Value Stream Management Consortium Forms

March 4, 2021

Leaders of the software development industry formed the Value Stream Management Consortium (VSMC). Founded by leading technology providers, Digital.ai, HCL Software, Plutora, ServiceNow, and Tasktop, the VSMC charter is to help organizations around the world improve performance and drive customer value through the adoption of value stream management (VSM).

Still in its infancy, the purpose of VSM is to delight customers by delivering software products that provide and create value for them. VSM achieves this through a comprehensive software lifecycle orchestration process that provides value stream managers, release managers, DevOps managers, product managers, and leadership with the data, visibility, and problem-solving tools necessary to continuously improve software development and delivery.

“At this stage in the development of value stream management it’s important that we create and foster a community of experts to further VSM practices, innovation, and adoption,” said Helen Beal, Chair of the Value Stream Management Consortium. “By creating this community, we will increase and accelerate the use of VSM, while developing and instilling best practices and standards. And, ultimately, just like the practice of VSM itself, we will help deliver the utmost value to industry practitioners.”

About The Consortium

The consortium will serve as a central hub of information and education pertaining to the practice and adoption of value stream management. Ongoing research will inform how organizations measure value and become higher performing as a result. Training and certifications will support member collaboration worldwide and help make VSM the industry standard way of working.

The Consortium’s inaugural research offering will be 'The State of Value Stream Management Report' which will measure how teams are applying value stream management principles, practices, and metrics to influence their value stream management outcomes. The survey will be launched today, and its findings will be available in early May.

The Board of Directors is comprised of Chair, Helen Beal and representatives from the founding companies, including Richard Knaster, Chief Scientist, Value Stream Management at Digital.ai; Brian Muskoff, Director of Product Management and Development at HCL Software; Jeff Keyes, VP of Product at Plutora; Rohit Jainendra, VP and GM for ITBM and DevOps, at ServiceNow; and Neelan Choksi, President and COO at Tasktop. Advisors to the Board of Directors include Alistair Watkins, Bryan Finster; and Steve Pereira.

The VSMC is a professional membership association open to all. Members will receive the latest updates and unique learning opportunities evolving out of the growing VSM ecosystem, as well as participation in a fast-growing community of peers.

“Lean enterprises perform better and deliver value more reliably, faster, and with higher quality and lower cost. They do this by applying value stream management to maximize flow, accelerate innovation, and improve value delivery efficiency and effectiveness," said Richard Knaster, Chief Scientist, Value Stream Management at Digital.ai. “Put simply, you need to go from managing projects to guiding long-lived value streams that focus on creating business outcomes vs. outputs. The VSMC will help organizations reach the next level in their Lean, Agile and DevOps practices to accelerate digital transformation and enable continuous delivery of customer value.”

“Software delivery is prime to make another leap and the timing of the Value Stream Management Consortium could not be better. We are excited to be part of this organization as the industry starts to put VSM theories into practice to improve productivity, business results and quality of work life for tech teams across the world,” said Brian Muskoff, Director of Product Management and Development, HCL DevOps. “Over the last decade, I’ve worked with a wide variety of industries and organization types – big and small – to help deliver their DevOps initiatives, and one thing stands out in all of those discussions; value stream management is the practice that will advance DevOps into its next phase. With so many different applications and ways that organizations can take advantage of value stream management, I am eager to see what shape the VSM market takes, and how we at the VSMC can help.”

“Guiding any organization through a digital transformation journey is a daunting task and can feel like you’re being pulled in a million directions,” said Jeff Keyes, VP of product, Plutora. “Working with the VSMC and emphasizing the importance of the tools we provide to a wider market will only help me with my most important task at hand, delivering value to our customers. The customer is key, and value stream management is how software development teams are able to consistently meet their evolving needs.”

“Maximizing value from software investments is critical for businesses in order to deliver great experiences for their customers and employees,” said RJ Jainendra, VP and GM for ITBM and DevOps, ServiceNow. “By partnering with the VSMC, ServiceNow is furthering the adoption of VSM to improve end-to-end value delivery processes, ultimately assisting organizations with driving impactful digital transformations."

“Every CIO of a large, traditional company thrust into digital transformation shares the same struggle: quantifying and optimizing the value of their investments. Technical metrics, proxy metrics, simply do not translate to business outcomes. The industry requires a common language, standardized measurements and unified tools or many costly digital transformation efforts will fail,” said Neelan Choksi, President and COO at Tasktop. “Value Stream Management (VSM) transforms software delivery from the top, giving CIOs insights needed to adapt to market dynamics and optimize based on business outcomes, rather than process, while also providing actionable information for the IT teams doing the work. The VSMC will help to set and accelerate these standards, propelling enterprises into a future of innovation, without friction.”