{"id":3195,"date":"2026-07-23T21:25:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T21:25:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdrefocus.com\/?page_id=3195"},"modified":"2026-07-23T21:27:56","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T21:27:56","slug":"value-driven-2026-07","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sdrefocus.com\/index.php\/value-driven-2026-07\/","title":{"rendered":"Value-Driven – July 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\t\t\tValue-Driven – July 2026\t<\/h2>\n

\n\t\t\tLet’s get back to impactful work!\t<\/h3>\n\tAre cases like Ford’s (*) enough to trigger a return to reality and a reminder of the place humans should occupy in our decision-making? <\/strong>\n(*) Ford Forced to Rehire 350 Veteran Engineers After AI Failed to Improve Vehicle Quality<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\nIn the digital sector, warnings regarding AI adoption merely confirm a now-accepted imperative: to move beyond the production of ever-increasing output and focus primarily on delivering customer outcomes and business impact<\/strong>. Moreover, without solid foundations, not only will dreams of speed remain unfulfilled expectations, but the consequences for production reliability or safety will come at a heavy price.\nOnce these clouds of distraction have cleared, we can return to the core of our work and help our organizations evolve into impact-first product teams<\/strong> (see Matt LeMay<\/a>‘s excellent book mentioned below, which I have just finished reading). Naturally, this may involve the use of AI, provided that its application is relevant to meeting user needs while aligning with our key business objectives.\nBut first things first: human talent supported by every possible technique and tool to refocus our efforts on what matters most. In short, a reinforced, value-driven approach that combines the two pillars of flow optimization and value realization.<\/strong>\nIf you are asking yourself the legitimate question-“How do I get started?”<\/em><\/strong>-here are some personal recommendations from last summer’s edition: https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/pulse\/how-get-started-patrice-corbard-pjvbf\/<\/a>.\nAnd if you were unable to attend Flowtopia Live<\/strong> on June 24th, or perhaps you came across Gunnar Fischer’s impressions from the event<\/a>… among other benefits, you can now unlock full, on-demand access to all event session recordings by becoming a Flow Pro member<\/strong>, and enjoy a $100 discount on the annual subscription by following this link<\/strong><\/a>.\n

\"\"<\/p>\nI hope this summer edition allows you to continue learning about these topics.\nPlease feel free to comment, share, or subscribe to the newsletter if you haven’t already, and to contact me to discuss your own situation.<\/strong>\n

\n\t\t\tVSM Adoption\t<\/h3>\n\tStop Optimizing Parts. Start Thinking Systems: The Value Stream Imperative<\/strong><\/a> By Vikas Atri. <\/strong>“The moment we start thinking in systems, value streams stop being diagrams-and start becoming engines of customer impact”\nA mid-sized company called me in for a scaling problem recently<\/strong><\/a> By Paulina Dubas. <\/strong>“Delivery was slowing, cross team friction was rising. AI and cloud initiatives were tripping over each other… First, we mapped the full value stream from idea to production and marked four things with brutal honesty.”\nWe helped a team of environmental data scientists reduce delivery lead time by 38%<\/strong><\/a> By <\/strong>Noel Warnell<\/a>. <\/strong>“Most improvement programmes begin by trying to make people work faster. That’s rarely where the biggest opportunity is. Instead, we mapped the entire flow of work, from the first customer request through to notifying data providers that publication was complete.”\n\"\ud83d\udd17\"<\/a> <\/strong>SD ReFocus – Leveraging Lightweight Value Stream Mapping Workshops<\/strong><\/a>\nTrying to Identify Your Value Streams? Start With User Needs<\/a> By <\/strong>Rich Allen<\/a>. <\/strong>“”We’re trying to identify our value streams.” I heard this from a potential client recently, and it prompted the next issue of Mapping What Matters. The obvious answer might seem to be Value Stream Mapping. And that may be exactly the right next step – but only once you know what value you are trying to stream.”\nITIL+Scrum+VSM: A Practical Combination<\/strong><\/a> By Adrian Wallace. <\/strong>“Frameworks aren’t competitors. They’re complementary lenses on the same goal: delivering the right value to the right customer, faster and with less friction.”\nDo not start Agile transformation by transforming everything at once. Start with one meaningful value stream.<\/strong><\/a> By Manish Kumar Dokania. <\/strong>“The real move from Waterfall to Agile is not about launching ceremonies. It is about redesigning the organization around faster learning, better flow, stronger alignment, and measurable outcomes.”\n\"\ud83d\udd17\" SD ReFocus – Learning to See Digital Value Streams<\/strong><\/a>\n

\n\t\t\tImpacts of AI\t<\/h3>\n\tThe Potential Agent Trap: Why More Code Might Make Us Slower<\/strong><\/a> By Bastian Buch. <\/strong>“Precisely because I’m pushing hard, I wanted to understand where the failure modes are. So I built a causal loop model of what happens inside an engineering organization under aggressive agent adoption – not to argue for slowing down, but to see the trap before we’re in it. If you’re going to drive fast, you’d better know exactly where the road ices over.”\nThe Real AI Bottleneck: Why Communication is Slowing Down Product Teams (28′)<\/strong><\/a> By Matt LeMay at <\/strong>PRODUCTIZED<\/a> 2026. <\/strong>“AI speeds up product development, but human communication and decision-making remain the biggest bottlenecks. In this talk, Matt LeMay shows how teams can collaborate, align, and make decisions at the pace needed to succeed in today’s AI-driven world.”\nReport: “<\/strong>State of Code Abundance 2026 – The Gap Between AI Output and Enterprise Control<\/strong><\/a>” Released by CloudBees.<\/strong> “AI is generating code faster than enterprises can govern it, and many organizations are already paying the price in production failures”\n\"\ud83d\udd17\" SD ReFocus – Index of industry reports<\/strong><\/a>\nThe Seven Organizational Shifts That Determine Whether Your AI Investment Pays Off<\/strong><\/a> By Leah Brown at <\/strong>IT Revolution<\/a>. <\/strong>“Mik Kersten<\/strong>‘s Output to Outcome: An Operating Model for the Age of AI <\/em>argues that the pattern repeats because organizations keep changing how work is done without changing how the organization is structured, funded, and led. He calls the required changes the Seven Shifts-a set of interconnected moves that together rewire an organization around outcomes rather than outputs. No single shift is sufficient on its own. But taken together, they describe what it actually looks like to build an organization capable of leveraging AI effectively.”\n

