Semantic Werks

Having just read a book on Toyota Production System (TPS), and following various developments in lean software development, I was curious to know what Toyota itself was doing with respect to software. Software forms a large part of new vehicles (I’ve heard figures like 50% of new car development costs), so this seems like a good place to use notions like continuous improvement, visual management, waste reduction, etc.

I gather as part of a “Lean” tour of Japan, various Lean software thought-leaders (Mary Poppendieck, among others) had occasion to meet with the head of Toyota’s software division. From the description of the meeting, it sounded like Toyota were doing fairly standard BRUF development — analyze, plan, implement, test, deliver. Some people call this ‘waterfall’ but personally, I don’t think that term has ever been well-defined.  Certainly I doubt anyone has ever said, “Hey, let’s do waterfall on this project!”

So from the initial description, fairly standard development, but, being Toyota, there’s more to the story. Mary Poppendieck elaborated on her understanding, suggesting that in the process control domain, the three month cycle is quite fast (close to some Scrum sprint lengths of 1 month, anyway). There is also some interesting follow-up discussion here and here. The takeaway seems to be that ‘context is everything’.  The other takeaway might be “Toyota isn’t perfect”.

via @agilemanager and @alinahsu