Summary: Lean-Agile in Tough Times In times of economic slowdown, you have many choices to make about how to allocate scarce time and people and money. Is it at all relevant to invest in Lean-Agile software development? Why? What would you say? Alan Shalloway believes it is more important than ever. And it is why he places so much emphasis on Lean for those who need to become more Agile. Focusing on local team efficiency is good... teams become more able to create product with a minimum of wasted effort. But the more important objective - and even more so now - has to be ensuring that the organization is delivering true value to customers as quickly as possible. This requires the entire stream of product creation to working effectively. The goal is not really to speed up software development. The goal is to speed up delivery of software that customers can use. To be faster now and faster in the future. Perhaps you would call this Enterprise Agility. I ask Alan to comment on this and on a couple of related questions: In tough times, is it best to start with small pilot projects? Opinions are mixed. Where do assessments fit in the improvement mix? What lessons can we draw from successes and failures that we have seen in the transition to lean-agile? Recommendations - Online Resources The TOWS Matrix - Going beyond SWOT Analysis (MindTools) Recommendations - Training by Net Objectives Lean Software Development for Management Music used in this podcast “Pizzaman” and “Chocolate” ©2006 William Cushman: ghostnotes.blogspot.com For more information, contact info@netobjectives.com or visit us at http://www.netobjectives.com/ Blog Type: PodcastLog in or register to post comments
