcome some o these challenges.

Lean principles also help build a continuous improvement cycle within the process

o new sotware product development.

Lean principles ocus on eliminating waste, delivering value to customers, reducing

cycle times, and implementing continuous process improvement initiatives. Once

Lean principles are implemented, several benets can be realized including:

Reduction in costs through waste elimination and compressing/

eliminating waiting time

Reduced testing cycles with early testing during the development lie

cycle

Continuous process improvement leading to reduction in the number

o deects identied during testing

More exibility in dealing with changing requirements

INTRODUCTIONLean Principles best

address requent

changes in sotware

development with early

testing and a continuous

improvement cycle.

This paper begins with an overview o the principles o lean sotware development.

Subsequently we will highlight how the application o Lean tools improves the

product development process by examining their impact on various phases o the

sotware product development lie cycle.

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Applying Lean Principles to Sotware

Product Development


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Mary and Tom Poppendieck enunciated the seven principles listed below or

sotware development in their book Implementing Lean Sotware Development:

From Concept to Cash:

Eliminate waste: Anything that does not add value to the customer is deemed

wasteul. Lean principle advocates that organizations should learn to identiy

and eliminate waste. In sotware development, waste can include unwanted

eatures in products, repeated cycles o testing, slack time between phases o

the project (waiting or approvals or appropriate resources) and creating excess

documentation.

Build in quality: Allow or integrity and testing to be carried out to provide

eedback rom end users to the team. I there are repeated cycles o testing, it

indicates that the development process is not in order and requires to be xed

beore proceeding urther. Lean advocates an iterative development model that

introduces testing early in the sotware development lie cycle thereby eliminating

discovery o deects late in the development lie cycle and thus helps avoid costly

xes in the orm o changes to design.

Create knowledge: Knowledge generation is done through eedback loops,

iterations, synchronization and set based development. Feedback can be

obtained rom testing, getting customer response to the output and increasing

the eedback loop to the development team. Iterations help obtain requent

eedback, allow the ability to decide as late as possible, prioritize high value

items early and require team planning, short complete cycles and help achieve

convergence. Synchronization permits development o multiple components using

architecture matrix strategy. Set based development help solutions to emerge by

communicating constraints.

Lean suggests that there should be interaction o the sotware development team

with customers to get eedback early in the lie cycle o product development.

Set based development implies developing multiple options, communicating

constraints and discovering a solution.

Deer commitment:Allowing decisions to be made as late as possible ensures

that possible solutions are not eliminated early during the product development

lie cycle. This includes identiying the last possible moment or making decisions

and making decisions ater evaluating all alternatives/options. In product

Relating Lean Principles to

Sotware Development

Iterative development

model in sotware

development

eliminates waste in

many phases o the

development lie

cycle.

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development lie cycle, requirements are allowed to evolve over a period o time

instead o insistence on nalizing the requirements in the beginning o the

development cycle, as advocated by linear models o sotware development. In

the idea generation phase o product development, not ruling out some o the

ideas generated early can be valuable urther down the process.

Deliver ast: This is required to satisy customers who like rapid delivery. This

can be accomplished by allowing people to be sel-directed, reducing the cycle

time, managing slack by eliminating or reducing the wait time between activities

and highlighting the cost implications o delay in delivery.

Respect people:Team members need to be empowered by allowing them to

determine or them the work processes and have in place a eedback loop between

managers and the team members. They need to be motivated by providingthem with clear, objective, and measurable goals with access to customers and

management providing them support, guidance, resources and protection as

required. The team also needs to have a leader to set direction, align people and

enable motivation. Expertise must be ostered within teams and opportunities

or continuous improvement should be provided. This can be accomplished by

having a governance model that empowers the sotware product development

team members to make decisions within the boundaries o the scope o work.

Optimize the whole: To be able to visualize the system as a whole and

understand the nature o interactions between various components o the system

and identiy appropriate measures and metrics or perormance measurements.

