Introduction
Lean development is a part of an agile methodology. It is based on optimizing development time and resources, eliminating waste, and providing what the product needs.
Lean was introduced in 1980s in the manufacturing industry. Lean development can reduce development time and cost while improving customer value and engagement, which in turn increases revenue. It is one of the most popular approaches among the agile methods for fast software development. Lean was used in car industries where building cars and constructing engineering tools had to be done accurately in lower cost.
Now, the same technique has been applied in the field of software development. Lean preserve the developer’s productivity and decreases the overload, focusing on the core operations of the project. Agile has been proved as a time-saving and effective tool for development. Lean empowers every individual to achieve full potential to make the greatest possible contributions. The goal of empowerment is based on the idea of showing respect for people.
Lean development has seven principles.
- Waste Elimination
- Amplifying Learning
- Late Decision Making
- Fast Delivery
- Team Empowerment
- Built-in Integrity
- View Applications as a Whole
When to use Lean application development?
- When you don’t have enough resources.
- When you need more information.
- When your project needs to be finished in short time.
- When you have low budget.
Benefits and Drawbacks
Benefits
- Development team can provide functionality in short time.
- Lean eliminates waste within a production facility.
- It mainly focuses on loyal customers.
- The product is developed in short period with limited budget.
- Suitable for large scale projects.
Drawbacks
- The project is highly dependable on team members.
- Developers must understand the customer requirements.
- Too much flexibility on development may go off track.
- Difficult decision making process.