Corey Ladas takes a look at two ways to treat bugs in a kanban system. The second option is the more challenging. It requires patient courageous management. My feeling is that option 2 will produce the net higher velocity (and throughput) in the long term because it teaches the team to really focus down on prevention of bugs while option 1 treats bugs as part and parcel of the business of software development. While option 1 will suffer a throughput reduction as bugs increase, there is far less incentive to focus on eliminating them altogether.

Ideally, I'd like to run a side-by-side comparison over a 6 to 9 month period to compare these two options. How are you dealing with bugs in your kanban system? Like option 1 or option 2 or do you have you own alternative approach? Technorati tag: Agile, Lean, Kanban, Software+Engineering