This principle also promotes the system way o thinking during solution

development. Comparing Lean Principles and Agile Methodology

On the surace, some o the Lean principles appear quite similar to what is suggested

by Agile methodology o sotware development in that they advocate aster

delivery, exibility o accommodating changing requirements, deer commitment

(keeping options open) and build quality in (advocating early testing). Lean,

however has a broader view and takes the entire context o sotware development

into account viewing Agile development methodology as supporting the practices

advocated by Lean sotware development. Lean ideas provided a context or

developing the tools that are used by Agile. Agile is oten conused to mean

no documentation whereas Agile recommends that minimum documentation

be created keeping in mind the needs o the project. This is in line with the

Lean concept o avoiding waste by doing away with excessive documentation and

instead ocusing on delivering sotware that can be tested or correctness and

utility value. As described above, Lean can addresses all organizational unctions

and has an impact on the entire system.

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Sotware product development goes through various phases rom idea generation

to product launch. At the end o each phase is a structured review process that

results in a Go/No Go decision. Ideas can be sourced rom various sources

including employees, customers, or vendors and are screened or easibility.

Upon approval by management ater a business review, a project may be created

and unded or developing the product. Sotware product development goes

through the ollowing phases beore the product launch:

Incorporating Lean Principles in

Sotware Product Development

Each Phase o LeanDevelopment requires

many sources to

review, this assures the

product is exactly what

the client wants.

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Iterative Development& early testing

Concept

EvolveProductFeatures

set

Feature(s)Design

Feature(s)Dev.

Feature(s)Testing

IntegrationTesting

Gate Review

The table below shows the various phases o product development and a

representative list o Lean principles that can be applied:

Phase Application o Lean Principles

Concept Wish list of product features provided bypotential customers

Product Features

& Requirements

identication

Requirements evolve during the course o

product development and cannot be nalized in

the beginning o product developmentDeveloping only those requirements that are

required by customers (eliminating waste)

Adoption o an Iterative process that can

accommodate requirements changes

during product development lie cycle (deer

commitment)

Product Design

& ArchitectureArchitecture should be exible to accommodate

changing business requirements


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Phase Application o Lean Principles

Product Development Sotware development is done iteratively a seto requirements is taken up or development -

this ollows a cycle o design, develop and test

Scenario driven development based on user

stories comprising user experience, technical

specications and interaction standards

Focus on continuous improvement

Product Testing Build in quality introduction o testing early in

the development lie cycle

Integration testing done in the end toensure components work well together ater

development

Product Launch Customer feedback is used to enhance productfeatures in a steady state

The table below shows the various phases o product development and a

representative list o Lean principles that can be applied:

Dimension Lean Principle Applied

Measures Identiy easy to capture and limited number o

metrics or continuous monitoring

Continuously monitor the program to identiy

areas o improvement

Governance Empower people

Promote extensive interaction between end

users and development teams

Respect people by promoting sel-organizing

teams

Adherence to standards

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Outcomes Realized When Applying Lean

Practices Sotware Product Development

Requirements Development

Lean advocates close interaction between the product development team and the

client partners or prospective clients. With the close involvement o end users or

client partners during the early stages o requirements development, only those

requirements by customers that are seen as being valuable are identied or

elaboration, validation, and development. This results in elimination o wasted

eort in developing eatures in the product that are not seen as valuable by

customers thereby reducing time and cost o product development. Customers

also need not pay or eatures that they do not see value in. In the early stages o

product development, value is identied and hence waste also gets identied and

eliminated. According to a study done by Standish Group in 2009, over 64% o

product eatures are not used by organizations post implementation. Having well

dened requirements would prevent unnecessary expenditure on implementing

eatures that do not serve any purpose.

Sotware Features Usage, Source: The Standish Group, 2009

I requirements stability is too low, it implies that specications are being nalized

too early. Lean advocates making delayed commitments. This allows or better

articulation o requirements leading to nalization at a later time, but developing a

product that is more closely aligned to customer requirements.

Since potential customers or client partners are involved early on during the product

development, validation o requirements happens early in the lie cycle o product

development. Close interactions between the business team and the technology

team can result in improved collaboration and hence a better understanding o the

implications o decisions.

With the close

involvement o

end users and

client partners the

requirements are

identied early

reducing time and

cost o development

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45%

7%

13% 16%

19%

Always

Often

Sometimes

Rarely

Never


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In summary, applying Lean principles during requirements development

results in the ollowing benets:

Elimination o waste

Prioritization o requirements driven by client partners/potential customers

resulting in better alignment o product eatures with market demand

Allowing or requirements to develop iteratively instead o nalizing

requirements early in the development cycle ensures that the nal

product being delivered is aligned to customers expectations.

