Design Thinking and Lean Software Development

Enterprise software development revolves around complex and interdependent software products for different companies, lines of business and industries. For enterprise software companies there is an inherent trade-off between standard software and domain-specific software solutions when it comes to scaling. Software companies thus have to keep track of various heterogeneous and possibly conflicting market requirements that are subject to changes and updates in ever shorter release cycles. This trade-off becomes even more relevant in the context of the current mega trend towards cloud-based delivery of enterprise software. However, it is essential for every enterprise software company to be able to build meaningful solutions efficiently, i.e. building right things right.

To be able to do so in the long run, software companies have been elaborating good practices to ensure both innovative product ideas and efficient development processes. However, the larger the software companies the more elaborate corporate standards and processes have been established – often hindering innovation. In order to address the innovators’ dilemma, Business Model Innovation, Design Thinking, Lean Management and Agile Software Engineering practices are adopted and intertwined in large-scale software development organizations.

The goal of this lecture is to convey profound industry experience and academic background paired with its practical application based on concrete enterprise software challenges in the parallel IS 613 project (combining this lecture with the project is highly recommended). The course includes lecture and full-day workshop formats.