Differentiation between Lean and Agile Methodology

The paper is based on the collaboration of agile and lean methodology in the IT industry. The IT industry is provided with a high value to the customers, employees and markets. Sandberg and Crnkovic (2017) discussed that agile and lean methodology in IT industry is performing faster and producing high quality of business offerings. This particular paper is based on analyzing the problems which are faced by the IT industry while implementing the agile and lean methodology. In this paper, the problem discussed is that there is a gap to balance agile and lean methodologies based on maintenance of project quality and cost effective project work.There is problem of scaling in collaboration among the lean and agile methodologies based on context of project management. The challenges are occurred to maintain balance on cost and quality of products. At the time of supplying products in the market, the IT industry faces scaling problem while collaboration of methodologies affects people in IT-based firms (Kupiainen, Mantyla, &Itkonen, 2015). It would lead to solve and lead to compromise the quality of products.

The project management methodologies are used with applicability to manage and control incremental projects for different types of project. The methodologies are raising popularity into the software development because of their simplicity and proven productivity into the engineering practices. This paper differentiates lean and agile methodologies so that the reader should understand the advantages and disadvantages of both methodologies individually (Tripp, Saltz, & Turk, 2018). It also helps to understand which methodology is best suited for software development in the IT industry.

The lean methodology can eliminate waste through business practices to select specific valuable features of the system and deliver into small batches. It is emphasized with speed as well as the competence of the development workflow and relied on feedback from the customers. It is focused to make decisions and effective way to control the project cost (Rost et al., 2015). This methodology is based on three main principles such as it can visualize the workflow, limits the amount of work into progress and enhances the flow of work.

Abrahamsson et al., (2017) discussed that agile methodology is a method to manage design as well as build activities of engineering and information technology. It aims to provide a new product as well as service development in a flexible way to evolve throughout collaborative efforts and cross-functional teams. Matharu et al., (2015) proposed that agile methodology is people focused approach towards the software development. This methodology is aimed for continuous improvement into quality so that the software development project can get successful into the project work.

The agile and lean methodologies are increasing communication which allows the team to share information with the clients. Both of the methodologies are used in this study to remedy the problems. It enables transparency and provides the team with the ability to find the problems. Agile as well as lean enables better relations among business users. It tends to provide a better product, stronger team morale and lean to adopt changes in the business processes (Kupiainen, Mantyla, &Itkonen, 2015). Collaboration among agile and lean methodology indicates of higher contribution to theoretical aspects and explains the strategy of the supply chain related to the IT industry.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Agile and Lean Methodology

The IT industry is created of the agile manifesto which highlighted the core value of the agile(Matharu et al., 2015). It is a set of the engineering best practices planned to permit for rapid release of a high quality of business products and services.   

The commonly used terms in this paper are agile methodology, which is an approach in project management used into software development. This method is assisted the project team in responding to the unpredictability of the constructing software. Lean methodology term is used into the business application. This concept is delivering more value with less waste into the project context. Lean is such a systematic method to eliminate waste into the manufacturing system (Rost et al., 2015). It is an act to reduce the waste and add customer-defined value to the products furthermore services. The project management methodologies are allowed to control entire processes through decision making as well as problem solving. It ensures the success of the business processes and approaches.

The implementation of concepts of the agile as well as lean project management is done to achieve effective along with productive work processes. By conducting workshops and training, it helps to aware the individuals and workforces regarding the implementation of both methodologies in IT industry (Sandberg &Crnkovic, 2017). According to most of the researchers, investment in implementing those concepts is high, as it helps to prevent resources to deplete at a fast rate.

Among the lean and agile methodologies, agile methodology is a better methodology to be used in the IT industry. Into the agile development, testing is being integrated throughout the project lifecycle that means there are regular checkups to observe the product is working throughout the project development. As the product owner is involved, therefore the progress of development is highly visible as well as flexible to make possible project changes. It is implied of engagement along with customer satisfaction. Kupiainen, Mantyla and Itkonen (2015) pointed out that agile methodology increases project control by sprint meetings in addition to transparency. This particular methodology eliminates chances of the project failures, such that no such agile project can fail.  

The ideas regarding lean software development are being drawn from the lean manufacturing as well as lean product development. The lean production is focused on production processes and focused on removing waste from its production processes. The waste is defined as such things which are not contributed to creating value for the customers. Into the lean product development, manufacturing processes for the mass production are the center of attention and entire product development processes. Thum et al., (2014) stated that lean software development shares principles as well as practices with agile software development.  

