The VSM Renaissance: Catalysed by DevOps

DevOps has enabled digital transformation. In fifteen years it’s revolutionised the way we engineer software. It’s spread continuous integration and delivery across the globe, humanised IT culture, automated toil and paid down technical debt. But it’s nowhere near done. Actually, a lot of organisations have hit a ceiling. A wall. The brakes. Stagnated. The promise is still there: that we can thrive in the digital age, create joy through customer experiences, move fast, be nimble, outcompete, and achieve extraordinary levels of organisational performance. But it needs unlocking - unblocking. Value Stream Management has hundreds of years of history - but its time is now. Building on everything we’ve learned from DevOps, using the toolchains and pipelines and rich data sources we’ve created, combining VSM and DevOps means we can see organisations as value-generating enterprises. We can pinpoint the choke points, bottlenecks, and dependencies and quickly apply fixes to optimise flow and value realisation.

In this talk, Helen shares real stories from enterprises she’s worked with on how they’ve relentlessly pursued improvement using VSM and DevOps practices and the outcomes they’ve seen.

Transcript

1. THE VSM RENAISSANCE, catalysed by DevOps.
2. Helen Beal Helen Beal is CEO and chair of the Value Stream Management Consortium and co-chair of the OASIS Value Stream Management Interoperability Technical Committee. She is head of the ambassador programme at PeopleCert (ITIL, PRINCE2 and DevOps Institute) and chair of the DevNetwork DevOps Advisory Board. She is an award -winning strategic advisor and industry analyst, the researcher behind the annual State of VSM Reports from the VSMC, the State of Availability Report from Moogsoft, amongst others. She is a co-author of the book about DevOps and governance, Investments Unlimited, published by IT Revolution. She is a DevOps editor for InfoQ, and also writes for a number of other online platforms. Helen hosts the Day-to-Day DevOps webinar series for TechTarget BrightTalk and serves on advisory and judging boards for many initiatives including Developer Week, DevOps World, JAX DevOps, and InterOp. Bringing joy to work 2
3. talk map OUR FLOW TODAY 3 Where are we at? Where are your value streams? The DevOps toolchain What to do now Your Value Stream Network
4. WHERE ARE WE AT? 4 It’s taken me 10-plus years to come up with my own one-line definition of DevOps: “DevOps is whatever you do to bridge friction created by silos, and all the rest is engineering.” And so, if you’re doing technology just for the technology and you’re not trying to overcome some friction of the human kind of siloing or group siloing or information siloing or whatever, then you’re just doing the engineering part and you’re not, in my opinion, doing the DevOps part.” Patrick Debois
5. 5 Bill’s attention was grabbed by a slide that was projected on the wall monitor. Susan was reviewing it with a bespectacled man, Jason Colbert, the SVP of Digital Transformation. Jason had been brought in to lead the continued DevOps transformation of IUI a year ago, and they had just started working together on a new digital product strategy. Jason was waxing eloquently about his presentation. There wasn’t any formal style to this slide, just white words in bold, simple type on a charcoal background. The words read “DevOps failed you.” It grabbed him.
6. 6 To accelerate development and enable continuous delivery of customer value, organizations need to reach the next level in their agile and DevOps practices. I&O leaders and application leaders must focus on value stream management to maximize flow, improve delivery efficiency and drive innovation. ‘Predicts 2021: Value Streams Will Define the Future of DevOps’ by Daniel Betts, Chris Saunderson, Ron Blair, Manjunath Bhat, Jim Scheibmeir, Hassan Ennaciri. Published 5 October 2020
7. 7 “When we published our first VSM evaluation in 2017, few AD&D leaders had heard of VSM; since then, the VSM tools market has evolved rapidly as have prospective buyers of VSM tools. AD&D planners, engineers, and release experts understand VSM and want it to help them plan, create, and deliver software experiences that align to both the business’ and customers’ needs. In fact, 33% of development managers tell us that collecting and integrating more feedback from users and speeding release and cycle times are among their top three priorities. ‘The Forrester WaveTM: Value Stream Management Solutions, Q3 2020’ by Chris Condo with Christopher Mines, Diego Lo Giudice, Andrew Dobak, and Kara Hartig, published July 15, 2020
8. 8 Chapter 5: Selecting Which Value Stream to Start With Chapter 6: Understanding the Work in Our Value Stream, Making it Visible, and Expanding it Across the Organization Once we have identified a value stream to which we want to apply DevOps principles and patterns, our next step is to gain a sufficient understanding of how value is delivered to the customer: what work is performed and by whom, and what steps can we take to improve flow.
