Quantity:

Express Checkout with PayPhrase

What's this? | Create PayPhrase

More Buying Choices

52 used & new from $37.98

Have one to sell? Sell yours here

Share with Friends

Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit

See larger image

Share your own customer images

Publisher: learn how customers can search inside this book.

Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

~ (Author), Tom Poppendieck (Author)

4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (39 customer reviews)

List Price:	$54.99
Price:	$48.11 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details
You Save:	$6.88 (13%)
	o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

33 new from $37.99 19 used from $37.98

Formats		Amazon Price	New from	Used from
Kindle Edition $38.50 Available for download now. Published May 8, 2003	Kindle Edition, May 8, 2003	$38.50	--	--
Paperback, Illustrated $48.11 In Stock. Published May 17, 2003	Paperback, Illustrated	$48.11	$37.99	$37.98

Frequently Bought Together

Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash

Price For All Three: $124.99

Show availability and shipping details

This item: Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit by Mary Poppendieck
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details
Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash by Mary Poppendieck
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details
Agile Estimating and Planning by Mike Cohn
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Agile Estimating and Planning

by Mike Cohn

4.7 out of 5 stars (52) $35.47

User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development

by Mike Cohn

4.8 out of 5 stars (45) $35.47

Agile Project Management with Scrum (Microsoft Professional)

by Ken Schwaber

4.3 out of 5 stars (48) $34.65

Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great

by Esther Derby

4.4 out of 5 stars (21) $19.77

Agile and Iterative Development: A Manager's Guide

by Craig Larman

4.5 out of 5 stars (48) $38.99

› Explore similar items

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit Mary Poppendieck Tom Poppendieck Forewords by Jim Highsmithand Ken Schwaber *Adapting agile practices to your development organization *Uncovering and eradicating waste throughout the software development lifecycle *Practical techniques for every development manager, project manager, and technical leaderLean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit Lean software development: applying agile principles to your organization In Lean Software Development, Mary and Tom Poppendieck identify seven fundamental "lean" principles, adapt them for the world of software development, and show how they can serve as the foundation for agile development approaches that work. Along the way, they introduce 22 "thinking tools" that can help you customize the right agile practices for any environment. Better, cheaper, faster software development. You can have all three--if you adopt the same lean principles that have already revolutionized manufacturing, logistics and product development. *Iterating towards excellence: software development as an exercise in discovery *Managing uncertainty: "decide as late as possible" by building change into the system.*Compressing the value stream: rapid development, feedback, and improvement *Empowering teams and individuals without compromising coordination *Software with integrity: promoting coherence, usability, fitness, maintainability, and adaptability *How to "see the whole"--even when your developers are scattered across multiple locations and contractors Simply put, Lean Software Development helps you refocus development on value, flow, and people--so you can achieve breakthrough quality, savings, speed, and business alignment.

From the Back Cover

Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit

Mary Poppendieck Tom Poppendieck

Forewords by Jim Highsmithand Ken Schwaber

Adapting agile practices to your development organization
Uncovering and eradicating waste throughout the software development lifecycle
Practical techniques for every development manager, project manager, and technical leader

Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit

Lean software development: applying agile principles to your organization

In Lean Software Development, Mary and Tom Poppendieck identify seven fundamental "lean" principles, adapt them for the world of software development, and show how they can serve as the foundation for agile development approaches that work. Along the way, they introduce 22 "thinking tools" that can help you customize the right agile practices for any environment.

Better, cheaper, faster software development. You can have all three—if you adopt the same lean principles that have already revolutionized manufacturing, logistics and product development.

Iterating towards excellence: software development as an exercise in discovery
Managing uncertainty: "decide as late as possible" by building change into the system.
Compressing the value stream: rapid development, feedback, and improvement
Empowering teams and individuals without compromising coordination
Software with integrity: promoting coherence, usability, fitness, maintainability, and adaptability
How to "see the whole"—even when your developers are scattered across multiple locations and contractors

Simply put, Lean Software Development helps you refocus development on value, flow, and people—so you can achieve breakthrough quality, savings, speed, and business alignment.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional (May 18, 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0321150783
ISBN-13: 978-0321150783
Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.9 x 0.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (39 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #54,111 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

This item is part of The Agile Series.

