I like the book, “Better Value Sooner Safer Happier” (BVSSH), by Jon Smart with contributions from Zsolt Berend, Myles Ogilvie and Simon Rohrer. It is not only a punchy title that captures much of what we do in IT, but it also has the depth and nuance that is sorely needed. It focuses on outcomes while recognizing the intrinsic unpredictability of the systems (in the broadest sense) that we work in.
DevOps
Although it will be of interest to most IT-related disciplines, because of the people who follow Jon and his publisher, the book’s first audience will probably be the DevOps community. DevOps is a broad church, but many of the constitution have a strong focus on getting stuff shipped frequently, quickly and reliably. This is reflected in the metrics that are typically promoted for DevOps: deployment frequency, lead time for changes, change failure rate and mean time to recover. It is good to note that lead time is measured from code commit to production, so very right at the end of development. They are concerned with the tools for, and process of, successful deployment of increments of software. The functionality that is being shipped is often of less interest to those tasked with deployment. The boxes just have to be shipped, whatever their content. Most of the 67 practices in the excellent “DevOps Handbook” reflect this. The principles behind DevOps, however, can be applied beyond the deployment area, and many people do this. But DevOps’ sweet spot in terms of its contribution to improving activities is deployment.
Agile
Similarly, Agile also has a sweet spot: developing software increments that are potentially deployable. This definition of done demarcates where Agile guidance defers to DevOps guidance. An equally interesting demarcation is at the start, where the focus is on opportunities, hypotheses, requirements and specifications. Does Agile guidance help when there are unarticulated user needs and ambiguous hypotheses? Or is this the natural habitat of business analysis? Dave Snowden speaks of “pre-scrum techniques,” implying that Agile shows its value when requirements are clear enough for development of the first viable product increment. Just as with DevOps, Agile also embodies principles that can be applied beyond its sweet spot of software development.
IT Operations, IT Service Management and Value Realization
At the end of the value stream, we are concerned with ensuring that the potential value of the software products is actually realized. Much of this is beyond the scope of influence of the service provider, where IT operations (including site reliability engineering) and IT service management concern themselves with ensuring that the systems are performing well and that the users have access to the systems. Not only does the information system have to be operationally resilient, but users also have to use the functionality effectively, interpret the information correctly and take better decisions and, finally, act on those decisions.
The ‘What’ of BVSSH
Return of investment in digital products and information systems is only realized when people or things actually do something with them (or avoid undesirable action). This extends the definition of done way beyond deployable, deployed and accessible. “Done” is when value is realized, and this is the “what” of BVSSH. As Jon says, “It’s why you are doing what you are doing. It is of value to someone. It could be financial; it could be maintaining public safety; it could be charitable.”
The ‘How’ of BVSSH
The “how” of BVSSH is represented by better, sooner, safer and happier. Better refers to quality that is built in from the start. Sooner covers the end-to-end value stream, although I would extend the scope beyond the provider’s “getting it into the hands of a customer.” Safer is about “governance, risk and compliance, information security, data privacy, regulatory compliance and resilience in chaos. […] It is speed and control, not one or the other. […] The better the brakes, the faster you can go.” Finally, happier covers customers, colleagues, citizens and climate. “It is a more humane way of working, with empowered multidisciplinary teams and high levels of psychological safety, enabling experimentation and improvement.”
Digital Zeitgeist
I was delighted to see parallels with what we had written in ITIL 4 High-velocity IT. We recommend considering five objectives that help you identify and assess your weakest link across the whole value stream, and discuss which improvements you could make:
- Valuable investments – Strategically innovative and effective application of digital technology.
- Fast development – Quick realization and delivery of digital services and products.
- Resilient operations – Highly resilient digital services and products.
- Co-created value – Effective interaction between service providers and service consumers.
- Assured conformance – Adherence to governance, risk and compliance (GRC) requirements.
Valuable investments and co-created value correspond with value, fast development with sooner, resilient operations with better and assured conformance with safer. Happier manifests itself in co-created value but also in the five key behavior patterns that I believe employees aspire to:
- Help get customers’ jobs done.
- Trust and be trusted.
- Accept ambiguity and uncertainty.
- Continually learn and improve.
- Do the ethically right thing.
As I pointed out in another article, Gene Kim came up with a similar concept to the aspirational behaviors in his book, “The Unicorn Project.” He calls them the five ideals:
- Locality and simplicity in our code and organization.
- Focus, flow and joy in our work.
- Enablement of improvement and achievement.
- A culture of psychological safety.
- A relentless focus on our customers.
This all reinforces my belief that many of us are thinking along the same lines. We have tuned into the zeitgeist. People are increasingly concerned about doing the right thing and doing it well, and I am sure that “Better Value Sooner Safer Happier” will contribute to energizing this community.