9. BACK HERE AGAIN? 9 Project Orientation Flow Orientation XP Scrum agile SAFe LeSS DA Lean & kanban Value stream management ALM DevOps Value stream management Not a shiny new thing. Waterfall Motion study
10. 10 In 2019, Telstra embarked on its Agile at Scale Transformation Journey with the aim to become more agile and responsive to the rapidly changing technology and customer needs by introducing company-wide Agile methodologies. Fast forward to 2023, Telstra continues to adapt and evolve our Ways of Working to Value Stream Ways of Working. Susan Bai
11. 11 WHAT WERE YOU DOING IN 1995?
12. 12 Part 1 Change or Die Part 2 Value-Stream Reinvention Chapter 7 Value Streams Chapter 8 Mapping the Value Streams Chapter 9 Outrageous Goals Chapter 10 Customer-Delight Factors Chapter 11 Sewer Pipes, Not Stove Pipes Chapter 12 Sacred Cows and Barnacles Chapter 13 Reinvention of Workflow Part 3 Continuous Process Improvement Part 4 Procedure Redesign Part 5 Strategic Visioning Part 6 Enterprise Redesign
13. 13 HAD YOU HEARD OF JAMES MARTIN BEFORE A MINUTE AGO?
15. 15 A value stream is an end-to-end set of activities which collectively creates value for a customer. James Martin, ‘The Great Transition’ Value The value-stream designers search for ways of achieving “outrageous” improvements in critical measures such as speed, cost, quality, and service. End-to-end The value stream team is concerned with all the activities, from start to delivery of results, and confirmation of satisfaction. Customer The value stream team is intensely focused on the customer (an external customer or an internal user) and is concerned with how to delight the customer.
16. 16 HAVE YOU EVER MAPPED A VALUE STREAM?
17. 17 VALUE STREAM Mapping Management Human-centric, storytelling and narrative Tools-centric, science and insights Opinion driven: qualitative Data-driven: quantitative Visual collaboration Visibility and continuous inspection Walls and post-it notes Integrations, dashboards and AI Builds an initial business case Ongoing incremental optimization Highlights waste Automates for continuous compliance
18. Before After Total waste time => 50% Time for innovation, improvement, learning Faster delivery, feedback, pivots Less friction, toil, waiting, context switching WASTE REMOVAL = INCREASED EFFICIENCY & EFFECTIVENESS
19. Digital focus: 90% Design + Development, 10% Production + Delivery Manufacturing focus: 10% Design + Development, 90% Production + Delivery Example digital value streams: • Mobile app • Website • SAAS solution • APIs • Data lake • COTS e.g., Salesforce • Talent onboarding • Continuous learning • DevOps toolchain • Cloud platform • Technical support • Governance • Anything digitized? 19 Design + Development (D+D) Production + Delivery (P+D) (D+D) Production + Delivery (P+D) Design + Development (D+D) (P+D) Common activities The DevOps toolchain is doing most of its CICD automation here DIGITAL VALUE STREAMS ARE DIFFERENT
20. 20 The mindset and operational shift from delivery management to value stream management can be a steep change. There are barriers such as short term-ism, putting outputs over outcomes, the endless pursuit of the one productivity metric, settling for BAU, and tooling complexity. Getting out of the quagmire demands psychological safety, a clear VSM strategy where you start small and scale, multidimensional measurement, nurturing a learning culture, and educating the executives. Sejal Amin
21. 21 Connect the digital parts of your product delivery pipeline, aligned to the steps in your value stream map to start getting real-time data & insights into your value stream’s flow Connect Start Get going from wherever you are. Assess Where you are today? Scale your assessment from super-light, to whatever weight you need to spark the depth of evolution you want. Vision Set your long term vision and goals. Identify Identify your value streams—anything that delivers a product or service. You’re aiming to accelerate the flow of value to the customer. Organize Find the people accountable for every step in each value stream. Map Bring the players in your value stream together for a mapping exercise. Find where the idea starts, and track every step until the value is delivered. Inspect You’ve automated your value stream map, now use it! Set goals for your value stream and use retrospectives to determine where you are. Adapt Use your insights to design and perform experiments that adapt and optimize your flow so you can continually delight your customers. Map Your Path to Value Adopt Value Stream Management
22. 22 The two case studies, though different in their nature, highlighted the importance of viewing value streams not just as organizational tools but also as reflective methodologies for individual growth. The message is clear: whether it’s about performing a task, moving the business forward, or influencing change, it’s crucial to understand one's role within the value stream. Dionysis Svoronos
