Comments on: A few things I know about lean

By: Nik

Nik — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:18:27 +0000

Hi Rupert. Having oversight from beginning to end is part of being lean, although just saying the developer should put it live doesn’t make it lean of course. Just as important (possibly more so) is the team working together, and continually putting the features live. If the developer happens to be the last person in the chain that’s fine; in the lean world that go-live action should be a continuously repeating step that’s part of a flow.

By: Rupert

Rupert — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:50:33 +0000

Interesting stuff. The ideas surely apply beyond the actual production of the software to the processes involved in moving it into production. The way we work usually results in the developer being the one responsible for putting code live, which has caused a few raised eyebrows over the years, but does have a number of benefits, notably that if there are problems the developer is probably the person best placed to diagnose and fix them. This would seem to resonate with the ideas you’ve outlined in this post.

By: Nik

Nik — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:42:51 +0000

Thanks for that tip, Richard, I’ll follow it up. The Toyota Way seems to switch between the process of producing individual cars with the process that produced the Prius prototype, and they’re clearly different kinds of things.

By: Richard Lord

Richard Lord — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 10:34:06 +0000

When considering the transition of these principles from manufacturing to software development, it’s well worth checking out the Toyota Product Development System. This is Toyota’s product design process, as opposed to their more famous manufacturing process called the Toyota Production System.