Software Engineering Intelligence (SEI) tools provide insights into the software development process for development leaders. Using SEI tools, dev leaders can optimize their software development processes while improving the developer experience. The market growth in SEI tools directly corresponds to the explosive use of genAI TuringBots, commonly referred to as copilots for software development. GenAI’s promise to vastly improve software coding efficiency has spurred nearly every development leader to purchase these tools for their teams, with the hopes that they can finally move the needle on improving software release cadence. But there’s a catch: genAI copilots cost money and CFOs and CEOs that approved the purchase of copilots want to see the ROI. In a sense, the copilot bill has come due. Dev leaders scrambling to provide these productivity measurements are increasingly turning to SEI tools and their ability to measure software development process metrices, such as DORA, PR (Pull Request) cycle times, acceptance rates, and others.
Value Stream Management (VSM) tools have similar capabilities to SEI tools, but their scope extends beyond software development to include the entire end-to-end process of software development. Many organizations don’t think of software delivery as a value stream, but that is a mistake. Software developers are not employed to simply code — they create value for the business and its customers through the development of software. Enterprises that use VSM are trying to solve bigger problems than just developer productivity: they want to improve an entire business unit’s productivity, from planning to execution. These organizations often use multiple vendors to provide DevOps tooling and need a solution that can act independently from them, while at the same time providing uniform visibility and governance.
At Forrester we see this intersection in this way:
Here’s what you need to know:
- SEI tools help software delivery organizations improve with data and analytics that are ingested directly from development tools — typically Jira, GitHub, and CI/CD systems.
- VSM tools have very similar capabilities but capture data from a larger portion of the SDLC, from planning all the way through delivery, to help all teams stay aligned towards business goals.
Here’s what’s coming next:
- Coming in Q1, The Value Stream Management Solutions Landscape will include both VSM and some SEI tools to provide readers an understanding of core and extended use cases, as well as mapping to capabilities.
- Coming in Q2, The Forrester Wave™: Value Stream Management Solutions will evaluate VSM tools (and possibly some broader SEI tools) to compare and evaluate their strategy and capabilities.
IT Leaders: Got questions about how an SEI or VSM tool can help you? Feel free to schedule a guidance session with me to learn more.
Vendors: Got an SEI or VSM tool you want to brief me on? Please request a briefing to inform me of your offering.