Lean for Liveforce

What is Lean Methodology?

Lean development eliminates waste of any kind, both in the product and the process.

Waterfall is focused on linear project completion with defined guidelines and documentation throughout.
Kanban creates flexible projects that can accommodate frequent changes.
Scrum is focused on improving efficiency with strict cyclical sprints.

Alternatives to Lean:

Fundamentals of Lean Methodology

Value: Understand what customers value in a product or feature
Value Stream: What goes into maximizing value and eliminating waste throughout the entire process from design to production
Flow: All product processes flow and synchronizes seamlessly with each other
Pull: Flow is made possible by “pull,” or the idea that nothing is made before it is needed, thereby creating shorter delivery cycles
Perfection: Relentlessly pursue perfection by constantly engaging the problem-solving process

Definition of waste

Motion: Unnecessary movement of people or processes.
Over-processing: Doing unnecessary processes or steps than what is required to create a valuable feature.
Extra-processing: Feature require more work or quality than necessary to deliver value to the customer.
Defects: defective features — becomes wasted time and resources.
Human Potential: Underused skills and talent due to poor employee management and team structure lead to a lack of morale and productivity.
Waiting: can slow down processes and efficiency.

What can be "Waste" for us?

2. Blocking processes

1. Feature which is used by noone or by a few customers

Long feature development

Long QA-ing and Bug fixing

Rare deploys

Long discussions or lack of description/designs

Late answers from Feature Owners

Feature change in the middle of development

Not needed

Too complex

Too buggy

Resolves different problem

Not flexible

3. ...

Things to take from Lean:

Reducing waste

- reduce activity that doesn't bring value

Iteration

- continuous improvement

- build-measure-learn

Genchi-Genbutsu/Gemba

- understanding problems and processes at their source... where they happen ... so the work processes, day-to-day operations, and where our customers are using our product (for existing and potential clients) ... rather than with complex metrics/upper-management

But we still keep this:

Non-work communication - we are humans, not robots
Security improvements
Internal Tools and Upgrades - needed for us in long term work