• The book aims to help senior leaders understand how to develop their strategies, plan for resources, and lead their organizations through a digital transformation in a sustainable way.
• Value stream mapping allows clearly identifying where the constraints are in the flow of value and therefore focus our attention and resources on them.
• Working remotely is putting even more emphasis on fundamental principles such as making work visible by tracking work in our pipelines and making information visible in tools and artifacts across the value stream.
• Teams now measuring flow begin to see which parts of their remote processes are better than their previously colocated processes and where new bottlenecks may be occurring which need to be addressed.
• The software delivery pipeline is likely the most important internal product in a company but is often neither treated as a product nor architected for speed.

The book “Standing on Shoulders: A Leader’s Guide to Digital Transformation” by Jack Maher and Carmen DeArdo provides an introduction to relevant thinking and practices on how to identify and address the major bottlenecks and concerns for transforming organizations.

InfoQ reached out to Maher and DeArdo to know more about their industry experience applying these ideas, and how the move to remote working might change, or not, our approach to digital transformation.

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Jack Maher: Digital transformation is thinking about what you do and how you do it in a new way that leverages the new reality of how we interact with our ecosystems of associates, customers, and stakeholders. It’s about a focus on our core mission and the value that we create and deliver, and using practices and approaches that accelerate speed to value. In today’s world there is a technology component to every organization, leveraging contemporary practices and tools enable us to deliver the capabilities more quickly and with significantly better quality and security.

InfoQ: What was the gap you saw between existing literature and your own industry experience on how to succeed with digital transformation?

Maher: We saw that many organizations were implementing pieces and parts, but without the understanding of how they really worked together. As a result, opportunities to gain the synergy of the combinations weren’t realized, and many times decisions to retain parts of the “old ways” were significantly diminishing the realization of the desired results and outcomes.

InfoQ: You are both experienced technology practitioners. How much of the book is based on what you saw at different organizations you worked for?

Maher: The book is almost completely based on what we personally saw and experienced. We had a broad range of exposure within many organizations and had the opportunity to participate in many different roles and industries. We were very fortunate to be in the right place at the right time in many cases, and to have the support and opportunity to work with very talented people, and to be able to experiment and learn along with very smart and passionate people who shared our vision of making significant improvements.

Carmen DeArdo: As we started to write the chapters, I was surprised actually about how much I related back to my Bell Labs experiences. In many ways, Bell Labs was ahead of the curve in the practices used last century to deliver high performance and available systems. Walter Shewhart started at Bell Labs at its inception (1925) and his work in statistical quality control helped create a culture of continuous improvement at Bell Labs which was pervasive.

InfoQ: What’s the role of DevOps in a digital transformation?

Maher: DevOps is the catalyst that has driven the synergy that results from bringing the best ideas from Lean, Agile, and the capabilities and maturity that has been realized in contemporary technology. When we look at the organizations that have been the disruptors of their industries over time, a key component has been game changing technology. They didn’t just improve what was in place, they redefined expectations. Never again would we consider using mail order, when we were able to order online, for example.

DeArdo: DevOps provides the practices that can be used on the journey to accelerate the delivery and protection of business value. These practices can be applied based on where bottlenecks exist to improve flow and also value and quality. Investing in debt not only improves flow but also team happiness which is key to improving productivity.

InfoQ: Your book leans strongly on value stream mapping. Why do you find that method so important?

Maher: Value stream mapping is an incredibly powerful tool to understand when and where we create and deliver value. When we look at value through the eyes of our customer we can make much better decisions about how to best anticipate and satisfy their needs. Additionally, the power of clearly identifying where we have constraints in the flow of value enables us to focus our attention and resources on those things that will best improve that flow.

DeArdo: In addition, Forrester has created a new category of value stream management that compliments value stream mapping in providing flow metrics from the digital information stored in the artifacts of the tool chain from ideation through to release.

InfoQ: What are your reference books on value stream mapping and what’s different about your approach?

Maher: A lot of it was based on Lean practices from experience in the culture of a company I worked for for many years, especially during the time we were a part of Kawasaki Steel. That said, there was a moment of clarity for me when I read Karen Martin and Mike Osterling’s book “Value Stream Mapping”. I consider it essential reading.

At Nationwide, my role of developing a lean and agile technology delivery methodology enabled me to apply the Deterministic Process Design concepts I had begun to explore at Penn State of applying automation to any business process. This was then further fueled by exciting conversations with Mik Kersten, CEO of Tasktop, and his team about how we might be able to use their technology to realize this vision of integrating systems along the entire value stream to enable true artifact flow and end-to-end visibility. And so, I consider the book “Project to Product” by Mik to be the new standard reading for the bigger picture of value stream management.

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