In this study, a survey is researched in large to get an overview of the research phenomenon about the population. As this research study is based on gaining an in-depth understanding of research, therefore the questionnaire method is selected as the best to analyze the selected research topic.In this study, the research contributions are used implementation of agile software development to add benefit in lean practices. Overall, the comparison shows that the survey was considered as a suitable research method to achieve the research contributions. The research contributions are the use of the implementation of agile software development and added benefit to use lean practices in the IT industry.

Collaboration of Agile and Lean Methodology in IT Industry

Statement of the problem

Based on a selected research topic, the research question for this study is:

1. Howis awareness of lean and agile methodologies concerning collaboration maturity model in the IT industry?

The IT industry is facing challenges while implementing advanced concepts such as agile and lean project management. Most of the researchers state that lack of awareness to handle and use those methodologies related to the techniques. The staff working in IT industry is not able to keep updated with those methodologies to be used in software development. The selected research question is clear and focused on the research topic as more awareness is required while implementing those methodologies into the business process.

The IT industry is faced problems such as project delays, cost overruns as well as poor quality of materials. The industry is complex along with dynamic, and there is an increase in customer collaboration (Menezeset et al., 2018). The agile and lean methodologies are implemented to solve those problems as agile methodology encourages collaboration and engagement with the project stakeholders. It helps to counter of increasing complex environment. Lean methodology helps to reduce non-value-added items and also increases of customer’s value. This methodology works with minimum resources and also helps to increase business efficiency (Gousios, Pinzger, &Deursen, 2014). Most of the researchers suggested using of agile methodology in IT industry for software development. Agile methodology is used in the execution stage as it involves various iterations and takes stakeholders into project considerations. It is a fact that a new method is required from top management along with the satisfaction of the project stakeholders.

The hypothesis for this research study is H1: If there is an increase in collaboration of lean and agile methodology then there is an increase in level of software quality.

The agile software development is popular among the IT industry practitioners as it benefits regarding decreasing the time to market as well as increasing development and product quality. The agile methodology is found to have limitations to scale to an entire organization. Lean methodology emerges into the software development as it is close to agile methods enhance the software development processes and scales the agile (Ortu et al., 2018). It is required to understand the lean thinking can join with established software engineering practices to attain of best approaches. In this method, there is limited involvement of the customers and project requirements to make sure that the final product is to meet with business needs.

The deliverables of this study are the final research report, case studies on IT industries used of agile and lean methodology for software development, guidelines for the students and staffs.

This research study is based on primary research where the data are collected through the use of survey questionnaire methods. The questions related to selected research topic are selected, and it is distributed to the employees of the IT industry. Based on the answers of the participants, it is analyzed if proper awareness is done regarding the implementation of agile and lean methodologies in IT industry.

Figure : Steps of research work

Survey Research Regarding Agile and Lean Methodology in IT Industry

(Source: Created by author)

From this study, it is analyzed that at first identification of a research topic is done where the researcher main aim is to analyze the research requirements. The selected topic for this research study is a collaboration of agile and lean methodology in IT industry. The problem statement for this study is analyzed based on the research related gaps which is related to implementation of software methodologies in IT industry. The literature study is reviewed so that based on the data; primary research is conducted using survey questions based on a selected research topic. The proposed approach is made using the feedback results of the participants. Finally, the findings of the study are done to analyze if the IT organization are aware of using agile and lean methodologies into the business processes.  

According to Fullerton, Kennedy and Widener (2014), success in the present marketplace generally hinges upon the ability of the IT industry to deliver the entire value both to the employees as well as to the customers of the organisation. It is found that the IT industry requires moving much faster for delivering higher quality of the products as well as services to the customers by giving the structure as well as stability to give a healthy organisational culture. It is stated by Bhamu and Singh Sangwan (2014) that both agile, as well as lean project management methodologies, are generally helpful for moving the entire business much faster for producing higher quality of offerings in a very much sustainable as well as healthy work environment (Yang, Kuo, Su, & Hou,2015).  It is found that they are generally implemented quite differently within the different teams, and thus there is some confusion related to the distinction between various practices as well as methodologies that are mainly associated with them.

