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2021: How to choose the tools to automate the development of digital products. Overview of 19 products
Modern digital products are complex, it is often difficult to determine the boundaries of an application that can be used by other applications, microservices can apply to several products at the same time. Traditional software development management, in which one team develops one product, has evolved into the management of value creation flows, where each microservice, for example, is a separate stream. Automate the management of multiple value creation streams at the company level by continuously delivering complete data and identifying dependencies, and reduce the delivery cycle time of the software is designed to Value Stream Management (VSM) class solutions.
Large software companies use VSM tools to identify non-productive activities in software development processes, create integrated tool chains, and track the relationship of product value created directly to the business goals of the organization using visualizations and common metrics for all participants in the development process. But to realize these benefits, Application Development and Delivery (AD & D) managers have to choose from many vendors that vary in size, functionality, geography, and industry focus.
An independent analysis agency Forrester has produced a report on 19 VSM tools vendors, Now Tech: Value Stream Management Tools, Q2 2020, which will help AD & D executives determine the value expected of vendors and make choices based on their size and functionality. Company experts Web Control specifically for TAdviser made a review of this document.
Forrester defines VSM tools as tools that allow users to build maps of business value creation flows, and then visualize and regulate them (including epics, stories, and work items) in heterogeneous corporate delivery pipelines.
VSM tools help AD & D executives map and visualize value creation flows. They revive the map, with real-time data coming from each tool from the software supply chain. The visual data panel, which shows the current status of the delivery process, provides real-time data, such as the due date and time of the production process, needed to make informed decisions.
* According to the Accelerate State of DevOps 2019 report prepared by DORA (DevOps Research and Assessment]]
Such tools help AD & D executives identify unproductive activities. VSM is based on a combination of integrated tools and a common data model, which tracks the flow of artifacts from idea to implementation. At any time, AD & D managers receive information about the current state of the development process, as well as how much time it takes for each step, which allows them to identify actions that do not create new value for the user during the software delivery process.
The development is aimed at meeting business goals. VSM tools link value streams to data collected from current application monitoring processes and tools (i.e., application process management) to help portfolio planners see which efforts pay off and which do not.
Forrester analyzed VSM tools based on two indicators: market and functionality.
From a market point of view, analysts divided vendors into 3 categories.
Major players with sales levels exceeding $30 million included:
- Atlassian,
- Broadcom,
- Datadog,
- Digital.ai (ранее CollabNet VersionOne, XebiaLabs и Arxan),
- Gitlab.
Experts attributed to middle-level players with a sales level of $15-30 million:
- Blueprint Software Systems,
- IBM,
- Jama Software,
- Micro Focus,
- Quantum Metric,
- ServiceNow,
- Tasktop.
The latter category includes companies in which the sales volume of VSM solutions is $4-15 million:
- CloudBees,
- ConnectALL,
- LinearB,
- Planview,
- Plutora,
- Targetprocess,
- ZenHub.
Companies in which the sales level of VSM solutions does not reach $4 million, Forrester analysts did not consider in this report.
From the point of view of functionality, VSM solutions were divided into the following categories:
- discrete tools
- tools delivered in conjunction with applications for DevOps (integrated VSM solutions),
- standalone VSM tools.
Tools that experts have identified as separate tools provide VSM with data. According to Forrester experts, stand-alone tools provide capabilities that complement the VSM solution, but are not full-fledged VSM solutions in themselves. The main role of these tools is portfolio planning, continuous integration/continuous delivery analysis, or performance monitoring. They came from different tool segments, so do not compete directly with VSM solutions. Functionality varies by tool segment, with leading vendors providing advanced capabilities such as/ machine learning, AI analytics, and. visualization of data This category includes:
- Atlassian,
- Datadog,
- Jama Software,
- Quantum Metric,
- LinearB,
- Planview,
- ZenHub.
VSM tools that come in conjunction with DevOps applications, so-called "integrated" or "bundled tools," can work with both third-party tools and require a complete set of solutions from this vendor. The advantage of the package offer is that it is delivered embedded in the tool chain, but the disadvantage is that the third-party tools already available to the company may not be supported. Forrester took the following into this dimension:
- Broadcom,
- CloudBees,
- Digital.ai,
- GitLab,
- Micro Focus,
- ServiceNow.
