Quick Overview
Value Stream Management (VSM) helps you track, analyze, and control the flow of value in your software delivery pipeline. In this guide, I will share how I got to know about VSM the hard way and how it came to be a turning point in our QA and Release processes.
The views expressed in this article are based on the author's experience and perspective on the topic.
I still remember my team was once again doing overtime, and once again, trapped in a bottleneck before the release. QA was annoyed, the product was lost, and no one could identify what was lacking. I at first considered it to be another disorganized sprint cycle. The problem wasn’t a lack of hard work; it was a lack of visibility.
This was the first time I heard of Value Stream Management (VSM).
I did not initially understand how effective it could be. However, with time passing, VSM allowed us to design our process, locate the holes in our process, and, ultimately, begin making deliveries with a sense of confidence. This article will take you through what VSM is, why it is relevant to both software and QA teams, and how, with the help of tools like Golive, we allowed it all to come together.
Let’s begin by defining what Value Stream Management means and where it comes from.
What is VSM (Value Stream Management)?
Value Stream Management (VSM) is a collection of Lean practices aiming at the removal of waste and enhancing the efficiency of the delivery. VSM was originally taken from the Lean Thinking field and was first implemented in manufacturing industries in order to eliminate wastes and to increase productivity. Today, it is important in the field of software development and DevOps. It is making the whole process of value flow (of turning a certain idea into delivery) better, which Atlassian explains in their guide on Value Stream Management. We have adopted this idea in the software where we track every process involved in the delivery, e.g., planning, development, testing, deployment, and feedback.
In case you want to improve your release process, I recommend checking out our Release Management Essential Guide.
My example surrounds the fact that I recently made a flow of actions following the creation and delivery of a feature request. This was an eye-opener. The only time that was wasted on the development was not the only wasteful time; time had been lost on the QA, set up of staging, set up of environments, and even amongst the team members.
Having mapped our flow in this manner, I could see what our value stream was. More to the point, it did not hold up.
Why is VSM needed by Software and QA Teams?
After we initially expanded our dev team, I simply thought that we would automatically start getting faster releases. So in its place, there was an increase in chatter, that is, more meetings, and an increase in pressure to ship.
I used to think speed came from doing more. But I quickly realized that faster releases come from focusing on what truly matters and removing everything that doesn’t.
VSM assisted us in discovering:
- Where functions were waiting and resting until environments turned up to work on them
- When shortcuts and confusion were added up
- The reason why QA was continually being blindsided by so-called last-minute builds
We were not left alone. I have seen replication of this on more of the teams I have been on, QA teams in test runs of flaky tests, developers not aware of which version is in production, and Release Managers resorting to controlling the mess and needing to devote time helping deliver effectively instead of boosting the release.
In addition to troubleshooting process delays, VSM leads to an increased level of dev, QA, and product team alignment as well. Sharing visibility enables teams to minimize miscommunication, unnecessary work, and ship with increased confidence.
It was with VSM that we had also gone from reactive to proactive. We had blockers, and we just made runs that prevented blockers instead of playing blockers.
Let’s take a step-by-step look at how Value Stream Management (VSM) works in practice.
A Step-by-Step Guide to Value Stream Management
Value Stream Management (VSM) may appear to be a complicated thing when, in reality, have to be. You don't need to have a great setup; all that is needed is the ability to start. An easy step-by-step way to start doing this is as follows:
Let’s break down the key elements that make Value Stream Management truly work in practice.
Elements of VSM: Value Streams, Flow Metrics, and Bottlenecks
I needed to take the process beyond a line of drawing boxes on a whiteboard to make VSM successful. What was important here was:
Value Streams
This is your value chain, the cycle that has just come to an end, business-to-customer value. Mapping helped me to involve more people than just developers.
The concept to visualize the complete value flow is the brainchild of Lean. Just in case you haven't heard of this before, the Lean Enterprise Institute has put up a good primer on Value Stream Mapping on their site.
Flow Metrics
We began to monitor the following key indicators:
Cycle time: What is the time duration from start to finish?
Lead time: What is the request for delivery time?
Flow efficiency: This is the portion of that time that is work.
These figures became the largest turning point, providing us with a shared language with which to speak about what fast or slow actually meant.
Bottlenecks
Lesson one: one of the bottlenecks has been the staging environment, and at that, we didn't know it until we drew the stream and discovered how many tasks had accumulated at that time.
Highlighting the bottlenecks gave us a clear opportunity to improve. The overall flow was higher thanks to a bottleneck fix than it would be with an ever-growing workload.
The Visibility and Continuous Improvement in the VSM Way
Probably one of the most underrated values of VSM is here: Visibility.
I achieved that by trusting my gut feeling to figure out what went wrong. We can now have real-time visual dashboards of the flow, test status, and environment readiness.
That was a sight which helped us:
Quit between tools, context switching
Empower the QA to prepare ahead of time
Make it clear to stakeholders without the necessity to arrange additional meetings
And VSM is a continuous process, and therefore, it made us experiment. We tested new test automation chains, varied the speed of our release, and measured the difference. Measure, learn, and improve became our standard.
VSM-supporting Tools (and the Way These Work with Jira)
A VSM story can never even be full without referring to tools. We are Jira users, among many other teams. By itself, though, Jira doesn't demonstrate workflow. It displays activities, rather than context.
It is there that add-ons and integrations have been valuable. More of the tools that assisted our VSM set up are:
Golive: This helped us visualize all test environments across releases. Before Golive, we had no idea which version was deployed where.
Jira Software + Automation: We followed custom tasks and tracked value items
Confluence: It is used in documenting value streams and team playbooks.
To apply VSM, you do not need a perfect stack designed to collect just the right data and serve it up in a serverless setting. But you should use tools revealing the right insights, not the outputs.
How Golive Opened Our Eyes to the Bigger Picture
What made VSM stick for us was using Golive. We possessed all the data, the only problem being that we did not have it all in one location. That is what Golive added to every sprint planning and release meeting.
Suddenly, QA would be able to develop the Test Cases with definite knowledge about available environments. Devs were no longer required to ask the question, whether this is deployed or not.
It gave us full confidence, not just in our process, but in the quality of what we deliver.
Conclusion
Looking back, the decision to apply Value Stream Management did not happen automatically; it was a change of attitude. I no longer responded to issues, but I observed the value flow. And after I knew that, it all changed. Our QA was able to be more predictable, our releases more stable, and our discussions more aligned with each other.
VSM does not magically heal your process. However, it provides the transparency and framework to work at making it better and better. When you have a team or a group of people who experience delays, handoff chaos, or blockers that are hard to detect, VSM is the map you did not even know you were missing.
This is what I have learned when implementing Value Stream Management in practical teams:
Key Takeaways
- Before you optimize your value stream, map it first
- Measure constantly, but start smart
- Instead of finger-pointing pointing people, expose the bottlenecks
- Incorporate release environment awareness tools like Golive
- Emphasize flow rather than speed; faster is not necessarily a better idea
What’s Next on This Topic
This article serves as the pillar post for our Value Stream Management (VSM) series. In the upcoming articles, we’ll explore:
VSM in DevOps: Workflow Optimization, Waste Reduction & Continuous Delivery
- How VSM supports DevOps through workflow optimization, waste reduction, and continuous delivery
Value Stream Mapping in Project Management: Lean Approach to Eliminate Waste
- Application of Value Stream Mapping in Project Management
Value Stream Mapping Software: Templates, Collaboration & Analytics
- A comparison of Value Stream Mapping software, highlighting templates, collaboration features, and analytics
