{"id":448,"date":"2007-12-05T04:19:10","date_gmt":"2007-12-05T11:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/448\/poppendieck-should-lean-be-top-down-or-bottom-up"},"modified":"2016-11-14T04:06:06","modified_gmt":"2016-11-14T09:06:06","slug":"poppendieck-should-lean-be-top-down-or-bottom-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/poppendieck-should-lean-be-top-down-or-bottom-up\/448\/","title":{"rendered":"Lean for Software Transformation: Top Down or Bottom Up"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"a296a24fa2fc69ef5487857f02f111e8\" data-index=\"9\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Single Post readerboard -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:inline-block;width:728px;height:90px\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-8207522353004717\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1144967431\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p>Last week, I invited the readers of shmula to pose questions to Mary <sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-448-1' id='fnref-448-1' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(448)'>1<\/a><\/sup> and <a name=\"0321437381\"><\/a>, the authors of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/redirect.html?link_code=ur2&amp;tag=sixsigma09-20&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;location=%2Fgp%2Fproduct%2F0321150783%2Fsr%3D8-1%2Fqid%3D1156191326%2Fref%3Dpd_bbs_1%3Fie%3DUTF8\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\">Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit for Software Development Managers (Paperback)<\/a>, which won the Software Development Productivity Award in 2004 and, the sequel <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/redirect.html?link_code=ur2&amp;tag=sixsigma09-20&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;location=%2Fgp%2Fproduct%2F0321437381%2Fsr%3D8-2%2Fqid%3D1156191326%2Fref%3Dpd_bbs_2%3Fie%3DUTF8\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\">Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash (Paperback)<\/a>.\u00a0 Several <a href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/ask-mary-poppendieck-anything\/444\/\">questions<\/a> were submitted and, over the next several weeks, I&#8217;ll be posting Mary (MBP) and Tom&#8217;s (TDP) responses.<\/p>\n<p>Be sure to read our other <a title=\"interviews with leaders series\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/leadership-interviews-innovation-thought-leaders\/\">interviews in our leadership series<\/a>.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Here are Mary Poppendieck&#8217;s other responses to readers&#8217; questions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a title=\"mary poppendieck, lean for software\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/ask-mary-poppendieck-anything\/444\/\">Original Article to Ask Mary Poppendieck Anything<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"mary poppendieck answers readers questions on lean for software\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/lean-for-software\/401\/\">Mary Poppendieck&#8217;s Answers to ALL Readers&#8217; Questions<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"lean deployment, lean transformation, top down, bottom up\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/poppendieck-should-lean-be-top-down-or-bottom-up\/448\/\">Should Lean be Top-down or Bottom-up?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"what is lean for software with Mary Poppendieck\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/lean-for-software-interview-with-mary-poppendieck\/340\/\">An Interview with Mary Poppendieck with Pete Abilla<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"mary poppendieck, agile, handoff, waste\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/poppendieck-on-waste-the-handoff\/447\/\">Mary Poppendieck on the Handoff and Waste<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Earlier, Mary and Tom responded to the question of <a href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/poppendieck-on-waste-the-handoff\/447\/\">Waste and the Handoff<\/a> in software development.\u00a0 Today, they respond to two questions from Ursula Rutherford:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Ursula Rutherford said,<\/p>\n<p>November 16, 2007 @ 3:55 am<\/p>\n<p>The term Lean\u009d is very little known in the software development and system delivery industries. Do you expect there to be more explicit use of it in the future?<\/p>\n<p>It seems IS people are treading their own path towards quality management and capability maturity without reference to other industries. Perhaps if Lean were a more well-known term in IS, we could benefit from several decades of experience and from training in lean principles.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><em>MBP &gt;&gt;<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I have to agree, there is a lot to be learned from good old low-tech\u009d industries.\u00a0 What will drive improvement into software development is competition &#8211; in highly competitive industries, there is no alternative but to find the approach that has the least waste, lowest cost, and highest quality.\u00a0 As software becomes more and more pervasive, those who develop systems wisely will end up at the top of the competitive hill.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><em> TDP &gt;&gt;<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Lean looks at the whole value stream from concept to cash or order to payment.