Lean Software Strategies

Lean production, which has radically benefited traditional manufacturing, can greatly improve the software industry with similar methods and results. This transformation is possible because the same overarching principles that apply in other industries work equally well in software development. The software industry follows the same industrial concepts of production as those applied in manufacturing; however, the software industry perceives itself as being fundamentally different and has largely ignored what other industries have gained through the application of lean techniques.

Peter Middleton is a senior lecturer in computer science at Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland. His research interests are software quality, lean software development, and how to successfully implement change. He received his PhD in computer science from Imperial College, London and an MBA from the University of Ulster. Before joining Queen’s University, he worked in industry for 10 years, with 5 years as an information systems manager. He can be contacted on p.middleton@qub.ac.uk. James Sutton is on senior staff at Lockheed Martin Aerospace and applies many of the lean strategies in this book to company and corporate projects. He recently advised the U.K. agency updating the London Air Traffic Control System software on how to meet competing integrity, cost, schedule, and political goals; most suggestions were adopted. He created lean software lifecycles as lead software and technical-processes architect for information-processing software for the C-5B, and central flight software for the 382J aircraft. Both projects doubled productivity and improved quality by an order of magnitude compared to industry norms. He has published numerous conference papers, been keynote and feature speaker at industry workshops, and in the 1980s, authored the software-engineering book Power Programming.