Leading Lean Software Development: Results Are Not the Point

Chapter 3. Reliable Delivery

Snapshot

It’s hard to imagine how the Empire State Building—all 85 stories plus a dirigible mooring dock—could have been built in a year. In the spring of 1930, there was nothing but a hole in the ground, and by fall, the building looked pretty much the way it looks today. The mooring dock was added a couple of months later to push the building to record heights, but no one seemed to notice that it was never actually used. The building itself was also a commercial failure for quite a while, because it was built in a bad location. But if you get past those two shortcomings, it’s an amazing story.

There are lessons to be learned from the story of meeting an impossible deadline while building the tallest building in ...