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

› Visit Amazon's Mary Poppendieck Page

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	75% buy the item featured on this page: Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit 4.6 out of 5 stars (39) $48.11
	9% buy Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash 4.4 out of 5 stars (17) $41.41
	6% buy Agile Project Management with Scrum (Microsoft Professional) 4.3 out of 5 stars (48) $34.65
	5% buy Agile Estimating and Planning 4.7 out of 5 stars (52) $35.47

Explore similar items

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

(What's this?)

Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.

lean(12)

agile(11)

scrum(4)

software development(4)

systems thinking(3)

product development(2)

dynamic(1)

extreme programming(1)

six sigma(1)

toyota(1)

Agree with these tags?

See all 11 tags...

Customer Reviews

39 Reviews

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

4.6 out of 5 stars (39 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book that teaches how to think agilely, June 1, 2003

By	Michael Cohn "agile developer" (Lafayette, CO USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Books written during the first phase of agile software development have been about very specific practices we should employ. There are some excellent books on the Extreme Programming, Feature-Driven Development and Scrum agile processes. These books teach us "do a, b, and c if you want to do Extreme Programming" or "do x, y and z if you want to do Scrum."

In the last year we've seen books by Highsmith (Agile Software Development Ecosystems) and Cockburn (Agile Software Development) that represent the second wave of agile software development-that of learning to think agilely rather than following a prescribed set of agile rules. Mary and Tom Poppendieck's book is the latest and best book for teaching how to think agilely.

The book contains 22 "thinking tools." The thinking tools are drawn from the world of lean manufacturing where they have helped improve product delivery speed, quality and cost. Each tool is presented as a guideline. Each thinking tool is described with enough detail that you can put it into practice; but, more importantly, the reasons supporting each are made explicit. So, instead of simply reading that it is good to "deliver as fast as possible" we learn how rapid delivery is supported by pull systems (where work is pulled into the current step from the prior step), how queuing theory helps us identify bottlenecks, and how to calculate the cost of delay (to see which bottlenecks are worth removing).

This book is the perfect blend of highly actionable instructions and descriptions of why those actions work. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to improve his or her software development process. The authors' ideas are applicable both to projects using agile approaches today and to more traditional, plan-driven projects.

Comment Comment (1) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Learning from Lean Manufacturing, July 4, 2003

By	Steve Berczuk (Arlington, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This is an excellent discussion of how the principles of Lean Manufacturing apply to Software Development. The authors explain why the usual metaphor of software as manufacturing is not quite right, and why the metaphor of Lean Manufacturing is something we can learn from. The book is clearly written and the authors provide examples and anecdotes to help you to understand their points. This was a fairly quick read, and I am likely to refer to it often.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good, practical book, May 17, 2006

By	Mark Meuer (Minnesota, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Our reading group at work recently read "Lean Software Development." There are several things I really like about this book:

1. Its thinking is clearer than most. The Poppendiecks make sharp distinctions between principles, tools, and practices. (More on this will follow.)

2. It presents an Agile approach without demanding that one follow all tenets of Extreme Programming (such as pair programming).

3. It recognizes that in the past it has been a mistake to think of software development as being roughly analogous to manufacturing. Creating custom software is not very much like assembling cars within a factory.. Software development is much closer to product development, much more like the work that goes into designing the car in the first place. Principles (not necessarily techniques!) that work well in product design can have a much more straightforward application in software design.

4. They specifically address the needs of safety-critical software, talking about how to apply these principles in environments that are heavily regulated or where a software failure may endanger lives.

The book does suffer at times from and affliction common to this genre: over-enthusiasm. There can be a sense that all we need to do is follow what they say and all will be well. But, for the most part, the authors provide reasonable, realistic guidance for those looking to improve the way they go about creating software.

