Lean Software Management:BBC Worldwide Case Study
Dr Peter Middleton MBA
13th June 2014IASA Ireland, Dublin
Irish Computer Society
IASA
1. Business Technology Strategy2. IT Environment3. Quality Attributes4. Design5. Human Dynamics
Volume + Constant change• Requirements / Budgets / Business• Sponsors• Users• Hardware / Networks• Database• Software• Staff skills and availability• Culture / Privacy / Legal / Learning
UK Government advice
PRINCE2: ‘Ensuring that the information required for the project team is available.’
BBC WorldwideDigital Hub Software Team
• Waterfall Agile Lean • London• 9 staff: Analyst, Architect, QA, Developers• Operating cost: £1.5m p.a.• C#, .NET, MS SQL Server
• RISK
Lean Software – key ideas
• Reduce Work in Process: – Minimum Marketable Feature– Analysis / Specifications– Design– Untested code
• Reduce total end to end time– Visible management & less risk– Flexibility
BBC
Lead time to customers -37%Variance -47%
Throughput:smaller, incremental deliveries
Fewer Bugs: -24%; Variance: -33%
Possible problems
1. Space needed for Kanban & info boards2. Plan driven, document centric process3. Poor fit with standardised reporting4. Remit of IT – upstream & downstream5. Command & control compliance model6. Staff initiative and multi skillingLean handles risk by low WIP, transparency,
small units & frequent deliverables
Conclusion• Lean provides discipline and agility• Software under quantitative control • Frequent, small, high value deliverables• Experiments to demonstrate:
– End to end time measure– Work in Progress – white board & post notes
Lean Software Management: BBC Worldwide Case Study, P. Middleton & D. Joyce, IEEE Trans. on Engineering Management
Continual ImprovementDays lost: -81% 26 to 5 days
Development Time -73%; Variation -78%
Differences Agile and Lean
• Batch / Push versus Pull– Time-boxed iterations
• Reliance on Data– Focus on people
• Continual Improvement– ‘impediment list’ / ‘improvement backlog’‘
• Multi skilling– Velocity’, features, story points
Engineering Practices
• Decoupling – improve legacy code• Test Driven Development (unit tests)• Automated Acceptance Testing• Source Control Software• Bug tracking software• Daily Stand Up (15 minutes)
Follow up• to the IEEE article
http://leanandkanban.wordpress.com/2011/04/09/lean-software-management-bbc-worldwide-case-study/
• http://leankitkanban.com/ (lean tool)
• [email protected]• [email protected]• Twitter: @dpjoyce