This document summarizes Matt Stine's presentation on the seven wastes of software development based on lean manufacturing principles. The seven wastes are: partially done work, extra processes, extra features, handoffs, delays, task switching, and defects. Stine provides examples of each waste and solutions to eliminate them, such as limiting work in progress, continuous integration, avoiding handoffs, minimizing task switching, and early defect detection. The goal is to reduce non-value adding activities and continuously improve productivity and quality.

1. THE SEVEN
WASTES OF
SOFTWARE
DEVELOPMENT
Matt Stine

2. THE SEVEN
Deadly Sins
WASTES OF
SOFTWARE
DEVELOPMENT
Matt Stine

3. About your speaker...
• Senior Software Architect/Web Developer
• Speaker (JavaOne, SpringOne/2GX, Lambda
Lounge, NFJS, RWX, PAX, UberConf)
• Author (GroovyMag, NFJS the Magazine,
Selenium 2.0 Refcard)
• President of the Memphis/Mid-South Java
User Group
• Past Agile Zone Leader @ DZone
http://agile.dzone.com/articles/seven-wastes-
software

4. Taiichi Ohno

5. “All we are doing is looking at the time
line, from the moment the customer
gives us an order to the point when
we collect the cash. And we are
reducing the time line by reducing the
non-value adding wastes.”
Taiichi Ohno

7. Shingo’s seven wastes
• In-Process Inventory
• Extra Processing
• Overproduction
• Transportation
• Waiting
• Motion
• Defects

8. MARY and tom’s seven
wastes
• Partially Done Work
• Extra Processes
• Extra Features
• Handoffs
• Delays
• Task Switching
• Defects

9. Partially done work

12. CLUTTER

14. //TODO

15. //FIXME

22. @SuppressWarnings(“unchecked”)

23. it gets in the
way!

24. Avoiding Partially
Done Work

25. Limit your work in
progress

26. short cycles

27. January 1, 2011 February 25, 2011
Minimize
Long Running
Branches

29. Continuous
integration
QA
Deployment
delivery

30. Merciless Refactoring

31. ExtrA Processes

32. ceremony

33. Integration

34. TESTING

35. Version Control

36. Database
migrations

37. Deployment

40. Solutions?

41. The Butler Formerly Known as Hudson
http://jenkins-ci.org

42. http://gradle.org

43. HTTP://geb.codehaus.org
http://spockframework.org
2
WebDriver
http://seleniumhq.org

44. http://www.liquibase.org

45. http://git-scm.com

46. https://github.com/capistrano/capistrano/wiki

47. http://redcareditor.com
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs
http://macromates.com
http://www.vim.org

48. pushd
sh
popd
awk
bash
find
zsh
grep
cat
sed
ksh

49. http://www.cygwin.com

50. http://clojure.org
http://scala-lang.org
http://www.jython.org
http://groovy.codehaus.org
http://jruby.org

51. ExtrA Features

52. Pet Features

53. Obsolete Features

54. o l d
G ing
l a t
P

55. RDD

56. PATTERNS

58. Extra code
• Must be tracked
• Must be compiled
• Must be integrated
• Must be tested
• Must be maintained
• Increases complexity
• Adds potential failure points
• Likely will become obsolete before use

59. the worst wastE?

60. Avoiding extrA
Features

61. Frequent Product
Demos

62. Frequent
Production
Deployments

63. YAGNI

64. The cheapest, fastest, and most
reliable components of a computer
system are those that aren't there.
Gordon Bell

65. HANDOFFS

66. How the customer explained it...

67. How the analyst designed it...

68. How the programmer wrote it...

69. What the testers received...

70. What operations installed...

71. What the customer really needed!

72. tacit knowledge

74. if each handoff
leaves 50% behind:
• 25% of knowledge left after 2 handoffs
• 12% of knowledge left after 3 handoffs
• 6% of knowledge left after 4 handoffs
• 3% of knowledge left after 5 handoffs

75. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DevOps

76. HIGH-BANDWIDTH
Communication

77. Tone Words
38% 7%
Body Language
55%

83. Source: Neal Ford, “On the Lam from the Furniture Police” DSSS 2009.

84. Source: Neal Ford, “On the Lam from the Furniture Police” DSSS 2009.

85. Source: Neal Ford, “On the Lam from the Furniture Police” DSSS 2009.

86. e-mail is your
LAST
RESORT!!!

