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Muda (8 Wastes)

Here is a clean, practical Muda (8 Wastes) system specifically adapted for software and digital businesses. This is the industry-standard way Lean is applied inside engineering, DevOps, product, and IT.

⭐ The 8 Wastes (Muda) for Software

Lean defines 8 types of waste — but in software they show up in very specific patterns.

Below is your full “Muda System for Software,” including examples and how to detect each waste.

1️⃣ Defects (Bugs, regressions, outages)

Waste = anything that must be reworked or fixed.

Examples in software:

  • Bugs, regressions, production incidents
  • Misconfigured infrastructure
  • Flaky tests
  • Misunderstood requirements
  • Security vulnerabilities

How to detect:

  • High defect rate
  • Frequent rework
  • Low test coverage
  • Postmortems repeat same issues

2️⃣ Overproduction (Building features nobody needs)

This is the #1 waste in software development.

Examples:

  • Building features before demand is validated
  • Overbuilding: too many options, premature scaling
  • Coding ahead of design or product clarity
  • Adding “nice-to-have” automations prematurely

How to detect:

  • Features not used or lightly adopted
  • Roadmap driven by assumptions, not signals
  • Long lead time before customer feedback

3️⃣ Waiting (Idle time)

Waste = engineers or systems waiting for something.

Examples:

  • Slow CI pipelines
  • Waiting for code reviews
  • Waiting for product decisions
  • Ticket blockers
  • Slow onboarding
  • Slow test suites
  • Infrastructure provisioning delays

How to detect:

  • Cycle time > 2–3 days
  • PRs waiting more than 24 hrs
  • Build times > 5 mins

4️⃣ Non-Utilized Talent (Underuse of people’s abilities)

Common in software teams.

Examples:

  • Engineers doing repetitive manual tasks
  • Senior devs stuck fixing trivial bugs
  • No automation of routine work
  • Not involving engineers in design decisions
  • Poor documentation causing dependence on a few people

How to detect:

  • Complaints of “wasted time”
  • Knowledge bottlenecks
  • High burnout

5️⃣ Transportation (Handoffs between tools or teams)

In software, transportation = handoffs, not physical movement.

Examples:

  • Throwing work over the wall to QA
  • Dev → DevOps → QA → Release → Support
  • Multiple Jira → GitHub → Notion → Slack transitions
  • Excessive approvals

How to detect:

  • Many tickets in “blocked” or “in review”
  • Unclear ownership
  • Work stalls during handoffs

6️⃣ Inventory (Work in Progress, unfinished code)

In software, WIP is your biggest invisible inventory.

Examples:

  • Branches not merged
  • PRs sitting open
  • Many “almost done” features
  • Backlogs with thousands of items
  • Half-finished refactors

How to detect:

  • Too many items in “In Progress”
  • Long-running branches
  • Unshipped code

7️⃣ Motion (Unnecessary movement of people or context switching)

This is developer context switching, not physical motion.

Examples:

  • Switching between tools
  • Interruptions (Slack, meetings)
  • Searching for documentation
  • Repeatedly setting up environments
  • Hunting for logs across systems

How to detect:

  • Devs complain about interruptions
  • Engineers constantly switching tasks
  • Lots of “where is that file?” moments

8️⃣ Extra Processing (Doing more work than needed)

Over-engineering.

Examples:

  • Gold-plated architecture
  • Writing complex systems before scale
  • Duplicate code reviews
  • Excessive documentation
  • Manual deployments despite automation available

How to detect:

  • Solutions feel heavier than the problem
  • Many steps that don’t produce customer value
  • “This is too complex for what it does”

⭐ The Complete “Muda Detection System” for Software

Lean for software uses a structured loop:

1. Gemba (observe actual workflow)​

Watch how code moves from idea → production.

2. Identify the 8 wastes in the workflow​

Use a checklist for each step.

3. Measure cycle time, WIP, defects, wait time​

Use control charts or Lead Time reports from GitHub/Jira.

4. Run Kaizen to eliminate the top wastes​

Small, continuous improvements.

5. Build SOPs and automation to prevent waste from returning​

This is your “Control” layer.

⭐ Examples of Waste-Reduction Improvements in Software

WasteLean Fix
Long PR review times (Waiting)PR review SLA, pair programming
Slow CI (Waiting)Parallel tests, caching
Many bugs (Defects)Automated tests, Poka-Yoke, pre-commit hooks
Overbuilt features (Overproduction)Customer interviews, MVP slicing
Huge backlogs (Inventory)Regular backlog pruning
Engineers doing manual deploys (Non-utilized talent)CI/CD automation
Too many meetings (Motion)Async updates
Over-engineered systems (Extra processing)YAGNI, simplify requirements

If you want…

I can build you:

✅ A GitHub-style “Muda Checklist” for every feature and bug ✅ A Weekly Waste Review Template for your business ✅ A Lean playbook tailored to your software + services company

Just tell me which one you want.