Understanding Value Stream Architecture
Updated: Mar 11
Before understanding Value Stream Architecture let's understand the role of Value Stream Architect - Value Stream Architect drives the transformation starting from different value streams inherited from different lines of business. Excerpts taken from Value Stream Architecture: Creating an Architecture to Connect the Dots in DevOps Copyright © 2017 IT Revolution
Following are initial tenets for the role of Value Stream Architect (VSA)?
Software Architecture
Training
Tooling
Reporting
Organizational Structure
Risk Assessment
Transformation Teams
Value stream architecture is the repeatable process that allows for change while building constant feedback mechanisms to ensure the changes being made are adding the perceived value.
What artifacts should be captured to all business value flowing through end to end value stream?
Feature story - New business value added to the application, visible to the customer
Defect story - Fixes for quality problems that affect customer experience
Security story - Fixes for weaknesses, flaws, and vectors for exploits
Tech Debt story - Improvement to the software architecture, invisible to the customer
Value Stream story - Improvement to the value stream architecture, invisible to the customer
What are few of the flow metrics to measure the effectiveness of the entire value stream?
Backlog Size: Number of artifacts in the queue at a particular stage of the value stream?
Lead Time: Time from request to delivered artifact running in production
Cycle Time: Time from work start to completion
Process Time: Time an artifact is actively worked on
Wait Time: Time from work request to work start
Utilization: Sum of process times of lead time (%)
What are common relevant value stream flow metrics?
End-to-End Lead Time (Velocity): Time from customer request to improvement running in production
Cost per Work Item (Cost): Work items per FTE (full-time equivalent), change over time
Mean Time to Repair (Responsiveness): Round trip time from support ticket, through defect story creation, diagnosis, fix through to delivery
Productivity (Throughput): Number of work Items delivered per team per release
New Business Value Ratio (Value): Proportion of artifacts of type feature story delivered per release
Utilization (Sum of process times of lead time (%): åLow utilization for a Dev team with an external dependency
Ref: Value Stream Architecture: Creating an Architecture to Connect the Dots in DevOps Copyright © 2017 IT Revolution