23. THE TWO DIMENSIONS OF VSM 23 VALUE FLOW REALIZATION EFFICIENCY EFFECTIVENESS Outputs (value stream health) Outcomes (customer experience) Flow is the journey of work from idea to realization. Its travel should be friction-free. It’s a continuous steady stream of value for customers. Realization is the fulfillment of desired outcomes. It’s when a customer experiences the value intended. • Speed of flow • Frequency of delivery • Waste in the value stream • The work types underway • Customers actively using capability • Rate at which new customers arrive • Customers’ description of experience • Value stream finance health
24. 24 Context matters. Respect the differences between business and team focus and conversations. Being stable doesn’t always mean steady output. Align executives’ mindset around contemporary practices and metrics. Phil Clark
25. CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION Code is created, artifacts incorporated, versions controlled, code is built in a trunk based manner. CONTINUOUS DELIVERY The changes are approved, released and operated in the live environment. CONTINUOUS TESTING Functional and non-functional testing takes place at every commit at every step or gate through route to live. 25 PORTFOLIO AND BACKLOG Vision and goals are set and aligned to epics, features, PBIs and user stories. INSIGHTS AND ANALYSIS Monitoring and observability provide insights into customer reaction to changes and report on value realization. THE VALUE CYCLE THE VALUE CYCLE
26. 26 PORTFOLIO AND BACKLOG Vision and goals are set and aligned to epics, features, PBIs and user stories. INSIGHTS AND ANALYSIS Monitoring and observability provide insights into customer reaction to changes and report on value realization. CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION Code is created, artifacts incorporated, versions controlled, code is built in a trunk based manner. CONTINUOUS DELIVERY The changes are approved, released and operated in the live environment. CONTINUOUS TESTING Functional and non-functional testing takes place at every commit at every step or gate through route to live. THE DEVOPS TOOLCHAIN PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT
27. 27 PORTFOLIO AND BACKLOG Vision and goals are set and aligned to epics, features, PBIs and user stories. INSIGHTS AND ANALYSIS Monitoring and observability provide insights into customer reaction to changes and report on value realization. CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION Code is created, artifacts incorporated, versions controlled, code is built in a trunk based manner. CONTINUOUS DELIVERY The changes are approved, released and operated in the live environment. CONTINUOUS TESTING Functional and non-functional testing takes place at every commit at every step or gate through route to live. THE DEVOPS TOOLCHAIN PRODUCT BACKLOG
28. 28 PORTFOLIO AND BACKLOG Vision and goals are set and aligned to epics, features, PBIs and user stories. INSIGHTS AND ANALYSIS Monitoring and observability provide insights into customer reaction to changes and report on value realization. CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION Code is created, artifacts incorporated, versions controlled, code is built in a trunk based manner. CONTINUOUS DELIVERY The changes are approved, released and operated in the live environment. THE DEVOPS TOOLCHAIN COLLABORATIVE WIKI
29. 29 PORTFOLIO AND BACKLOG Vision and goals are set and aligned to epics, features, PBIs and user stories. INSIGHTS AND ANALYSIS Monitoring and observability provide insights into customer reaction to changes and report on value realization. CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION Code is created, artifacts incorporated, versions controlled, code is built in a trunk based manner. CONTINUOUS DELIVERY The changes are approved, released and operated in the live environment. CONTINUOUS TESTING Functional and non-functional testing takes place at every commit at every step or gate through route to live. THE DEVOPS TOOLCHAIN ARTIFACT REPOSITORY
30. 30 PORTFOLIO AND BACKLOG Vision and goals are set and aligned to epics, features, PBIs and user stories. INSIGHTS AND ANALYSIS Monitoring and observability provide insights into customer reaction to changes and report on value realization. CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION Code is created, artifacts incorporated, versions controlled, code is built in a trunk based manner. CONTINUOUS DELIVERY The changes are approved, released and operated in the live environment. CONTINUOUS TESTING Functional and non-functional testing takes place at every commit at every step or gate through route to live. THE DEVOPS TOOLCHAIN SOURCE/VERSION CONTROL
