Lean Software Management: BBC Worldwide Case Study Dr Peter Middleton MBA 13 th June 2014 IASA Ireland, Dublin Irish Computer Society

IASA 1.Business Technology Strategy 2.IT Environment 3.Quality Attributes 4.Design 5.Human Dynamics

Volume + Constant change Requirements / Budgets / Business Sponsors Users Hardware / Networks Database Software Staff skills and availability Culture / Privacy / Legal / Learning

UK Government advice PRINCE2: ‘Ensuring that the information required for the project team is available.’

BBC Worldwide Digital Hub Software Team Waterfall Agile Lean London 9 staff: Analyst, Architect, QA, Developers Operating cost: £1.5m p.a. C#,.NET, MS SQL Server RISK

Lean Software – key ideas Reduce Work in Process: –Minimum Marketable Feature –Analysis / Specifications –Design –Untested code Reduce total end to end time –Visible management & less risk –Flexibility

BBC

Lead time to customers -37% Variance -47%

Throughput: smaller, incremental deliveries

Fewer Bugs: -24%; Variance: -33%

Possible problems 1.Space needed for Kanban & info boards 2.Plan driven, document centric process 3.Poor fit with standardised reporting 4.Remit of IT – upstream & downstream 5.Command & control compliance model 6.Staff initiative and multi skilling Lean handles risk by low WIP, transparency, small units & frequent deliverables

Conclusion Lean provides discipline and agility Software under quantitative control Frequent, small, high value deliverables Experiments to demonstrate: –End to end time measure –Work in Progress – white board & post notes Lean Software Management: BBC Worldwide Case Study, P. Middleton & D. Joyce, IEEE Trans. on Engineering Management

Continual Improvement Days lost: -81% 26 to 5 days

Development Time -73%; Variation -78%

Differences Agile and Lean Batch / Push versus Pull –Time-boxed iterations Reliance on Data –Focus on people Continual Improvement – ‘impediment list’ / ‘improvement backlog’‘ Multi skilling –Velocity’, features, story points

Engineering Practices Decoupling – improve legacy code Test Driven Development (unit tests) Automated Acceptance Testing Source Control Software Bug tracking software Daily Stand Up (15 minutes)

Follow up to the IEEE article /04/09/lean-software-management-bbc- worldwide-case-study/ /04/09/lean-software-management-bbc- worldwide-case-study/ (lean tool)