Learning to See Digital Value Streams
“Whenever there is a product for a customer, there is a value stream. The challenge lies in seeing it.”
Mike Rother and John Shook
'Learning to See. Value Stream Mapping to Create Value and Eliminate Muda'
What is a Value Stream?
A value stream is the set of activities required to design, develop, and deliver a product or service on a customer request.
Value streams are ubiquitous, but often invisible. Our traditional organizations and ways of working are focused on functions by area of expertise.
Lean thinking has the merit of refocusing attention on customer satisfaction as the top priority and recommending practices that align and optimize the whole work system with the value to be realized.
Attention: Confusions persist between customer journeys, value streams, and processes!
- These three concepts are interdependent and can benefit from temporal visualization.
- The customer journey is analyzed from the customer/user's perspective, while the value stream is studied from the perspective of our organization.
- A value stream maps the main activities of our organization from start to finish through the lens of their value contribution to satisfying customer/user demands.
- Value streams enable customer journeys by combining processes.
+ Check out the article “Is a customer journey a value stream?” on the Flowtopia blog, as well as the representative example of Netflix in our article written for the VSM Consortium.
+ Check out our articles "See Platforms as Value Streams" and "See the Value Stream Network" to learn how to see platform teams as value streams and the whole network of value streams.
Value Stream Mapping, Maps, and Workshops
The concept of value stream is associated with Value Stream Mapping. This practice and the resulting maps generally correspond to the first concrete use of this know-how.
Like many others, I discovered them while participating in Value Stream Mapping workshops. These hands-on experiences revealed to me the power of their application and made me want to learn more about their use in the digital world.
A Value Stream Map is a high-level, visual representation of all of the steps required to transform a customer request into a delivered good or service. Value Stream Maps are used to document current state conditions as well as design a future state.
Value Stream Maps are created by team members and leaders themselves during collaborative workshops named Value Stream Mapping workshops.
Value Stream Mapping for Digital Teams
Digital leaders and teams can leverage customized Value-Driven VSM workshops to deliver high-quality software faster and increase customer value.
Our approach builds on the strengths of Lean practices and our expertise in applying them to the digital world.
Our services are based on over 30 years of experience in software engineering, real-world application of these techniques with digital product teams, and ongoing involvement in the VSM Consortium (now Flowtopia) for over 4 years.
From the very first minutes of a workshop, you will also see that these techniques are very well suited to digital technology and software engineering. Not everything can be transposed in exactly the same way as for an automotive assembly line, but many lean principles are valuable sources of inspiration.
In a nutshell, digital leaders and teams can rely on VSM techniques that have been proven over decades through fast and effective engagements.
Time is our most precious resource. Let's take advantage of a structured approach to ensure we don't skip any key steps, while quickly guiding problem solving and addressing your specific challenges.
From Value Stream Mapping to Value Stream Management
The collaborative activities of a VSM workshop offer numerous benefits that go beyond the production of the maps themselves.
Conducting these workshops immediately yields initial benefits. Collaborative mapping helps build a shared understanding and ignite collective momentum. Our approach focuses on aligning all stakeholders with strategic objectives, engaging both leaders and operational staff across the value stream, providing visibility into how work flows, identifying activities that add value for the customer, and promoting cross-functional collaboration.
The data and observations enable us to focus improvements over the coming weeks on the main obstacles to the flow of value. The structured lean approach, combined with software engineering expertise, enables the rapid identification of key bottlenecks, analysis of their root causes, and the joint design of solutions. In particular, our customized approach makes it possible to quickly identify and reduce delays and waiting times, break down silos and reduce handovers between teams, reduce sources of waste and defects, and eliminate or reduce dependencies.
Value Stream Management drives progress and sustainable impacts. Mapping is the entry point to a discipline that must gradually become a habit ingrained in the culture of the team and its leaders. By focusing improvements on key constraints, changes are driven by a cycle of short, successive experiments.
Decisions aimed at optimizing the value stream are made using data and facts, measurements that verify the effects on customer value and the business impact for the company, and the regular replication of lightweight value stream mapping workshops.
Gradually, the organization is able to visualize the entire value stream network and address its systemic bottlenecks.
By adapting lean principles, value stream mapping and management practices to software delivery, digital leaders and teams are better able to:
- Deliver reliable, secure software at the desired or required speed,
- Demonstrate the value realized by customers, end-users, the company and team members,
- Measure and celebrate collective improvements,
- Enable a culture of continuous experimentation and adaptation to changing conditions.
If your digital teams are not yet taking advantage of VSM, give it a chance!
Keep an open mind, give it a try, and you won't be disappointed! Digital leaders, the time is now for you to take the opportunity to experiment with a first case. Learn quickly from this first experience that it is relatively easy, quick, and profitable.
You can now find a description of our Value Stream Mapping for Digital Teams services.
The easiest and most effective way to discuss the opportunity to use these practices in your context is to contact us for a free consultation.
Links
- Our Value Stream Mapping for Digital Teams services
- Whitepaper Value Stream Mapping for Software Delivery (2021)
- Check out our articles and contributions to the VSM Consortium blog on our Resources page.
- Value-Driven News: A look at the latest advances in Value Stream Management to deliver greater value and streamline your workflows. LinkedIn newsletter here.
- Like to join our growing Flowtopia community?