Businesses these days are all about collaboration. Solutions and innovations are no longer unidirectional. They’re cross-dimensional and so is their strategizing and development. It’s all about sharing resources – be it intelligence, tools, or techniques.

DevOps is one such culture where teams collaborate with each other, dissolving the traditional siloed structures, to deliver optimum quality solutions. Now, with many teams, techniques, and processes involved it is only right to have a technology to sieve it through to separate out the drawbacks.

Introducing Value Stream Mapping, a lean technique that is always recommended by advisory experts as the initial stepping stone to any process or workflow. It is often utilized in processes that push teams to break out of their shells and work with each other across functionalities, making it perfect for optimizing DevOps processes.

A Quick Review on DevOps Process

DevOps is a household term within the IT industry. If they’re not talking about it, they’re thinking about it, or they’re busy implementing it within their organizations.

The idea of DevOps stems from the need to speed up solution delivery. DevOps achieves this by pushing the development and operation teams to work together through all phases of the SDLC. Across the DevOps pipeline we see continuous development, integration, testing, monitoring, delivery, and deployment.

Value stream mapping these processes promises the ideal states of maximum efficiency. Let’s take a deeper look.

VSM Metrices to Track

% Accurate

The percentage of accurate work items received from the previous step to the next step as laid out in the value stream map.

Lead Time

The time recorded between the instances when a work item exists the previous step, to when it exists from the current step to move on the next step in the map. It includes both idle time and the time the work item takes to be processed.

Value Added

VA time is the amount of time a team actually spends actively involved on a work item, or when it is being productively processed.

VSM aiding DevOps Processes

Heightened Clarity

A DevOps process has multiple teams, far more individuals, and other stakeholders involved in the process. With larger organizations it if often the case to misplace or rather misinterpret their part in the DevOps process.

Value stream mapping DevOps processes not only provide clarity in what one does, but also enables improved visibility and traceability. This in turn empowers cross-functional collaboration, aiding teams to understand and maintain expectations from their colleagues. Apart from the above, it also provides teams with a deeper view into the KPIs of each stage/phase.

Eliminate Waste

A clear document on each and every process followed in a DevOps pipeline would help businesses analyze the value contributed by each elements involved – be it a process, technique, or an individual.

An extensive study of the value stream map would point one in the direction of elements that are taking up too many resources and not churning out the expected value. Let’s say the expensive automated test tool used for continuous testing is time consuming and yet fails consistently on flagging errors. This is not a favorable condition for the execution of a DevOps pipeline where deploying error-free solution is of the essence. In this scenario, this automation tool can be eliminated from the pipeline and replaced with a best test automation tool.

Value stream mapping a DevOps process helps in eliminating waste and in turn improving the output quality. Apart from cost, delays and defects VSM also helps in flagging over production, reworking on undocumented code, hinderance in handoffs, underutilization of talent and so on.

Opportunities for Automation

Nobody is perfect, and neither is the first DevOps process map laid out. There is always room for improvement, and thanks to value stream mapping – identifying that room is easier done.

Value stream mapping is great for identifying bottlenecks from within DevOps processes. These bottlenecks must also be addressed, to ensure the DevOps pipeline works smoother than before. To uphold the true essence of DevOps, these bottlenecks could be considered as opportunities for automation.

Boost Your DevOps Performance

Businesses must do what it takes to elevate their offerings and what better way to do it that to amplify DevOps processes. Chalking out DevOps processes, and following up with them can be quite challenging. This is where partners come in.

Enlist a partner to help out with setting up DevOps pipelines, integrating tools, value stream mapping the process in order to optimize it and so on. Teams armed with experience and expertise, along with industry knowledge on what’s up and coming is worth it.

Connect with our DevOps experts at info@nalshaa.com and let’s see what we can do for you.