Name: The Art of Business Value
ISBN: 9781942788041

Mark Schwartz

Playful and thought-provoking, The Art of Business Value explores what business value means, why it matters, and how it should affect your software development and delivery practices. More than any other IT delivery approach, DevOps (and Agile thinking in general) makes business value a central concern. This book examines the role of business value in software and makes a compelling case for why a clear understanding of business value will change the way you deliver software.

The Art of Business Value

Artas Bartas

Ever since I've got involved with the tech industry, I suffer from this recurrent nightmare. The specific details vary: I might find myself in a doctor's office, airport lounge, a crowded train carriage or - in a particularly severe episode - taking a slow elevator in my office building. There are people around me, going about their daily business, saying their usual hi's, bye's, and how-are-you's. And then this guy appears out of nowhere. He sports olive-colored cargo pants and a black zip-up hoodie with a logo of an obscure startup. He wears glasses and stares intently around. Eventually, he starts talking to me. First, about the usual things - the weather, the traffic, the waiting time at the doctor's office. And then he steers the conversation towards some tech-focused topic - whether the new Mac Pro is an abomination, how Etherium will die within the next three months, or why Python's sorting algorithm is broken. And it's at this point that I start to get antsy and feel my heart beating faster. Because I know what's about to happen. The stranger continues to opinionate, but I no longer listen. I glance around hoping to find a discreet way to end this conversation. No luck. My body temperature continues to rise. I continue hearing fragments of developer wisdom pouring over me. Now, the first beads of sweat form on my forehead and soon the t-shirt sticks to my back. And then it begins. The stranger utters the word 'agile.' At first, it's just a lonely reference, what can be interpreted as an innocent attempt to add some sparkle to a dry sentence. And then another one. And another one. Technical agile terms start coming fast and thick. And before I know it, the stranger is delivering a full-blown sermon about the Agile Manifesto and the future of software development. At this point, my carefully-controlled anxiety breaks into a full-blown panic. I have seen it before, and I know that fits of agile proselytizing can go on for hours, sometimes days on end. Like zombies and AI bots, agile disciples seem to be immune to biological and psychological needs taxing mere mortals: pausing a sentence to breathe in, stopping a conversation for a toilet break, interrupting a workshop to grab a drink, or simply missing some alone-time with the Facebook feed. No, the agile disciples have no time for such indulgences. Quick, there is way too much important stuff you need to learn. User stories, cross-functional teams, acceptance tests, burndown charts, story points, feedback loops - the stranger continues to repeat his incantations, gesticulating wildly as he does so. His pupils are extended. His previously gray face is blush with color now. I am out of air. I try to make one last attempt to tear myself away from the conversation, but the whole room is swaying and the agile stranger follows me whenever I move. I gasp and then collapse on the floor. Everything goes black. Silence. Some time passes by. I regain my consciousness, but everything feels different now. I am looking at myself from above. I see emergency personnel enter the room and check the body for the signs of life. They say there is no pulse. But the agile man is still there. His lips are moving in a rapid sequence. What is it? What is he saying? I concentrate on reading his lips...I can't believe it. He is still talking about the units of value and how test-driven development will make everything alright. I scream, and then I wake up.

If you are wondering what this all has to do with the Art of Business Value, Mark Schwartz's book is essentially my nightmare condensed into 131 pages. Just like the stranger in my dream, Mark Schwartz begins with innocent questions - wondering about the traditional ways of measuring value and budget overruns on government projects - but with every page, he takes you deeper and deeper into the agile jungle, all the while reassuring you that the answer to the central question of the book is just around the corner. In retrospective, it felt like a sophisticated form of click-baiting to me.

The book is structured like a children's crime story, with each chapter yielding yet another piece of the final puzzle. Thus, Schwartz begins by picking apart the traditional measures of value - the return on investment (ROI) and net present value (NPV). Then goes on to discuss the importance of gathering feedback, respecting the corporate culture, and rethinking the role of IT within the modern enterprise. More criticism of ROI and NVP follows. And finally, the grand finale: Mark Schwartz uses the last thirty pages of the book to introduces nine strategies for maximizing the business value within the organization. 

The Art of Business Value is a perplexing book. It's not only the fact that the pieces of the puzzle it lays out in front of you do not fit together. It also occupies a dubious intellectual ground. Mark Schwartz casts himself as a change agent preaching a more enlightened approach to building software. And then spends a whole chapter normalizing the evil of bureaucracy, one of the biggest obstacles in building better software. As he puts it, "it is easy to mistake [compliance] requirements for waste. Waste is whatever does not add value, and compliance requirements are not concerned with adding direct customer value <...> But what if those requirements actually are adding business value - just an indirect and well-disguised type of value?" Indeed, what if? But this line of argument allows justifying just about anything - from bacon-wrapped macaroni & cheese meatloaves to government-sponsored eugenics programs.

If you came across the Art of Business Value looking for practical insights, you are in for a sore disappointment. Mark Schwartz includes a few relevant anecdotes here and there, mostly from his experience of working at a small educational company, but these examples never rise to the level where they could illuminate the agile theory. What is even more baffling is how quickly the tone of the book shifts from a business treatise to a DevOps cheat sheet when it comes to actionable recommendations. "Create a highly automated, reliable, Continuous Delivery pipeline that allows for rapid feedback all the way through to the operation of features in production," rallies the author. "Treat the Enterprise Architecture as an asset with economic business value, both realized and latent," he adds a few pages later. "Let the teams self-organize product ownership." On and on goes the list. 

If you did not notice by now, the Art of Business Value is not a book about the business value. It is a book about agile methodology, which goes to extreme lengths to obfuscate the concept of the business value. The point perfectly illustrated by the final paragraph of the book, where Mark Schwartz warns the reader: "understand that there is no magic formula for business value that only the business people know. Ultimately, it turns out that business value is what the business values, and that is that." 130 pages of agile-talk and then this. 

There was one last thing I wanted to get off my chest. The Amazon reviews of the book invariably mention it being full of humor and creativity. As one reader puts it, "it is fun to read and thought-provoking." Let me assure you, if you are not a hardcore agile fanboy already, it is anything but fun. When given a chance to crack a joke, Mark Schwartz writes "Warning: this chapter contains graphic depictions of bureaucracy being applied to agility. You may come away wanting to produce burndown charts in triplicate." Talk about awkward humor.

"Do you really understand what business value is? Information technology can and should deliver business value. But the Agile literature has paid scant attention to what business value means—and how to know whether or not you are delivering it. This problem becomes ever more critical as you push value delivery toward autonomous teams and away from requirements “tossed over the wall” by business stakeholders. An empowered team needs to understand its goal! Playful and thought-provoking, The Art of Business Value explores what business value means, why it matters, and how it should affect your software development and delivery practices. More than any other IT delivery approach, DevOps (and Agile thinking in general) makes business value a central concern. This book examines the role of business value in software and makes a compelling case for why a clear understanding of business value will change the way you deliver software. This book will make you think deeply about not only what it means to deliver value but also the relationship of the IT organization to the rest of the enterprise. It will give you the language to discuss value with the business, methods to cut through bureaucracy and strategies for incorporating Agile teams and culture into the enterprise. Most of all, this book will startle you into new ways of thinking about the cutting-edge of Agile practice and where it may lead."

The Art of Business Value

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