CMMI – Lean Software Development

Lean software development is derived from the principals of Lean manufacturing. Although many similarities exist, some Lean constructs have been modified to fit the system or software development environment as well as in the research and development domain. The concepts of workflow and iteration management are fundamental to Lean software development. Some of the fundamental ideas of the CMMI are challenged and made Lean, such as:

• The specification, stability, and understanding of requirements is treated on an iteration, rather than a full project, basis
• Requirements are managed across iterations, and are expected to evolve toward a high-value customer solution
• The software architecture is used to provide a "vision point" for the management of iterations toward a high value solution
• Additional project management skills are needed, such as value stream mapping, iteration leadership, options thinking, Kanban measurements, and refactoring
  

In the software domain, Lean means:

• Sharp, continuous, proactive focus on value to the customer
• Continuous user/customer involvement
• Iteration vs. large, infrequent integration points
• Workflow management
• Iteration management and convergence
• Options thinking
• Decide as late as possible and deliver as fast as possible
• Tacit knowledge (vs. process) and rapid learning
• Concurrency and communication (IPT)
• Agile engineering support
• Lean/agile project management
• Waste elimination