My notes from the DevOps Handbook

by Gene Kim, Jez Humble, Patrick Debois, John Willis

Eliminate hardships and waste in the value stream

Waste - largest threat to business viability

Lean definition of waste

Use of any material or resource beyond what the customer requires or is willing to pay for

Types of waste

• inventory
• overproduction
• extra processing
• transportation
• waiting
• motion
• defects

Reduce hardships through continual learning.

Waste and hardship in a software development stream

Anything that causes delay for the customer.

Categories of waste

• Partially done work
• partially done work becomes obsolete and loses value as time progresses
• Extra processes
• unused documentation
• invaluable reviews or approvals
• any additional work that does not provide value
• Extra features
• not needed by the organization or the customer
• the only add complexity
• Task switching
• assignment to multiple projects
• managing dependencies between work
• Waiting
• prevents customer from getting value
• Motion
• frequent communication requirement
• each handoff
• Defects
• incorrect
• missing
• unclear information
• the longer time between defect creation and detection, the more difficult it is to resolve
• Nonstandard and manual work
• any dependencies on operations should be automated and self-serviced
• Heroics
• unreasonable acts being performed

Goal

Make wastes and hardships visible and systematically do what is needed to alleviate or eliminate those burdens.

Conclusion

Improving flow through the value stream is essential to achieving DevOps outcomes.