Mary Poppendieck - Keynote speaker at Scandinavian Developer Conference - Goteborg April 17 www.scandevconf.se

Software Doesn't Matter

If you look at the history of software failures, the vast majority can be attributed not to software errors, but mistakes in understanding what should be built, what customers will value, what the overall system needs to do in order to be successful.  The bottom line is this – if we don’t build the right thing, we may as not build anything at all. Because customers don’t want software – they want a problem solved. And if they could get that problem solved without software – they would be delighted.

Our job is not about software, it’s about the system, the customer, the delivered value. Therefore we need to learn how to manage our work with continuous feedback loops that are large enough to include the whole system, experiments that are valid enough to reliably identify value, and creative thinking that extends all the way from the development team to its ultimate customer.

Mary Poppendieck

As Information Systems Manager in a video tape manufacturing plant, Mary first encountered the Toyota Production System, which later became known as Lean Production.   She implemented one of the first Just-in-Time systems in 3M, resulting in dramatic improvements in the plant's performance.
Three times Mary has partnered with small companies, twice negotiating and funding a multi-million dollar equity investment. But understanding small companies from the investor point of view was not enough; so she joined one of the start-ups to lead its R&D effort.
A popular writer and speaker, Mary’s classes on managing software development offer a fresh perspective on project management.  Her book Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit, was published in 2003 and won the Software Development Productivity Award in 2004.  A sequel, Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash, was published in 2006, and Leading Lean Software Development: Results are Not the Point, was published in November, 2009.