Cecil Gary Rupp - 
Driving DevOps with Value Stream Management

Improve IT value stream delivery with a proven VSM methodology to compete in the digital economy

Cecil 'Gary' Rupp

BIRMINGHAMMUMBAI

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To my wonderful wife and children, who stood by my side through all the years of hard work, long hours, and often outrageous travel schedules that came with my career. And to my beloved grandchildren who have blessed me, their Papa Cecil, so dearly. Cecil 'Gary' Rupp

For a while now, I've been referring to value stream management as the next evolution of DevOps. DevOps itself, of course, is an evolution of many software engineering and delivery practices that came before it. It builds on Agile's approaches to solving the problems we experienced with traditional Waterfall ways of working. It combines Lean and IT service management, safety culture, and learning organizations, and it cross-pollinates with site reliability engineering, systems, and design thinking. It addresses cultural aspects in a way we haven't before in the technology industry and has super-charged advances in automation. It undeniably stands on the shoulders of giants.

Value stream management's history goes back a lot further than DevOps' 12 years. It's inherently part of Lean. While some point back as far as the arsenals of Venice in the 1400s, most practitioners look to Toyota in the 1950s as the progenitors of the movement that not only has thrived up until 2021 but is poised to explode. The tipping point is here because digital disruption has raised the stakes for software delivery in all businesses worldwide in this technology revolution (the age of software). We can now connect all parts of our digital value stream; we can harness data to produce actionable insights. Teams are increasingly wanting and able to measure the flow of value they produce to their customers and the value they receive. Organizations can finally measure their progress on a DevOps journey by using value stream management. But we are at the start of the journey of applying value stream thinking to digital value streams.

This book is unique and timely. The first of its kind, it explains specifically how to combine DevOps and value stream management to best effect to deliver optimum value to customers and assure organizational performance. Readers will experience a journey through the evolution of value stream management to the present day, learning how DevOps practices optimize flow and what it means to focus on customer value outcomes. With practical examples of the principles in action in the field, case stories, and insights from the leaders molding this market, this book promises to find its own place in our history of business improvement.

I met the author, Gary Rupp, when we launched the Value Stream Management Consortium in March 2021 and immediately invited him to join the consortium as a board advisor, so evident was the depth of his knowledge and expertise in this industry. It's been a pleasure to read his work and learn from him and his immense experience with both value stream management and DevOps.

For value stream management, as we move toward impact-driven development, insight-driven business, and continue to augment human intelligence with our machines, the time to act is now.

Helen Beal

Chair, Value Stream Management Consortium

Cecil 'Gary' Rupp brings more than 30 years of practitioner and executive-level experience in applying the methods and tools of information technology (IT) for software development. His roles span IT professional services, executive management, business process re-engineering/improvements, CASE tool software product manager, and the sales and marketing of software development and middleware tools.

In addition, Cecil has directly managed more than 20 enterprise-class IT programs and projects, with the last 16 years having been focused almost exclusively on supporting large federal and commercial health IT programs. He is also the author of the Building Our Digital World (BODW) series of books on software and systems development practices and Scaling Scrum Across Modern Enterprises.

I want to thank the people who contributed their time and expertise to help make this a better book: Steven Anderson, Ahmed Khan, and Jill Buhrfiend (Apptio, Inc.)Helen Beal (VSM Consortium)Richard Dunn and Ben Chicoswi (CloudBees)Lance Knight (ConnectALL)Richard Knaster, Mike O'Rourke, and Gaurav Rewari (Digital.ai)Alec Newcomb (Highwire PR on behalf of GitLab)Brian Muskoff and Al Wagner (HCL Software)Kumar S Rajesh (Institute of Product Leadership)Akshay Sharma (Kovair)Kamana Jain and Chet Marchwinski (Lean Enterprise Institute)

Don Tapping and Todd Sperl (LeanFITT) Christine Ewing (Micro Focus)Charlie Ponsonby (Plandek)Bob Davis and Jeff Keyes (Plutora)Scott Ambler and All Shalloway (PMI)Sean Harris, David Williams, and Colin Fletcher (Quali)Adam Mattis and Marc Rix (Scaled Agile, Inc.)RJ Jainendra, Richard Hawes, Yoav Boaz, and Anand Ahire (ServiceNow)Naomi Lurie and Katherine Jeschke (Tasktop)

Enrique Gomez is a Federal/Health Care IT expert with 20+ years' experience in full scale enterprise IT systems, software development, content/media development, and Agile/DevOps practices. His passion is problem solving for clients, with particular emphasis on creating memorable experiences, making IT work to improve health and quality of life, and leveraging emergent technologies to tackle the challenges of the human condition. He owns DevVinci Technica LLC. ("DevVinci"), a VA certified Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) and boutique consultancy serving federal, state, and healthcare IT industries in the US.