Leading lean software development : results are not the point

Building on their breakthrough bestsellers Lean Software Development and Implementing Lean Software Development , Mary and Tom Poppendieck's latest book shows software leaders and team members exactly how to drive high-value change throughout a software organization--and make it stick. They go far beyond generic implementation guidelines, demonstrating exactly how to make lean work in real projects, environments, and companies.

The Poppendiecks organize this book around the crucial concept of frames, the unspoken mental constructs that shape our perspectives and control our behavior in ways we rarely notice. For software leaders and team members, some frames lead to long-term failure, while others offer a strong foundation for success. Drawing on decades of experience, the authors present twenty-four frames that offer a coherent, complete framework for leading lean software development. You'll discover powerful new ways to act as competency leader, product champion, improvement mentor, front-line leader, and even visionary.
Systems thinking: focusing on customers, bringing predictability to demand, and revamping policies that cause inefficiency Technical excellence: implementing low-dependency architectures, TDD, and evolutionary development processes, and promoting deeper developer expertise Reliable delivery: managing your biggest risks more effectively, and optimizing both workflow and schedules Relentless improvement: seeing problems, solving problems, sharing the knowledge Great people: finding and growing professionals with purpose, passion, persistence, and pride Aligned leaders: getting your entire leadership team on the same page From the world's number one experts in Lean software development, Leading Lean Software Development will be indispensable to everyone who wants to transform the promise of lean into reality--in enterprise IT and software companies alike.

