Lean Software Development Principles

Lean development can be summarized by seven principles, very close in concept to lean manufacturing principles:

1. Eliminate waste
2. Amplify learning
3. Decide as late as possible
4. Deliver as fast as possible
5. Empower the team
6. Build Quality in
7. See the whole

Eliminate waste

Lean philosophy regards everything not adding value to the customer as waste. Such waste may include:

• unnecessary code and functionality
• delay in the software development process
• unclear requirements
• avoidable process repetition (often caused by insufficient testing)
• bureaucracy
• slow internal communication

In order to eliminate waste, one should be able to recognize it. If some activity could be bypassed or the result could be achieved without it, it is waste. Partially done coding eventually abandoned during the development process is waste. Extra processes and features not often used by customers are waste. Waiting for other activities, teams, processes is waste. Defects and lower quality are waste. Managerial overhead not producing real value is waste.

A value stream mapping technique is used to identify waste. The second step is to point out sources of waste and to eliminate them. Waste-removal should take place iteratively until even seemingly essential processes and procedures are liquidated.

Amplify learning

Software development is a continuous learning process with the additional challenge of development teams and end product sizes. The best approach for improving a software development environment is to amplify learning. The accumulation of defects should be prevented by running tests as soon as the code is written. Instead of adding more documentation or detailed planning, different ideas could be tried by writing code and building. The process of user requirements gathering could be simplified by presenting screens to the end-users and getting their input.

The learning process is sped up by usage of short iteration cycles – each one coupled with refactoring and integration testing. Increasing feedback via short feedback sessions with customers helps when determining the current phase of development and adjusting efforts for future improvements. During those short sessions both customer representatives and the development team learn more about the domain problem and figure out possible solutions for further development. Thus the customers better understand their needs, based on the existing result of development efforts, and the developers learn how to better satisfy those needs. Another idea in the communication and learning process with a customer is set-based development – this concentrates on communicating the constraints of the future solution and not the possible solutions, thus promoting the birth of the solution via dialogue with the customer.

Decide as late as possible

As software development is always associated with some uncertainty, better results should be achieved with an options-based approach, delaying decisions as much as possible until they can be made based on facts and not on uncertain assumptions and predictions. The more complex a system is, the more capacity for change should be built into it, thus enabling the delay of important and crucial commitments. The iterative approach promotes this principle – the ability to adapt to changes and correct mistakes, which might be very costly if discovered after the release of the system.

An agile software development approach can move the building of options earlier for customers, thus delaying certain crucial decisions until customers have realized their needs better. This also allows later adaptation to changes and the prevention of costly earlier technology-bounded decisions. This does not mean that no planning should be involved – on the contrary, planning activities should be concentrated on the different options and adapting to the current situation, as well as clarifying confusing situations by establishing patterns for rapid action. Evaluating different options is effective as soon as it is realized that they are not free, but provide the needed flexibility for late decision making.

Deliver as fast as possible

In the era of rapid technology evolution, it is not the biggest that survives, but the fastest. The sooner the end product is delivered without major defects, the sooner feedback can be received, and incorporated into the next iteration. The shorter the iterations, the better the learning and communication within the team. With speed, decisions can be delayed. Speed assures the fulfilling of the customer’s present needs and not what they required yesterday. This gives them the opportunity to delay making up their minds about what they really require until they gain better knowledge. Customers value rapid delivery of a quality product.

The just-in-time production ideology could be applied to software development, recognizing its specific requirements and environment. This is achieved by presenting the needed result and letting the team organize itself and divide the tasks for accomplishing the needed result for a specific iteration. At the beginning, the customer provides the needed input. This could be simply presented in small cards or stories – the developers estimate the time needed for the implementation of each card. Thus the work organization changes into self-pulling system – each morning during a stand-up meeting, each member of the team reviews what has been done yesterday, what is to be done today and tomorrow, and prompts for any inputs needed from colleagues or the customer. This requires transparency of the process, which is also beneficial for team communication.

Empower the team

There has been a traditional belief in most businesses about the decision-making in the organization – the managers tell the workers how to do their own job. In a “Work-Out technique”, the roles are turned – the managers are taught how to listen to the developers, so they can explain better what actions might be taken, as well as provide suggestions for improvements. The lean approach favors the aphorism “find good people and let them do their own job,” encouraging progress, catching errors, and removing impediments, but not micro-managing.

