The Relationship Between Lean and Agile Development

Lean Software Development principles have been successfully adopted by several organizations and projects. One prominent example that showcases the practical application of Lean Software Development is Spotify. This music streaming giant has effectively integrated Lean principles into its development processes, making it a noteworthy case study in the industry. One of the primary reasons software projects fail is because the end product does not meet customer expectations and needs.

• Lean Software Development is a lightweight, Agile framework that focuses on reducing time and resources, eliminating waste, and ultimately delivering only what the product needs.
• Thus, the team must be allowed to voice their opinions, and these opinions are valued.
• However, this is not achievable without proper custom software maintenance.
• Agile methods rely on a disciplined project management process that encourages frequent review and adaptation.
• Its main idea is to prevent any issues and fix them as soon as they’re spotted.
• Lean software development is applicable for both offshore and in-house teams.

You can start this process by identifying each step in your workflow, making a list of tools and materials needed for them, and building the exact number of items required to keep your inventory low. The number of companies that switched to Lean software development is still limited, but it’s growing fast and spreading like wildfire. The term was first used in a book by the same name written by Tom And Mary Poppendieck in 2003. It aims at removing everything that is unnecessary, or that does not bring value to the end product.

Lean software practices

For this reason, most companies are forced to use estimates in place of true values. You can create estimates using similar projects involving software that are currently in use, and identify whether they improve efficiency and reduce errors. Most importantly, the software must help improve sales and profitability. That being said, in order to determine the ROI for SaaS projects, you need to consider various factors apart from the ones seen previously. One of these factors is the trading time of the SaaS company because they often need a significant amount of capital, especially in their intial days. An example of ROI in such companies is seen in tech companies offering project management solutions.

By performing qualitative and quantitative research, you will define what your customers value. That way, you can provide your customers with a product they will pay for. These are just some of the metrics that lean product managers should be keeping track of. The metrics that you measure should directly align with your organization’s individual goals, the product strategy and the goals of the business.

What is the role of continuous improvement in lean software development?

Lean Software Development is a lightweight, Agile framework that focuses on reducing time and resources, eliminating waste, and ultimately delivering only what the product needs. The Lean approach is often applied as the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) technique, in which a team creates a barely functioning prototype and offers it to the market. The team then gathers feedback from customers about what they enjoy, dislike, and want to lean software product development see improved and iterates based on this information. Building quality in is a critical principle of lean software development, but it’s also the trickiest one. You are walking a tightrope between assuring quality and avoiding too much testing that creates waste. That’s why it is essential to work with a professional development team that is familiar with the lean philosophy and has hands-on experience in practicing its principles.

Calculating ROI for software projects is never a straightforward process because it involves multiple aspects related to each business process. In some areas, you might need to cut down your budget and set a minimum threshold. Considering the increase in profits shown in the example above, you can easily jump to the conclusion that the ROI of your custom software development project will be high.

#4: Continuous Integration and Delivery (CI/CD)

Custom software built to improve internal business operations and streamline workflow are quite common these days. The calculation of ROI for business process software involves the cost of implementation, software maintenance, and employee training on how to use the software. Regardless of the type of software you want for your company’s ecosystem, you need to determine whether it will be beneficial in the long run.

The main concept behind the Lean development methodology is that efficiencies can be applied, and waste can be managed at all levels of the process. These include at the individual level, as well as in departments, in interdepartmental operations, in the overall organization, and between the organization and its customers and suppliers. Lean software development works by first identifying value streams and then visualizing them. Unlike manufacturing, software engineering produces intangible goods which can’t be physically touched. So to remove waste from the process, it’s important to visually map those value streams.

It Eliminates Wasteful Losses

For tangible benefits, you need to quantify the financial gains, such as increases in sales or savings. For intangible benefits, you need to identify other advantages that are not directly linked to your finances. These include enhanced user experience and user ratings, feedback, and Google rankings. Once the investments part is settled, the next step is to determine the amount in savings and profits that your software project will provide. In the beginning of your ROI calculation, you will find it difficult to estimate the returns.

One Gartner survey found that 32% of respondents said their need to deliver more quickly was the main reason for adopting a product-centric approach, citing “speed to market” as their core metric. The Lean manufacturing concept emerged in the mid-20th century out of a production process Toyota developed as part of its Toyota Way philosophy. Lean manufacturing aimed to reduce product defects, cut out waste, increase productivity, and encourage accountability and innovation.

Types of Software Maintenance

This awareness goes against the traditional principle of specialization, where workers are taught to master just one task, but it makes teams more creative. Lean teams that understand the larger picture are better at identifying waste, eliminating bureaucracy, and creating a repeatable, standardized process. Lean product development is a process for building products faster with less waste. It improves upon traditional product development processes by eliminating the communication silos that typically separate departments.

Then it will show how to apply it and why it is so good for companies of any size and makeup. This minimalistic yet systematic and efficient design of a product based on optimization, elimination, and consistent iterations (depending on the market metrics), is known as Lean Software Development. In such a data-driven era, it isn’t uncommon that most of the revolutionary companies or innovative breakthroughs of our times are all Internet/SaaS-based. In this technology-driven world, anyone with an Internet connection and an idea can build an audience and a business out of it. The company has evolved with the ever-shifting technological paradigm and knows how to cater to tailored UAE clients’ needs.

Respecting the Team

Join the Ship It Club to receive updates on development trends, productivity tips, and gain early access to DevCycle events and giveaways, shipped once a month. The change in desire from cars to more variety meant that manufacturers had to start using different materials, production lines, and skilled labor.