InfoQ Homepage Lean Content on InfoQ

Articles

RSS Feed

Newer Older

Estimation Toolkit

No matter what kind of software you write, or the size company you work for, you probably have to provide estimates to someone. There are many techniques agile teams can use to help guide their estimation efforts. The toolkit described in this article consists of a number of novel approaches to estimating agile software projects that will help you answer the question – “When will we be done?”.

James King
on Dec 28, 2010
Doing Kanban Wrong

Kanban as a tool to support lean software development continues to increase in popularity all the time. However, like countless tools before it, Kanban will be unfairly blamed for many project failures by people who are doing Kanban wrong. This article discusses some ways the author has tried to give Kanban a bad name. Hopefully these examples will keep you from falling into similar traps.

Tim Wingfield
on Dec 22, 2010
Use of Kanban in the Operations Team at Spotify

In this article, InfoQ spoke with Mattias Jansson, Operations Engineer at Spotify (an online music streaming service) about the adoption of Kanban by the Spotify Operations team. Jansson offered a lot of detail about the choice to adopt Kanban as well as the experiences that the Operations team at Spotify has gained while implementing a Kanban-based approach to dealing with their workload.

Mattias Jansson Michael Prokop
on Sep 14, 2010
Agile Lessons from a Management Guru

Deming was one of a select group of thought leaders who have shaped modern management over the last century. He is best known for the impact he had on Japanese businesses with his teachings on design, manufacturing, sales and quality. The first three of Deming's fourteen points are examined in detail in the context of Agile software development.

Ahmed Yousuf
on Sep 08, 2009
The Current Direction of Agile

This article focuses on some of the recent trends within the Agile community by briefly describing some alternatives to today’s well known Agile processes. Particularly focusing on estimation, forecasting deliverables and the increased impact Lean manufacturing has had on the Agile community.

Jon Arild Tørresdal
on Aug 19, 2009
Pulling Power: A New Software Lifespan

Elizabeth Keogh looks at how Kanban and Feature Injection can play into Behaviour Driven Development, to work together to help identify the most important software, reduce unnecessary artifacts at each stage of development, and produce the minimum necessary to achieve a vision.

Liz Keogh
on May 27, 2009
Lean and Agile: Marriage Made in Heaven or Oxymoron?

Scrum and agile methods promote the establishment of a product backlog. Some leaders of the Lean community feel that the product backlog is "waste." This article argues that Lean advocates that see backlogs only as "an inventory" of things to be done are making the classic mistake of viewing software development as a production process. Backlogs are fundamental to Agility.

Dave West
on Feb 13, 2009
An Introduction to Lean Thinking for Software

For Agile developers only familiar with Scrum or XP, it may be unclear how Lean relates to what they do. This article introduces Lean Thinking and how it enhances software development. Ning Lu of ThoughtWorks China identified the biggest obstacle to Lean or Agile as the mind-set developed during the period of large-scale manufacturing.

Jacky Li
on Jun 23, 2008
The Three M's - The Lean Triad

The discussion of applying lean principles to software development has largely focused on identifying and eliminating waste (in Japanese: muda). Lean Thinking equally aims to remove overburden (muri) and unnecessary variation (mura). Roman Pichler discusses the relationship of the "three M's" and proposes to eliminate overburden as the first step toward a leaner process.

Roman Pichler
on Feb 27, 2008
Kanban Applied to Software Development: from Agile to Lean

In this InfoQ article Kenji Hiranabe applies lessons learned while working with Japanese manufacturers. While many Agile teams are optimizing only a portion of the value stream, Hiranabe proposes a simple way to adapt lessons from Lean Manufacturing's "Kanban" visual tracking system to make process visible to more of the organization, for better communication and process improvement.

Kenji Hiranabe
on Jan 14, 2008
Visualizing Agile Projects using Kanban Boards

In the spirit of "information radiators and “big visible charts” Kenji Hiranabe proposes using Kanban Boards to organize three viewpoints (Time, Task, and Team) so the whole team understands the current status of the project and can work in an autonomous, motivated and collaborative manner.

Kenji Hiranabe
on Aug 27, 2007
AgileAdvert Video Winners Announced

At Agile2007's Google reception, the audience voted to make the (very sad) clip "Developer Abuse" the number 1 video, thereby making "Matthew" (name changed to protect the innocent) this year's AgileAdvert famous Agilist. Five more videos were also recognized, sporting singing, dancing, a beating, "outside the box" thinking, expletives (deleted), and charming children (not all in one video!)

Deborah Hartmann Preuss
on Aug 20, 2007

Newer Articles

Older Articles

InfoQ Software Architects' Newsletter

Login with:

Don't have an InfoQ account?

Articles