Lean Thinking: How Lean Bakes Quality In

The Lean movement, instituted in the 1950s with Toyota's redefinition of automobile production, has knocked the manufacturing world on its ear. At the core of the Lean movement is the notion of eliminating waste as the key to creating added value. What is not well understood is the role that quality plays in defining many of the core Lean Thinking practices. Practices such as Stop the Line, Zero Defects, and Reduced Inventory all focus teams on quality. These practices not only increase quality but also are the scaffolding for a continuous flow of customer value. Jean Tabaka explores the basics of Lean Thinking and how it relates to software development-how customer value drives product quality, how product quality can drive software development practices, and how software teams create value and deliver quality by attacking the seven wastes in software development.

• How Lean Thinking focuses on what the customer values
• Apply Lean Thinking to software development
• The seven wastes in software development