31. 31 PORTFOLIO AND BACKLOG Vision and goals are set and aligned to epics, features, PBIs and user stories. INSIGHTS AND ANALYSIS Monitoring and observability provide insights into customer reaction to changes and report on value realization. CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION Code is created, artifacts incorporated, versions controlled, code is built in a trunk based manner. CONTINUOUS DELIVERY The changes are approved, released and operated in the live environment. CONTINUOUS TESTING Functional and non-functional testing takes place at every commit at every step or gate through route to live. THE DEVOPS TOOLCHAIN CI SERVER
32. 32 PORTFOLIO AND BACKLOG Vision and goals are set and aligned to epics, features, PBIs and user stories. INSIGHTS AND ANALYSIS Monitoring and observability provide insights into customer reaction to changes and report on value realization. CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION Code is created, artifacts incorporated, versions controlled, code is built in a trunk based manner. CONTINUOUS DELIVERY The changes are approved, released and operated in the live environment. CONTINUOUS TESTING Functional and non-functional testing takes place at every commit at every step or gate through route to live. THE DEVOPS TOOLCHAIN UNIT TESTING
33. 33 PORTFOLIO AND BACKLOG Vision and goals are set and aligned to epics, features, PBIs and user stories. INSIGHTS AND ANALYSIS Monitoring and observability provide insights into customer reaction to changes and report on value realization. CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION Code is created, artifacts incorporated, versions controlled, code is built in a trunk based manner. CONTINUOUS DELIVERY The changes are approved, released and operated in the live environment. CONTINUOUS TESTING Functional and non-functional testing takes place at every commit at every step or gate through route to live. THE DEVOPS TOOLCHAIN INTEGRATION TESTING
34. 34 PORTFOLIO AND BACKLOG Vision and goals are set and aligned to epics, features, PBIs and user stories. INSIGHTS AND ANALYSIS Monitoring and observability provide insights into customer reaction to changes and report on value realization. CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION Code is created, artifacts incorporated, versions controlled, code is built in a trunk based manner. CONTINUOUS DELIVERY The changes are approved, released and operated in the live environment. CONTINUOUS TESTING Functional and non-functional testing takes place at every commit at every step or gate through route to live. THE DEVOPS TOOLCHAIN USER ACCEPTANCE TESTING
35. 35 PORTFOLIO AND BACKLOG Vision and goals are set and aligned to epics, features, PBIs and user stories. INSIGHTS AND ANALYSIS Monitoring and observability provide insights into customer reaction to changes and report on value realization. CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION Code is created, artifacts incorporated, versions controlled, code is built in a trunk based manner. CONTINUOUS DELIVERY The changes are approved, released and operated in the live environment. CONTINUOUS TESTING Functional and non-functional testing takes place at every commit at every step or gate through route to live. THE DEVOPS TOOLCHAIN NON-FUNCTIONAL TESTING
36. 36 PORTFOLIO AND BACKLOG Vision and goals are set and aligned to epics, features, PBIs and user stories. INSIGHTS AND ANALYSIS Monitoring and observability provide insights into customer reaction to changes and report on value realization. CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION Code is created, artifacts incorporated, versions controlled, code is built in a trunk based manner. CONTINUOUS DELIVERY The changes are approved, released and operated in the live environment. CONTINUOUS TESTING Functional and non-functional testing takes place at every commit at every step or gate through route to live. THE DEVOPS TOOLCHAIN ENVIRONMENT/RELEASE AUTOMATION
37. 37 PORTFOLIO AND BACKLOG Vision and goals are set and aligned to epics, features, PBIs and user stories. INSIGHTS AND ANALYSIS Monitoring and observability provide insights into customer reaction to changes and report on value realization. CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION Code is created, artifacts incorporated, versions controlled, code is built in a trunk based manner. CONTINUOUS DELIVERY The changes are approved, released and operated in the live environment. CONTINUOUS TESTING Functional and non-functional testing takes place at every commit at every step or gate through route to live. THE DEVOPS TOOLCHAIN SERVICEDESK
