Lean Software Development: 5 Practices Worth Following

The diversity of the modern software development industry plays a major role in curving out various practices and approaches that the developers have to implement to improve the quality and efficiency of the testing cycle. Moreover, due to the rise of the mobile market, developers also have to pay proper attention to boosting the compatibility of their apps. While implementing mobile app testing, it is crucial to ensure the developers and testers have a clear conception of the target audience and the application intentions. It is also important to consider the diversity of the device market while implementing multiple testing practices. Testers generally leverages in-house device library or mobile device lab for this purpose. This is one of the major reasons why modern developers consider that conducting thorough software research is a crucial part of the app development life cycle.

In the current generation, Lean software development has become an integral part of agile methodologies. So, with this article, we are going to explore the various possibilities that developers can consider for using Lean software development to improve their overall software research strategy.

What is Lean Software Development

We can define Lean software development as a set of practices and principles that aim to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the software development process. The core concept of this development process draws its inspiration from Lean manufacturing principles that were created by Toyota in the 1950s. The primary goal of this process is to eliminate data waste, optimize the processes, and deliver value to customers in an efficient time frame.

This process also emphasizes efficiency, customer value, and flexibility from a developing company’s point of view. Recently, the Lean software development process has evolved and emerged with agile methodologies. The three main constituents of this process include continuous development, continuous integration, and continuous testing. A great implementation of this process is the execution of the development and testing processes side by side to ensure that all the bugs and errors detected in the application infrastructure can be eliminated at earlier phases. So, it not only ensures streamlining the company resources but also maintains the software quality that can meet the needs of the end users.

Importance of Lean Software Development

The implementation of Lean software development in the modern application development process can ensure various benefits for development teams and organizations. To further improve the knowledge of the new automation testers and developers in this sequence, we have mentioned some other major ones in the list:

  • Improving the Efficiency of the Test Bench: As the Lean development principles focus on eliminating testing waste and optimizing the overall process, they help improve the principal focus of the company. This process helps in conducting more efficient workflows and reducing the cycle times for improved resource utilization. Many market experts believe that the proper implementation of Lean development practices can allow the developers to conduct the application development process within a few days.
  • Enhancing the Overall App Quality: Teams can detect and address critical issues at earlier stages of the application development process by building quality into the development process. So, the overall implementation of this process helps to elevate the quality of the software and ensure that fewer defects are present in the final product before it is forwarded to the production phase. So, we can also say that the implementation of Lean development practices has an indirect role in reducing the failure rates of the application development cycle.
  • Implementing Customer Value: The primary objective of Lean principles is to prioritize delivering high-quality applications to customers. It aims to achieve this goal by implementing focus and features that can directly cater to the needs of the target audience or solve some of the most critical issues in the current market. With the implementation of Lean software development, the application developers can also conduct thorough research for improving future versions of the application and constantly expanding their user base.
  • Use of Flexibility and Adaptability: The core concept of Lean encourages iterative development for responding to changes quickly. By implementing this flexibility, the application developing teams can adapt to all the evolving technologies and market conditions more effectively. Moreover, the integration of all the latest technologies also helps the developers to ensure that their products can comply with the recent standards of the market and the end users.
  • Reducing the Development Costs:  Since Lean allows the application-developing companies to merge multiple phases of the application development life cycle, it helps to save a lot of company time and resources. Moreover, the app developing companies can channel these resources towards more efficient causes like creating new features that can be rolled out in the future updates of the application. It also helps to streamline the operations and reduce unnecessary activities for further boosting the financial efficiency of the company.

Improving Software Research with Lean Software Development

Proper implementation of Lean software development principles can help application developers massively boost their scope for efficient software research. To help the new software developers and testers with this process, we have mentioned some of the most important objectives in this list:

Elimination of Testing Waste

While performing software research, the application developers will come across various repetitive experiments or activities. So, by the implementation of Lean, they can identify and remove multiple repetitive wastes. This is because it will help them to focus on essential experiments or methodologies that will bring the most value out of the research process. The removal of repetitive processes will also ensure that the application developers can roll out the final versions of the application in a faster time frame.

