Reference

Challenges in Software Product Development

How does Software Development Happen?

Using Lean in Software Product Development

Lean Guiding Principles

PERFECTION

PULL

PRODUCT FLOW

VALUE STREAM

What is Value?

By Womack and Jones

Lean Guiding Principles

PERFECTION

PULL VALUE STREAM

VALUE

What is Product Flow??

• Responsiveness to customer “needs” is an important goal for an Organization.

• What it means:

– is to have a continuous and smooth flow that quickly delivers value to the customer.

Why is it Difficult? Product Development has the following

However reality is different • Most gates start before the previous gate is completed • Engage in asking for permissions to start the next stage • Most of the case is “don’t ask don’t tell” policy

Blindness

• One of the biggest Blindness in product development is that there is too much of development Design-In-Process Inventory (DIP) happening.

• In Software DIP is invisible as it informational rather than physical.

• High DIP leads to – Increased risks and long Cycle Times – Big Queue Sizes – focus only on cost of capacity – blindness for Cost of Delay

• Cost of Delay leads in failure to correctly quantify product economics.

• What is Product Economics and how does it drive blindness?

Step 1 – Understanding Product Economics

• Economics drives Product Development and its process.

• So many times Organizations change development process to address one of or all of the below – Eliminate Waste

– Increase Quality

– Raise Efficiency

– Shorten Cycle time

• What is the central premise for Product Economics? – IS TO MAKE MONEY.

Product Economics

Cycle Time

Product Value

Product Cost

Development Time

Risk

• There are five Variables which effect the Product Economics.

Effective Product Economics

• Focuses on

– Empowering local decision making

– Does not consider money already spent

– Sequence Handling for maximum benefits

– Always quantify the Cost of Delay

– Understands and optimizes the full value stream

Sequence Handling

Product Economics

Cycle Time

Product Value

Product Cost

Development Time

Risk

• There are five Variables which effect the Product Economics.

Cycle Time

• Has a high economic leverage because

• What causes long product development cycle time? – Periods of Inactivity rather than slow activity.

• What causes Inactivity? – Product Development Queues.

• Effect of Inactivity – High DIP Inventory

Step 2 – Understanding Queues

• Queues profoundly affects Product Economics by causing Valuable work products to sit idle.

• Thus work products keep adding up in Queues and there by increase the DIP Inventory which is invisible.

• Many Organizations do not know how to identify and manage their Product development queues.

Impact of Queue

Queues Create

Longer Cycle Time

Increased Risk

More Variability

Lower Quality

Less Motivation

Increases the Cost of delay

Increases the transit time through product

development pipeline

Small deviations amplify cycle time to handle

variability

Delayed feedback leads to higher costs

Longer Queues rob the sense of Urgency they by

inducing little value to finish fast

Queues are hidden source of development waste

How to identify Queues?

Managing Queues

• Use Cumulative Flow Diagrams (CFD) to monitor them

• Wait time = Avg Backlog Size / Velocity • Control Queue size • Don’t control capacity utilization

– While it has the beneficial effect of improving efficiency, it also has the negative effect of increasing cycle time

• Know when to intervene • Avoid high-queue states

Simple CFD for Queue

Time in Queue

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ty in

Qu

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Cu

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lati

ve Q

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tity

Time

Step 3 – Factors affecting Flow

• Batch size – One of the most important thing to impact flow is

Batch size of the Design-In-Process Inventory (DIP)

– Smaller batch size reduces risks and accelerate feedbacks

• Variable flow – Happens due to congestion because of

• Aging items in Queues

– Irregular Cadence because of • Processes used for cadence

Step 4 – Visualizing Flow

• Use Value Stream Map to help Visualize Flow.

Lean Guiding Principles

PERFECTION

PULL

VALUE

PRODUCT FLOW

Value stream

• Is – a lean-management method

– for analyzing the current state and designing a future state for the series of events that take a product or service from its beginning through to the customer.

• Can – help organizations identify and end wasteful

activities

– help drive needed change

Value Stream in Product Development

by Slack

Purpose of Value Stream Mapping and Analysis

• Develop a common understanding of the current process – The relationship of process steps

– A true picture of the process

• Create a baseline to measure improvements against

• Define a vision of the future process

• Establish common leadership objectives

• Identify opportunities for improvement

• Design an implementation plan for improvements

“If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.” W. Edwards Deming

Value Stream Process Steps

1. Prepare

2. Gather Data & Develop Current State

3. Develop Future State & Action Plan

4. Execute to Plan

5. Align

Value Stream in Software Product Development

Product Development - Project A

Product Development - Project B

Product Value Stream

• Knowledge value stream • Emphasizes on creating, capturing and reusing knowledge during

different product development project • captures knowledge from all previous projects is used as a

foundation for having a faster and higher quality product development

• Product value stream

by Kennedy, Harmon and Minnoch

Lean Guiding Principles

PERFECTION

VALUE

PRODUCT FLOW

VALUE STREAM

Pull

• This principle applies in the whole value stream.

• It means that upstream should not produce a good or service until the immediate customer downstream request it.

• This principle creates the ability to design, schedule and produce exactly what and when the customer wants while inventories are reduced.

• Kanban and Just-In-Time are two related tools used to control resupply and to optimize inventories.

Lean Guiding Principles

PULL VALUE STREAM

VALUE

PRODUCT FLOW

Perfection

• Plays an important role in getting value

• Achieve it by continuously removing wastes.

• The faster flow exposes hidden waste in the value stream, the harder you pull, and the more the disruptions and bottlenecks in the flow can be revealed and removed

Lean Guiding Principles

PULL VALUE STREAM

VALUE

PRODUCT FLOW

PERFECTION