Lean Software Development and Agile Methodologies for a small Software development organization

Abstract: Lean Software Development is a new approach to provide a quality philosophy in software development companies. Lean offers a set of principles that helps companies to identify inefficient processes and waste. Therefore, by applying these principles, we can reduce costs, by shorting development time, incrementing productivity.In this study a software company with seven employees is analyzed. The company develops software and wants to increase its maturity and the quality of its processes. Currently, it has few documented processes. Furthermore, the company want a common way of working for every project. The challenge relies in adapting the set of principles provided by Lean to this particular case of study.We seek to analyze the current situation of the company to find out about the problems and limitations of the current way of working. After that we will state recommendations about the use of Lean combined with Agile practices such as Scrum and XP.As a result we present a proposal for implementation adapted from these philosophies to the needs and characteristics of the company.We have found that there are several ways in which the company can benefit from the implementation of Lean practices in combination with Scrum and XP. The result is a new framework that can be applied for other small software development companies in a similar situation.