Another mistaken belief has been the consideration of people as resources. People might be resources from the point of view of a statistical data sheet, but in software development, as well as any organizational business, people do need something more than just the list of tasks and the assurance that they will not be disturbed during the completion of the tasks. People need motivation and a higher purpose to work for – purpose within the reachable reality, with the assurance that the team might choose its own commitments. The developers should be given access to the customer; the team leader should provide support and help in difficult situations, as well as ensure that skepticism does not ruin the team’s spirit.

Build Quality in

The customer needs to have an overall experience of the System – this is the so-called perceived integrity: how it is being advertised, delivered, deployed, accessed, how intuitive its use is, price and how well it solves problems.

Conceptual integrity means that the system’s separate components work well together as a whole with balance between flexibility, maintainability, efficiency, and responsiveness. This could be achieved by understanding the problem domain and solving it at the same time, not sequentially. The needed information is received in small batch pieces – not in one vast chunk with preferable face-to-face communication and not any written documentation. The information flow should be constant in both directions – from customer to developers and back, thus avoiding the large stressful amount of information after long development in isolation.

One of the healthy ways towards integral architecture is refactoring. As more features are added to the original code base, the harder it becomes to add further improvements. Refactoring is about keeping simplicity, clarity, minimum number of features in the code. Repetitions in the code are signs for bad code designs and should be avoided. The complete and automated building process should be accompanied by a complete and automated suite of developer and customer tests, having the same versioning, synchronization and semantics as the current state of the System. At the end the integrity should be verified with thorough testing, thus ensuring the System does what the customer expects it to. Automated tests are also considered part of the production process, and therefore if they do not add value they should be considered waste. Automated testing should not be a goal, but rather a means to an end, specifically the reduction of defects.

See the whole

Software systems nowadays are not simply the sum of their parts, but also the product of their interactions. Defects in software tend to accumulate during the development process – by decomposing the big tasks into smaller tasks, and by standardizing different stages of development, the root causes of defects should be found and eliminated. The larger the system, the more organizations that are involved in its development and the more parts are developed by different teams, the greater the importance of having well defined relationships between different vendors, in order to produce a system with smoothly interacting components. During a longer period of development, a stronger subcontractor network is far more beneficial than short-term profit optimizing, which does not enable win-win relationships.

Lean thinking has to be understood well by all members of a project, before implementing in a concrete, real-life situation. “Think big, act small, fail fast; learn rapidly” – these slogans summarize the importance of understanding the field and the suitability of implementing lean principles along the whole software development process. Only when all of the lean principles are implemented together, combined with strong “common sense” with respect to the working environment, is there a basis for success in software development.

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What is Kanban?

• Start with what you know – Don’t try to reinvent the wheel right away. Visualize what you have now.
• Pursue incremental, evolutionary change – Once you can see the current state of your work, visualize how to improve it.
• Respect the current process, roles, responsibilities & titles – Don’t make drastic, sweeping changes without getting buy-in from the rest of your team. Remember, Kanban is a collaborative process.

• Visual workflows – You can’t understand what you can’t see.
• Work-in-progress (WIP) limits – Limit multi-tasking. By limiting your work in progress, you can actually get more done and do it better.  Multitasking, and especially task switching, may make it seem like you are getting more done, but in fact you are wasting a lot of time between tasks, forcing your brain to refocus.  Kanban is a great way to see the work needing to be done and systematically work on just one or two of the most important things until they are done.
• Enhanced workflows – Continuously improving the way you work makes you more effective and more happy.
• Agreement on process policies – Decide how you want to manage your team’s kanban using feedback from the team.
• Data-driven collaborative improvement – Changes should be made based on the scientific method instead of “gut” feeling.

What is Kanban WIP Limit?

• The project is of 13 user stories to be implemented (A thru M) by a team of 3 people.

• Suppose there are No WIP limits on the implementation, all 13 may be considered by the team with a average of 4+ user stories per person. The concept is that, if there is too much context switching, the 13 user stories might get delayed because the 3 developers may not be able to focus on any of the user stories.
• Thus now WIP limits are introduced as shown below. A WIP limit of 2 in TODO means that only 2 user stories should be short listed for development. A WIP limit of 3 in development means that there can be only 3 at a time in development cycle.
• Please notice that D is Done (and therefore there may be a slack with this developer) but still development is not started on G/H. If G/H is taken for development, the backlog for testing will increase and nothing will get completed. Instead the developer who completed D can either share some tasks of E,F or help in testing of C before taking up G/H.

