From Joel Spolsky has definitely (referring to his 2005 thinking (via Wikipedia on Big Design Up Front)) gone lean. Good post on how inventory, even in software ‘factories’, may make a difference between failure and success.:
Keeping inventory costs money. Suppose your bakery has six 50-ton silos to store flour. Whenever they empty out, you fill them up. That means on the average day you have 150 metric tons of wheat flour in stock. At today’s prices, you’ve tied up $73,000. Forever. Inventory may have other costs too, like spoilage. Flour lasts for months, but the minute bread comes out of the oven it starts dropping in value; after 24 hours it’s nearly worthless.</blockquote>