From Code to Production: How Platform Engineering Benefits from VSM #
In the world of modern software development, platform engineering is emerging as a key discipline that empowers developers by providing reusable tools, workflows, and self-service infrastructure. But with all the complexity involved in building and maintaining internal platforms, how do you ensure you’re solving the right problems? This is where Value Stream Mapping (VSM) becomes a game-changer.
What is Value Stream Mapping? #
VSM, a lean methodology borrowed from manufacturing, can help platform teams understand how value flows (or gets blocked) from idea to production—so they can optimize for speed, quality, and developer satisfaction.
Value Stream Mapping is a visual tool used to document the steps involved in delivering a product or service. It captures every stage of a workflow—from concept to delivery—along with time metrics, handoffs, and pain points. The goal is to identify waste, delays, and inefficiencies that hinder value delivery.
When applied to software delivery pipelines, it reveals how long it takes for a feature or change to move from development to production—and how much of that time is actually productive.
Why VSM with platform engineering? #
Platform engineers often work behind the scenes, building internal tools and infrastructure that serve other developers. But without a clear understanding of how those tools fit into the end-to-end delivery process, it’s easy to:
- Automate the wrong parts
- Over-engineer solutions
- Ignore developer bottlenecks
- Miss opportunities to improve lead time or quality
By using VSM, platform teams can:
- Map current workflows used by developers and DevOps teams.
- Identify friction points, like long build times, slow approvals, or manual testing.
- Prioritize improvements that deliver the most value to engineers and the business.
Value Steam Mapping in Platform Engineering #
- Choose a Value Stream
Before diving into Value Stream Mapping, the first and most crucial step is to identify the specific value stream you want to analyze. In platform engineering, a value stream represents a series of activities that deliver value to internal users typically developers, operations or security teams. Choosing the right one sets the foundation for meaningful insights and impactful improvements.
What Makes a Good Value Stream?
A good candidate for mapping can be:
- Frequent – It happens often enough that improvements will yield real ROI.
- Important – It has a clear impact on developer productivity, system reliability, or delivery speed.
- Frustrating – It contains visible pain points like delays, handoffs, rework, or unclear responsibilities.
Examples:
-
Value Stream: Code to Production
Value of Mapping: Highlights delays in build, test, approval, or deployment processes. -
Value Stream: Environment Provisioning
Value of Mapping: Reveals manual steps that can be automated or standardized. -
Value Stream: Incident Response
Value of Mapping: Helps improve mean time to resolution (MTTR) and reduce operational burden.
- Engage Stakeholders
VSM works best as a collaborative activity. To get an accurate measure of the chosen value stream, inputs from various stakeholders are required.
Stakeholders:
- Developers: Who experience the process daily.
- Platform Engineers: Who design and support internal tools.
- DevOps/SREs: Who maintain CI/CD, monitoring, and reliability.
- QA/Test Engineers: Who are involved in manual or automated testing.
- Security or Compliance Teams: If approvals and checks are part of the process.
- Map the Current State
Document each step in the current process by answering the following questions.
- What happens? - The end goal.
- Who does it? - Teams involved.
- How long does it take? - Time to build.
- Where do things get stuck? - Bottlenecks.
Capture key metrics:
- Lead Time - total time from start to finish
- Cycle Time - active work time
- Wait Time - delays or queues
Leverage tools like whiteboards, Lucidchart, or even Post-it notes.
- Identify Waste and Pain Points
With the current state mapped, now we can look for non-value-adding activities, also known as waste in Lean thinking. The goal is to uncover where time, effort, or resources are being spent without delivering value.
Common Bottlenecks:
- Manual approvals that slow down delivery
- Long feedback loops between dev and ops
- Flaky tests causing CI re-runs
- Tool fragmentation requiring context switching
- Documentation gaps leading to support tickets
- Design the Future State
Use insights from the current map to build a better system. This represents the optimized, streamlined process that removes or reduces waste and adds automation, clarity, or tooling where needed.
- Replace manual provisioning with self-service portals
- Automate tests and deployments
- Reduce handoffs with tighter integrations
- Improve observability and developer tooling
This is where platform engineering meets product thinking, you’re not just building tools, you’re designing better developer experiences.
Platform Value Stream Map: #
Current State:
Future State With Platform
