There are seven things that slow your software team down. Learning to conquer each of them is the key delivering faster.
Originating in the Japanese manufacturing industry in the middle of the 20th century, the ideas behind the seven wastes are still hugely relevant to software development today. I explained each one and how it slows you down, then explained how you can defeat the seven wastes and deliver faster than ever before.
8. 1
“Transport”
● Handovers between teams or
developers
● Bouncing back and forth
between Dev and QA teams
● Deploying to different
environments
Movement of the work
13. 2
“Inventory”
● Reduce your lead time
○ Feature toggles
○ Smaller deliverable units
○ Branch by abstraction
● Visualise your work in
progress
● Stop starting and start
finishing
Undelivered work
29. 6
“Over Production”
● 64% of built software features
are rarely or never used*
● Every feature has a cost
● Developing useless features is
doubly wasteful
Doing useless work
* From a limited study in 2002 - probably nonsense
36. ● Ship small things often
● Automate everything you can
● Work on one thing at a time
● Maintain a regular pace
● Deal with problems and
complexity early
● Prioritise working code over
perfect code
Transport
Inventory
Motion
Waiting
Over Processing
Over Production
Defects