Continuous, iterative, team-based improvement can significantly increase a software company’s overall performance.

Lean is a philosophy that manufacturing and software organizations have adopted to develop the agility needed to meet overwhelming global challenges — reducing waste, enhancing iteration speed, and continuous improvement through improved innovation.

The Lean approach allows organizations the ability to rapidly adjust to changing client needs and offers the most value with production and people costs. Lean organizations are continuously improving their processes, and thus improving product quality. This approach, while originally adopted in manufacturing organizations such as Toyota, brings common development principles over to the software world.

These principles are:

1. Add Value to the Customer
2. Eliminate Waste
3. Create Knowledge
4. Respect People
5. Build Integrity In
6. Defer Commitment
7. Deliver Fast
8. Optimize the Whole

(Principles 2-8 are from Mary and Tom Poppendieck)

These principles are nested in a mindset of creating an organization that continuously improves its process, while respecting its people with a focus on adding value to its customers. Net Objectives course offerings on Lean Software Development present you with both the principles and basic practices of Lean, as applied to software development.

Lean is based on blending a mindset of:

• A relentless pursuit of eliminating waste
• Adding as much value to your customer(s) as quickly as possible
• Creating and managing knowledge
• Respecting and growing your people

Let Net Objectives help you bring Lean to your team!