Product design and architecture

Sotware products need to be exible and congurable to allow customers to

respond quickly to the challenges in business. Lean principles articulate building

a exible architecture that would help development teams to be nimble ooted

in responding to changing business requirements. Open computing and Service

Oriented Architecture are popular approaches that help implement a exible

architecture.

Adopting this approach would lower maintenance costs or customers on an

ongoing basis, besides increasing the ability to support emerging business needs

and lowering technology related risks. This would help organizations quickly

launch new products in the market and maintain parity or competitive advantage

vis--vis competition.

Development

Lean stresses on having short development cycles and delivering value at the end

o each o these cycles. Agile methodology closely aligns itsel to Lean principles.

The stress is on iterative development that ocuses on:

Delivering unctionality and business value in each sprint/iteration

through a cycle o build, test and validation

Addressing high risk items early to reduce risk as the development

progresses

Evolving the understanding o product requirements through each

iteration

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Faster decision making (Every iteration is time bound which orces aster

decision making without actually reezing scope. The unaddressed

unctionality in an iteration is carried over to the next iteration)

Increasing the number o eedback loops through regular delivery o

working sotware

Eliminating slack between iterations by including all activities rom

planning through delivery as a part o the iteration instead o having

additional external processes that can create wait time and cause waste

to be created

In summary, applying Lean principles during requirements development results in

the ollowing benets:

Delivery o a sotware product that is in alignment with customers

requirements.

Allows requirements to evolve during the course o product development

instead o orcing nalization o product eatures/requirements early on

in the development lie cycle. The end result is a sotware product that

is more aligned to meet customers requirements even when there are

changes to requirements rom the time the product was conceptualized.

A simultaneous ocus on early risk reduction and value delivery orces

identication o solution constraints early on and allows a solution toevolve taking into account all alternatives.

Implementing unctionality o highest priority rst by delivering working

code early in the cycle also validates the architecture, reduces technical

and project risk and increases the likelihood o successul product

development.

Knowledge is created through short eedback loops achieved by early end

user testing during each iteration.

Where product development companies have teams that are not co-

located, the teams are synchronized through continuous integration.

Early testing during each iteration ensures that quality is built in early on

Too many cycles o testing i run, would be a pointer to x earlier

processes. This can result in continuous improvement in the sotware

engineering processes.

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Product testing

Lean emphasizes early testing and continuous process improvements. The

benets o adopting this approach are:

Reduced testing cycles and hence a reduction in overall sotware

development costs

Early detection o bugs/deects and resolution o the same resulting in

avoiding costly xes o deects later in the development lie cycle

Applying Lean to other dimensions o

sotware product development

Besides the dierent phases o sotware product development, Lean principles

can be applied to other dimensions o sotware product development:

Measures:Lean advocates that metrics that are captured as a part o sotware

development should be:

Easily understood, collected, analyzed and be limited

Used to monitor the program health and identiy areas or improvements

Eective metrics provide the required inormation to management to take timely

and appropriate action. Metrics collection should be automated and be used toanalyze critical trends that can acilitate good program governance. While the

standard Earned Value Management related metrics help determine the current

status, they can also set expectations on how the budget is spent. The ocus should

be on collecting those metrics that are easily understood, easily collected, and

acted upon.

Continuous collection, monitoring and analysis o metrics combined with iterative

development helps measure the variance between quality o working code

delivered and the specications. This helps take early corrective action. Collectionand dissemination o metrics can happen through project dashboard sotware.

While corrective action can result in course correction, analysis o metrics can

result in process improvements that can be implemented within the organization

that is engaged in product development. This can result in process improvement

initiatives.