87. DELAYS

90. gateway
drug

91. partially done
work

92. extra processing

93. task switching

94. manifestations

95. code
check-in

96. big bang
integration

97. Design Planning
big “anything”
up front
Requirements Analysis

99. testing

100. deployment

101. fight delays

102. CHECK-IN-driven
development

103. CHECK-IN-driven
development
• Write enough test to fail

104. CHECK-IN-driven
development
• Write enough test to fail
• Write enough code to pass

105. CHECK-IN-driven
development
• Write enough test to fail
• Write enough code to pass
• Refactor

106. CHECK-IN-driven
development
• Write enough test to fail
• Write enough code to pass
• Refactor
• CHECK-IN, CHECK-IN, CHECK-IN!!!

107. continuous
integration

108. tighten the
feedback loop!

109. LIMIT WIP

110. continuous qa

111. continuous
delivery

112. TASK SWITCHING

113. FLOW

114. time disappears
tunnel vision
“in the zone”
total concentration
insanely productive
Source: Neal Ford, “The Productive Programmer: Canonicality/Focus,” NESS 2008.

119. Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4

120. Task A
Task B
Task C
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4

121. Task A
Task B
Task C
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4

122. Task A
Task B
Task C
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4

123. Task A
Task B
Task C
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4

124. Task A
Task B
Task C
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4

125. Minimize
Task Switching

129. work on one thing
at a time

131. http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/

132. sacrificE
a
Developer

133. share
Knowledge

134. DEFECTS

137. IMPACT
x
TOTAL TIME
UNDETECTED
=
WASTE

138. CRITICAL
x
3 MINUTES
UNDETECTED
=

139. CRITICAL
x
3 MINUTES
UNDETECTED
=
Comparatively Low

140. MINOR
x
3 WEEKS
UNDETECTED
=

141. MINOR
x
3 WEEKS
UNDETECTED
=
Comparatively High

142. reduce waste by
finding defects
asap!!!

143. defect
detection
speedups

144. mistake
proofing
tests

145. Continuous
Integration

146. exploratory
testing

147. antibody
tests
“You Are Your Softwareʼs Immune System!”
http://agile.dzone.com/articles/you-are-your-softwares-immune

148. TOOLS FOR HARD
PROBLEMS

149. Combinatorial
testing tools

150. MIRROR
PRODUCTION

151. RELEASE
TO
PRODUCTION
ASAP!

152. That’s all folks!
Matt Stine
matt.stine@gmail.com
Twitter: mstine
http://www.mattstine.com
Please fill out your evaluations!

153. credits
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/darwinbell/239572495/ • http://moparx.com/files/images/commodore_1541.jpg
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/darwinbell/239573255/ • http://www.flickr.com/photos/talkingplant/2183210426
• http://cleavefast.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/ • http://www.flickr.com/photos/kplawver/3532822079
Taichii_Ohno.jpg
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/maisonbisson/3110247253/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/pagedooley/3302644588
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/aagius/3558810758
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/sansumbrella/3489486144/
• The Simpsons, Fox Broadcasting Company
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/nathancolquhoun/1086854949
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/nolarisingproject/4896224995/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/andidigress/4471100232/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickpiggott/2545688097
• http://216.92.30.49/tv/posters/hoarders_ver2_xlg.jpg
• Office Space,
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/995894
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/nolarisingproject/4896789584/
• The Karate Kid, 1984 Motion Picture from Columbia Pictures
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/evilpeacock/2941175262/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/nolarisingproject/4896236515/
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1224062
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/nolarisingproject/4896861104/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/nolarisingproject/4896841468/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/geoffjones/3690612407/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/nolarisingproject/4896813004/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/nolarisingproject/4896791356/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/darwinbell/239572918/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigtallguy/148771151/

154. What about the
barrels?
In the wake of the second major engineering failure to happen upon
Southeastern Louisiana in the last five years, Rox Steady has produced
these installation pieces of street art. Each representing the seven
deadly sins and placed in seven different neighborhoods of New
Orleans, they are representative of the things that have led up to such
engineering disasters..
Their symbolism is timely in the wake of the oil spill that BP and their
cohorts are now saying is all cleaned up. May a swarm of locusts visit
upon their homes and zombies eat their brains…
From http://www.flickr.com/photos/nolarisingproject/4896789584/

155. How the seven wastes were mapped to the
seven deadly sins is a thought exercise left to
the attendee.