Don’t conflate value stream metrics with other development metrics

Value stream management and data-driven insights have been hot topics these past few years, and interest will continue to grow. Late last year, Gartner put out a prediction that by 2023, 70% of organizations will be using value stream management in some capacity. 

In order to do value stream successfully, however, companies need to understand the difference between value stream metrics and engineering productivity or source code quality metrics. 

According to Manjunath (Manju) Bhat, research VP at Gartner, traditional DevOps metrics like release cadence, lead time, and cycle time can be useful measurements, but they don’t necessarily demonstrate business value. 

RELATED CONTENT: What role do developers play in value stream management?

“Our goal is not to accelerate release cadence but continually improve value delivery cadence – i.e., the rate at which users can absorb and appreciate the value delivered,” said Bhat. 

Over the past year, there have been a number of partnerships between value stream management companies and technology companies, which may be an indication that value stream companies are trying to sync up value stream data with other important metrics. 

For example, in March, Tasktop and Broadcom announced a partnership in which Tasktop’s technology would enable syncing of data between Broadcom’s ValueOps solution and software development tools. 

That same month, software intelligence company CAST and value stream management company LeanIX announced a partnership that was aimed at supporting customers in their data migration to the cloud. Together the two solutions would enable companies to make more informed decisions and develop more effective software strategies. 

According to Bhat, partnerships such as these bring “complementary value from across different tiers and vantage points.” He noted that most value stream management platforms are approaching the market from a position of strength that already exists, and then they build out their capabilities. 

Bhat believes that the value stream providers who are able to help organizations elevate customer satisfaction, employee happiness, and automation maturity will be the leaders in the market.