Types of Waste in Software Development
When we try to achieve excellence in Software Development, we should focus on reducing waste - but to reduce waste, you have to be able to recognize it! What is waste in Software Development?
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Now, let's dive into today's micro-topic!
In short
🧩 Lean Software Development focuses on eliminating "waste" to streamline processes from order to deployment. Waste is anything that doesn’t add value to the customer or delays delivering that value.
🛠️ Types of waste in software development include unreleased work, unused features, defects, context switching, waiting time, handoffs, unnecessary processes, and excessive management activities.
📊 To minimize waste, teams should measure lead time, map out their processes, and identify bottlenecks. Solutions may involve existing practices from XP, Agile, Lean, and DevOps, or require context-specific strategies.
🎯 By continuously measuring lead times and tackling inefficiencies, teams can eliminate waste and develop a more effective, value-driven software development process.
Lean’s idea of waste
Lean Software Development, similar to the Toyota Production System and the original Lean for manufacturing, is a management system for “the absolute elimination of waste”.
Generally speaking, you should look at the timeline from when you receive an order to address a customer need (whatever this means in your organization) to the moment when the software that addresses that need is deployed to production - Lean Software Development focuses on reducing that timeline by removing all non-value-adding wastes.
In order to eliminate waste it is fundamental to be able to recognize it first, and since waste is “everything that doesn’t add value”, the first step to identity waste is to have a clear idea of what “value” means: what does our customer actually value?
In software, value often changes because also the customer changes its awareness about its own needs, so there is no solution than continuously giving value to the customer - therefore, waste is everything that interferes with giving customers what they value at the time and place where it will provide the most value for them.
Anything we do that doesn’t add value to customers is waste, and anything that causes a delay in giving customers the value is also waste.
Types of Waste in Product Software Development
Unreleased Work: This work is completed but not yet delivered to the customer. Keeping too much work in process (WIP) causes the delay of valuable features from reaching users. Limiting WIP can significantly increase team throughput and reduce cycle time.
Obsolete or Unused Features: Studies show that only about 20% of features in a typical software product are actively used. Building features that add no value wastes time and resources: the goal should be to focus on what truly matters to users.
Defects and Bugs: They represent unplanned work that consumes time and energy, and when they make it to production, they create firefighting efforts and damage user trust. To minimize waste, emphasize quality from the start.
Context Switching: When team members juggle multiple tasks or projects, they lose time and mental energy switching contexts. This reduces cognitive effectiveness and overall productivity. Minimizing the number of concurrent tasks helps maintain focus and speed.
Waiting Time: This can occur when developers wait for code reviews, builds, or other dependencies. Waiting often leads to context switching, further compounding waste. Reducing bottlenecks and optimizing processes can significantly reduce waiting times.
Handoffs: Every time work is passed from one person or team to another, there’s a risk of miscommunication, loss of context, and dropped responsibilities. Minimizing handoffs by implementing real cross-functional teams can streamline workflows and reduce errors.
Unnecessary Processes or Documentation: Overly complex processes or excessive documentation that adds no clear value is waste. Lean documentation principles focus on "just enough" to achieve clarity and alignment without overburdening the team.
Management Activities: Not all management work is waste, but excessive meetings, status reports, and planning sessions that don’t directly impact delivery can be: management should focus on enabling the team to do its best work.
Minimizing waste
To eliminate waste at a system level, start by measuring lead time—the time it takes for an idea to move from inception to delivery. Map out your high-level process, including both active work time and waiting time. This end-to-end measurement is your lead time.
Once you have a baseline, identify the biggest bottlenecks and opportunities to improve flow. This could be anything from streamlining handoffs to reducing WIP or optimizing code review processes. Here, you will most likely find problems that already been solved by the industry (think automation to simplify release, CI to have more feedback, etc) and therefore you can search your solution between XP, agile, lean and devops practices - or you will find context-specific issues, where you will have to come out with your own practice (but you can still follow values and principles to ensure you go in the best direction!).
Tackle one bottleneck at a time, measure the impact, and repeat the process. This aligns with the principles of the Theory of Constraints: focusing on one constraint at a time to maximize flow. By continually measuring and optimizing lead time, you can progressively eliminate waste and create a more efficient, value-driven development process.
Until next time, happy coding! 🤓👩💻👨💻