Home > Author > Mary Poppendieck
1 " Commitment to deliver on time and on budget was not made based on the details; details didn't exist. Their commitment was based on the ability to shape the details. "
― Mary Poppendieck , Leading Lean Software Development: Results Are Not the Point
2 " The biggest cause of failure in software-intensive systems is not technical failure; it’s building the wrong thing. "
3 " Almost everything we know about good software architecture has to do with making software easy to change "
― Mary Poppendieck , Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash
4 " customers do not need scope. They need to have business goals accomplished within some constraints of time and cost. "
5 " Suppose a developer has a conversation with a customer about details of a feature. The conversation should not be considered complete until it is expressed as a customer test. "
― Mary Poppendieck , Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit
6 " It may seem like writing tests slows down development; in fact, testing does not cost, it pays, both during development and over the system’s lifecycle. "
7 " attempting to maximize utilization is a self-defeating process. Optimal utilization can be achieved only by concentrating on flow. "
8 " Budgets and plans have three purposes: (1) Set goals, (2) make forecasts, and (3) allocate resources. It would seem efficient to use a single plan to accomplish all three purposes, but in fact, combining the purposes compromises all of them. "
9 " It is very important to defer public commitment to exactly which features will be in the product, because this makes it possible to reliably release the product on time. The release date is guaranteed, but the exact features are not. Timebox—don’t scopebox. "
10 " leaders in many companies believe that developers should not talk to customers because this is a waste of valuable developer time. "
11 " direct developer-customer interaction delivered more of the right content, increased sales, and dramatically reduced support calls. "
12 " The simple mathematical fact working here is that variation is always amplified as it moves down a chain of connected events. A little variation in step one introduces a huge variation five steps later. "
13 " He notes that the policies established to solve a problem will often exacerbate the problem, creating a downward spiral: As a problem gets worse, managers apply even more aggressively the very policies that are causing the problem. "
14 " we shouldn’t add features until they are needed. Forget just in case; develop just in time. "
15 " It would be much better to assign work to established teams than to reconstitute teams around projects. "
16 " Principles are underlying truths that don’t change over time or space, while practices are the application of principles to a particular situation. "
17 " Frameworks should be extracted from a collection of successful implementations, not built on speculation. "
18 " the most successful development occurs when developers talk directly to customers or are part of business teams. "
19 " However, if damaging behavior can be limited through the relationship rather than the contract, all manner of benefits in terms of speed, flexibility, cost, and information exchange can result. Unfortunately, these benefits are counterintuitive "
20 " In a three-year period, we had 78 projects, and 77 of them were delivered on time, on budget, and in scope. Then I surveyed the customers and found out that none of them was happy! "
