This is one of the key philosophies of the lean development model. Anything that does not directly add value to the final deliverable is considered as a blocker and must be removed.
Typical cases of things that are characterized as waste by this model are as follows:
- Introduction of non-essential, that is, nice-to-have features when development is underway.
- Overly complicated decision-making processes that force development teams to remain idle while waiting for a feature to be signed off – in other words: bureaucracy!
- Unnecessary communication between the various project stakeholders and the development teams. This disrupts the focus of the development team and hinders their development velocity.