What is Lean Agile?
Lean Agile is a set of principles and practices that minimise waste (Lean) and maximize value (Agile). Lean Agile helps teams deliver faster results by reducing the amount of work in process (WIP) and managing the flow to improve focus, reduce context switching, and remove waste: wasted tasks, time, and money.
Agile teams are encouraged to manage flow by creating cross-functional teams that work together to deliver one iteration at a time. When you put the two together, “Lean and Agile,” you implement Agile while recognizing Lean values and practices. Agile looks to improve the product itself; Lean looks to improve the process that delivers products.
Originally intended for manufacturing, Lean was later recognized as appropriate and applicable for software development. When using Lean, the focus is to minimize waste while maximizing customer value.
In software development, lean project management means removing unnecessary defects, features, revisions, and more, while Agile promotes adaptivity and collaboration in uncertain environments.
How Lean Agile began
In 2001, 17 prominent developers called “organizational anarchists” had a meeting in Snowbird, Utah; among them was Jeff Sutherland, creator of “the Scrum.” The group included advocates of many competitive approaches, such as adaptive software development (ASD), extreme programming (XP), dynamic systems development method (DSDM), and feature-driven development (FDD). These approaches were known as “lightweight frameworks” since they involved simpler and fewer ways to adapt to new rapidly changing environments.
The group settled on a name for their movement: “Agile.” The group developed 12 operating principles, which they called “Principles Behind the Agile Manifesto.”
As agile methods evolved, MIT researchers studied the methods behind Japanese manufacturing systems, including the Toyota production system. They coined the term “Lean” since it described lean methodology/principles to improve productivity by eliminating waste through reductions in destructive, overburdening, and uneven workflows. Lean advocates focused more on customer collaboration, but eventually, Lean Agile implementation came together as valid applications of Lean Agile principles and values.
How Lean Agile works
Rather than deliver software in large batches, Agile teams work to deliver working software as fast as possible by taking an iterative approach. Teams practicing Agile use the frequent deployment of code to receive customer feedback quickly and use it to influence their upcoming work. This means teams can implement changes required even later in the development process. These iterative development principles align with lean principles to defer commitment and deliver fast.
Lean helps improve focus and reduce context switching by managing the flow to limit the WIP and delivering quickly. Agile team members manage flow working as a cross-functional team to deliver one repetition at a time. This provides Lean users with the agility to make more informed decisions with the most up-to-date and relevant information.
Short feedback loops also help teams work on updated business requirements. Daily cooperation between developers and business stakeholders enables team members to eliminate things that do not provide value to the customer while prioritizing tasks based on company goals.
10 Lean Agile principles
Every business wants to meet deadlines as fast as possible. Lean Agile is an adaptive process that uses the phase-gated approach to do things one phase at a time. This is vital to the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). Product development teams use SAFe to improve productivity, time to market, employee engagement, and the end solution quality.
There are 10 chief underlying principles that help in the effective management of enterprises:
1. Take an economic view
The economic view is achieved by delivering often and delivering early. To do this, apply the following framework:
Operate within the budget
Leverage supplier
Understand the economic trade-off
Sequence jobs to yield maximum benefits
2. Apply systems thinking
Understand the system’s aim as it offers a holistic way of developing solutions to problems by incorporating all system aspects and designing, deploying, developing, and maintaining.
Chief system aspects include:
The system and solution are the same.
The enterprise that develops the system is a system too.
The value stream is required to be optimized.
3. Assume variability; preserve options
The Lean Agile principles provide room for future design options. Design options will converge and open based on the situation and lead to optimal economic outcomes.
Accept the current variability and re-examine the requirement points to refine the variability in future iterations.
Follow a set-based design approach by developing a wider cast at the beginning itself, keeping different options open.
Based on the availability of the system and the economy, use one option while preserving others to use later.
4. Build incrementally with fast, integrated learning cycles
Reduce risks by allowing customers to view incremental builds. Incremental building allows for a rapid learning cycle. Use these integration points for complex systems to check each system and ensure they meet the responsibility.
5. Base milestones on an objective evaluation of working systems
The Lean Agile principles break down traditional methods to set-based design. These increments build integrated learning cycles rapidly. Therefore, a milestone is involved at every point, which covers the entire SDLC from the testing requirement and creates a value increment.
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