• Foreword p. xi
• Introduction: Framing p. xiii
• Acknowledgments p. xxi
• Chapter 1 Systems Thinking p. 1
• A Different Way to Run an Airline p. 2
• Frame 1 Customer Focus p. 6
• Who Are Your Customers? p. 6
• Customers Who Pay for the System p. 7
• Customers Who Use the System p. 7
• Customers Who Support the System p. 7
• Customers Who Derive Value from the System p. 8
• What Is Your Purpose? p. 9
• What Is the Nature of Customer Demand? p. 10
• Failure Demand p. 10
• Value Demand p. 12
• Frame 2 System Capability p. 13
• What Is Your System Predictably Achieving? p. 13
• Understanding Capability p. 13
• What Does Your System Need to Achieve? p. 15
• Don't Set Targets p. 15
• Use Relative Goals with Caution p. 17
• Challenge: Pull from the Future p. 18
• Frame 3 End-to-End Flow p. 19
• Eliminate Failure Demand p. 19
• Map Value Demand p. 21
• Find the Biggest Opportunity p. 24
• Frame 4 Policy-Driven Waste p. 24
• How Can Policies Cause Waste? p. 25
• The Five Biggest Causes of Policy-Driven Waste p. 26
• Complexity p. 26
• Economies of Scale p. 28
• Separating Decision Making from Work p. 30
• Wishful Thinking p. 33
• Technical Debt p. 34
• Portrait: Product Champion, Take 1 p. 36
• Customer-Facing Ideation p. 39
• Technology-Facing Ideation p. 41
• Your Shot p. 42
• Chapter 2 Technical Excellence p. 45
• Facts, Fads, and Fallacies p. 46
• Structured Programming p. 47
• Top Down Programming p. 48
• What Happened to Structured Programming? p. 49
• Object-Oriented Programming p. 50
• High-Level Languages p. 52
• The Life Cycle Concept p. 53
• Separation of Design from Implementation p. 54
• Life Cycle Concept Considered Harmful p. 56
• Evolutionary Development p. 57
• Meanwhile, While No One Was Paying Attention p. 57
• Why Did It Work? p. 59
• Distraction p. 61
• The Future of Agile p. 61
• Frame 5 Essential Complexity p. 63
• Divide and Conquer p. 63
• The Internet Architecture Emerges p. 64
• Low-Dependency Architecture p. 65
• Conway's Law p. 67
• Frame 6 Quality by Construction p. 70
• Test-Driven Development p. 71
• x Unit Frameworks p. 71
• Acceptance Tests p. 73
• Test Automation p. 74
• Testing to Failure p. 75
• Continuous Integration p. 76
• How Often Is "Continuous"? p. 78
• After Deployment p. 80
• Code Clarity p. 80
• Refactoring p. 82
• Frame 7 Evolutionary Development p. 83
• Ethnography p. 85
• Collaborative Modeling p. 86
• Quick Experimentation p. 87
• Cycles of Discovery p. 88
• Frame 8 Deep Expertise p. 89
• Expertise Is Important p. 90
• Developing Expertise p. 91
• Deliberate Practice p. 92
• The Ten-Year Rule p. 93
• Retention p. 94
• Standards p. 94
• Code Reviews p. 95
• Portrait: Competency Leader p. 95
• Growing Technical Expertise p. 97
• Your Shot p. 97
• Chapter 3 Reliable Delivery p. 101
• Race to the Sky p. 102
• How Did They Do It? p. 102
• Team Design p. 103
• Flow p. 104
• Schedule p. 104
• Decoupling p. 106
• Logistics p. 106
• Cash Flow Thinking p. 107
• Frame 9 Proven Experience p. 108
• Constraints Expose Risk p. 109
• System Design p. 109
• Design Loopbacks p. 110
• Implementation Complexity p. 112
• Three Ways to Reduce Schedule Complexity p. 112
• Frame 10 Level Workflow p. 114
• Small Batches p. 114
• Iterations p. 117
• Making Work Ready p. 118
• Kanban p. 122
• How Kanban Works p. 122
• Iterations or Kanban? p. 126
• Commitment p. 126
• Teamwork p. 127
• Batch Size p. 127
• Cadence p. 127
• Capacity p. 128
• Iterations: Velocity p. 128
• Kanban: Throughput p. 129
• Frame 11 Pull Scheduling p. 129
• Scheduling Medium-Sized Systems p. 131
• Decouple p. 132
• Scheduling Small, Frequent Requests p. 133
• Arbitrate with Value p. 134
• Limit Queues p. 135
• Scheduling Larger Systems p. 137
• Timebox-Don't Scopebox p. 138
• Portfolio Management p. 141
• Frame 12 Adaptive Control p. 143
• Customer Feedback Every Iteration p. 143
• Frequent Releases p. 144
• Consumability p. 145
• Escaped Defects p. 146
• Customer Outcomes p. 146
• Portrait: Product Champion, Take 2 p. 147
• The Story of a Product Champion p. 147
• February 2004, Harvard University p. 147
• June 2004, Palo Alto p. 148
• Fall 2006, Palo Alto p. 148
• February 2007, Chicago p. 148
• Summer 2007. Chicago p. 148
• January 2008, New Hampshire p. 149
• June 2008, Denver p. 149
• November 2008, Chicago p. 149
• Your Shot p. 150
• Chapter 4 Relentless Improvement p. 153
• Sick Hospitals p. 154
• The Checklist p. 154
• No Work-arounds p. 156
• No Ambiguity p. 157
• Quick Experiments p. 158
• Frame 13 Visualize Perfection p. 159
• The Theoretical Limit p. 160
• High-Velocity Organizations p. 161
• Customer Focus p. 162
• Frame 14 Establish a Baseline p. 163
• Work Design p. 163
• Output p. 164
• Pathway p. 164
• Connections p. 164
• Test-Driven Handovers p. 165
• Process Standards p. 167
• Frame 15 Expose Problems p. 169
• Go to the Workplace p. 172
• Frame 16 Learn to Improve p. 173
• The Goal Is Learning p. 173
• Problem/Countermeasure Board p. 174
• A3 Thinking p. 176
• Pull-Based Authority p. 180
• Responsibility Authority p. 181
• Share the Knowledge p. 181
• Portrait: Manager as Mentor p. 183
• Your Shot p. 185
• Chapter 5 Great People p. 187
• Cultural Assumptions p. 188
• The Cultural Heritage of Management Practices p. 191
• Agile Software Development p. 192
• Lean Software Development p. 193
• Company Culture p. 195
• Frame 17 Knowledge Workers p. 196
• Knowledge Worker Productivity p. 196
• Results Are Nor the Point p. 198
• Frame 18 The Norm of Reciprocity p. 200
• Remuneration or Reciprocity? p. 201
• Frame 19 Mutual Respect p. 203
• Cross-Cultural Teams p. 204
• The Value of Diversity p. 205
• Self-Organizing Teams? p. 206
• Frame 20 Pride of Workmanship p. 209
• Purpose-Passion-Persistence-Pride p. 210
• Portrait: Front-Line Leaders p. 212
• Your Shot p. 216
• Chapter 6 Aligned Leaders p. 219
• Agile@IBM p. 220
• The Transformation p. 220
• Stakeholder Involvement p. 222
• An Early Experiment p. 223
• Lessons Learned p. 223
• Frame 21 From Theory to Practice p. 228
• Focus on Customer Outcomes p. 228
• Change the System p. 228
• Create a Sense of Urgency p. 229
• Frame 22 Governance p. 230
• Beyond Budgeting p. 231
• 12 Principles p. 233
• What Is Productivity? p. 235
• Frame 23 Alignment p. 236
• Cause and Effect p. 236
• Frame 24 Susta inability p. 242
• Portrait: Leaders at All Levels p. 244
• Leaders Provide Purpose p. 244
• Leaders Set the Tone and Tempo p. 244
• Leaders Make People Better p. 245
• Leaders Create Space for Others to Succeed p. 245
• Bibliography p. 247
• Index p. 257