Project Management 5740

What are the seven deadly waste or DOTWIMP?

1. Defects which focuses on preventing defects instead of the traditional find and fix mentality. 2. Overproduction either more or before needed and is visible as storage of materials.

In the book published by Mary and Tom Poppendieck, second book, Implementing Lean Software Development From Concept to Cash, what are the seven principles they identified?

1. Eliminate waste 2. Build quality in 3. Create knowledge 4. Defer commitment 5. Deliver fast 6. Respect people 7. Optimize the whole.

What two pillars of the Toyota Production System did Taiichi Ohno start with?

1. Just-In-Time 2. autonomation.

What are the two key Lean skills?

1. Knowing what the customer values. 2. Knowing how to spot waste.

What does MOSCOW stand for?

1. Must-have requirements 2. Should have if at all possible 3. Could have, but not critical 4. Won't have this time, but potentially later.

Waiting or delays of questions for the developer causes what?

1. Task switching, suspend the current task and move onto something else. 2. Guess the answer resulting in rework if the guess is wrong. 3. Try to find the answer, guess anyway to save the hassle.

What five principles has the modern-day Lean settled on?

1. Value 2. Value Stream 3. Flow 4. Pull 5. Perfection.

What does TW stand for in DOTWIMP?

3. Transportation or unnecessary movement of parts between processes no value is created here. 4. Waiting which is either people or parts waiting for the next production step.

Next is IM in DOTWIMP what does that stand for?

5. Inventory or all material not being processed. 6. Motion which is people or equipment moving or walking more than is needed to perform the processing.

Finally what does P stand for in DOTWIMP?

7. Processing or overprocessing beyond the standard required by the customer. This adds additional cost without adding additional value.

What is the additional eighth waste?

8. Underutilization of people or to the underutilization of the worker's creativity and resourcefulness.

What is Crystal?

A family of methodologies created by Alistair Cockburn. The actual processes and practices vary depending on a project's size and criticality or complexity.

What is the value stream map?

A key Lean activity of breaking down a process into a map of its individual steps and identify which steps add value and which steps do not, the waste.

From Hibbs, Why is the failure rate in projects so high in projects?

A large part of the blame can be traced back to the widespread adoption of the Waterfall method.

What is Lean?

A mindset, a way of thinking about how to deliver value to the customer more quickly by finding and eliminating waste which are the impediments to quality and productivity.

What is the Agile Alliance?

A nonprofit organization that exists to further the development and dissemination of information regarding Agile processes.

Kanban means what?

A signaling system used to signal the need for an item, typically using things like index cards, colored golf balls, or empty carts.

How did Taiichi Ohno describe the Toyota Production System?

A system for the absolute elimination of waste. By the early 1990s, Toyota was 60% more productive with 50% fewer defects than its non-Lean competitors. According to Ohno, this striking advantage rested on two pillars, Just-In-Time and autonomation.

Another characteristic of Agile software development is.

Agile has a fair number of formal methodologies.

Where was the term Agile to refer to these methods of software development coined?

Agile was coined at the famous Snowbird meeting that created the Agile Manifesto.

What does Andon mean?

Andon means light in Japanese. In Lean it is a visual device usually a light or board of lights that gives the current status of a production system green, yellow, and red.

Inventory or partially completed work means what?

Anything that was started but not finished. The Lean approach uses single-piece flow to take a feature through to deployment as rapidly as possible.

Jidoka means what?

Autonomation, the ability of a machine to inspect its work and operation and to notify a human if a problem is detected.

What is a characteristic of the DSDM method?

DSDM is more formal than most of the other Agile methods, fully specifying many different roles, processes, and artifacts. A notable feature is the prioritizing of requirements according to the Moscow rules.

What is the second phase of the IT project methodology?

Develop the Project Charter and Plan, requires the planning, creating, review, and acceptance of another project deliverable before considerable time, resources, and energy are committed.

What does Deliver-fast mean?

Developing features in small batches that re delivered to the customer quickly, in short iterations. These features can be implemented and delivered before the associated requirements can change allowing the customer to provide feedback that can change the other requirements before they are implemented.

What does Optimize the Whole mean?

Do not suboptimize. Have control over the entire value stream.

Continue with the Waterfall method.

Each phase has a beginning and an end, once you move onto the next phase, you never go back, just as water does not flow uphill.

What are some Agile methodologies?

Extreme Programming, XP, and Scrum, are Agile methodologies and predate the Agile Manifesto.

What are two reasons for stopping everyone from switching from traditional Waterfall-style software development to Lean and Agile?

Fear and Confusion.

What is the Agile Manifesto?

Formally called the Manifesto for Agile Software Development is a model of simplicity. It eloquently states the four core values that form the philosophical bedrock of all Agile methodologies.

What did the president of the Toyota Motor Company, Kiichiro Toyoda, say in 1945, post-war Japan?

He said that the Japanese automobile industry would not survive if it did not catch with America in three years.

Who popularized mass production and what is it?

