Making Architecture Visible to Improve Flow Management in Lean Software Development

Lean practices use the principle of Little's law to improve the flow of value to the end user by eliminating sources of waste from a software development process. Little's law defines throughput as a ratio of work in process and cycle time. Increasing throughput (or productivity) requires...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE software 2012-09, Vol.29 (5), p.33-39
Main Authors: Nord, R. L., Ozkaya, I., Sangwan, R. S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agile manufacturing
Computer architecture
flow management
Lean manufacturing
lean software management
Product life cycle
Product life cycle management
Productivity
Programming
release planning
Software
Software architecture
Software engineering
software engineering management
Software management
Studies
waste
Work in process
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Summary:Lean practices use the principle of Little's law to improve the flow of value to the end user by eliminating sources of waste from a software development process. Little's law defines throughput as a ratio of work in process and cycle time. Increasing throughput (or productivity) requires continuously improving (that is, decreasing) cycle time while ensuring that the work-in-process limit doesn't exceed the capacity available to process the work. This article shares experiences regarding the role architecture plays in lean software management practices. Release plans that give as much emphasis to architecturally significant tasks as to feature-based high-priority functionality can achieve better outcomes by avoiding conditions that lead to wasted time and effort. The application of lean software development practices can improve with better practical guidance on how to manage architecture flow as well as feature flow.
ISSN:0740-7459
1937-4194
DOI:10.1109/MS.2012.109