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Toyota developed the Toyota production system (TPS). TPS borrowed ideas from ford but developed the just in time philosophy (JIT) pull concept to address the issues or high cost associated with fords large inventories. The Toyota production system in an integrated system, that comprises of its management philosophy and practices.

Philosophy

• Base your management decisions on a long-term philosophy, even at the expense of short-term financial goals.

Process

• Create a process flow to surface problems
• Use pull out systems to avoid overproduction
• Level out the workload(Heijunka)
• Stop when there is a quality problem (Jidoka)
• Standardized tasks for continuous improvement
• Use visual control so no problems are hidden
• Use only reliable, thoroughly tested technology

People & partners

• Create leaders who live the philosophy
• Respect develop and challenge your people and teams
• Respect challenges and help the supplier

Problem solving

• Go see for yourself to thoroughly understand the situation
• Make decision slowly by consensus, thoroughly considering all options : implement decisions rapidly.
• Become a learning organization through relentless reflection (hence) and continuous)

House of quality

Toyota visualized its values, principals way of working and the ,most important tools in the Toyota house of quality, the roof of the house expresses the goals of the organization (best quality -lowest cost-shortest lead time-best safely- high morale). The foundation of the house addresses the principles, followed by number conditions that are always needed. Here you can find standardized work and visual management. There are two pillars. The first pillar is called Jidoka and is about building in quality thaw second pillar is called Just In Time and inclines a number of logistical principles and tools. In the centre of the house you will find the continuous effort of improving the organization.

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One of the key ways in which “Agility” can be achieved is by reducing variations and addressing elements which reduces productivity. There are fundamentally 3 types of variations that can be distinguished

Muda : Waste, Non-Value add activities, Idle time etc

Muri : Overburdening of the system or impossible to achieve

Mura : Unevenless, irregularity or lack of uniformity

As the names suggest, the 3 terms are of Japanese origin, specifically Toyota.

Muda

Reduction of Muda (or wastage) can be achieved by assuring that a process will not consume more resources than necessary. Generally a “Value Added” activity is the one where customer pays for it, or a user gets benefitted by it etc. Examples of some of the types of wastes which can be eliminated

1. Producing good more than the need : Producing good which a market does not need is a waste.
2. Wait Time or Idle Time : Too much capacity and less work or too much of time between tasks, dependencies on tasks resulting in idle time.
3. Transportation : Moving between offices, travel time, transporting goods physically between offices or warehouses
4. Unnecessary Supplies : Developing more than what is needed
5. Defects : Defective code or redevelopment effort
6. Unused Expertise : Experts doing mundane work or highly paid workers doing day-to-day work

Muri

Reducing over-burdening of the system can be implemented by implementing “FLOW”.  Lean methodology (or any Agile methodology) focusses on getting the “right things to the right place at the right time in the right quantity“. This method of doing the “right things to the…….” is called achieving FLOW.

Mura

A common misunderstanding is that improving productivity means working faster. Lean (and other methodologies like Extreme Programming and Scrum or even Agile Principles) endorses sustaining the pace of work. Work like a Tortoise (steady pace) instead of running like a hare and then resting before resuming work. “Pull” system is an essential element of Scrum and other Agile methodologies. Kanban implements Pull system and Just in Time is achieved. This is Mura.

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What is DMAIC?

The Lean-Six-Sigma projects follow the DMAIC methodology. DMAIC is an abbreviation for DEFINE, MEASURE, ANALYSE, IMPROVE and CONTROL.

DMIAC is a data-driven improvement initiative used for improving, optimising and stabilizing business processes and products.

Define

Every Lean-Six-Sigma project starts with the Define phase. The purpose of the Define phase in DMAIC is to clearly define the problem statement, the goals, the scope and the high level project timeline. The problem should be linked to the external customer (VOC), the organization (VOB) and to other stakeholders.

Measure

In this phase of DMAIC, the gap between the current performance and required performance is measured. The purpose of this phase is to make customer requirements tangible and measurable.

Analyse

The purpose of the Analyse phase is to identify, validate and determine factors of influence that needs to be adjusted or eliminated.

Improve

The purpose of the improve phase is to implement and verify the best solutions to the problem.

Control

The purpose of control phase in DMAIC is to sustain the achieved results. This phase prevents the problems from re-occurring.

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Why Lean-Six-Sigma go hand-in-hand?

