Lean development

Lean development (also: lean product development, lean software development) uses principles of lean manufacturing in order to achieve defects free software of design of the product. While the lean manufacturing aims at making product without defects at minimum costs, the lean development's objective is to create a product/software that will fulfil requirements of users.

Using lean development methods, organization should be able to reduce time-to-market through waste elimination during the planning, resource management, control and interdisciplinary communication.

This article describes:

• Lean product development
• Lean software development (see: below)

General principles of lean development

1. Drive waste out of the process
2. Improve the way projects are executed
3. Visualize the development process

In order to achieve this, the idea of 7 wastes of lean and 7 wastes of services are used. A toolkit consists of lean manufacturing tools extended by design tools (see below).

Lean product development

The lean product development achieves effects through the below listed principles. See extended article on Lean product development.

Knowledge management in LPD

The most important is the knowledge management in the project. Each event related to product or manufacturing process can add valuable information for designers. Therefore, there should be established an effective system of communication, information storage and sharing. The rules of reducing inventory don't apply to knowledge. Every piece of information can be helpful. However the database has to be created in such a way, that enables employees to quickly find answers.

The results of LPD program are increase of innovation (even 10x) and increase of number of new products (4-5 times).

Principles of lean product development

1. Establish customer-defined value to separate value-added from waste.
2. Front-load the product development process to explore thoroughly alternative solutions while there is maximum design space.
3. Create a level product development process flow.
4. Utilize rigorous standardization to reduce variation, and create flexibility and predictable outcomes.
5. Develop a chief engineer system to integrate development from start to finish.
6. Organize to balance functional expertise and cross-functional integration.
7. Develop towering competence in all engineers.
8. Fully integrate suppliers into the product development system.
9. Build in learning and continuous improvement.
10. Build a culture to support excellence and relentless improvement.
11. Adapt technologies to fit your people and process.
12. Align your organization through simple visual communication.
13. Use powerful tools for standardization and organizational learning.

Tools of lean product development

The organization always has to deal with imperfect information, and design of new products is always a step into unknown. Therefore, there is a need of creating multiple design options and using tools enabling faster and better design. To achieve this additional tools are used:

• Product development value stream mapping
• Just in time product development
• Quick response product development
• GOLCAD - Kanban methodology for product development
• Design task heijunka
• Machigai yoke - Poka yoke for product development
• Single minute exchange of projects
• Kaizen
• A3 method

Lean software development

The lean software development is related to Agile project management. It translates lean manufacturing ideas into domain of software development. See extended article on Lean software development.

7 wastes of software development

The idea of waste is present in LSD, however other types of waste are important:

1. Work done partially
2. Extra processes
3. Extra features
4. Task switching
5. Waiting
6. Motion
7. Defects

See extended version in article 7 wastes of software development

Principles of Lean software development

1. Satisfying the customer is the highest priority.
2. Always provide the best value for the money.
3. Success depends on active customer participation.
4. Every lean development project is a team effort.
5. Everything is changeable.
6. Domain, not point, solutions.
7. Complete, don't construct.
8. An 80 percent solution today instead of 100 percent solution tomorrow.
9. Minimalism is essential.
10. Needs determine technology.
11. Product growth is feature growth, not size growth.
12. Never push lean development beyond its limits.

22 Tools of LSD

The LSD uses several approaches. Each of them comes with separate tools:

• Eliminate waste: seeing waste, value stream mapping
• Amplifying learning: feedback, iterations, synchronization, set-based development
• Deciding as late as possible: options thinking, the last responsible moment, making decisions
• Delivering as fast as possible: pull systems, queueing theory, cost of delay
• Empower the team: self-determination, motivation, leadership, expertise
• Build integrity in: perceived integrity, conceptual integrity, refactoring, testing,
• See the whole: measurement, contracts

Examples of Lean development

• The most common example of Lean development is the application of the Toyota Production System (TPS). This system was developed in the late 1940s by the Japanese car manufacturer, Toyota Motor Corporation. It involves the application of Lean principles, such as eliminating waste, streamlining processes, and focusing on continuous improvement.
• Another example of Lean development is the Six Sigma methodology. This methodology was developed by Motorola in the 1980s and is now used by many organizations around the world. It is focused on improving product or service quality by eliminating defects, and also reducing costs.
• Agile software development is another example of Lean development. It is an iterative approach that emphasizes collaboration between developers, testers, and users, and is focused on rapidly delivering high-quality software products.
• Lean UX is an example of Lean development that is focused on creating a user interface that is both easy and intuitive for the user. It focuses on removing clutter, streamlining processes, and testing and iterating quickly in order to create the best user experience.

Advantages of Lean development

The advantages of Lean development include:

• Improved collaboration between developers, customers and stakeholders: Lean development encourages open communication between all of the parties involved in the product/software development process. This helps to ensure that everyone is on the same page and that all of the requirements are being met.
• Increased efficiency: Lean development focuses on reducing waste and maximizing efficiency. This helps to decrease costs and improve the quality of the product/software.
• Time savings: By focusing on streamlining the development process and eliminating unnecessary steps, Lean development can help to save time and money.
• Improved customer satisfaction: By focusing on customer requirements and feedback, Lean development helps to ensure that the product/software meets the customer's needs. This helps to increase customer satisfaction.

Limitations of Lean development

• Lean development relies heavily on stakeholders and team collaboration, which can be difficult to achieve in practice.
• Lean development requires a lot of communication between stakeholders and the development team, which can be difficult to maintain over long periods of time.
• Lean development is highly iterative, and requires constant feedback from stakeholders, which can be difficult to obtain in a timely manner.
• Lean development relies heavily on the development team's ability to identify and solve problems quickly and effectively, which can be difficult to do in a rapidly changing environment.
• Lean development requires a deep understanding of the user's requirements, which can be difficult to determine accurately.

Other approaches related to Lean development

In addition to Lean development, there are other approaches that have been used to improve product/software design and development. These include:

• Iterative development - this approach relies on the idea that a product/software must be developed in small increments, with frequent testing and feedback from users. This allows for rapid changes and improvement in the product/software as it is being developed.
• Agile development - this approach relies on a collaborative effort between the development team and the customer. It is based on the idea that the customer should be involved in the development process in order to ensure that the end product meets their requirements.
• Design Thinking - this approach focuses on creating solutions to user problems by understanding their needs and wants. It emphasizes the importance of user experience when developing a product/software.

In summary, Lean development is one of several approaches that can be used to improve product/software design and development. Other approaches, such as Iterative development, Agile development and Design Thinking, are also used to ensure that the product/software meets user requirements.

Lean development — recommended articles

Lean software development — Lean product development — Agile software development — Lean management — Lean startup — Agile project management methodology — Innovation models — Toyota production system — Agile manufacturing

References

• Gershenson J.K., Pavnaskar S.J. (2003) Eight basic lean production development tools, International Conference on Engineering Design
• Presentation of Lean Software Development tools and approaches (PDF)
• National Institute of Standards and Technology website
• Lean Enterprise Institute website
• Ballé, F., & Ballé, M. (2005). Lean development. Business Strategy Review, 16(3), 17-22.
• Ward, A. C., & Sobek II, D. K. (2014). Lean product and process development. Lean Enterprise Institute.