Stand-alone VSM tools provide all the capabilities needed to solve VSM, but they lack the functionality of AD & D tools needed to actually plan, create and deliver software. The advantage of stand-alone tools over the tools delivered in the kit is that they are not tied to a specific vendor, which allows users to connect them to existing tools; the disadvantage is that a significant integration effort is often required before a standalone VSM tool will bring value. Experts included among the autonomous tools:
- Broadcom,
- Blueprint Software Systems,
- IBM,
- Micro Focus,
- Tasktop,
- CloudBees,
- ConnectALL,
- Plutora,
- Targetprocess.
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AD & D executives often focus on the current situation, but when choosing a VSM solution, Forrester analysts advise you to look into the future and create a vision of the future state of the company. Many interviewed managers told Forrester that the adoption of VSM led to changes not only in the software delivery process, but also at the company level, so experts recommend choosing a VSM vendor rationally, taking into account the following features of various categories of VSM tools.
Standalone tools are better suited to support a variety of tool chains. If your company prefers a variety of tool stack or standalone commands that choose their own tool chain, then a standalone VSM tool is more likely to be the best option for you. In this case, Forrester experts advise looking at the solutions of Broadcom, Blueprint Software Systems, IBM, Micro Focus, Tasktop, CloudBees, ConnectALL, Plutora or Targetprocess. You can integrate such a tool into each value creation stream and each tool chain, which will provide an overview of all activities at the moment. Integration will require efforts at different levels, but many teams will find this investment more than appropriate to support the team's culture and capabilities.
VSM tools, which are bundled or integrated with DevOps applications, ensure the uniformity of the tool chain. While some teams prefer standalone tools, others can work hard to create uniformity to reduce variability. These companies often operate in markets where there is strict compliance, for example, in safety-critical industries, the financial sector, or health care. But this is not the only reason to consider these tools, a comprehensive solution may seem doubly profitable to companies from other industries: they receive a more modern chain of tools and a VSM tool connected together. If you prefer comprehensive solutions that significantly save material and management resources on integration and interaction with a large number of suppliers, then Forrester recommends paying attention to Broadcom, CloudBees, Digital.ai, GitLab, Micro Focus, ServiceNow.
Discrete tools extend and improve your VSM solution. No vendor offers everything that modern AD & D teams need for efficient and productive work, and at the same time with a view to the future. Stand-alone tools complement the VSM solution with capabilities specifically tailored to the individual roles of a business analyst, such as a portfolio planner, DevOps engineer, or performance engineer. Forrester experts classified Atlassian, Datadog, Jama Software, Quantum Metric, LinearB, Planview, ZenHub as separate solutions. They enrich the functionality of VSM to create a more complete understanding of the team's capabilities in delivering quality products that meet the targets, with the expected impact on business value.
VSM solutions are becoming widespread. Among the companies that have already appreciated the advantages of using VSM are,,,, Airbus Lockheed Martin Bosch Intel Bank banks Central Asia, and, Royal Bank of Scotland Barclays media company, Thomson Reuters KLM Air France and Alaska Airlines. In the fall of 2020, the SD Times website published the results of a survey of 238 development companies conducted by SD Times and the company. The survey HCL Software focused on the use of VSM.
The survey showed that a third of respondents either implement or plan to implement VSM. And while another third of participants said they had never heard of managing value creation, further responses showed that some components of this approach were already being used in most companies.
For example, software companies are beginning to track value creation flows. About 10% of respondents responded that they created a value flow map in their organizations, 15% collect and analyze indicators, 8% organized the management of several flows, 7% identify and eliminate unproductive activities and increase efficiency, and another 7% clearly track the value from the idea to the product being implemented.
The survey noted that they faced some difficulties in implementing this practice in their companies. Almost half of respondents (47%) noted that the biggest problem was the lack of experience with the VSM methodology. Another 26% said they did not receive understanding from management regarding VSM's business value, while a third of participants (32%) said they did not have current funding to implement VSM tools and methods.
