Reflections on our Lean Software Development Books with Mary Poppendieck

On Monday we ran another webinar with Mary Poppendieck, this time relating to what they have learned over the decade since they wrote their first book on Lean software development. Equinox IT will host Mary and Tom Poppendieck in New Zealand during the week starting 24 June 2013, and we are running a series of webinars with them prior to their visit.

Mary spoke about where we have come from in the software development industry. Back in 2000 the conventional thinking was that software was difficult to change and required a lot of upfront planning to get it right first time.

Lean Software Development - An Agile Toolkit

Mary and Tom prepared their first book ‘Lean Software Development – An Agile Toolkit’ in 2003, which challenged a lot of conventional wisdom with concepts such as:

• Software development processes contain a lot of waste
• Learning is as important as planning
• Don’t plan everything upfront - decide as late as possible
• Deliver as fast as possible (the speed paradox – fast delivery also gives superb quality)
• Build quality in, don’t inspect at the end

Implementing Lean Software Development

In their second book ‘Implementing Lean Software Development’ focused less on theory and more on how to pragmatically implement the Lean software development principles. In this book, published in 2006, Mary and Tom wrote about:

• Value – from concept to cash
• Speed – don’t batch and queue
• People – respect people, harness the intellect of good people
• Knowledge - the fundamental currency of development
• Waste and Quality – don’t tolerate defects, find ways to prevent them
• Think products, not projects

Leading Lean Software Development

Mary and Tom prepared their third book ‘Leading Lean Software Development’ in 2009. Good leadership is hugely important in successful software development and so the book focused on topics such as:

• Systems thinking – focus on customers
• Technical excellence – have good leadership on technical disciplines
• Reliable delivery – manage workflow and not schedule
• Relentless improvement – manager as mentor
• Great people – small, experienced, dedicated, decision-empowered teams
• Lean is counterintuitive

The Lean Mindset

Later this year Mary and Tom will release their fourth book ‘The Lean Mindset’. This book will be about the design, development and delivery of exceptional products and services. While the previous books have looked just at software, this book has broader coverage to products and services which may or may be software based. The book will cover:

• The purpose of business
• Energised workers
• Delighted customers
• Genuine efficiency (by genuine she means achieving lean by implementing the principles of lean and not by laying off lots of people to be ‘lean and mean’)
• Breakthrough innovation

During their visit with Equinox IT Mary and Tom will deliver a 2-day training course based on their upcoming book ‘Lean Mindset Workshop’. This will run on 27-28 June in Wellington.