Governance: Lean principles ocus on quick decision making, empowering

people, permitting project team members to have a say in the processes and

adherence to standards. These are examined below in detail:

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Lean principles advocate empowering people rather than try and control and

directly manage them. This requires a high degree o maturity o team members

who are capable o being sel-directed. Team members would have the authority

to allocate work (to them) that would be perormed within the overall governance

structure. Such a participatory approach ensures that all team members have a

say in the decision making process. Team members would select their activities

and tasks, commit to the work and co-ordinate regularly to ensure that progress

is smooth. In combination with the iterative model o development, empowering

people through sel-direction works well because o the ollowing reasons:

In each iteration, the deliverables are agreed upon by all stakeholders

and the development team.

Iterations ensure that there is overall direction and serve as a control

mechanism or the Product Development Manager to keep the team

members ocused on the task on hand

Increased motivation o team members that can positively impact

productivity

Promotes greater collaboration between team members

Decision making is decentralized and quicker because team members are

empowered

Better opportunities or team members to up skill themselves

Lean principles suggest adoption o policies and standards that would promotecollaborative team work. The development team may be spread across locations,

geographies, and time zones. To ensure seamless collaboration and integration,

an integrated environment should be in place to ensure that there is support or

interaction between project team members. Having a standardized integrated

lie cycle environment during the product development process helps lower costs,

capture metrics, and assist easier onboarding o project resources.

To be eective, the governance model should actor in the capabilities o the

project team members and the organizations environment. Successul governance

models ocus on enabling collaborative work between project team members and

motivating them to perorm at their peak levels instead o being directed.

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Review meetings/Retrospectives:

At the end o an iteration project teams should hold review meetings to reect on

their perormance. These meetings should be used to analyze what went o welland where the team went wrong. What went o well should be prioritized or

implementation as best practices and where we went wrong should be used to

identiy continuous improvement initiatives.

Outsourcing:

To take advantage o lower costs, compressing time to market and access to a

scalable pool o resources, sotware product development rms may choose to

outsource some phases o product development. Most oten, this is the iterative

development phase. Some o the Lean principles that can be adapted when having

vendor partners include:

Treating the project team as one team instead o dividing them as

onshore and oshore partners

Providing access to communication tools such as instant messaging, video

conerencing

Facilitate participation in team meetings by scheduling telephonic

meetings scheduled with time zone overlaps

Ensure ow o customer eedback to the oshore team

Facilitate interaction with the onshore team by having some o the

oshore team members travel onshore or a short duration during the

initial iterations

While Agile ocuses on continuous eedback loops rom customers/end users, Lean

principles advocate continuous integration, people empowerment, and continuous

customer eedback. Applying Lean principles can help organizations that have

outsourced some o the product development phases.

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Summary o Benets Derived From

Adopting Lean Principles

Adopting LeanPrinciples enables

product development

requirements to evolve

and members to

be sel-directed to

upgrade their skills

Various benets that accrue by adopting lean principles are summarized below:

Reduced cost o product development by eliminating waste by

Not implementing requirements/eatures that are not desired

by customers,

Adopting agile/iterative development model o sotware

development that allows requirements to evolve during

product development

Testing early and avoiding expensive design changes due to

late testing

o

o

o

More productive sotware development members who are sel-directed

and have an orientation to continuously upgrade their skills

Developing products with a exible architecture that can support the

evolving business needs o customers and reduce the total cost o

ownership to customers

Allows or the development o multiple options in parallel

Enables set-based development by examining all options

Continuous process improvement achieved by introducing testing early

on in the development lie cycle

Capturing metrics that are easily understood and analyzed

Continuously delivers value/unctionality addressing the high risk

elements rst, thereby reducing technical risk as the project progresses

over time

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Challenges o Using Lean Principles

Whereas the advantages o adopting Lean principles have been listed earlier,

there are some challenges as well that are provided below:

The project team members need to be sel-directed (given the emphasis

placed on empowerment) and capable o working as a cohesive unit.

Having team members that are not committed can result in derailment o

the project.

Lean advocates making late decisions (compared to the insistence on

timely sign o in linear methodologies o sotware development) to

ensure that all possible solutions are considered beore making a choice.

When requirements keep evolving without an end in sight, there is a

large possibility o scope creep. This has to be managed well; else there

would be accompanying schedule and budget slippage as well resulting

in ailure.

Lean is ocused on continuous improvement and the timelines or

implementation can be long. The payback period or reaping the

benets would also be long. This can encounter internal resistance within

the organization and the commitment o senior management would be

required to overcome this.