The Key principles of Lean are

• Value – Define what is of value to the customer
• Eliminate Waste – Identify the Value Stream and eliminate what is of no value to end customer
• Flow – Create a constant Flow
• Pull – Produce on demand and reduce backlogs or holdups
• Perfection – Continuous improvement

Lean is silent on Quality and therefore only a lean thinking may result in reduction of wastage, optimization, reduction of costs and enabling a perfect just-in-time pull system. However, without quality focus there is a danger of producing goods which are optimized, developed at a low cost but of lower quality. This would be un-acceptable to the end-customer.

Six Sigma is a long term strategy to improve quality and reduce variation. Six Sigma employs various statistical tools and techniques to improve quality and reduce variations.

Together with Lean-Six-Sigma focus, organizations will be able to get a focus on optimization at the same time focus on the long-term goal of producing great quality goods.

Therefore Lean in isolation might not be a viable idea without Six Sigma. Therefore when talking about Lean, Six Sigma is always considered.

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What is Six Sigma?

Six Sigma is a long term, forward thinking initiative designed to fundamentally improve the way of doing things so that quality improves and variations are reduced.

Six Sigma is more sophisticated than applying simple problem solving tools. Six Sigma applies statistical tools to identify and remove causes of variation.

A process performing at a Six Sigma level means that 99.99966% of the products produced are statistically expected to be within specifications.

Statistical Meaning of Six Sigma

Lets consider a process which has upper specification limit (USL) and lower specification limit (LSL). Lets say a pipe with diameter 3cm has to be produced and the USL and LSL are 3.1cm and 2.9cm respectively. Each pipe that will be produced will never be exactly 3.0 cm. The measurements are likely to be 3.01cm, 2.99cm, 2.92cm, 3.09cm and so on. The deviation from the mean measurement is called the standard deviation or SIGMA. For e.g. the mean could be 3.001cm.

Six Sigma defines that the SIGMA should be so low that you should be able to fit 6Sigmas on either side of mean. Higher the variation from mean, the higher the chances that your sigma will be higher and higher the chance that you wont be able to fit 6 sigmas on either side of mean.

The diagram above represents a process where the measurements are such that 6 sigmas are fitted between USL and LSL. This represents 0.002 per million defects or 2 per billion cases.

In the real world, the mean shifts by about 1.5 SIGMA on one side of mean, thus you will be able to fit 4.5 sigmas on one side of mean and 7.5 sigmas on the other. Thus, you can have 3.34 defects/million on one side and zero defects on the other side. If you achieve this, you would have achieved six sigma accuracy.

Mumbai Dabbawala – A case study of Six Sigma

A dabbawala is a person in Mumbai, who is part of a delivery system that collects hot food in lunch boxes from the residences of workers in the late morning, delivers the lunches to the workplace, predominantly using bicycles and the railway trains, and returns the empty boxes to the worker’s residence that afternoon.

It is estimated as per various studies and surveys that dabbawalas make less than one mistake in every six million deliveries. That is better than 3.34 defects in 1 million as required by Six Sigma process. Therefore we can say that Dabbawalla network operates at Six Sigma efficiency.

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Short Interval Management (SIM)

Did you know that the concept of Daily Stand-up meeting was there long back in the manufacturing world much before we IT guys were even born?? It was called Short Interval Management (SIM) and has Japanese roots.

Short Interval Management is a shop floor exercise that engages team members to assess whether they are still on track. The term “Short Interval” means many times in a day as required to solve problems. One of the key component of SIM is the regular “Daily StandUp meeting” which is held at the same time at the same place every day. The meeting is always held on the Shop Floor (“Gemba”) instead of in conference rooms. The other standup meetings during the day are called just “Stand-up meetings”.

The meetings focus on 2 key elements “Looking Back” and “Looking forward”. (Remember the “What did I do yesterday? What will I do today? Do I have any impediments” of Daily Standup in Scrum?)

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Kaizen

Kaizen is a lean management technique and has Japanese roots. Kaizen stands for “To disassemble and put together again in a better way”.

Kaizen focuses on

“Better 80% right today than 100% right tomorrow”

Characteristics of Kaizen

• Focus on “Small Improvements”
• Teamwork and empowerment
• Participation is voluntary but with full commitment
• Solve the problems at the work place rather than in conference rooms or on excel spreadsheets. In a manufacturing setup – on the shopfloor, in a IT environment at a “Teamplace” or “Workplace”.
• Resources are dedicated. The team is pulled off their day-to-day jobs. The team is considered as on vacation from their regular responsibilities
• 3-5 days in duration
• Implementation should be immediate
• Management supports the event. That means all necessary teams, departments are made available.

