VSM adoption is gaining momentum as demonstrated by enterprise practitioners presenting how they are using VSM practices and tools at Flowtopia 2023. This series dives into first-hand VSM stories from our exceptional speakers from BECU, Deutsche Telekom, Netflix, Parchment, Shutterstock, Telstra, and Unum.
The VSM Implementation Roadmap
Realizing the Benefits of a Connected Value Stream Management Platform
With circa 100 software engineering teams operating amongst significant technical diversity, complexity, and variety, the DevOps Center of Excellence had a challenge in advancing all teams (with associated tech debt) to adopting best practices and then realizing the outcomes of those practices. Leading Indicators were captured through qualitative assessment and goal setting of each engineering team, and Lagging Indicators were captured directly but manually, from the various tools within the engineering platform. Leading Indicators were then connected to Lagging Indicators to create Learning Indicators. Theoretically sound, but cumbersome, resource-heavy, and not always reliable.
It was the Lagging Indicators that were problematic to capture, centralize, and visualize, and therefore engineering outcomes remained beneath the surface and known only to software engineers directly involved. Without clear visibility of software delivery flow, quality, or security, identifying and prioritizing improvement areas was lacking, risks and constraints were not obvious, readiness for release was ambiguous, and despite having many tools within a rich engineering ecosystem, software engineering remained an intangible process.
Why VSM?
With the introduction of a Value Stream Management Platform, the 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, such as:
- How fast are we moving? Are we improving?
- How quickly do we recover from an incident?
- Is our testing thorough?
- Where is our time being spent?
- Are we secure?
- Are we ready to release?
- Are we compliant?
- Are we delivering?
The VSMP gives Continuous Improvement a seat at the table alongside business deliverables and enables appropriate prioritization to take place. Where previously there were difficult conversations to invest in resolving problems that were opaque, the VSMP makes the return on investment more obvious.
Feedback
Although still in the early stages of the VSM journey, feedback has been encouraging. While engineering teams had the greatest awareness of their environments, the openly centralized findings provide a cohesive view for engineers and leaders alike, enabling improvement initiatives to be prioritized. The Security CoE and the Testing CoE can benefit from a platform that centralizes disparate tools for all. Change & Release can incorporate quantitative real-time measures into their ways of working, leading to further automation and greater flow. IT Audit is delighted by the end-to-end visibility and traceability.
Next Steps
We acknowledge and appreciate there is still much to do. Within Phase 1 of Engineering VSM, we have further buildout required of additional existing tools leading to new measures. We also have our eye on future phases; Operational VSM, Service VSM, and ultimately Customer VSM, where we can expand on the question of “Are we delivering?” to “Are we delivering value?”.
The VSM Consortium has helped to expand our scope beyond DevOps and the Flow of Work into the Flow of Value.
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