Chapter 1. Why Lean?

Optimism is an occupational hazard of programming.
The practice of software development has been plagued with shockingly low success rates for decades. At the same time, the number of software-driven products and services continues to increase dramatically each year. If these were the only two trends, we would be heading for disaster.
Fortunately, Agile software development methods have been demonstrating that higher success rates are possible. And Lean techniques (which have dramatically increased manufacturing success for over 50 years) are now being applied to software development and validating the successes of Agile.
The Lean principles and the mindset of Lean thinking have proved remarkably applicable to improving the productivity and quality of just about any endeavor. Lean has been successfully applied to manufacturing, distribution, supply chain, product development, banking, engineering, the back office, and much more. However, only in the last few years have the Lean principles and techniques been applied to software development.
In this chapter we will give you more details on the problems that continue to plague software development, as well as an overview of Agile software development and the origins of Lean and its unique approach to improving any kind of process.
The Problem with Software Development
Have you ever worked on a software development ...