When to use Kaizen

• Obvious waste or inefficiency is identified
• Scope of the problem is clear
• Results are needed immediately
• Implementation risk is minimal

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Lean and Agile Process Improvement Roadmaps

PDCA circle

Many small improvement projects, like Kaizen events and other level-ll initiatives, follow the Lean and Agile process improvement cycle – PDCA approach or Deming’s cycle. The PDCA abbreviation stands for plan-do-check-act and is also known as the Deming or Shewart circle. We will briefly review each of the four steps:

Plan

Within the plan-phase we will identify a relevant issue, followed by forming a team that has the knowledge and time to work on the problem and is empowered to implement the solution. We will define the problem description and establish the objectives.

Then the problem will be analyzed and possible causes with be determined. Without a good problem analysis there is a risk that the invented solutions do not address the real problem, but only the symptoms. Quality tools and brainstorm techniques like the Ishikawa (or fishbone) diagram or 5-why’s can be used in this phase.

Finally we will generate a solution and create an implementation plan. The plan will be presented   to the department leader to get approval to execute the plan.

Do

Within the do-phase we will execute the implementation plan and put in place the solutions that will take away the root cause. Data of the improved process will be collected.

Check

Within the check-phase we will compare the daft of the improved process with the initial data. We will measure the effect of the solution and verify if the root cause has indeed been eliminated. We will also verify if the output of the improved process is what we would expect.

Act

Within the act-phase we will review whether the actions taken have effectuated in the right effect. If needed additional actions have to be initiated. Second, we have to sustain the established improvement. This is an important step to ensure that the process performance will not deteriorate over time again. In the PDCA-picture this step is the wedge. Without securing the improvement properly, we will for certain face the same problem again in the future.

A3-report

One of the tools Toyota has been using to manage people to achieve operational learning and to present project results is the A3-report used in DevOps and Agile process improvement approaches. The report is named after the international paper size (A3) on which it fits. It is a key tactic in sharing a deeper method of thinking that lies at the heart of Toyota’s sustained success.

An A3 report is composed of a number of sequential boxes arrayed in a template. Often, the four steps of the PDCA process are followed and visualized in the A3-template. On the opposite page an A3 is presented of problems encountered within the translation process of documents. The project leader will be using the A3-approach to attack the problem while he was mentored by his supervisor. Steps are

1. Describe problem background
2. Describe the current problem conditions
3. Set the desired goals
4. Analyze the situation to establish causality
5. Define possible countermeasures
6. Define the action plan to implement solution
7. Define follow-up actions

8-D Problem Solving Process

A problem solving method often applied in the automotive sector is the ‘eight disciplines problem solving’, also called ‘8D’ or ‘Global 8D’. Its purpose is to identify, correct and eliminate problems. This is used in the modern day for agile process improvement roadmaps. It is also a communication technique. A customer can ask a supplier to conduct an 8D investigation when he faces a problem. Because the steps in the process are defined, it is clear to the supplier what is expected. During the problem solving process, the customer and supplier can communicate about expectations and progress with certain steps.

D1       Establish the team

D2       Describe the problem

D3       Develop interim containment actions (ICA)

D4       Identify & verify root cause

D5       Identify permanent corrective actions (PCA)

D6       Implement and validate the PCA

D7       Prevent re-occurrence

D8       Congratulate the team

DMAIC roadmap

The roadmap followed for both Lean and Six Sigma breakthrough projects at level-3 and level-4 is the DMAIC roadmap. DMAIC is an abbreviation for define, measure, analyze, improve and  control.

DMAIC refers to a data-driven improvement initiative used for improving, optimizing and stabilizing business processes and products. The DMAIC roadmap offers a focused and structured approach to improve processes and solve problems in an organization. Although its origin is Six Sigma, the roadmap is also used as a framework for other improvement applications like Lean. As such it can be used for Kaizen projects as well, however it is better to follow the PDCA (plan, do, check, act) roadmap for these types of projects.

Define           

• Define and scope project
• Define defect
• Plan and document project

Measure   

• Valuate measurement system
• Establish baseline
• Set improvement goals

Analyze    

• Map process and identify inputs
• Isolate key inputs
• Develop y=f(x) function

Improve  

• Determine optimum settings
• Implement proposed improvement
• Validate proposed improvement

Control  

• Implement control strategy
• Close out project

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