Lean as a Scrum Troubleshooter

Abstract

Systematic works at CMMI level 5 and uses Lean Software Development as a driver for optimizing software processes. Many of the optimizations described in this paper are the result of using A3 problem solving. What makes the Systematic experience unique, is the larger focus of the problem solving effort, at an organizational level, in which individual projects are used as experiments to try out countermeasures to address root causes. This is possible because Systematic, based on a CMMI focus, already employs a level of standard work across project and product engagements so that we can apply learning from an experiment on one project to future projects. Experience from the past five years has resulted in significant improvements to our processes including our Scrum implementation, and has revealed insight into five key measures to monitor projects. The experiences also show important lessons learned on how to combine team retrospective learning with organizational learning.