\u00a0 It delivers more value by avoiding sub-optimizing choices and handoffs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>About 1\/2 hour later, Ursula poses another question to Mary and Tom Poppendieck:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Ursula Rutherford said,<\/p>\n<p>November 16, 2007 @ 4:22 am<\/p>\n<p>Making a broad generalization, it seems lean initiatives in many industries need top-management support to have a chance of success. In contrast, there are many accounts of agile\u00a0\u00a0 programming techniques being adopted at team level with good results.<\/p>\n<p>At what level of organizations do you recommend lean software development be introduced?<\/p>\n<p>Imagine an organization with high-level sponsorship and a generous budget to make software development lean\u00a6 Should change begin with education or practice; in the development team or the boardroom; slow or fast; a pilot project or for real&#8217;; imposed by decree or encouraged by incentives?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9611 aligncenter\" title=\"top-down-bottom-up-change-management\" src=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/12\/top-down-bottom-up-change-management.jpg\" alt=\"change management, top down, bottom up\" width=\"375\" height=\"235\" srcset=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/12\/top-down-bottom-up-change-management.jpg 375w, https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/12\/top-down-bottom-up-change-management-300x188.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 375px) 100vw, 375px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>MBP &gt;&gt;<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Where to start is very dependent on the context and on the location of the biggest constraint.\u00a0 If the biggest constraint is a huge end-of-cycle test and merge bottleneck, then you can make huge strides by getting stop-the-line testing disciplines in place.\u00a0 This involves integration of testing with development, but that might be possible at a rather low level.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, if the biggest constraint is caused by thrashing because more work is being dumped on the development organization than it can hope to handle, then higher level of management involvement is usually necessary to make a big difference.\u00a0\u00a0 If the approval process is insisting that a host of low priority features be developed, you have yet another problem that needs to be addressed from the perspective of a broader organization.<\/p>\n<p>I generally recommend that you do a rough value stream map in order to find the biggest constraint in your system.\u00a0 Actually, people probably already know what the biggest constraint is, but are reluctant to confront it, and a value stream map might just help to put difficult issues on the table for discussion.\u00a0 Once you have found and are ready to confront the biggest constraint in your development process, then you don&#8217;t need a value stream map for a while, instead you need a top notch, team-based process improvement process that addresses and gradually removes the key constraint.\u00a0 Since the constraint generally occurs at organizational boundaries, it usually helps to have senior management involvement at this point.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><em> TDP &gt;&gt;<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>At its heart, Lean is a management philosophy based on deep respect for people and relentless elimination of waste from the delivery of value to customers to return sustainable prosperity for the organization.\u00a0 Sustainable deployment of Lean (or Agile) must reach high enough in an organization to control the entire value stream and to control how people are treated.\u00a0 In some cases, this may only extend to departmental or divisional level management, in other cases, it may need to extend beyond organizational boundaries to an entire supply chain.\u00a0 How people are measured and rewarded determines how they will behave in the long run.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<div class='footnotes' id='footnotes-448'>\n<div class='footnotedivider'><\/div>\n<ol>\n<li id='fn-448-1'> <a title=\"leadership interviews pete abilla\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/leadership-interviews-innovation-thought-leaders\/\">Read More Leadership Interviews<\/a> <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-448-1'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n<!--CusAds0-->\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week, I invited the readers of shmula to pose questions to Mary 1 and , the authors of Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit for Software Development Managers (Paperback), which won the Software Development Productivity Award in 2004 and, the sequel Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash (Paperback).\u00a0 Several questions were submitted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12327,"featured_media":9611,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[417,144],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Lean for Software Transformation: Top Down or Bottom Up<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Should Lean for Software Transformation: Top Down or Bottom Up?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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