Speaking of Mary Poppendieck (see below), the Feb '04 issue of Software Development magazine carries a great article about measuring the maturity of a software development organization -- specifically why assessments are better than certification. In it, Poppendieck mentions another of the 7 wastes of manufacturing, excess inventory, and how it maps to software development. "The level of inventory in your system is the amount of stuff you have under development. The more inventory of unfinished development work you have sitting around, the greater you're at risk of it becoming obsolete, getting lost and hiding defects. If you capitalized it, you also bear the risk of having to write it off if it doesn't work." This is the focal point of her analysis of why Dell succeeded in putting Zeos out of business. Zeos was named as a finalist for the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award (which would be the equivalent of a CMM Level 5 certification for us software developers). Yet, all of the so called quality-producing “capability” enshrined in the Zeos procedure manuals couldn't hold a candle to Dell's simple 2-pronged vision of keeping inventory to a minimum and delivering product to the customers as quickly as possible.
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