Dr Peter Middleton and I have had our “Lean Software Management BBC Worldwide Case Study” paper accepted by the IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management. It will be published in the February 2012 issue. The paper was edited by Dr Jeffrey K Liker, author of the Toyota Way.
You can download a copy of the paper prior to its publication here.
I believe it will be one of the most significant papers in Software Engineering this decade.
David Anderson
Abstract
This case study examines how the lean ideas behind the Toyota production system can be applied to software project management. It is a detailed investigation of the performance of a nine person software development team employed by BBC Worldwide based in London. The data collected in 2009 involved direct observations of the development team, the kanban boards, the daily stand-up meetings, semistructured interviews with a wide variety of staff, and statistical analysis.
The evidence shows that over the 12-month period, lead time to deliver software improved by 37%, consistency of delivery rose by 47%, and defects reported by customers fell 24%.
The significance of this work is showing that the use of lean methods including visual management, team-based problem solving, smaller batch sizes, and statistical process control can improve software development. It also summarizes key differences between agile and lean approaches to software development. The conclusion is that the performance of the software development team was improved by adopting a lean approach. The faster delivery with a focus on creating the highest value to the customer also reduced both technical and market risks. The drawbacks are that it may not fit well with existing corporate standards.
Value Delivered
The paper doesn’t include the increase in business value delivered over the period of study. This was due to confidentiality agreements. What I can say is that during the period of study, the digital assets produced rose by hundred of thousands of hours of content, a 610% increase in valuable assets output by software products written by the team.
Authors
Peter Middleton received the M.B.A. degree from the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, in 1987, and the Ph.D. degree in software engineering from Imperial College, London, U.K., in 1998.
He is currently a Senior Lecturer in computer science at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland. He is the coauthor of the book Lean Software Strategies published in 2005, and the Editor of a book of case studies on applied systems thinking: the Delivering Public Services that Work published in 2010. His research interests include combining systems thinking with lean software development to help organizations significantly improve their performance.
David Joyce is a Systems Thinker and Agile practitioner with 20 years software development experience of which 12 years is technical team management and coaching experience. In recent years, David has led both onshore and offshore teams and successfully led an internet video startup from inception to launch. More recently David has coached teams on Lean, Kanban and Systems Thinking at BBC Worldwide in the U.K. He is a Principal Consultant at ThoughtWorks.
Mr. Joyce was awarded the Lean SSC Brickell Key award for outstanding achievement and leadership
Agile, Lean, Kanban, and System Thinking 
Love seeing the evidence of what benefits Lean methods and thinking can provide but also highlighting how lean does require some culture change.
Great work David!