Software Delivery Management and Value Stream Management – these two terms have been getting a lot of traction and attention of late as organizations enhance their focus on understanding where they are (or are not) getting the ‘value’ from the software they are delivering. Where do they need to invest in order to ensure that they can maximize this value? How they can optimize the output of their development and delivery teams? Are they delivering the ‘right’ features for their business and customers? Where is the ‘waste’ in their delivery pipelines? Are they over-engineering what they are delivering?

There is a distinction between the definition of these two terms which lies in the scope, level of abstraction, and the perspective one is taking. I have been in the Value Stream Management space for multiple years. I have been doing, and am continuing doing Value Stream Mapping workshops at customers of all sizes and industries. Identifying waste, wait-states, and rework is the focus on these workshops and the following engagements, with the goal to optimize the value streams.

The State of Software Delivery Management

For my current research I am focussed on Software Delivery Management. When looking at a Business that delivers value to a customer via software, on needs to look at the end-to-end management of the delivery and operations of the business. One needs to understand and then optimize the practices, processes, metrics, and tools used to deliver software products to the market effectively and efficiently, that in turn deliver the desired businesses value to customers.

This research study, sponsored by CloudBees, is focussed on understanding the current state of Software Delivery Management in the industry. I am looking at Analytics and Metrics being tracked and measured, bottlenecks and inefficiencies being identified and mitigated, best practices adopted and being improved upon, and the tooling being used. To assess this state of the industry last week I launched a survey asking organizations questions about these areas.

The success of my research study, any research study, is dependent upon the data I will have to draw inferences from. To that end, I would like each and everyone reading this post to do two things:

1. Take the survey
2. Pass on this survey to others in your network – responses from all levels of practitioners, across all industries are needed

This survey is being done via my analyst firm Accelerated Strategies. Accelerated has a credo – Information needs to be free. To keep with that, the findings of the research study will be made available free of cost to anyone. No paywall or subscription fee needed. Stay tuned for the report.

Now, and I mean now, please take the survey.

— Sanjeev Sharma,

Principal Analyst, Accelerated Strategies