For those who are just considering implementing VSM, it would certainly be interesting to know what is the most valuable feature of this tool for its users. The survey showed that tracking work done across the entire software delivery pipeline is the most attractive opportunity for 30% of respondents. Another 17% of respondents noted that they receive the greatest return from practical analytics and evaluation of key performance indicators (KPI), it should be added that artificial intelligence is used in advanced solutions for this purpose . About a fifth of respondents noted that they appreciate the orchestration of the continuous work of many teams and instruments for the delivery and release of software at the level of the whole company (scaled agile). In addition, 12% said that data collection from many teams and tools was important to them, and 8% appreciated clearer reporting on the work of individuals.
Managing the flow of value creation is a young, but promising and vital tool that allows you to optimize the process of supplying consumers with sought-after digital products. VSM tools not only reduce the cost of creating digital products, but also ensure the transparency of software delivery processes and their correlation with the business tasks of the company. For companies looking at this class of solutions, Forrester analysts make the following recommendations:
- Use VSM to optimize processes with a focus on business value. Development managers who are looking for more control over development and delivery processes use VSM tools to integrate development tools, capture data, visualize flow, analyze performance, orchestrate processes, and measure the value of workflows.
- Choose a vendor based on the size and capabilities of your solutions. VSM is a rapidly evolving and growing category of development solutions. Choose the tool that best fits your company's strategy and needs.
- Choose a VSM solution that matches the commands in the future. Development leaders told Forrester experts that the introduction of VSM entailed business transformation to a greater extent than they expected, so understanding the desired future state is very important for the right choice of solution.
The development of modern digital products is a complex process in which many different teams and specialists are involved. The VSM solution facilitates project management by eliminating the need to constantly require information about the progress of the company's projects and providing complete objective data for management decisions.
2020: A new class of solutions is emerging at the junction of Agile and DevOps
The modern market requires the prompt and timely release of new digital products, which entails a digital transformation of the business. To quickly create value, Agile-planning was developed, to accelerate the creation and delivery of digital products to the consumer - the DevOps approach. The increasing complexity of these processes led to the creation of a new category of products - Value Stream Management (VSM), managing the flow of value creation - which turn the Agile+DevOps environment into a digital business driver. The new class of solutions that appeared on the market in 2018 gives an understanding of the value the company supplies and with what efficiency. In 2020, the independent analytical agency Forrester prepared a report, Elevate Agile-Plus-DevOps With Value Stream Management, in which it introduces development managers to VSM practices and tools and presents some vendors to this developing market segment.
Managing the flow of value creation is based on the concept of lean production. The value stream is a methodology for planning the production and delivery of current high-tech products in the shortest possible time. For the software industry, Forrester analysts have formulated the following definition:
 | Value Flow Management is a combination of people, processes, and technologies that map, optimize, visualize, measure, and manage the flow of creating business values (from product ideas to specific functions) in company-level software delivery pipelines |  |
VSM solutions capture metadata at each step of the value creation process to enable tracking of progress, status, and state changes of epics, user stories, development tasks, and artifacts moving in the value creation flow. At the same time, they visualize processes, state, data provide practical recommendations based on analytics and algorithms AI and, ML which allows numerous teams to manage value creation flows.
In an analytical report, an overview of which was prepared by Web Control specialists for TAdviser, Forrester analyzes what benefits companies get from managing the flow of value creation and draws a number of conclusions.
VSM solutions connect Agile and DevOps with business. In digital transformation, Agile and DevOps are the main development practices. It is the management of value creation that helps to detect unproductive activities and focus on values, as well as provide information and end-to-end data across all phases, from planning to operation, to all stakeholders.
VSM solutions accelerate Agile and DevOps sharing ROI. VSM tools measure the business value of development and performance metrics, such as MTTR, cycle time, and latency costs. These metrics inform you about product development and priorities, help you identify how to optimize your software delivery, and help you orchestrate your delivery process.
