Continuous project refactoring

As I’ve matured in my career as a project-based professional (I’m really not a project manager anymore), I sometimes like to go back to industries I was previously engaged in and one that I regularly like to stay abreast of is information technology and software development in particular.  As I mentioned in a previous post on adopting the Liskov Substitution Principle (LSP) to designing requirements so that changes to them and transparent to the end customer, another I find useful is the idea of refactoring.

 

As Wikipedia states:

 

Code refactoring is the process of restructuring existing computer code – changing the factoring – without changing its external behavior.  Refactoring improves nonfunctional attributes of the software.  Advantages include improved code readability and reduced complexity to improve source code maintainability, and create a more expressive internal architecture or object model to improve extensibility.

 

This is basically Lean and another form of 5S.  I like the idea of improving “nonfunctional attributes” as keeping things clean and continuously improving is not always about improving the functional stuff, but also by keeping things clean and organized on a continuous basis, this leaves a foundation for efficiency and effectiveness.

 

In any event, a rigorous process of eliminating waste, clutter, duplications and redundancies all the while maintaining simplicity and elegance of solutions is a prescription for success in projects and life in general.