In this recent post from Tim Huegdon sharing some of his insights and discoveries about eliminating waste from your development process (with props to the methods introduced by the Toyota Corporation and the Poppendiecks).

Eliminating waste is the first - and most fundamental - principle of Lean Software Development; something that was introduced to me by an exceptionally talented Project Manager whom it was my pleasure to work with. Lean Software Development is a set of seven fundamental principles that really work hand in hand with agile development to improve software delivery.

He introduces the concepts behind the "lean" mentality, where it's origins came from (Toyota) and how it relates to software/web development. He points out some of the places that waste can come from in development including:

• Partially complete work
• Extra features
• Task switching
• Waiting
• Defects

For each of these (and a few more) he summarizes what they're all about and some of the things that can be done to help combat them.