VSM solution vendors have come to this market with the experience of developing various other types of solutions, for example, CI/CD (continuous integration and delivery), application lifecycle management systems, managing portfolio of software projects by others. At the time of data collection for Forrester analysis (February 2020), not a single vendor provided a full-fledged VSM solution, but shortly after the release of the report, XebiaLabs, CollabNet VersionOne and Arxan merged into a single platform Digital.ai, which covers the entire flow of value movement from idea to operation.
Experts, having analyzed the current situation, came to the conclusion that the drivers of the development of VSM solutions are the lack of a holistic vision at the level of all company projects and their relationships, because companies invest in CI/CD solutions, which automate only individual projects and do not provide data on the state of affairs in other related projects. Fragmented data within one development pipeline is another challenge that development faces, because in addition to Jira, for example, teams use spreadsheets, project management systems, and create manual reports. This results in no single source of data about the project and its relationships.
Fragmented data and a lack of holistic vision at the level of all the company's projects do not allow you to manage and optimize development processes. In addition, disparate tools do not allow for continuous improvement in software delivery processes, because business and development managers do not have a single understanding of which metrics and KPIs, what data from the "automation islands" should be used.
Managing the flow of value creation allows you to detect weaknesses, redundant actions, and see all the things that result depends on. Development, Testing, Product Owners, and Strategic Planning Managers can obtain metrics visually to identify non-productive activities and make timely management decisions. The concept of unproductive activity (waste, muda) has passed from lean production and means everything that does not add value to the product. The book Lean Manufacturing by James Wumek provides a good example of such activity based on an analysis of the time spent on actions related to movement to Crete from the UK.
| Total Travel Time | 13 Hours |
| 'Time spent actually moving' | 7 hours (54% of total) |
| Time spent waiting for | 6 hours |
| Queue Count | 10 |
| 'Baggage Transaction Count | 7 |
| Number of checks (same questions asked) | 8 |
| Total Steps Completed | 23 |
Clearly, of the 13 hours spent on movements, it took 6 hours for unproductive activities, that is, those that were not directly related to displacement. For development, this can be waiting for resource allocation, waiting for long assemblies and tests, waiting for interconnected projects to be completed, and more.
Using VSM tools, companies can plan and orchestrate value creation flows, allocate resources, assign tasks to all participants in product creation at the level of all company projects.
The value of Forrester's report on VSM lies in providing not only analytical information, but also feedback from companies that already use such solutions.
According to feedback from early followers, such solutions bring real benefits to a variety of participants in the software delivery process: it is easier for product managers to track progress and coordinate the development of functionality according to the schedule, development managers to detect unproductive activities and get rid of them using automated tools, and release teams they give better visibility and manageability of processes. In addition, shifting the focus to value addition at each step of software delivery helps accelerate the transition to product-oriented thinking.
Analytical materials of independent agencies on individual classes of solutions usually form an understanding of the key functionality of a particular class. Forrester indicates that VSM tools are designed to gather information based on which tool users control the flow of value creation work. Other key capabilities of value flow management systems include combining different teams through consolidation of value creation steps, integration of DevOps tools into a single chain of tools, generation of real-time reporting across all software delivery pipelines, and the ability to track the state of the digital product creation process from various angles: business, development, operation.
Value flow management solutions are often perceived as the next task management system, which is fundamentally wrong. VSM solutions cover the entire software development lifecycle, starting with the creation of an idea, capturing metadata from all automatic and manual actions during production and delivering advanced technical and business analytics across all stages, consolidating data from many projects.
In the final part of the report, Forrester analysts showed VSM market vendors. The solutions of different vendors differ in the approach that depends on their experience and practice: project portfolio and budget management, application lifecycle management, CI/CD, release automation, performance monitoring, etc. Companies XebiaLabs, CollabNet, OneVersion in the figure are indicated even before the merger into a single DevSecOps vendor Digital.ai.
Survival in a highly competitive market requires rapid adoption of new technologies, planning in the face of continuous change and efficient development. According to Forrester, experimenting with VSM solutions is "must-do" for those companies that want to take advantage of Agile and DevOps faster.
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- Lean
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