Posts Tagged ‘Governance Framework’
Schedule Constraints in the Devops Triangle
Last week’s post “The Devops Triangle” demonstrated the extension of Jim Highsmith‘s Agile Triangle to devops. The extension relied on adding compliance to the three traditional constraints of software development: scope, schedule, cost. A graphical representation of this extension is given in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Compliance as the Fourth Constraint in Devops Projects
This blog post examines how time/schedule should be governed in the devops context. It does so by building on the concluding observation in the previous post:
The Devops Triangle and the corresponding Tradeoff Matrix demonstrate how governance a la Agile can be extended to devops projects as far as compliance goes. The proposed governance framework however is incomplete in the following sense: schedule in devops projects can be a much more granular and stringent constraint than schedule in “dev only” projects.
For the schedule constraint in devops, I propose a schedule set. It consists of four components:
- Lead Time or Engineering Time
- Time to change
- Time to deploy
- Time to roll back
Lead Time/Engineering Time: These are customary metrics used in Kanban software development, as demonstrated in Figure 3.
Figure 3: The Engineering Time Metric Used by the BBC (David Joyce in the LSSC10 Conference)
Time to change: The amount of time it takes for the various stakeholders (e.g., dev, test, ops, customer support) to review the code to be deployed, approve its deployment and assign a time window for the deployment.
Time to deploy: The amount of time from (metaphorically speaking) pushing the Deploy “button” to completion of deployment.
Time to roll back: The amount of time to undo a deployment. (Rigorous that the engineering practices and IT processes might be, the time to roll back a deployment can’t be ignored – it is a critical risk parameter).
A graphical representation of these four schedule metrics together with the Devops Triangle is given in the figure below:
Figure 4: The Devops Triangle with a Schedule Set
Using hours as the common unit of measure, a typical schedule set could be {100, 48, 3, 2}. In this hypothetical example, it takes a little over 4 days to carry out the development of the code increment; 2 days to get approval for the change; 3 hours to deploy the code; and, 2 hours to roll back.
Whatever your specific schedule numbers might be, it is highly recommended you apply value stream mapping (see Figure 5 below) to your schedule set. Based on the findings of the value stream mapping, apply statistical process control methods like those illustrated in Figure 3 to continuously improving both the mean and the variances of the four schedule components.
Figure 5: An Example of Value Stream Mapping (Source: Wikipedia entry on the subject)
How Many Metrics do You Need to Effectively Govern the Software Process?
A Simple Metrics-Driven Software Governance Framework Based on Jim Highsmith’s Agile Triangle Framework
In my recent Cutter Blog post entitled Three Governance Metrics I recommended using just three metrics:
- Value
- Cost
- Technical debt
The heart pf this recommendation is that all three can be expressed in dollar terms as depicted in the figure above. An apples-to-apples comparison is made through the common denominator – $$. For example, something is likely to be either technically, methodically or governance-wise wrong if the technical debt figure exceeds the cost figure for a prolonged period of time. One can actually characterize such a situation as accruing debt faster than building equity.
I am often asked about adding metrics to this simple governance framework. For example, should not productivity be included in the framework?
‘Less is more’ is my usual response to such questions. IMHO value, cost and technical debt address the most important high level governance considerations:
- Value –> Why are we doing the project?
- Cost –> Can we afford the project?
- Technical debt –> Is the execution risk acceptable?
Please pay special attention to the unit of measure of any metric you might add to this simple governance framework. As long as the metric is a dollar-based metric, the cohesion of the governance framework can be maintained. However, metrics which are not expressed in dollars will probably superimpose other frameworks on top of the simple governance framework. For example, you introduce a programming framework if you add a productivity metric which is measured in function points per man month. Sponsors who govern using value, cost, technical debt and productivity will need to mentally alternate between the simple governance framework and the programming framework whenever they try to combine the productivity metric with any of the other three metrics.
The Agile Executive 
Cutter’s Technical Debt Assessment and Valuation Service
with 3 comments
The Cutter Consortium has announced the availability of the Technical Debt Assessment and Valuation Service. The service combines static code analytics with dynamic program analytics to give the client “x-rays” of the software being examined at any desired granularity – from the whole project portfolio to a single instruction. It breaks down technical debt into the areas of coverage, complexity, duplication, violations and comments. Clients get an aggregate dollar figure for “paying back” debt that they can then plug into their financial models to objectively analyze their critical software assets. Based on these metrics, they can make the best decisions about their ongoing strategy for the software development effort under scrutiny.
This new service is an important addition to the enlightened software governance framework that Jim Highsmith, Michael Mah and I have been thinking about and contributing to for sometime now (see Beyond Scope, Schedule and Cost: Measuring Agile Performance and Quantifying the Start Afresh Option). The heart of both the technical debt service and the enlightened governance framework is captured by the following words from the press release:
By boiling down technical debt to dollars and tying it to cost and value, the service enables a metrics-driven governance framework for the use of five major constituencies, as follows:
It should finally be pointed out that the technical debt assessment service and the governance framework it enables are applicable to any software method. They can be used to:
Forthcoming Cutter Executive Reports, Executive Updates and Email Advisors on the technical debt service are restricted to Cutter clients. As appropriate, I will publish the latest and greatest news on the subject in the Cutter Blog (which is an open forum I highly recommend).
Acknowledgements: I would like to wholeheartedly thank the following colleagues for inspiring, enlightening and supporting me during the preparation of the service:
Written by israelgat
May 5, 2010 at 4:40 am
Posted in Agile Performance Management, Companies, Events, Performance Measurement, Software Costs
Tagged with Anne Mullaney, CEO, Chris Sterling, Cindy Swain, CIO, Comments, Complexity, Coverage, CTO, Cutter Consortium, Duplication, Governance Framework, Industry Norms, Israel Gat, IT Operations, Jennifer Flaxman, Jim Highsmith, John Heintz, Jonathon Golden, Kara Letourneau, Karen Coburn, Ken Collier, Kim Leonard, M&A, Michael Mah, NPV, Paying Back, Software Method, Technical Debt, Valuation, Venture Capitalist, Violation