Transformation of enterprise software development capability towards modern practice continues to be hampered by false starts, frustration and slow change. Silver bullet methods of every shape and size continue to be peddled within what could be termed a cottage industry. Teams continue to be influenced unduly by community reinforcement, confirmatory bias, myopic thinking or blatant conflicts-of-interest. The net result is that investors in software continue to lose hundreds of billions of dollars annually due to sub-optimal decisions leading to poor business outcomes. It is time to proactively mitigate the risks to software investments and achieve true business agility beyond the buzzwords. The disenfranchisement of these stakeholders has gone on far too long in a business climate that is demanding more for less at an accelerating pace. Better outcomes require empowering teams to make less risky, more informed choices about their ways-of-working. Better outcomes require more intelligent staffing based on a more cost effective supply chain. Better outcomes mean practicing empiricism at scale such that effective and pragmatic governance can be exercised by the fiduciary of software endeavors. This book empowers enterprises to cut through the widespread rhetoric and dogma to achieve efficient and effective practice. To get there, a revolutionary change management and governance strategy is detailed that is both credible and concrete. Rather than stop short by just writing about this strategy, a revolutionary expert system technology called Advisor is described that keeps it real, pragmatic and actionable for the challenges inherent with large scale enterprises. "The 'tour de force' of topics like agile, lean staffing, common-form factors and 'investment centric governance' were especially well done -- and caused me to pause more than a few times to think through the implications for a software shop and the business. Every CIO and software delivery leader would benefit from a deep read of the market competitive and 'investment grade' practices that are described." Patrick Howard, Vice President and Global Leader - Technology Strategy and Cloud, IBM Global Business Services "Value Stream is unusual, in that it doesn't push a particular approach, tool or language. Instead, it rises above the software industry as such to present us with a perspective of ourselves. This is refreshing and reminds me of Fred Brooks' and John Zachman's slants on our business." Meilir Page-Jones, Senior Industry Consulting Veteran "Mark walks the reader through many strategic elements of improving software economics that attracts the reader to learn more about how to best cope with today's challenges. Value Stream is loaded with from-the-trenches knowhow and it provides practical guidance in the disciplined use of modern practices for software delivery enterprises." Walker Royce, Chief Software Economist - IBM "Mark has built over the years an Advisor Expert System which knows a lot about effective practices and when to use them. I personally think this area will become a refraining topic in the coming months, and Mark is ahead of the game as you can read in the book." Diego Lo Giudice, Vice President & Principal Analyst, Forrester Research Learn more at http: //www.software-development-experts.co