More features out the door, faster time to market, fewer defects, and shorter time to value: it’s widely accepted that you have to deliver better software products faster to gain that all important competitive edge. That’s why you’ve invested in DevOps, Agile, best-of-breed tools and specialist people, often to the tune of millions of dollars.
And there’s been improvements – a few faster products out the door, a few teams working in harmony a bit more – but it’s still not enough. Competitors are still better than you at delivering software on an enterprise-scale, while nimble digital-native start-ups always seem two steps ahead. Why is this happening? Why aren’t you yielding a tangible ROI?
Value Stream Architecture
The answer may lie within your software value stream architecture. When you take a step back, you realize that while all the components are dependent on each other, they’re not actually working very well with each other. Only once you study how these tools and their users work together, do you realize that they’re not functioning as one. That your architecture is missing pipes and beams, and that there’s wires hanging from the ceiling.
That there’s constraints and conflict at every turn, plaguing and disrupting all stages of the software delivery value stream. That the flow of work is stymied, vulnerable to decay or misdirection, and often not visible – it’s tantamount to building a car in a broken factory. In the dark. Everything and everyone is paying the price, from the people who build the product to the end product itself. Your business is taking a hit too.
How to minimize conflict
The key, then, is to minimize all this conflict by adopting a constraints perspective to identify and address flow-limiting aspects of your value stream. What elements in your process are weighing you down, and how do you alleviate this pressure? In a recent article for SD Times, our VP of Architecture, David Green, explains exactly why architecture is just so critical for a high-performing software delivery value stream, and how you can begin to build a system that works best for your business.
Want to know more? Chat to us today to discuss how value stream architecture can optimize your software delivery at scale and help you stay ahead of your competitors.
