{"id":8837,"date":"2011-06-27T05:21:45","date_gmt":"2011-06-27T11:21:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/?p=8837"},"modified":"2013-07-16T23:07:53","modified_gmt":"2013-07-17T04:07:53","slug":"lean-software-development-gemba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/lean-software-development-gemba\/8837\/","title":{"rendered":"Lean Software Development: Seeing the IT and Software Development Gemba"},"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>This article explains\u00a0Kanban Software Development Gemba and why you should care. It&#8217;s a guest post from Jason Yip.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m pleased to present this guest post from Jason Yip, a respected thought-leader on Agile and Lean Software Development. Jason Yip is a Principal Consultant for ThoughtWorks, a global IT consulting firm. You may learn more about him through his <a title=\"jason yip, lean software development\" href=\"http:\/\/jchyip.blogspot.com\">blog<\/a> and by following him on twitter <a title=\"jason yip on twitter\" href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/jchyip\" class=\"broken_link\">@jchyip<\/a>. In this post, Jason Yip will discuss the concept of the &#8220;Gemba&#8221; and what it means in the context of software development. For example, he will consider the following question: How does one exactly &#8220;see&#8221; to &#8220;go the actual place&#8221; when software development is in large part virtual? Read to learn how.<\/p>\n<p>One of the strongest messages in Lean is to go and see. Get out from behind your desk, go to the gemba, and look.<\/p>\n<p>But what I deal with are software development and IT support organisations. This is knowledge-based work. The work items are all virtual. What does it mean to see in this context?<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s imagine that I drew a circle in the middle of the office and stood there until I could identify opportunities for improvement. What might I see?<\/p>\n<p>I might notice that the cubicle walls prevent everyone from seeing each other. I might notice that no one ever leaves their seat unless getting a drink, taking a washroom break, or heading out to lunch. I might notice that everyone is wearing headphones. I might notice that at no point in the day does the team\u009d ever physically get together. I might notice that other stakeholders rarely visit the team nor does the team visit them. Every so often I might notice some senior stakeholder drop by, disrupt the team with some request, and leave.<\/p>\n<p>The last thing I might notice is what I can&#8217;t see&#8230; Who&#8217;s working on what? What is the most important thing to do at the moment? What are the current problems? Is the current system build working? How is the overall project \/ operation doing?<\/p>\n<p>How sure are we that everyone in the team, never mind other stakeholders, know the answers to those questions?<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s imagine that I now close my eyes and listen. What might I hear?<\/p>\n<p>Silence&#8230; no, not quite&#8230; people hitting keys on their keyboards&#8230; someone starts playing music to fill the silence&#8230; but no talking&#8230; no, not quite&#8230; Every so often I might hear the team leader direct a team member to work on this or that&#8230;. and there&#8217;s scattered conversation&#8230; but never about the work, never about coordinating, never asking for, or offering to, help.<\/p>\n<p>Now I need to leave the circle because in our world, at the end of the day there are things you can&#8217;t see unless you&#8217;re at a computer&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>So I sit with each of the team members and observe&#8230; he&#8217;s unfamiliar with the editor shortcuts even though another person on the team knows them better than I do, she&#8217;s making assumptions rather than validating with the subject matter expert, he&#8217;s repeating the same task that could easily be automated with a simple script, everyone seems to do the same task in a completely different way.<\/p>\n<p>I look at other things . . . alert logs: It seems that most alerts are ignored and resolve themselves without intervention&#8230; ticketing systems: A significant number of tickets are over 1 year old&#8230; the source code: Significant amount of duplication, unclear naming, no tests<br \/>\nAnd that might be it for the first day or two.<\/p>\n<p>What does it already tell us about opportunities for improvement?<\/p>\n<p>The IT and software development context is different from physical manufacturing in many aspects. But there is still something definitely in common . . . get out from behind your desk, go to the gemba, and look.<\/p>\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>This article explains\u00a0Kanban Software Development Gemba and why you should care. It&#8217;s a guest post from Jason Yip. I&#8217;m pleased to present this guest post from Jason Yip, a respected thought-leader on Agile and Lean Software Development. Jason Yip is a Principal Consultant for ThoughtWorks, a global IT consulting firm. You may learn more about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12327,"featured_media":11451,"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":[651],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Seeing the IT and Kanban Software Development Gemba<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Jason Yip discusses Kanban Software Development Gemba and why it matters\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, 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