Lean Measurement: A Proposed Approach

Lean approach highly promotes value stream between production steps in order to improve software development processes. The main focus of a Lean approach is to identify and eliminate process waste, called “muda”, where nonvalue-added activities must be eliminated to constantly reduce the overall cycle time. Literature proposes solutions for mitigating the waste in Lean manufacturing and Lean software development. However, an approach covering the measurement process for identifying and eliminating measurement-related muda, is missing. In order to address this, we made a parallel between the software development waste types and software measurement activities, within the metric ecosystem. We focused on using the concept of waste as a lens for identifying nonvalue-producing measurement process elements. In order to achieve this, we constructed a waste identification approach through which we identified eight software measurement wastes, and proposed guidelines for measurement waste identification and reduction. These guidelines can help companies identify measurement process issues that are present in their process in a timely and efficient manner.