Introduction To Lean Software Development
And Value Stream Mapping
Mikko Korkala
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland mikko.korkala@vtt.fi

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 Introduction to Lean Software Development
 Origins of Lean Software Development
 Principles of Lean Management and Lean Software
Development
 Comparison of Lean and Agile Principles
 The concept of waste
 The Seven Wastes of Software Development
 Value Stream Mapping
 The purpose of Value Stream Mapping
 How Value Stream Maps are done
 An example of a Value Stream Mapping
 Suggested readings

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 Originates from Toyota Production System (TPS)
 Called also Kanban or Just-In-Time system
 Post WWII Japanese automobile industry could not compete with U.S. mass production systems
 Inspiration for TPS found in the 1950 ’s from U.S. supermarkets
 Customers could get what they wanted, when they wanted it and shelves were refilled when items were about to run out.
 The concepts transferred to the domain of software engineering by
Mary and Tom Poppendieck (2003, 2007).

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(Liker 2004)
 Base your management decisions on a long-term philosophy, even at the expense of short-term financial goals.

Create continuous process flow to bring problems to the surface.

Use “ pull ” systems to avoid overproduction.
 Level out the workload.
 Build a culture of stopping to fix problems to get quality right the first time.
 Standardized tasks are the foundation for continuous improvement and employee empowerment.
 Use visual control so no problems are hidden.

Use only reliable, thoroughly tested technology that serves your people and processes.
 Grow leaders who thoroughly understand the work, live the philosophy and teach it to others.

Develop exceptional people and teams who follow your company ’ s philosophy.
 Respect your extended network of partners and suppliers by challenging them and helping them improve.
 Go and see for yourself to thoroughly understand the situation.

Make decisions slowly by consensus, thoroughly considering all options; implement decisions rapidly.

Become a learning organization through relentless reflection and continuous improvement.

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( Poppendieck & Poppendieck, 2007.)
 Eliminate waste
Waste is something that does not add value. For example unnecessary work.

Build quality in
QA should not be a separate phase at the end of the project. Instead, it should be continuous and something that is constantly improved. Automatization and refactoring as tools.
 Create knowledge
Share information, teach others.
 Defer commitment
Make decisions at the
”last responsible moment”.
 Deliver fast
Deliver smaller increments of the product in short intervals
 Respect people
Respect colleagues, let people decide what and how to do it in order to meet goals

Optimize the whole
Optimize the whole value chain from customer request to complete product. See the whole.

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 Eliminate waste

Simplicity is essential

Satisfy customer through early and continuous delivery
 Working software is the primary measure of progress
 Build quality in
 Working software is the primary measure of progress

Create knowledge

Regular reflection
 Close collaboration
 Defer commitment
 Welcome changes

Deliver fast

Deliver fast and frequently
 Satisfy customer through early and continuous delivery
 Respect people
 Self-Organizing Teams

Optimize the whole

All agile principles

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 Itsekussakin työssä ja toimessa tulee ennenkaikkea kysyä, mikä arvo ja hyödytys niillä on; sillä työ, millä ei hyödytystä ole, on parempi tekemätönnä, kun tehtynä.
(Elias Lönnrot, in the city of Kajaani, Finland. October 23, 1841)

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The Lean Manifesto?
 Considering what ever work or action one should above all ask, what is the benefit and value of it; because work that does not benefit is better left undone

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 Something that does not create value
 Two categories of waste (Muda in Japanese)
 Type One muda : something that does not create customer value but cannot be removed from the current production environment
 Type Two muda : non-value adding activities that can be eliminated immediately.
 Value Stream Mapping is a method for identifying and eliminating waste
The definitions of muda are from: J. P. Womack and D. T. Jones, Lean
Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation. New
York, NY, USA: Simon & Schuster, 1996, pp. 350.

