DevOps & VSM: Who's Driving Who? And Does it Even Matter?

Which came first? The chicken or the egg? DevOps or VSM? Lean predates DevOps and is one of the giant’s shoulders it stands upon. And VSM is part of lean. But VSM in digital value streams is different. It’s the next generation of DevOps. Or is DevOps the toolkit that solves the problems that VSM faces? Does any of this matter more than the customer and business outcomes we seek? In this short talk, Helen will position an implementation roadmap for VSM in our digital world that updates original lean thinking to incorporate what we’ve learned about DevOps and distributed computing in recent years - and show why VSM is here to unstick DevOps from where it’s got stuck. A talk from VSMCon 2021.

Transcript

1. www.vsmconsortium.org DevOps & VSM: Who’s Driving Who? And Does it Even Matter?
2. www.vsmconsortium.org Helen Beal Herder of Humans 2 MISSION: Bringing Joy to Work @bealhelen /helenjbeal
3. www.vsmconsortium.org A Blended Portfolio Career 3 Chief Ambassador Chair Strategic Advisor Strategic Advisor Series Host DevOps Editor Series Host Series Host Research Analyst
4. www.vsmconsortium.org A Short History of Value Stream Management 1918 4 1900 1988 1991 2021 1937 1995 1913 2000 1925 1950 1975 2000 2018 Founded 1st VSM Wave Report Published 2004 The internet happened here!
5. www.vsmconsortium.org 5 © Value Stream Management Consortium “VSM is an approach to make Lean improvements across all development and operational value streams. A value stream is simply an end-to-end sequence of activities where work and information flow in a coordinated and streamlined manner to deliver value most effectively. In its modern reinvention, the software development industry applies VSM tools to integrate, automate, and orchestrate work across DevOps pipelines to improve the end-to- end activities involved in software deliveries across both the development and operations functions. Rather than manually collecting data, modern VSM tools capture critical performance metrics in real time and provide a common data model and analytical tools to assess both current and desired future state conditions.”
6. www.vsmconsortium.org Digital focus: 90% Design + Development, 10% Production + Delivery Manufacturing focus: 10% Design + Development, 90% Production + Delivery Digital Value Streams are Different 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 6 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
7. www.vsmconsortium.org VSM Implementation Roadmap 7 © Value Stream Management Consortium
8. www.vsmconsortium.org Operational & Development Operational • Heinz ketchup from ingredients to store • Michelin tires from materials to cars Development • New product creation and testing • Research and development “There are two types of value streams – operational value streams and development value streams. Operational value streams are a series of steps used to provide goods and services to a customer, either internal or external. This is primarily how a business makes its money. The other, development value streams, are a series of steps used to develop new offerings. To differentiate this further, development value streams build the systems that operational value streams use to deliver value.” Karen Martin 8 © Value Stream Management Consortium Is this anti-DevOps?
9. www.vsmconsortium.org Core & Supporting Core (Product) • How Heinz makes ketchup • How Michelin makes tires • A mobile app • A website Supporting (Platform) • How Heinz hires and trains staff • How Michelin markets new products • A DevOps toolchain • A cloud environment • HR, GRC, legal, finance “There are two primary types of value streams: core value streams and supportive value streams. In the strict definition of lean, supportive value streams are non-value adding. However, this is a mistake. Supportive value streams are the core of how a company treats its employees, and as a result, how employees treat the customer.” Karen Martin 9 Are digital value streams core?
10. www.vsmconsortium.org Supporting Digital Value Streams Legal Security Planning Design Develop Deliver Enable Test Mobile App Planning Design Develop Deliver Enable Test Planning Design Develop Deliver Enable Test 10
11. www.vsmconsortium.org 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. Value Stream Management Processes 11 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
12. www.vsmconsortium.org Analytics & Dashboards 12 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
13. www.vsmconsortium.org Value Stream Management Platform 13 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. Value Stream Management Connect planning to delivery Visibility into cross value stream changes Trace user stories as they travel Continuous compliance Manage dependencies while you break them Gain insights into waste; optimize flow Inspect real-time data and adapt
14. www.vsmconsortium.org The DevOps Plateau “DevOps is whatever you do to bridge friction created by silos, and all the rest is engineering.” Patrick Debois
15. www.vsmconsortium.org DevOps Interventions 15 The Value Cycle 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 Manual testing causes delays - automate Never let a known defect downstream Software always in a releasable state
16. www.vsmconsortium.org © Value Stream Management Consortium Keep Flowing!