Now that we have the overview, let's look at the meat of the book: Agile principles. There are seven Agile principles which should govern a group's software development process:

1. Eliminate Waste
2. Amplify Learning
3. Decide as Late as Possible
4. Deliver as Fast as Possible
5. Empower the Team
6. Build Integrity In
7. See the Whole

A chapter is devoted to each principle. In each, the principle is described, examples are given from both product and software development, and a number of "tools" are suggested as ways to apply the principle in software development.

The principles are valid within any development effort, software or otherwise. For example, a good process will always seek reasonable ways to eliminate waste. In product development and manufacturing, waste may include scrap material that does not end up in a product. In software, the definition of "waste" will include things like partially done work, extra processes, extra features, waiting,
etc.

It is very important to keep the distinction between principles, tools, and techniques in mind. Principles must be reasonably applied to a given environment. The authors put it quite well: (pp. 179-180)

* Eliminate waste does not mean throw away all documentation.
* Amplify learning does not mean keep on changing your mind.
* Decide as late as possible does not mean procrastinate.
* Deliver as fast as possible does not mean rush and do sloppy work.
* Empower the team does not mean abandon leadership
* Build integrity in does not mean big, upfront design.
* See the whole does not mean ignore the details.

"One team's prescription is another team's poison. Do not arbitrarily adopt practices that work in other organizations; use the thinking tools in this book to translate lean principles into agile practices that match your environment."

I strongly recommend this book.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 39 customer reviews...

Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Leading Lean SOftware Development
The Poppendiecks have managed to write an excellent companion to their previous book Lean Software Development. Read more

Published 15 hours ago by Richard E. Devore Jr.

5.0 out of 5 stars Your first - First Book on Agile Development
This book is a great first read for you if you are ready to learn about "NEW" tools for developing a product that your customers are expecting in the expected time frame and with... Read more

Published 11 months ago by James C. Kazakavage

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent read
This is a great introduction to Lean software development principles. It makes a logical connection from lean product development and manufacturing systems to software development... Read more

Published 11 months ago by Gary W. Fong

4.0 out of 5 stars Comes complete with instructions and a warranty
Shortly after leading my first Six Sigma process improvement project, which involved my constructing of software to automate client business processes, I came across this book by... Read more

Published 16 months ago by Erik Gfesser

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Introduction I've Read
It's pretty much all been said by previous reviewers but this one is worth another accolade. As a CIO with over 20 years in software engineering, I've just about read it all, seen... Read more

Published 17 months ago by Maurice Hagar

2.0 out of 5 stars Unimpressed
I found nothing concrete or useful in this book. It is loaded with interesting anecdotes but they're vague with regard to execution and follow through. Read more

Published 20 months ago by J. Cadow

5.0 out of 5 stars Recommended
This book is excellent. Both Mary and Tom compares the software development with other fields of production. Read more

Published 22 months ago by Mauricio Morales

5.0 out of 5 stars What is lean and why do you care in software?
Think lean, be lean, but don't copy manufacturing verbatim. An excellent foundation for understanding basic lean concepts and how they do and do not cross-pollinate in the... Read more

Published 23 months ago by Matthew D Edwards

4.0 out of 5 stars Good book, not convinced by the examples though
It was interesting to see what "Lean Software Developement" was saying after having read "The Toyota Way". Read more

Published on November 2, 2007 by S. Ross

5.0 out of 5 stars Must read
For all parties involved in Software Development this is a must read. It is an easy read with excellent real life stories highlighting the key themes and principles.

Published on August 29, 2007 by B. Hinton

› See all 39 customer reviews...

.jsOffDisplayBlock { display: block; } .jsOffDisplayInline { display: inline; } .jsOffVisibility { visibility: visible; } .jsOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jsOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jsOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; } .jsOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jsOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jqOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jqOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jqOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; }

Customer Discussions

This product's forum

Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight

Start a new discussion

Topic:

First post:

Receive e-mail when new posts are made

Prompts for sign-in

Guidelines

Active discussions in related forums

Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
textbook Anyone need psychology testbook- trying to sell a used copy	2	8 hours ago
textbook textbook scam	72	10 hours ago
textbook Textbooks for Kindle DX?	61	7 days ago