New Moon on the Rise

What is a new moon? It is the phase of the moon where the moon is rising but not yet visible from the earth. For us, a new moon is definitely rising. It may not be visible but it is definitely here with BYOD, virtualization, shadow IT and cloud computing. And that moon is demanding that we examine our practices in order to improve Time to Value.

You may have heard a lot about the cultural and collaborative movement called DevOps. Some service providers are making the DevOps vision a reality by focusing on improving their cadence - the rhythmic flow of something as it moves forward, such as software development or complex projects.

Agile service management and DevOps strive to improve the cadence between three main players in the value stream:

Cadence of the Business

Business demand is dynamic and the rate of speed is increasing. The business needs a cadence that is able to meet their accelerated requirements. Jayne Groll in a recent webinar from ITSM Academy described the business as a “Jaguar”. The picture is lean, fierce and most importantly super fast!

Cadence of Development and Design

In the past, development was perceived to slow the business down with their waterfall approach and extensive work in progress. Agile and Lean best practices have helped to speed things up and improve the cadence between the business and development - but it still isn't enough. The flow of work between Dev and Ops still suffers from significant bottlenecks and constraints.

Cadence of Service Operation

The business is trying to move super fast and development is getting in step with the business via Agile/Scrum practices. Operations has taken substantive steps to improve by implementing service management processes. However, in order to improve end-to-end cadence, those service management processes need to become more agile. It may be the gap between development and operation processes that is the core constraint that is affecting the entire organization's cadence.

A new moon is on the rise and it is rising quickly. Ongoing competitive advantage may be largely dependent on the smooth flow of work within the value stream. Adoption of guidance from frameworks such as ITIL, ISO, Lean and Agile will certainly help. However, it is the cultural emphasis of DevOps that may prove to actually improves cadence.

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