Introducing Lean software development

Lean software development is a framework developed after the manufacturing method of the same name, which, in turn, is derived from the Toyota Production System. The interesting concept regarding this topic, indeed, is how it translates best practices from industrial production into software production. This is also due to the experience of one of the authors (Mary Poppendieck) in this context. She worked in the manufacturing industry and had the opportunity to learn about the production processes in a factory context directly.

We will quickly cover a selection of the principles of Lean software development in the upcoming sections.

Eliminating waste

Waste is a concept directly mutated from the Toyota Production System. Basically, waste is everything that costs resources without giving any value to the finished product.

Taking it to the extreme, in software development, everything that is not related to analysis or coding could be a...