As businesses operate within ever-tightening budget cycles, it is critical to streamline development projects to get the maximum value out of available resources. Two approaches that have become particularly important in addressing this challenge are DevOps and Value Stream Management (VSM). Combining these two techniques offers development projects a new management and reporting layer to resolve issues while optimizing the end-to-end software delivery process.
Understanding VSM
Value Stream Management (VSM) is an approach to software development that can enhance traditional DevOps practices by optimizing the end-to-end software delivery process. It deepens the focus to help identify and eliminate waste, reduce lead time for new features, and improve the value flow to customers.
Mapping DevOps Value Streams
Mapping out the entire software development process can help to identify where changes can be made for maximum impact. By understanding how each aspect of the pipeline contributes to the overall value, it becomes easier to identify and remove inefficiencies that prevent that value from being delivered. To gain a comprehensive overview of a project’s value stream, users should start by analyzing the data collected within their CI/CD toolchains.
Analyzing Pipeline Data
Pipeline data provided by today’s CI/CD toolchains holds valuable information for development teams. It has details on lead time, cycle time, and throughput, all of which can reveal where bottlenecks exist in the development process. By analyzing pipeline data, inefficiencies can be identified, and the development team can make data-driven decisions to mitigate them.
Transparency and visibility
VSM can bring transparency and visibility to the data generated by the tools across your DevOps pipeline every day. This data includes the process of how a feature moves from concept to release, and ensures that all processes are running smoothly. Utilizing appropriate VSM tools can provide increased transparency and better visibility into how the components of the pipeline are linked together, and how products move through the pipeline.
VSM also brings positive effects of improved collaboration and communication to DevOps practices. Team members who have transparency into the project’s value stream feel empowered to collaborate to improve the process. This leads to more trust between teams and better communication, resulting in faster resolutions of issues, minimizing time spent redoing work or significant delays in development progress.
There’s always room for continuous improvement, and the use of VSM tools and data can help eliminate any remaining silos in DevOps practices. By collecting and analyzing data, teams can receive feedback and keep track of metrics related to the project’s flow. Utilizing this data informs where the next iteration should focus and creates a seamless flow for projects.
When planning a move to VSM, it is important to avoid an overly prescriptive command-and-control approach. This approach may increase resistance from team members and could ultimately lead to failure at the onset. It is essential to understand team dynamics and how different personalities react to changes in process and communication before implementing VSM. With the information gleaned, an effective plan can be created and implemented with strong change management in place.
In conclusion, streamlining development projects is a top priority in today’s business environment, and combining DevOps with VSM provides an innovative way to tackle this challenge. By mapping out DevOps value streams, analyzing pipeline data, promoting transparency and visibility into the process, facilitating effective collaboration and communication, and continually improving the process, VSM enables project managers to streamline processes and increase project speed and efficiency. While the positive effects of VSM can be revolutionary for an organization, its implementation requires careful planning. Companies that utilize VSM can ultimately maximize the value they receive from their development projects while reducing errors and delays in delivering apps to the market.