38. 38 PORTFOLIO AND BACKLOG Vision and goals are set and aligned to epics, features, PBIs and user stories. INSIGHTS AND ANALYSIS Monitoring and observability provide insights into customer reaction to changes and report on value realization. CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION Code is created, artifacts incorporated, versions controlled, code is built in a trunk based manner. CONTINUOUS DELIVERY The changes are approved, released and operated in the live environment. CONTINUOUS TESTING Functional and non-functional testing takes place at every commit at every step or gate through route to live. THE DEVOPS TOOLCHAIN LOGGING AND MONITORING
39. 39 Netflix focuses on the value streams that are most critical to delivering the high-priority strategy bets. When the problem is about users who are already Netflix subscribers, for instance, the value stream is all about engagement: How many programs do they start watching, and how long do they watch a particular program? Those metrics send signals to Netflix about the value the subscriber derived from the program. Revenue might not be a direct factor; some value streams are about customer joy. Fonz Morris
40. 40 PORTFOLIO AND BACKLOG Vision and goals are set and aligned to epics, features, PBIs and user stories. INSIGHTS AND ANALYSIS Monitoring and observability provide insights into customer reaction to changes and report on value realization. CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION Code is created, artifacts incorporated, versions controlled, code is built in a trunk based manner. CONTINUOUS DELIVERY The changes are approved, released and operated in the live environment. CONTINUOUS TESTING Functional and non-functional testing takes place at every commit at every step or gate through route to live. THE DEVOPS TOOLCHAIN OBSERVABILITY AND AIOPS
41. 41 PORTFOLIO AND BACKLOG Vision and goals are set and aligned to epics, features, PBIs and user stories. INSIGHTS AND ANALYSIS Monitoring and observability provide insights into customer reaction to changes and report on value realization. CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION Code is created, artifacts incorporated, versions controlled, code is built in a trunk based manner. CONTINUOUS DELIVERY The changes are approved, released and operated in the live environment. CONTINUOUS TESTING Functional and non-functional testing takes place at every commit at every step or gate through route to live. THE DEVOPS TOOLCHAIN ANALYTICS AND DASHBOARDS
42. 42 With the introduction of a Value Stream Management Platform, the DevOps CoE is able to connect many of the core engineering tools. With connections in place, the data is centralized, dashboards are created and validated, then shared transparently and broadly, effectively transforming software engineering from intangible to tangible, making it real and obvious to all. From a value stream viewpoint, Lagging Indicators are automated, data-driven, and quantitative, and enable many questions to be clearly answered. Dean Caron
43. Connect planning to delivery Visibility into cross value stream changes Trace user stories as they travel Manage dependencies while you break them Gain insights into waste; optimize flow 43 Continuous compliance Inspect real-time data and adapt THE VALUE STREAM VSMPs: GLOBAL OPTIMIZATION
44. 44 FLOW in the DevOps Toolchain INSIGHTS IDEAS CI CT CD Manual testing causes delays - automate Product ownership to shorten fuzzy front end CI and trunk based development TDD, BDD, HDD, IDD: Test / Behavior / Hypothesis, Impact Driven Development Automated deployment AIOps to reduce MTTR & pay down technical debt Security team causing delays: DevSecOps Make change process lighter and peer-based Use cloud to provision environments Blameless retrospectives Observability for learning and actionable insights Chaos engineering Hackathons Limited blast radius techniques Make global discoveries local improvements ChatOps enables continuous collaboration and automation Manual testing causes delays - automate Never let a known defect downstream Software always in a releasable state Single piece flow DEVOPS INTERVENTIONS
45. 45 Your Organization
46. 46 Your Organization
47. 47 Your Organization
48. 48 Your Organization
49. 49 Dimension Emerging Learning Practicing Evolving Insights-Driven Data manually extracted Data is aggregated Tools have been integrated A single tool connects all parts and automates insights Dependencies Aware of dependencies Managing dependencies Breaking dependencies Loosely coupled/ autonomous teams and systems DevOps Toolchain Building continuous integration Using continuous delivery Architected from idea to value realization Work is traceable around entire cycle - automated value stream map Metrics Incident rate, change fail rate Deployment frequency, MTTR Lead time, cycle time Flow velocity, efficiency, value realized Organizational Experimenting with mapping value streams Naming value streams, some roles Value stream teams with dedicated VSM roles Organization is seen as a value stream network VSM CAPABILITY MATRIX
50. 50 THANK YOU FOR LISTENING