Creating Value

While performing the software research process, the app developers need to define the value in the research context. So, the developers need to ensure that all the experiments or activities conducted contribute significantly towards achieving the research goals. In this context, we would also like the application developers to prioritize the research tools based on their contribution towards improving the efficiency of the overall architecture of the application development process.

This process also helps to improve the value of the application by ensuring that it can cater to all the market requirements and solve the critical errors that might be present in the present industry. Implementation of Lean software development also provides the freedom of customizing the app features according to the target audience.

Empowering the Teams

By using Lean software development, the application developing companies can ensure that all the teams involved in the app development life cycle can better collaborate among themselves and improve the productivity of the overall test bench. Some of the most important factors that the app companies can enable include efficient collaboration, sharing of insights, and leveraging diverse expertise to tackle multiple problems efficiently. Moreover, while working on complex applications, the app-developing companies can use this collaboration to share the workload and improve the testing efficiency.

Moreover, the integration of Lean software development ensures that the app-developing companies can perform the development and testing processes side by side. This process ensures that the application developers can detect and remove all the critical bugs in the app infrastructure as soon as they appear during the development process. The major benefit of this process is that it ensures the stability of the application by removing all the errors before they can turn into a serious concern.

Integration of Advanced Testing

In the modern software development industry, advanced testing processes like cross-browser testing and regression testing play a crucial role in elevating the standard and quality of the application development infrastructure. Using the prospect of Lean software development, the application developers will be able to integrate all these advanced processes in the software development life cycle.

While using Lean software development, the application developers can also integrate cloud platforms like LambdaTest to run all these test instances on real devices through multiple remote servers.

Some of the major advantages of integrating cloud platforms include access to the test bench from anywhere in the world and running the test instances on outdated devices to further boost the compatibility of the test cases. Modern cloud platforms like LambdaTest also provide additional features like live test activity logs, integration of parallel testing, and tracking of all the crucial bugs using a native bug tracker.

Prospect for Continuous Improvement

The modern application development market is going through constant changes that are rapidly adding new features and practices which are crucial for maintaining a company’s position in this competitive segment. With the involvement of Lean methodologies, app developers can constantly update the application infrastructure to ensure that it can comply with all the latest standards in the segment of app development and testing. This process also helps to encourage the developers to constantly improve and learn all the new technologies by implementing efficient research in their respective fields.

Faster App Delivery and Process Optimization

Since Lean software development allows app developing companies to merge multiple stages of the development life cycle, it can reduce lengthy processes and efficiently manage product deadlines. Moreover aiming for rapid iterations in the research process breaks down the entire research structure into smaller and manageable chunks. So, the developers can implement a faster feedback loop to learn and adapt to the changes quickly. This process also helps to prevent any bottlenecks in the testing process and ensures the smooth flow of information, tools, and resources across multiple stages of the software research phase.

So the implementation of Lean methodologies allows the application developers to improve multiple strategies related to software research, team management, and resource utilization. The ultimate goal of this entire infrastructure is to accelerate the pace of innovation and application discovery. We would also advise the application developers to remember that the specific requirements and implementations will vary depending on the nature of the app development project. Therefore it is crucial for the developers to properly create test plans that can analyze the requirements, implementation of tools, and other features.

The Conclusive Views

With this article, we discussed some of the most important parameters that can justify Lean software development as an integral part of modern software research technology. In this segment, we would also like to advise the developers to continue integrating modern software development practices to further elevate the standards of their development process and improve the concept of mobile app testing. It is also important to have a clear conception of the requirements of the app and the target audience to implement customized features for expanding the user base. The app companies can also consider conducting frequent awareness campaigns and seminars that can help them spread information regarding healthy software development practices.