System development life cycle is one of the domains of competency that is mainly used within the system of engineering, information system as well as software engineering for elaborating the process for planning, testing as well as deploying an information system (Rohani&Zahraee 2015). Three paradigms are liner approaches, iterative approaches as well as component-based software development. It is identified that Nallusamy (2016), SDLC methodology generally have clear objectives as well as stable requirements of the project so that by using the approach, the IT industry can flourish effectively.

 In the vocabulary of traditional discipline of engineering, the concept of software engineering is the newest addition. Due to the growing technology in the business as well as IT industries, the business organizations are collaborating agile and lean methodology to meet the IT project objectives (Rodríguez et al., 2018). The ongoing project complexity will be minimized rather completely resolved with the successful utilization of two of these technologies. Within the IT industry agile project management methodology has become one of the most important software development approaches (Suomalainen, Kuusela&Tihinen, 2015). This approach is capable of delivering quality software products to consumers successfully. Key abstractions for all flavours of the agile methodology are applicable mainly for the change management. Through the application and help of quality level practices the development process can become much easier and at the same time, can also involve the consumers in the process of development. The large IT industry has also acknowledged that the industrial challenges can be completely resolved with lean methodology and agile development methodology.

Problem Statement and Justification

According to Dingsoyr and Lassenius (2016), the approach agility is largely dependent on different three basic dimensions such as innovations, flexibility and aggressiveness. The flexibility of the approach helps to summarize and drive the IT industry towards its goal and objectives by developing quality services and products.  Lesser and Ban (2016) stated that there are many IT companies which shows the success, failure and associated challenges for all the software projects. In the case of waterfall methodologies this kind of issues is very high.  The percentage of failure is lesser in agile methodology than waterfall and lean methodology, and the success rate is higher accordingly. Due to benefits in the delivery and quality of both services and products most of the IT industry uses the concept of agile software development methodology. It gives continuous development to gain appropriate defines visibility as well as time for the market level demands (Fenton &Bieman, 2014).  As agile methodology can provide continuous improvement to the consumers, thus most of the business owners use this specific approach. Though, for both the IT and non-IT projects these methodologies are beneficial.

According to Buyukozkan et al. (2015), Lean practices are considered to be that practice that generally aims to achieve the Lean principles. It is found that the selected practices for the proper adoption include addressing bottlenecks, considering incentives, as well as measuring and managing, are considered to be significant. As a result, they are selected as top priority practices as per the criteria. On the other hand, it is found that in IT industry, lean manufacturing is used as one of the improvement techniques that generally focus on the actual requirements as well as needs of the customers by preventing the waste from being built within the entire system (Jasti&Kodali, 2016).  One of the most principles of Lean is the proper identification of value that is mainly perceived with the help of the customers by providing what they generally want. In addition to this, it is found that the use of lean methodology assists in managing the work that is associated with the IT industry quite easily (Nallusamy et al., 2015). It is found that the lean approach generally starts at the bottom of the organisation in which the management generally helps in imposing changes on the entire work procedure.  

Edwards Jr (2017) stated that Agile Methodology is one of the most significant methodologies that are developed for integrating the management of the activities and aligning the development of information management. The researchers and executives have been forming the derivation for the process methodology of Agile for integrating the methods of execution of the projects with the implication of the successful management of the operations (Mahadevan, Kettinger, &Meservy, 2015). The inclusion of the agile methodology has been helpful for deploying the utilisation of the activities and removing the factors for development. The removal development and inclusion management had been implied with the successful management of the process. According to Kuhl (2014), the senior management had been assisted with the continuation of the factors and deploying the management of comprehensive information management. The project alignment is implied with list of phases such as initiation, planning, developing, and closing. The project initiation starts with developing the information and formation of the information management.

After analyzing the application of agile methodology different ranges of possible benefits are identified associated with this. Agile methodologies provide various business opportunities to the stakeholders to develop the project team. Through involving the clients in each of the project phases, a high degree of project collaboration can be obtained between the project manager, stakeholders and other project team members (Fenton & Bieman 2014). In order to understand the demand and vision of the clients, the collaboration is very much crucial. In order to deliver a higher quality of working software the ability of the project team members is very much important. In other words, the agile methodology can also provide unique business opportunities to the clients throughout the project progress phase. New additional features can be added to the project with agile project methodology. Due to the fixed sprint of duration at the project initiation phase, the project manager can predict the cost and time of the projects. Regarding the priority features the decision approaching also becomes much easier (Tripp Saltz& Turk, 2018).  The project team needs to focus on the subset of features of the products in every project iteration and delivery phase. It also gives opportunities to the project manager and the project team members for a constant refine and reprioritization regarding the product backlog.  Even also for next iterations, the planning is possible for the changed backlogs. In order to introduce the changes for a specific product and service, it can provide huge business opportunities (Antinyan et al., 2014). Moreover, it can be said that this approach allows business owners to introduce needful changes to their product and services.

