According to lean philosophy, products should be produced at the right time efficiently, flexibly, and without non-value-adding activities i.e waste. The problem was approached through a case study of a distributed software development project - in particular by analysing what types of waste occurred in the project and whether the work flow was efficient.

The data was collected by observing the students in the Software Factory course at work and interviewing them. The project was a success from both the customer's and the student's point of view: the product was completed on time and learning experience was positive to everyone. It is demonstrated  that there occurred variety of different types of waste in the project. Some types of waste could have been prevented or eliminated. This is further demonstrated by a more detailed analysis of a specific set of problems observed in the project, namely collaboration problems, which relate closely to a waste called ineffective communication. This thesis also indicates that it would have been possible to optimize  the work flow by following shared practises. Ineffective and insufficient communication leads to several types of waste, such as extra features, defects in the product under development and unnecessary waiting between different sites. Although all types of waste are important to identify and eliminate, it seems that ineffective communication is  the reason behind most other types of waste commonly occurring in distributed projects.

Paula Mäenpää (University of Helsinki): Lean Perspective on Distributed Software Development: Case Study in Waste Factors

https://www.cloudsoftwareprogram.org/results/thesis-and-articles/i/27721/1570/thesis-lean-perspective-on-distributed-software-development-case-study-in-waste-factors

Cloud Software Finland is Tivit's four-year (2010-2014) program which focuses on developing different areas of cloud services. The program is sponsored by Tekes

Cloud Software Finland Program: https://www.cloudsoftwareprogram.org/