Lean-Agile Development: From Team to Stream


Note: This book is a work in process and many of the chapters posted will have been barely edited.  We are doing this to get quick feedback on content.  If you can’t understand something because of the lack of editing, please let us know.  But no need to tell us of the need for editing.  We are very aware of that.

Lean-Agile Software Development: From Team to Stream represents the next generation of Agile methods that started with Scrum and Kanban.  Lean-Agile provides a complete roadmap for achieving Agility at either a team, group of teams, or a large organization. It drives from the principles of Lean (systems-thinking, just-in-time, optimize the whole, eliminate waste, …) while showing how teams apply Agile methods within that context. It is not an integration of Scrum and Kanban but rather a creation of a new approach based on the principles from which both Scrum and Kanban sprang.

This book is intended for any of the following:

  • People new to Agile
  • Directors of a medium size development organization (100-300 people) who are having some success at the team level but not able to extend that to the entire group
  • Organizations having achieved some success at the team and/or group level but having difficulty extending it throughout the organization
  • Organizations considering using the Scaled Agile Framework

Learn more about the book and who it is intended for in its introduction.

For questions and comments, please join and enter them on the Linkedin Net Objectives Business Driven Software Development group.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction and Overview
  2. Manage Workflow not People
  3. Overview of Lean-Agile Software Development
  4. How to Start Your Transition
  5. How to Continue Your Transition
  6. Improving a Team With Lean-Agile
  7. Improving a Group of Teams
  8. Improving an Entire Value Stream
  9. Summary

Expanded Table of Contents

  1. Introduction and Overview
  • Systems Thinking and Complex Systems
  • How People Tend to Learn
  • How Organizations Tend to Change
  • The Nature of Software Development
  • Different Approaches for Beginning a Transition
  • Starting a Transition to Better Method of Software Development
  • What to Do After Starting
  1. Manage Workflow not People
  • Why we manage for productivity
  • Why we should manage our workflow
  • Shifting our perspective
  1. Overview of Lean-Agile Software Development (go to page to see outline)
  2. How to Start Your transition
  • First see where you are
  • What level should you start?
    • Portfolio – using MBIs
    • Program – creating Teams
    • Team
      • finding a proper team
      • using Kanban
  • Use a combination of big rock / little rock changes
  • Change management to change culture
  1. How to Continue Your Transition
  • Framework Myopia
  • Shift to Outcomes not Practices
  1. Improving a Team with Lean-Agile
  • Manage WIP
  • Make policies explicit
  • Use ATDD and other Test-First
  1. Improving a Group of teams
  • Make teams when you can (case study 1)
  • Dynamic feature teams (case study 2 – aircraft)
  • Create temporary feature teams (loaning folks)
  • Creating virtual teams with Kanban (blogs)
  • Coordinating teams – common backlogs
  1. Improving the Stream
  • Portfolio -> Program -> Team
  • The need for MBIs
  • The need for Product Managers
  • Shared backlogs
  1. Summary