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The Seven Wastes of Software Development
 Partially done work.
Something that is not done. E.g. untested code, undocumented or not maintained code.
 Extra features. Something that is not really needed.
 Relearning (waste of knowledge).
E.g. forgetting decisions, re-trying solutions already tried, the inability to utilize the knowledge of other people.
 Handoffs.
Passing the information/work to someone else, getting information/work from someone else.
 Task switching.
How many other tasks people need to do. E.g. the amount of projects done simultaneously.
 Delays. Waiting for something.
 Defects. Something that does not meet the targets, or is not what it is supposed to be. E.g. software bugs, incorrectly implemented business requirements.
Poppendieck & Poppendieck, 2007. Implementing Lean Software
Development: From Concept to Cash . Addison-Wesley.

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 Aims to map and visualize each individual step e.g. in product development from customer request to completed product .
 The target is to identify the steps and actions that create customer value and the steps and actions that can be considered as waste.
 Concrete actions for removing the type two waste are planned.
 Even though the focus is on ”optimizing the whole”, Value
Stream Mapping can be applied to smaller processes as well.

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 Three general steps (Abdulmalek and Rajkopal):
1.
Choose a particular product or product family as the target for improvement.
2.
Draw a current state map of the process. This can be seen as a snapshot of how things are currently being done and is created by “ walking along ” the process. This provides the basis for analyzing the system and identifying its weaknesses.
3.
Create a future state map. This is a picture that depicts how the system should look like when wastes have been removed.
 The weaknesses of the process can be further elaborated for example by applying the technique of “Five Why’s” which aims to identify the root-cause behind the weaknesses.
 Value Stream Mapping is not a process conducted just once.
Follow the continuous improvement philosophy of Lean (Kaizen).
F. A. Abdulmalek and J. Rajgopal. Analyzing the benefits of lean manufacturing and value stream mapping via simulation: A process sector case study. Int. J.
Production Economics 107(1), 2007. pp. 223-236.

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 Large software intensive company using an agile process.
 Group of people responsible for gathering and managing software requirements before they entered development stage.
 Their work was selected as the the process to be analyzed and improved.

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Requirements’ sources
Sales people
Marketing
VAT: 1 hour
Entering reqs. to the system
NVAT: 5 days
VAT: 3 hour
Analysis
NVAT: 3 days
VAT: 1 hour
Management
Acceptance
NVAT: 4 days
VAT: 1 hour Prioritization
VAT: 1 hour
NVAT: 2 days
Release Planning
VALUE ADDING TIME (VAT): 7 hours
NON-VALUE ADDING TIME (NVAT): 14 days
Development process

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Examples of Wastes and Improvement Suggestions
 Entering requirements to the system

Partially done work
 Incomplete requirements
 Improvement

Guidelines for preparing the requirements and entering the requirements to the system
 Prioritization
 Delay

Waiting for someone to do the prioritization.
 Improvement
 The need for people is to be planned more accurately beforehand
 Process steps consuming time
 Management acceptance
 Type One muda

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Requirements’ sources
Sales people
Marketing
VAT: 1 hour
Entering reqs. to the system
NVAT: 3 days
VAT: 3 hour
Analysis
NVAT: 2 days
VAT: 1 hour
Management
Acceptance
NVAT: 3 days
VAT: 1 hour Prioritization
VAT: 1 hour
NVAT: 2 days
Release Planning
VALUE ADDING TIME (VAT): 7 hours
NON-VALUE ADDING TIME (NVAT): 10 days
Development process

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 It makes one really think how things are done, what could be improved and how.
 Provides a more clear picture of the work process.
 Achieving concensus on how things are done and for how long something takes is not straightforward. There are different views to the work process, even though a documented process exists.

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 Ohno, T., 1988. Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale
Production. Productivity Press.
 Womack, J.P and Jones, D.T. Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and
Create Wealth in Your Corporation. New York, NY, USA: Simon &
Schuster, 1996.
 Liker, J.K., “ The Toyota Way. 14 Management Principles from the
World ’ s Greatest Manufacturer ” , McGraw-Hill, New York, USA.
2004. 330 p.
 Poppendieck, M. and Poppendieck, T., 2003. Lean Software
Development: An Agile Toolkit. Addison-Wesley, Upper Saddle
River, NJ, USA.
 Poppendieck, M and Poppendieck, T., 2007. Implementing Lean
Software Development: From Concept to Cash . Addison-Wesley.

 Questions and comments, please!
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