2020 elevated IT into the spotlight, opening up a window of unprecedented support for accelerating digital innovation and emerging technologies. But even with increased buy-in for investment and adoption, will anything be different this year? Without the ability to measure and place value on specific transformation initiatives, many organizations are still shooting in the dark, either working on new features without aligning to business strategy, or putting them on the back-burner to concentrate on things that are easier to cross off a list. In this on-demand webinar, Tasktop Sr. Flow Advisor, Paninya Masrangsan, provides actionable insights on how to prove your transformation ROI with value stream management.

1. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop Technologies Incorporated.
Prove Your
Transformation ROI
with VSM

2. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Paninya Masrangsan
Senior Flow Advisor

3. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
A Fresh Start
2020 was challenging:
• Global pandemic
• Unpredictable economy
• Shifting business landscape
• Accelerating digital innovation
• Existing need to modernize legacy
platforms and practices
• Significant drop in consumer demands
It’s enough for us to hope for a
better year.

4. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
New Year’s Resolutions
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
Save more
Lose weight
Exercise more
Eat healthier
Source: Inc. https://www.inc.com/peter-economy/10-top-new-years-resolutions-for-success-happiness-in-2019.html
Many people are also energized to make changes in their lives

5. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
Low Success Rate
By Jan 31, more than half of
them will have given up
Source: Inc. https://www.inc.com/peter-economy/10-top-new-years-resolutions-for-success-happiness-in-2019.html
About 60% of Americans
make resolutions
By Dec 31, only 8% will have
made their goals

6. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
What Happened?
• Unrealistic goals
• Hard to track progress
• No long-term plan or support
• Competing priorities
• Unplanned events
• Reverting to old habit
Disappointment. Guilt. Repeat again
next year.

7. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
Organizations face the same challenges
• Organizations today have taken five major
enterprise-level changes in the last 3 years
• Only 34% report successful organizational change
implementations
• Why?
• Lack of tracking = shooting in the dark
• Local changes do not align with overall business strategy
• Constant need to fight fire over long-term transformation
Source: Gartner https://www.gartner.com/en/human-resources/insights/organizational-change-management
Clear Success
34%
Mixed Results
16%
Clear
Failure
50%

8. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
Is there a better way?

9. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
Value Stream Management
Value Stream Management is a relatively new practice defined by Forrester as:
“A combination of people, process, and technology that maps, optimizes, visualizes, and governs business value flow
(including epics, stories, work items) through heterogeneous enterprise software delivery pipelines.”
Source: Elevate Agile-Plus-DevOps with Value Stream Management, Forrester Research, Inc., April 20, 2018

10. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
Iterative Approach
Assess
Current State
Experiment
Analyze Data
Adjust

11. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
Assess Current State
Assess
Current State
Experiment
Collect Data
Adjust
Determine where you are and where you want to be

12. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
Metrics and Measurements
What do you know about the current state?
• Revenue generated
• Budget vs. actual spending
• Deployment frequency
• Application stability
• Story points per sprint
• Number of defects

13. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
Proxy Metrics Pitfalls
Proxy metrics can lead to unintended results
• Not the whole picture
• Don’t tell you what you think they’re telling you
• Create wrong incentives
Goodhart’s Law:
“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”

14. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
Leading while blindfolded
• Multiple specialized tools/silos without
end-to-end view
• Relying on gut feelings
• Localized optimization
• Not customer focused

15. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
“Measuring only one area of the value stream is like only
using two inches of a 12-inch ruler.”
John Willis
Senior Director of the Global Transformation Office at Red Hat,
co-author of The DevOps Handbook

16. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
Suggested alternatives: Flow Metrics
FlowVelocity Flow
Efficiency
FlowTime Flow Load Flow
Distribution
An end-to-end customer-oriented view of a product value stream

17. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
Flow Velocity
Is value delivery accelerating?
• Number of flow items delivered in a set duration
• Delivery consistency
• Rate of delivery over time
• Across work types (feature, defect, debt, risk)

18. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
Flow Efficiency
Is waste decreasing in our processes?
• Ratio of active vs. wait time in delivery

19. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
Flow Time
Is time-to-market getting shorter?
• Duration of time it takes to deliver a flow item
• Perception vs. reality
• Delivery consistency

20. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
Flow Load
Are we balancing demand vs. capacity?
• Work in progress
• Leading indicator. First warning sign.
• Too much WIP often leads to trouble
• Cognitive overload
• Context switching
• Impact to quality
• Decrease team morale
• Unpredictable delivery time
• Loss of customer trust
• Difficult to strategically plan work

21. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
Flow Distribution
Are we investing in both business value
generation and protection?
• What types of work are getting done?
• Feature
• Defect
• Debt
• Risk
• Depends on context, product maturity, and strategy

22. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
Experiment
With understanding of current state, work with the
team to come up with hypotheses
• Where is work getting stuck?
• What changes can we make to go faster?
Assess
Current State
Experiment
Analyze Data
Adjust

23. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
Bottlenecks
You’re only going as fast as the
slowest spot.
Speeding up other steps will not
result in improvement of overall
delivery time.

24. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
Software Delivery Examples
Adding developers will not solve problems caused by:
• Testing bottleneck
• Not enough ready-for-dev work
• Dependencies with external teams
• Release approval cycle
• Frequent priority changes
You probably have a good guess, but how to confirm it with data?

25. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
Viz: Find Bottlenecks
Data-driven visualization of:
• States where artifacts pile up
• States where artifacts spend the most time

26. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
Viz: Neglected WIP
At-a-glance view of how stale the work in
the pipeline is:
• Outdated requests
• Work gets put on hold after it started
• Shifting priorities
• Sign of problems in the value stream
Measures the ability to adapt to business
ever-changing demands

27. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
Experiment
Once a target bottleneck has been selected, it’s time to experiment.
Confirm
bottlenecks
with data
Select most
impactful target
to start
Design
experiments
with team
Start
continuous
improvement
activities

28. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
Analyze Data
Compare data against baseline. Do they confirm your hypotheses?
• If so, great!
• If not, also great! It’s a valuable data point.
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
Thomas Edison
Assess
Current State
Experiment
Analyze Data
Adjust

29. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
Adjust
Take action based on the results of your analysis:
• Document and communicate your findings and lessons learned
• Incorporate positive changes into standard procedure
• Celebrate and share success stories
• Decide on next experiment
• Different approach to further alleviate the same pain point
• Focus on a new bottleneck
Assess
Current State
Experiment
Analyze Data
Adjust

30. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
• Take one step toward your goal. Do it
again. And again.
• You will find unexpected roadblocks.
Expect to have to adjust
• Look at big picture through a value
stream management lens
• End-to-end perspective
• Customer-focused
• Measure what matters
• Continue to learn, test, adapt, and
grow
• Be ready to handle any business and
technical terrain changes
A step toward a successful
transformation

31. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
“You keep putting one foot in front of the other,
and then one day you look back and you've climbed a mountain.”
– Tom Hiddleston

32. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Master Software at Scale
© 2020 Tasktop
Start Learning with
Flow Institute
Start understanding more about
the concepts of value stream
management and how to apply
Flow Metrics with:
• On-demand courses
• Interactive workshops
• Executive Roundtables
flowframework.org/flow-institute

33. Master Software at Scale
© 2021 Tasktop
Q & A