Henry Ford with the assembly-line manufacture of the Model T in 1913. It is a process that divides the manufacturing process into small steps that can be carried out by unskilled workers, and it relies on the use of high-precision machinery and standardized, interchangeable parts.

What does this mean in terms of waste?

If a feature does not address a clear customer need, it should not be created.

What does Defects mean in software development?

In software development this means having a suite of automated tests that prevent defects from slipping into the software undetected.

Why did the Waterfall method not slowly fade away?

In the 1980s the Waterfall method became the Department of Defense standard for the development and procurement of software with the release of DOD-STD-2167. Eventually, it replaced the Waterfall method after realizing that it did not work with MIL-STD-498, which supports iterative development.

Why were the alternative methodologies like XP, Scrum, Dynamic Systems Development, Crystal, and Feature Driven Development, the lightweight methods, developed?

In the 1990s there was growing dissatisfaction with the prevalent heavy software development methodologies and processes. High project failure rate, low software quality, and generally unhappy customers was the result of using these processes, which did not solve any of the endemic problems of software development.

Describe an Autonomation machine.

It can run unattended while providing workers with full confidence that it is operating flawlessly. It doesn't have to be monitored, and it needs human attention only when it stops.

How did Winston Royce describe the Waterfall method in 1970 in a paper titled, Managing the Development of Large Software Systems?

It did not validate the Waterfall model. This paper says that the Waterfall method is risky and invites failure. The paper then proceeds to advocate an iterative development style.

What is a major contribution of a Just-in-Time system?

It exposes the causes of inventory-keeping so that they can be addressed.

What pattern has traditional software followed?

It has followed the same pattern as U.S. car manufacturing, let defects slip through and get caught later by Q and A inspections. The Lean approach is to mistake-proof your code by writing tests as you code the features.

What else can be said about Lean?

It is a philosophy expressed in a set of principles that have proven remarkably applicable to a wide range of business activities including software development.

What does Ohno think of inventory?

It is a waste that costs the company money. Even worse, inventory hides problems in the production system. This includes problems such as inadequate capacity, inflexible equipment, and unreliable equipment.

What is the most productive arrangement?

It is collocated Integrated Product Teams that include all team members, including the customer or a customer representative.

What is Value?

It is defined by the customer. You have to understand what is and what is not value in the eye of the customer in order to map the value stream.

What is the drawback of mass production?

Its inflexibility. Mass production is so expensive to set up and difficult to alter it is only economical if it is to produce large quantities of the same thing.

Why is FDD unique among the Agile methodologies?

Its perspective centers on creating domain models for the system being developed, which then organizes development around features that implement the model.

Who coined the term Lean in their 1990 book The Machine That Changed the World.

James Womack, Daniel Jones, and Daniel Roos.

What is Autonomation?

Jidoka a Japanese term is a combination of the words autonomous and automation. It describes machines that automate a process but are also intelligent enough to know when something is wrong and stop immediately.

What does Lean have to choose from?

Lean has no formal methodologies. It has a toolkit of recommended practices from which to choose.

What are Lean principles applied to?

Lean principles can be applied to any scope, from the specific practice of developing software to the entire enterprise where software development is just one small part. The larger the scope the larger the potential benefits.

What does Pull stand for?

Let customer orders pull product, value. This pull cascades back through the value stream and ensures that nothing is made before it is needed, thus eliminating most in-process inventory.

What did the term Lightweight mean?

Lightweight was meant to distinguish them from the predominant heavyweight methods of the time.

What was Lean production replacing or competing with?

Mass production.

Although Lean and Agile share the same goals to increase the productivity of software development while simultaneously increasing the quality of the resulting software are they the same thing?

NO.

Why do they use the term Agile?

No one was happy with the term Lightweight. He said that it sounds like a bunch of skinny, feebleminded people trying to remember what day it is. And thus we now have Agile.

Who impressed the Japanese delegation from Toyota when they visited the American businesses to study their methods in the 1950s?

Not Ford but an American supermarket which used a pull system. This system strives to keep inventories at each manufacturing step as low as possible preferably zero. It is about providing the right material, in the right amount, at the right time, and in the right place.

What is the Value Stream?

Once you know what the customer values you create a value stream map that identifies the series of steps required to produce the product. Each step is categorized as either value-added, non-value added but necessary, or non-value-added waste.

What order should the practices of Lean and Agile be presented in that provides the most return for your effort?

Practice 1 Automated Testing, Practice 2 Continuous Integration, Practice 3 Less Code, Practice 4 Short Iterations, Practice 5 Customer Participation.

Describe Scrum.

Scrum has successfully taken the Agile approach and stripped it down to the essentials resulting in one of the easiest-to-implement Agile methodologies that still provides the benefits of Agile software development.

What is the recommended approach?

Scrum provides all the essentials and has a very low learning curve. Most people find it easy to learn Scrum in just a few days.

What are some of the commonly used Agile methodologies?

Scrum, XP, Crystal, FDD, Unified Process, and DSDM, which all began at different times in the 1990s as a response to failure of the Waterfall method.

Who said It's only the last turn of the bolt that tightens it the rest is just movement?