Following are principles of agile methodology in the IT industry such as:

1. The highest priority of the agile methodology is to satisfy the customers by providing them continuous delivery of the software.  By shortening time between project documentation and customer reporting, the IT industry delivers what the customer needs (Fenton&Bieman, 2014).
2. Agile processes can harness change in customer’s competitive advantages.
3. This methodology can deliver working software regularly from couple of weeks to couple of months with preference of shorter timescale.
4. The agile processes must build bridge between business people and software developers so that they can understand each other. Tools are used to facilitate exchange of ideas so that from both side it is understandable (Jasti&Kodali, 2016).
5. The agile projects are built among motivated individuals and they are provided with good working and supporting environment to perform their job.
6. Most effective method to convey information among the development team is face-to-face conversation so that speed to achieve the information becomes faster. It helps to create a collaborative environment.
7. The agile processes are promoted with sustainable development. The software developers and users can maintain a steady speed until further notice (Lesser& Ban, 2016).
8. The agile methods are concerned to the technical excellence furthermore a good design enhanced agility.
9. This method can cut unnecessary complexities to keep the project work simple. The project management tools can cut busy work and control over project aspects (Gousios, Pinzger&Deursen, 2014).

Bhamu and Singh Sangwan (2014) stated that lean principles are used to improve software practices into large-scale IT industry. The lean software development results to adapt to lean principles from the manufacturing to software development domains. Cherrafi et al., (2016) pointed out that lean principles can reduce development time, usage of resources, reduce quality problems and increase innovation. Compared to the lean manufacturing, the lean product development is little recognized as well as argued about outside Toyota. According to Yang et al., (2015), the outcome of a lean transformation is recognition of the management excellence, ability to innovate along with massive growth into the profitability of the company. Elimination of waste is a significant critical principle of lean manufacturing. The lean thinking believed that not all necessary processes are in the IT Company can add value to the customers. Required paperwork reduces the processes along with response time. Sundar, Balaji and Kumar (2014) suggested that lean thinking is a paperwork which is not hiding of any quality issues related to product.

Besides agile project management methodology, another known and widely used management methodology is also available known as a lean project management methodology. The project challenges that may interrupt the success of the project can be completely resolved with the implementation of this process (Nicholas, 2015). It keeps on sending a reminder to the project team members regarding needful changes. One of the major components of lean is that it can successfully deliver working visibility based on the project resources, goals and risks as well. With the help of this approach, the project manager and the project team members of the IT team gets details information regarding the project (Ciccullo et al., 2017).  Due to huge competitive advantages, the rate of commercial revenue for the specific projects also gets enhanced (Nurdiani, Börstler& Fricker, 2016). Expect then the IT industry many other industries use the process of lean project management methodology. In both the private and public sectors, the lean methodology is very helpful. Certain issues can be resolved with the help of the lean methodology.

Following are principles of lean methodology in the IT industry which can improve workplace efficiency such as:

Define value: In order to understand the principle defining the customer value, it is required to understand about the value. The customer value is what the customer desires to pay. The techniques like demographic information, web analytics, and surveys are used to determine what the customers get valuable (Kupiainen, Mantyla, &Itkonen, 2015).

Map the value stream: Second principle is identifying as well as mapping value stream. The goal is used of customer’s value as reference point and identified activities which can contribute customer values (Fullerton, Kennedy, & Widener, 2014). By reduction and elimination of unnecessary processes, it ensures that the customers can get what they want and reduce the production cost.

Create flow: After removal of waste from value stream, it ensures that flow of process can run properly without delays. The value added activities are reconfiguration the production steps, workload leveling, cross functional needs creation and training to the employees.

