Best practices to improve velocity and time to value Despite its high priority, most companies struggle to accelerate the velocity of software releases. A common mistake is to over-prioritize automation at the expense of other critical factors like reducing waste, improving team dynamics, or aligning efforts with the company's bottom line. In this webinar, Forrester analyst Chris Condo and Alex Bilmes, Sr. Director of Product at Puppet, discuss practical steps software development teams can take to ensure that people and process get the same attention as automation investments, including: • The importance of taking a lean approach to ensure value is being delivered • Projects vs. products • How technology can help development teams improve velocity and time to value

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Take These Seven Steps To
Accelerate Velocity
Christopher Condo, Senior Analyst
19 February 2019

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Introductions
Chris Condo
Senior Analyst
Forrester Research
Alex Bilmes
Sr. Director of Product
Puppet

3. We work with business and
technology leaders to develop
customer-obsessed strategies
that drive growth.
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Leading organizations make SW development their
core competency!
Digital Experience
matters..
Software Powers
Digital..
Software Delivery
Excellence Is
Critical!

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Transforming the business to be customer focused and
deliver value directly to the customer via digital capabilities.
Digital Transformation:

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OLD WAY: Digital Experiences Are Optimized By What’s
Easiest to Execute
?
…The Customer Experience Is An
Afterthought
Did I fill it out
correctly?
Am I getting a
refund?

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NEW WAY: Experience is Optimized for the Customer
Back-end capability is brought forward via API’s and
modern architectures

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Customer Experience: The complete end-to-end user
experience the customer has with your product.

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Digital
Transformation
Customer
Experience
Feature
Release
Cycle

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But Software Delivery Speed Seems To Be Stuck
Avg One Per Quarter

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Why? Architecture & methods progressing slowly
Source: Forrester Business Technographics Developer Survey, 2016-2018
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
Not interested Interested but no immediate
plans (within the next 12
months)
Planning to implement within
the next 12 months
Implementing/implemented Expanding/upgrading
implementation
Which of the following architecture styles does your organization currently use or
plan to use? Architecture strategy and design to foster business agility
2018 2017 2016

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Shutterstock.com 99566564
Maybe We
Need More
Automation?

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Organizations
Need More Than
Just Automation
To Deliver Results

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7 Steps To Help
Accelerate Velocity.

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Focus on delivering value to your customers
Dev Focuses on
Velocity and
Quality
PM Focuses on
Customer Needs

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KPIs Need To Link To Delivered Value

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Shift From Project to Products
Start with a
Product
Roadmap
Turn Desired
Outcomes Into
Lines of code

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Re-align Your
Organization
Around Product-
centric teams

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A Product-
Centric Team
Has Both Core
Members And
Supporting
Members

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Support Product
Teams With a
Portfolio
Approach.

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API Driven
Architectures
Enable Agile
Processes To
Scale

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Value Stream
Management Tools Can
Help Visualize and
Quantify Teams discover
and eliminate wasteful
steps and delays
Source: Faster Software Delivery Will Accelerate Digital Transformation Forrester report

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Benefits of Value Stream Management Tools
› Helps identify waste from manual steps and approvals
› Reduces the need for daily status meetings with analytical
dashboards, allowing more time for work
› Allows teams to monitor multiple KPIs and experiment with different
ways of measuring progress
› Strengthens the connection between effort and value delivered

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Use Experimentation To Measure, Learn, And
Improve!
Direct User
Testing
A/B Testing Feature
Flags

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“This allowed us to deploy
code and feel confident
that customers are seeing
the right features.”
So What Did Developers See After Experimenting?
“We get senior executives
engaged on the release
process because they can
see the data from the
experiments.”
“Now our product manager
can coordinate with
marketing, sales etc. until
they are ready to release.”
“Using feature flags does
helps the team release
faster by helping us push
continuous integration.”
“These tools force us to
align around the customer
experience.”
“We reduced the number
of dependencies, people
involved, and the stress of
making changes. It’s much
easier to iterate and
improve.”

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Recommendations
› Start with development teams involved with systems of
engagement
• Data indicates accelerating customer facing components over back-end has
some benefits in terms of organizational adoption
› Don't hesitate to reach out to services providers
• Sometimes an outside voice can help, but choose a provider that wants to be
your partner, not your task-master.
› Brace yourself for the coming complexity
• Modern application delivery includes pushing trust down to the everyday
developer, tester, and pm, it also means rethinking how work gets done. It’s
more about culture and process than just tools.

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Thank you
© 2019 FORRESTER. REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED.
Christopher Condo
Senior Analyst, Forrester Research
+1 671-613-6289
ccondo@forrester.com
@ChrisCondo2017