Lean Software Management:BBC Worldwide Case Study

submitted to Professor Shervin Shirmohammadi in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the course ELG 5100

submitted byTaiyan Yu (7287759) & Menglan Liu (6836472)

Outline

• Introduction of Lean thinking• Research Methodology• Reliability of The Data Collected• Digital Hub Team• Performance Data and Analysis• Additional Tips• Future Works• Conclusion

Lean ThinkingSeven principles[3] [4]:• Eliminate waste• Amplify learning• Decide as late as possible• Deliver as fast as possible• Empower the team• Build integrity in• See the whole

Toyota Production System(TPS) [1]

SpaceManpowerMaterialstime

Research Methodology

• Hypothesis Implementing lean practices Reduce: lead times error rates variability• Method Observation + Phone calls + E-mails

Research Methodology(…)

• Data were collected from: 1) Digital Hub (Digi-Hub) Team 2) Semi-structured interviews 3) Kanban boards 4) Recording the operation of lean system 5) Daily “stand-up” meeting 6) Review the outputs

Reliability of The Data Collected

• Time Line Implementation: April 2008 Data: August 2008 (collected) October 2008 (used)

Reliability of The Data Collected(…)

• Size and Volume of Work Started Minimum Marketable Features (MMFs)

Reliability of The Data Collected(…)

• Complexity of Work• Governance Arrangements• Composition of Team• Engineering Practices

Digital Hub Team• Office Layout and Work Flow: two kanban board

s (A,B) and four information radiators (C,D,E,F)

Digital Hub Team(…)

Digital Hub Team(…)

• Daily Standup

Digital Hub Team(…)

Release notification and daily support process tasks

Record decisions

Vote

Performance Data and Analysis

• An integral part of any lean manufacturing implementation is a variability reduction effort, to enable a process to achieve the same (or greater) throughput with less WIP

• Throughput = WIP/cycletime

average output

the inventory between the start and finish points of a production process

the time a unit spends as WIP

Performance Data and Analysis1. Lead Time: • the total elapsed time from when a customer requests software to when t

he finished software is released to the customer.• kanban board A: “decomposed engineering ready” to kanban board B: “re

lease ready”.

results show software is being delivered with 47% less variance and on average 37% quicker.

Performance Data and Analysis

2. Development Time: is recorded in working days, from kanban board B stages: Dev. Ready to Dev. Complete.

The variance of development time fell by 78% from 30.5 days to 6.8 days. The mean development time was reduced 73% from 9.2 to 2.5 working days over the nine months.

3. Release Frequency Per Month: the number of items released to customers.

Performance Data and Analysis

a blanket release freeze to ensure complete priority was given to the production of year-end financial data

4. Live Defects Per Week: • the bugs reported by customers during a week plus the bugs still open.• recorded on red kanban cards and added to the Dev. (Development) stage

of kanban board B.

Performance Data and Analysis

Variance fell by 33% as the upper control limit reduced from 7.6 to 5.1 open bugs per week.

Defects still open and reported each week fell by 24% from 2.9 to 2.2

Performance Data and Analysis5. Continuous Improvement : issues identified and time to r

esolve.The outlier in 2008 was a result of waiting for a third party to complete their work (a s

pecial cause).

Over the 12 months, the mean number of working days itemswere blocked was reduced by 81% from a mean of 25.8 days to 4.9 days per month.

Additional Tips

• 1. A master kanban board can be used to record and summarize the progress of all the smaller projects.

• 2. Lean requires a stable, experienced team with low staff turnover and a project manager who knows the skills and abilities of their team.

• 3. Lean is not a substitute for professional software engineering practice.

Future Works

• The time taken to move on kanban board A from “proposed ideas” to “decomposed engineering ready” is currently not recorded, and this time could be significant.

• Lead time could potentially be further reduced by make UAT easier for customers.

Conclusion

• The volume of work that was allowed to enter the process

• The reduced cycle time• Continuous improvement carried out by the te

am on a daily basis• Statistical process control

Reference

[1] J. M. Morgan and J. K. Liker. The Toyota Product Development System: Integrating People, Process and Technology. New York: Productivity Press,2006.[2] Er. Kirtesh. Jailia, Mrs. Sujata, Mrs. Manisha. Jailia, Mrs. Manisha. Agarwal, Lean Software Development(“As a Survival Tool in Recession”), International Journal of Software EngineeringandItsApplicationsVol.5No.3,July,2011[3] M. Poppendieck and T. Poppendieck, Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit. Boston, MA:Addison-Wesley,2003.[4] Mary Poppendieck, MichaelA. Cusumano, Lean Software Development: A Tutorial, IEEE Software,Sep/Oct,2012.[5] Scrum-ban: http://leansoftwareengineering.com/ksse/scrum-ban/

Thank you:)