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Lean Software Management Case Study: Timberline Inc.

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Book cover Extreme Programming and Agile Processes in Software Engineering (XP 2005)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 3556))

Abstract

This paper is believed to be the first documented account of a full adoption of lean by a software company. Lean techniques were devised by Toyota and other manufacturers over the last 50 years. The techniques are termed lean because they require less resource to produce more product and exceptional quality. Lean ideas have also been successful in service industries and product development. Applying lean to software has been advocated for over 10 years. Timberline, Inc started their lean initiative in Spring 2001 and this paper records their journey, results and lessons learned up to Fall 2003. This case study demonstrates that lean thinking can work successfully for software developers. It also indicates that the extensive lean literature is a valuable source of new ideas for software engineering.

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© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Middleton, P., Flaxel, A., Cookson, A. (2005). Lean Software Management Case Study: Timberline Inc.. In: Baumeister, H., Marchesi, M., Holcombe, M. (eds) Extreme Programming and Agile Processes in Software Engineering. XP 2005. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3556. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11499053_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11499053_1

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-26277-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-31487-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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