CollabNet, Icon Agility team up for value stream management

CollabNet VersionOne has partnered up with Icon Agility Services to launch a joint services and technology offering that is aimed to help organizations adopt value stream management and DevOps in the enterprise.

The service uses Icon's Business Agility Strategy consulting framework and CollabNet VersionOne's Value Stream Management (VSM) platform. According to CollabNet, this enables companies to react faster to customer demands.

While this type of collaboration isn't uncommon, according to Diego Lo Giudice, Forrester vice president and principal analyst serving application development and delivery professionals, the focus on value stream management is unique.

"Agile and DevOps are not enough to help end-user enterprise organizations transform their application development and delivery capabilities into a modern one," Lo Giudice said. "Forrester believes VSM is a strategic jump necessary for any user organization that is seriously willing to scale and transform its delivery capabilities to support successful digital transformation."

Enterprise value stream management is the trend of organizations aligning software development and delivery with business objectives in order to scale Agile and DevOps transformations more effectively. CollabNet's Value Stream Management product aims to prove a holistic approach to application development and delivery by applying the principals of Agile and DevOps to the entire product delivery pipeline, according to CollabNet.

Icon Agility Services has an Enterprise Business Agility service that provides coaching teams that work with companies to understand business challenges, support the development of a transformation roadmap and guide teams through implementation of that strategy, according to Icon.

CollabNet and Icon claim that their collaboration will enable business leads across IT and operations to look at the scope of their software development pipeline, while mapping the value from planning and development to releasing on demand.

Companies that work with Icon and use the CollabNet VersionOne VSM platform will receive training, coaching and implementation of a DevOps transformation in a customized experience. The focus will be on delivering business value through outcomes and aimed at achieving long-term, sustainable success.

This, Lo Giudice said, is the value for enterprises in this partnership.

"If enterprises can build better [customer experience] and improve digital customer journeys, they will be happier," he said. "[Value stream management] enables that further. … No software vendors in the market have a full-fledged VSM solution yet, so the gaps can be filled with services. Those that start consuming the outcomes of a partnership like this will gain competitive advantage."