Some organizations have tried to adopt practices that have worked

successully in other organizations in their own organizations. The ocus

should instead be to understand the principles that contributed to the

success rather than the practices.

CONCLUSION

The concept o Lean evolved rom the manuacturing industry and has relevance to

sotware product development as well. In act, Lean has helped the Agile development

methodology and its variants to evolve as well. Agile methodology scores over the

traditional linear model o sotware development by not insisting on nalizing

requirements, but allows or midway course correction. In Agile method, instead

o building the whole product and commencing testing, the product is developed in

small incremental pieces, tested or acceptance by customers, and adjusted where

required. Quality also gets built into the system early as testing commences earlier

in the sotware development lie cycle instead o being done in the end and in a time

boxed manner. Integration challenges arise when there are multiple iterations being

run and dierent teams dispersed in dierent locations work on a product. While Agile

does not prescribe a solution to overcome integration challenges, Lean concepts help.

In Lean, the work is broken down into dierent components and the output o one

stream can lead to another and ultimately combined into the product. While multiple

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iterations may be the norm in product development initiatives, Lean principles like

set-based and concurrent engineering approaches help achieve synchronization.

This paper has highlighted the benets that accrue to sotware product development

rms during each phase o development by implementing Lean principles. Besides

suggesting some principles that can be applied to the dierent phases o sotware

development, Lean also suggests principles or other dimensions such as metrics

and governance. Collecting limited actionable metrics, team empowerment, early

eedback during product development rom customers and continuous improvement

processes are some o the benets that are derived rom adopting Lean processes

in sotware development.

The Lean Sotware and Systems community agrees on a ew principles listed below

(The Lean principles are provided in brackets):

Following a system thinking and design approach (optimize the whole)

Respect people and encourage leadership (people empowerment)

Using scientic methods (continuous improvements)

Reduce ow time and waste to improve efciency (eliminate waste)

Beore embarking on the path to implementing Lean, organizations need to evaluate

their internal processes and the suitability o Lean in their environment. Lean sotwaredevelopment processes need to be tailored to the organizations where they evolve.

Lean principles in sotware development are still evolving and given the outcomes in

product development rms, the adoption is likely to increase going orward. Forays

made to implement Lean principles have produced mixed results in the past and

this has added to the reluctance o moving away rom the traditional linear model

o sotware development. Some o the ailure can also be attributed to incorrect

understanding o the principles and abandoning the eort midway without going the

ull distance.

Implementing Lean would entail a long term commitment. Most organizations would

be ollowing some o the principles advocated by Lean already. However, it may take

organizations a long time to adopt every practice. There is no particular order o

priority in which to implement them. However, the practices are synergistic and can

be implemented incrementally to realize the benets. While the ultimate aim o Lean

is to eliminate waste altogether, practically it is impossible to achieve this.

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In an article titled Lean programming in 2003, Mary Poppendieck summarizes

the benets o applying Lean principles to sotware development as ollows: Lean

thinking applied to sotware development as Lean programming will lead to the

highest quality, low cost, shortest lead time sotware development possible. These

benets that are supported by empirical evidence rom dierent studies should spursotware development organizations to adopt Lean principles, moving away rom

the traditional linear development models.

ABOUT TELLIANT SYSTEMS, LLC

Telliant Systems is an Inormation Technology services, solutions and

stafng company serving businesses globally. Headquartered in Johns

Creek, GA, USA, with an oshore development center in India, Telliant

is committed to providing a truly dierent approach to outsourced

sotware development services. Telliant provides a range o IT services

including application development, sotware testing and perormance

analysis and tuning. Our services cover several sotware platorms

including Java/J2EE, Microsot .NET, Mobile and a variety o open

source technologies including Linux, PHP, MySQL etc. Telliant works

with our clients using several engagement models including dedicated

oshore model, turn-key projects and onsite services and several hybrid

models based on what suits the customer best. We also serve several

industry segments such as banks and nancial services companies,

insurance, social media and healthcare industries among others.

Atlanta Ofce

10475 Medlock Bridge Rd,

Building 400

Johns Creek, GA 30097.

Phone: (678) 892 2801www.telliant.com

Contact Details

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