Shigeo Shingo quoted this.

What are some characteristics about software development?

Software development is a highly dynamic process and change is inevitable. Customers don't know precisely what they want ahead of time, and that will change the requirements.

What is Perfection?

Strive for perfection by continually identifying and removing waste.

What does Motion or task switching do?

Task switching and interruptions kill productivity. Its a much longer interruption that causes you to have to relearn where you were before you can even begin to be productive again.

In Lean Software Development what does overproduction translate to for extra features?

The 80 / 20 rule applies in most software products, 80% of the user's real needs are provided by 20% of the product's features. This means that 80% of the rest of the product's features are rarely or never used.

What did the Japanese automobile industry lead to the creation of?

The Toyota Production System by Taiichi Ohno.

How does the Waterfall method work?

The Waterfall method divides development into a set of distinct phases that are performed sequentially 1. requirements 2. design 3. implementation 4. testing 5. deployment 6. Maintenance . Development is seen as flowing steadily downward, like a waterfall, through these phases.

What is associated with the Waterfall method?

The Waterfall method is positively correlated with reduced productivity, increased defect rates, and project failure.

What is wrong with the Waterfall method?

The Waterfall model does not allow for change.

What does the business case define?

The business case defines the project's goal and value to the organization and includes an analysis and feasibility of several alternatives.

What other important role does the business case play ?

The business case plays an important role in the project selection process by providing sufficient, reliable information to senior management so that a decision whether the organization should support and fund the project can be made.

What is Kaizen?

The continuous, incremental improvement of an activity to create more value with less waste.

What three things came out of the now-famous Snowbird gathering?

The decision to use the term Agile, the Agile Manifesto, and the Agile Alliance.

What is so different about Lean and Agile software development?

The difference is in the mindset or underlying perspective and philosophy.

What is Lean's primary focus on?

The elimination of waste in the context of what the customer values is the primary focus of Lean.

What are the four core values?

The four core values are 1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools 2. Working software over comprehensive documentation 3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation 4. Responding to change over following a plan. Items on the left are valued more.

What is the overarching goal of Lean production?

The goal is to deliver value to the customer more quickly, and the primary way to do this is to find and eliminate waste.

What is the highest priority principle as a result of the core values?

The highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

What happens when the machine detects an abnormal condition?

The machine will stop itself and a worker will halt the production line. Focusing everyone's attention on finding the root cause of the problem and fixing it so that it will not recur. Preventing production of defective components that would otherwise disrupt the production line or result in more costly rework at a later stage.

What is the point of Create knowledge?

The point here is not to forget the lessons you have learned.

What is the primary focus of Agile software development?

The primary focus of Agile software development is on close customer collaboration and the rapid delivery of working software as early as possible.

What is meant by Flow?

The production process must be designed to flow continuously. If the value chain stops moving forward waste is occurring.

What does Agile mostly concern itself with?

The specific practice of developing software and the project management that surrounds that software development.

What is a key Lean tool for detecting and eliminating waste?

The value stream map, VSM, a map-like diagram of all activities that take place from beginning to end.

What are some common characteristics of formal software development methodologies that fall within the Agile camp?

They all use short time-boxed iterations that deliver working software at the end of each iteration. The length of the iterations varies between methodologies.

What are the Agile software development methodologies?

They were the first attempts to improve the software development situation.

Describe what happens in Transportation or handoffs?

This a classic Waterfall process that is replete with handoffs. A tremendous amount of knowledge is lost through each handoff simply because it is not possible to record everything that was learned, discovered, created, and known in a written form.

What was Lean called when it first started.

Toyota Production System or Just-in-Time manufacturing.

What does Respect People mean?

Trusting them to know the best way to do their jobs, engaging them to expose flaws in the current process, and encouraging them to find ways to improve their accomplishments and actively soliciting their advice. Don't waste your most valuable resource, the minds of your team members!

Describe UP.

UP is one of the more heavyweight of the Agile processes. It has led to a number of variants, including the Rational Unified Process, the Agile Unified Process, and the Enterprise Unified Process.

What are Over processing or unneeded processes?

Unneeded processes are pure waste. They get in the way of productivity without adding any value. They include manual task that could be automated and procedures that make simple tasks hard.

What is Kaizen?

Value-added steps.

What is meant by Defer Commitment?

Wait until you have more knowledge and information before you make a particular decision.

What is Muda?

Waste that consumes resources but produces no value.

What is basic question when conceptualizing and initializing the project?

What is the value of this project to the organization?

What is set-based design?

With set-based design you simultaneously pursue multiple solutions, eventually choosing the best one. The design of the Toyota Prius is an example of this, with several competing engine designs were developed simultaneously.

What is XP?

XP which has done more to raise awareness of Agile software development than any other methodology has a rich set of interlocking practices that can feel overwhelming to those uninitiated in the Agile way, but XP gets credit for popularizing most of the core practices that have been adopted by the other methodologies.

Why is single-piece flow so productive?

You can work completely through a feature or task without the waste of task switching.