\n\t\t\tValue Realization\t<\/h3>\n\t

“There is nothing quite so useless, as doing with great efficiency, something that should not be done at all.” \u2015 Peter Drucker<\/p><\/blockquote>\nBook: <\/strong>In Profitable Engineering<\/strong><\/a> – Transforming Technology Teams into Strategic Business Partners<\/em>, Phil Clark<\/a>has done a remarkable job of combining knowledge and operational practices, all viewed through the lens of his own firsthand experience.\nBook: “<\/strong>Impact-First Product Teams – Define Success. Do Work That Matter. Be Indispensable<\/strong><\/a>” By Matt Le May.<\/strong> “Around the world, product teams are waking up to the same uncomfortable truth: doing things “the right way” doesn’t matter if your team loses its funding or your company goes out of business. I wrote this book to provide clear-eyed and reality-tested guidance for teams looking to do the work that matters most to their particular business.”\n\ud83d\udd17 SD ReFocus – Book List<\/a><\/strong>\nThe many faces of value<\/strong><\/a> and <\/strong>The full picture of value<\/strong><\/a> By Noel Warnell. <\/strong>“No single metric proves value. The real insight appears when multiple signals move together. Don’t look at isolated improvements. Focus on system-wide value creation. Solve the trade-offs. Create lasting impact.”\n\ud83d\udd17 SD ReFocus – Moving towards Value-Driven Software Delivery<\/strong><\/a>\nThe Gap Between Strategic Intent and Business Outcomes<\/strong><\/a> Is Getting Wider. By Matt Zilli at Planview.<\/strong> “You approved the budget. You greenlit the initiatives. The organization is in motion. And somewhere between that boardroom decision and the front lines, your intent got lost. Finance sees approved investments. Leadership sees dashboards. Teams see projects. No one sees how those views connect to the outcomes the work was funded to produce.”\nWhitepaper: <\/strong>Outcome-Driven Innovation – Brainstorming With The End In Mind<\/strong><\/a> By Tony Ulwick. <\/strong>“Rather than generating hundreds of questionable ideas, devise solutions that explicitly address your customer’s most underserved needs. ”\nThe average enterprise software organization runs at just 6% value time<\/strong><\/a> By Chris Blackburn. <\/strong>“Dear VP of Product, your team works 40 hours a week yet produces < 3 hours of actual value.”\n

\n\t\t\tFlow Optimization\t<\/h3>\n\tFeatured on <\/strong>Flowtopia<\/a>: <\/strong>My First Lesson in Enterprise IT Had Nothing to Do With Programming<\/strong><\/a> By Adrian Wallace.<\/strong> “The harder problem was the flow of knowledge. Knowledge is just as important as code. When it doesn’t move efficiently between people, teams, or departments, every project slows down”\n\"\ud83d\udd17\" Link to join our Flowtopia community<\/a><\/strong>\nMy Blocker Playbook<\/strong><\/a> By <\/strong>Steve Pereira<\/a>. <\/strong>“Over the years, I’ve had to help many teams address frequent blocks in flow – this is now my go-to guidance”\nThe Bottleneck is Often At the Top<\/strong><\/a> Shared By Toyota Production System & Lean Hub. <\/strong>“When problems become recurring in an organization, don’t just look at frontline emloyees. Often, the root cause lies in leadership, processes, communication, or decision-making at the top.”\nValue-Stream Management: Using Flow Metrics to Accelerate Delivery<\/strong><\/a> By Iain White<\/strong>. “If your team feels busy but delivery still feels slow, do not start by pushing harder. Start by looking at the flow. Map the work. Measure where it waits. Reduce work in progress. Remove blockers. Improve the system around the team.”\n

\n\t\t\tResources\t<\/h3>\n\tStudy: <\/strong>GigaOm Radar for Value Stream Management (VSM) v6<\/strong><\/a>\nWhitepaper: <\/strong>“The New SDLC With Vibe Coding – From ad-hoc prompting to Agentic Engineering”<\/strong><\/a> By Addy Osmani, Shubham Saboo, and Sokratis Kartakis at Google. <\/strong>“This paper is for software engineers, engineering managers, architects, and technical leaders who want to understand how AI is reshaping the SDLC and adopt these new capabilities without sacrificing the discipline that production software demands. ”\nThe 5 Principles of Lean<\/strong><\/a> By KAIZEN Made Easy. <\/strong>“Unlock peak efficiency! \ud83d\ude80 Dive into the 5 core principles of Lean that guide organizations toward continuous value creation and perfection. ”\nVideo: <\/strong>What is Kaizen (10′)<\/strong><\/a> By Kaizen Academy. <\/strong>\n

\n\t\t\tLinks\t<\/h3>\n\t