Lean Software Development

What Does Lean Software Development Mean?

Lean software development is a software development philosophy that aims to streamline the production of applications and software products, and to make them more efficient. The philosophy is popularly attributed to the book of the same title by Mary and Tom Peppendieck. It has also evolved based on common lean manufacturing strategies in physical industries implemented by Toyota Project Systems.

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Techopedia Explains Lean Software Development

In lean software development, various goals apply, including how to:

  • Eliminate waste
  • Amplify learning
  • Deliver as early and fast as possible
  • Empower people
  • Assess project integrity
  • Look at the project comprehensively

Many of these broad goals are expressed in the form of specific efforts. For example, eliminating waste comes in many forms, from creating smarter development modules to finding new ways of writing code. In general, lean software development has merged with another philosophy called "agile software development," which governs the ways that programmers and designers work together, and provides helpful guidelines and frameworks for software development as a whole.

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Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…