Productivity, Throughput, and WIP in IT

3 thoughts on “Productivity, Throughput, and WIP in IT”

1. Well i dont agree with your final thought. If you only focus on WIP you could get enormous productivity, yes. But what about quality and business value ? The situation you will create now is, features will be rushed to get a higher WIP and throughput resulting in utterly useless functionality because the quality hasn’t been looked at. Also the easiest things will get priority, by the developers, cause they are done the quickest. Resulting in higher WIP. So be carefull what you wish for. More productivity but less happy customers will result in less productivity eventually.
   What do you think ?

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   1. First, let me be clear that I am not arguing to ONLY focus on WIP. As far as quality is concerned, the assumption is that testing procedures etc. are built into the process, just like in manufacturing. So, also testing processes are subject to WIP thinking. This is not a matter of “rushing things through”, but rather a systematic process of pushing things through the appropriate software engineering steps in the most efficient way. And that includes testing. As far as priorities are concerned, these are not set by IT, but by the business, as is customary in Agile. So, in fact, this results in MORE happy customers, because they can constantly make sure IT is working on the most pressing projects, and each of these projects is done faster. What’s not to like?

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2. thanks for your reply. Makes it more clearer. And i agree

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