(Source: Bill Wake) Is writing software more like manufacturing cookies or more like designing cookie cutters? It’s easy to wish that we could develop software like a factory stamps out cookies, but software has a design or creation element that is missing in that analogy.

But there are similarities: software is developed in stages, it is created in a process amenable to change, and it’s developed in a team. Lean manufacturing is a different approach than a traditional assembly line, and offers some lessons for software development. xp123.com/xplor/xp0312/index.shtml