Lean Software Development- An Agile Toolkit for Software Development Managers Description:

Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit for Software Development Managers review:
5 stars (Principles to live by) - I saw Mary present her concepts at the Software Development: Best Practices and immediately went out and bought and read this book. I am an agile enthusiast and practictioner. The thing that stands out to me about Lean is that as others have said it seems common sense; but the old barb that "common sense is not so common" definitely applies.



What I especially like about Lean is that it gives you "principles to live by" and how they are implemented is up to you as they must be applied to your unique situation. They do provide some tools and examples that can be used in implementing the concepts. However, the main idea is to abide by the Lean Principles with whatever tools/methods/processes that you think are appropriate.



The other unique quality of Lean is that it talks the language of business as well. Who doesn't want more efficient software delivery, or the development team focused on the things that are important to the business? Implementing Lean in your organization could make the difference of whether your company stays competitive or not - it's that impactful.
5 stars (Invaluable guide for improving your development processes) - This book is a great read for anyone interested in agile software development. That includes developers, leads, and managers interested in speeding up development cycles, improving quality, and getting their customers the best value.



This book's been out since May, 2003, but it's well worth picking up. The concepts within are absolutely applicable now, and will continue to be for quite a few years.



The book's full of pertinent comparisons between the current state of software development and the massive changes in manufacturing over the last three decades, specifically demonstrated by the Toyota Production System, and 3M's innovative atmosphere for bringing products to life. The Poppendiecks make a great case as to how similar changes in software development can reap great benefits in the software production industry.



This really is an important addition to your reading list if you're at all interested in learning how an agile environment can increase your speed, quality, and cost effectiveness. It's a great book if you're in need of guidance on how to look at and improve your current environment. It's also a great book if you need backup for convincing either your co-workers or management that a move to agile is necessary.
5 stars (An essential book to understand why Agile works) - To many, agile is common sense. I am always awestruck by those who find it so counterintuitive. It is usually linearly correlated with their experience in the industry and especially as a team leader or linearly correlated with the decades they have in the industry starting with 2. For every decade past 2 you have a clulesness and arrogance that can only be solved by posts like this one, or summary dismissals.



This book is one of those intellectual keys that fills an incredibly needed void. This book provides the backbone of Lean Manufacturing as to why Agile works. I don't think a day goes by that I don't quote from this book.



I remember a team I will not mention that I was leading on their first Agile project and I had them watch a WebCast by Mary early in the project. They were so seeped in the fallacies of logic that make American Corporate Software Development on Average a laughing stock that they lauged and thought it was all a joke. A month later nobody was laughing.



We loose $140,000,000,000 a year and our more advanced associates in operatons managment cannot believe we actually base careers on a binary success/fail model of a GANNT chat running sometimes well over a year into the future. We believe our IT managers can tell the furure in America. Wow!



The only way to deal with the future is with statistics and probabilities, never absolutes. Can you tell me the aggregare index for American Equities in 1 year? Then why can you tell me that you can deliver a project? There is a reason they won the Jolt aware and there is a reason CTOs/CIOs are the least likely to become CEO and the most likely to be sacked. They deserve it. Almost all deserve it because they don't have the you know what's to say 'this is BS! I cannot tell the future' and read a basic statistics book and understand the probability distribution curve of software from a book like Waltzing with Bears. Perhaps you can tell I am fed up. I shouldn't be because I am the one who profits from all this. Yet it makes me sick to be a part of it all.



I am getting rich on the ignorance of the masses. Are you one of them? Ask yourself: Are you optimized across Scope, Time, Cost and Quality? The probalem is very few know what they don't know so they think they are but they don't know what is possible.



I presented a plan to a global Financial firm that you know saving them $500,000 in the most conservative scenario. The manager threw my proposal away saying he couldn't loose that much power (as his power came from his Budget and headcount). He WANTED things to be FUBARed as he increased his power as his superiors didn't know they were dealing with a con-artist! Again, I am sick of it.



From the comfort of the corner office complacency sets in and the fallacies of logic are something your just 'too tired' to deal with. That's OK. Myself and others will deal with it for you and you can take an early severace package or you can join us in the common sense of it all and have a lot of fun! I hope I offended many people with this post as perhaps that might wake you up from your opiate like stupor. If not a harmless Amazon post then something much more serious will. Take this hint now.



Kind Regards,



Damon Carr, CEO

agilefactor

www.agilefactor.com