Establish pull: Inventory is considered as a waste in the production system. Pull based system is limitation of inventory as well as work in process items which making sure that there is smooth flow of information (Kumar& Yadav, 2017). The pull based system permits for just-in-time delivery where the products are created at time that they are required and in just quantities required.

Pursue perfection: The wastes are prevented through four steps like identifying customer value, mapping value stream, creating flow and adopting the pull system (Kupiainen, Mäntylä, &Itkonen, 2015). Each of the employees should be strived towards perfection while delivering the products based on customer’s requirements.

Gousios, Pinzger and Deursen(2014) stated that waste elimination is an effective way to increase profitability in the IT industry. The seven wastes are consisted of:

Overproduction:It is highly costly as it prohibits smooth flow of the materials along with degrades quality plus productivity. Overproduction manufacturing is being referred to as just in case. It creates high lead time, results in higher cost for storage and makes difficult to detect the defects.

Waiting:When the goods are not processing, then waste of waiting is occurred. More than 99% of the product’s life is spent waiting to process (Bhamu& Singh Sangwan, 2014). Most of lead time of products is in waiting for next operations, as flow of material is poor and long production runs.  

Transport:Transporting the product among the processes is cost incursion that can add no value to the product. The material handlers are used transport materials resulted to organizational cost which can add no customer value (Ciccullo et al., 2017). Transportation is critical to reduce because of perceived cost of moving equipments plus processes together.

Improper processing:The organizations are used of high precision equipmentswhere simple tools are sufficient.

Unnecessary inventory:Work in progress is a result of overproduction as well as waiting. Excess inventory can increase the lead time, delay in identification of issues and improper communication.

Excess motion:This waste is related to health and safety issues which are becoming a problem in the IT organization (Jasti&Kodali, 2016). The jobs with excessive motion are analyzed and redesigned to improve with involvement of the personnel.

Defects:In order to have direct impact to bottom line, the quality defects are resulted in rework. Associated costs are included of rescheduling, loss of capacity and quarantining inventory.

Based on the behavioral or design science research, the main results which are expected for this research study are based on the data which is collected through survey and interview methods. The results are produced through the use of primary data collection method where the employees working into the IT industry are selected to conduct the study. The data is collected through the use of a survey questionnaire method where a list of questions based on a selected research topic is distributed among the participants so that they can provide their own responses.  

The focus of this study is to solve the problems with scaling of collaboration among lean as well as agile methodologies occurs into the context of project management using the primary data collection methods where the feedback and responses from the participants are taken to argue on a selected research topic.  

The overall process which is used to answer to the questions is primary data collection. The raw data are provided detailed insight of information based on a selected research topic. The raw data is required to validate data sources based on validity and reliability. In order to collect data, the researcher had evaluated responses from the participants and questions were extracted from sensitive information based on the collaboration of agile and lean methodology in IT industry.

In order to conduct this study, the researcher is involved to collect data and information related to the organization; therefore they are dealing with the confidentiality of those data. The researcher has ensured that the data are not published publicly. The researcher has not pressurized the participants to provide their feedback. Based on the ethical considerations, the researcher is trying to follow the research ethics rules and regulations.  

Conclusion

With regards to the future work, further studies are to be required on the agile software development, and it is focused on large-scale software development. The rapid implementation is required to study the understanding of the long-term effects based on benefits and challenges of the approach. It is seen that agile and lean methodologies are beneficial to develop the software products. This study provides the decision makers with understanding of how it is initiated to develop agile and lean methodologies. It leads to successful implementation of system development life cycle methodologies. The agile and lean software development has become popular among the industrial practitioners as it benefits to decrease time-to-market along with increase in development, flexibility in addition to the quality of product. The agile methodology has limitations to scale entire organizations. Lean is a term which has emerged into software development as a means to enhance software development processes. It is required to understand how lean thinking is combined with well recognized software engineering observations to attain the best of the approaches. The literature study revealed an idea to apply lean to software development while agile manifesto is formulated. Collaboration of concepts of agile and lean methodologies is done to achieve effective as well as creative work procedures. Conducting workshops and training not only help the company spread awareness of these methodologies, but also help to implement agile and lean concepts into the IT industry. Most of the experts say that although the investment required to implement these concepts is higher, it helps in long run by prevention of resources to deplete at faster rate. The purpose of this paper is to research and spread awareness of the concepts such as lean in addition to agile among the project managers working in the IT industry.

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