All You Need To Know About Lean Software Development - DevSimplify Blog

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All You Need To Know About Lean Software Development - DevSimplify Blog

Ever since the dawn of development, it seems the concepts of speed and quality have been at odds with each other. 

I think we can all agree that it’s really hard to balance the two.

How do we get software developed quickly, without compromising quality??

Enter: Lean Software Development.

How theLean Software Development Methodology Came To Be

The use of this methodology isn’t limited to just software development. This concept of “lean thinking” has been around for a long time, now being utilized in industries like healthcare, banking, product development, and many more. 

We can thank Toyota Motor Company for coming up with this concept of Lean Thinking. 

After an in-depth study of their production system, Toyota developed this thinking framework as a way to be impossibly efficient and eliminate waste, in order to offer innovative products while minimizing costs.

They were able to sell their cars at a much lower price than U.S. manufacturers when they hit the U.S. market. 

This framework worked so well that it was a mystery to the outside world. How did Toyota manage to continually push out new products cheaper; products that didn’t look quite as fancy, but products that consumers bought nonetheless?? 

Everyone wanted to know their secret.

Fast forward to today, and this Lean Thinking framework has been applied to industries around the world. It helped Toyota get their priorities straight and create impressive products without wasting time and resources, and it will help you in software development too.

What is Lean Software Development?

Now back to the context of software development. 

Lean Software Development (LSD), is a framework for optimizing time and resources in development, in order to streamline the process and eliminate waste. 

This process helps developers to decrease effort and cost, and more efficiently develop a product that only has necessary features. Focusing on the most essential features is crucial to best prioritizing, which in turn saves valuable time in not developing features that won’t further the product as effectively. Click here get to know about our website.

This is also known as Minimum Viable Product (MVP). You’ve most likely heard this term. 

It means to release a product with the minimum features necessary to viably function– a product stripped to essential core features only, so as to not waste time drumming up extra features before getting feedback. 

This is useful to then test the product, see what users like and dislike, and then finalize the product based on this user feedback. No time wasted guessing. And a better focus on what matters most.

Have you heard of the 80/20 rule in UX Design?

It applies perfectly here.

The rule says that a designer should spend 80% of their time on the top 20% of features that a user will care about, and just the last 20% of their time on the bottom 80% of features. 

Using Lean Software Development not only helps save time and resources, but also helps developers focus their mindset on the user and their needs. 

Overall, you’ll succeed better if you focus on what’s most important to users. And utilizing the Lean Software Development principles will help you do that more efficiently.

7 Key LSD Principles:

Let’s go into detail about the 7 key principles that make up the Lean Software Development framework, so that you can apply and implement them in your development process if you choose.

Lean Software Development also relies on good documentation, and a failure to keep up on this will also cause issues. 

Bottom line:

The biggest reasons to switch to the Lean Software Development methodology are for help with time-saving, process streamlining, and team-building. 

Could your team benefit from improving on these things?

If so, then we recommend implementing Lean Software Development! If you need help developing this concept and would like to book a consultation, our team at DevSimplify can help you through the process!