Abstract
Traditional software development organizations have rigid processes that can be difficult to change. One of the most critical challenges is the management processes that can ensure the customer’s desired level of quality and optimize the organization’s resources. Kanban represents one of the most well-known approaches that bring Lean principles, philosophies, and tools into software organizations. This study analyses the leadership behind the Lean methodology, based on which the Kanban software implementation method has been created, by doing a literature review focusing on lean leadership principles that can optimize the software delivery and implementation. Lean practices can be applied in almost any domain like accounting, services industry, product services, and even software development. Two basic concepts stay at the core of the Lean model that can be employed at any organization level. The first focuses on eliminating waste by optimizing processes and systems, and the second focuses on maximized customer value. Consequently, it can be affirmed that Lean is focused on maximizing customer value with a minimum amount of waste. Furthermore, a case study is presented that shows the Kanban implementation at a software development company. The practical case of the Kanban adoption is analyzed, highlighting the link between the leadership principles and the process development flow. Finally, key performance indicators are identified and instituted to guarantee the continuous improvement of the software delivery model. The software development projects driven by the Kanban project management approach reported essential improvements such as waste reduction, team communication, and collaboration enhancement, work in progress diminishment, productivity-boosting, better delivery predictability, and project visibility. Therefore, the type of leadership influences the software development projects’ performance. The findings suggest that Kanban effectively enhances the software development delivery model and team performance.
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Fagarasan, C., Cristea, C., Mihele, C., Popa, O., Ciceo, D., Pisla, A. (2023). Kanban in Software Development—The Role of Leadership and Metrics. In: von Leipzig, K., Sacks, N., Mc Clelland, M. (eds) Smart, Sustainable Manufacturing in an Ever-Changing World. Lecture Notes in Production Engineering. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15602-1_28
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