Who are the people involved in evaluating each of these value streams?
When evaluating a current state value streams, it is necessary for the leads of each of the teams involved in a particular project or process to come together and discuss the current state and what they can do to loosen choke points and to avoid causing bottlenecks that slow down the flow of the work and get the stream moving faster, while eliminating wasteful steps so that they can redirect their resources towards better steps that bring value for the customer.
In the development value stream, leaders from teams involved in the development work – from inception to production, discuss the objectives and goals of a project. Looking at the current state map will help the teams identify where the choke points and challenge points are, and be able to arrive at a solution to improve or eliminate these problem areas. Ultimately, the goal is to create a better flow of work from one team to the next, improved collaboration between teams, practice better hand off process, and improve the quality of their work. This improves an organisation’s ability to develop quality products faster and convert projects into income generating products.
In the operational value stream – internal or external, leaders from the front end and customer facing teams as well as back end teams discuss how they can develop better products and reach more customers as they continue to improve the service that the end users are getting from using the product. The goal is to provide end users with products and services that evolve with their product needs. This improves an organisation’s ability to stay competitive in the digital market.
Value Stream Mapping
Value stream mapping is an exercise that can be done in 3 to 4 days, to be handled by a facilitator with strong knowledge and skills on the subject, and an executive sponsor who will be asking the leader participants to repeat meetings on a bi-weekly basis to discuss results and ways to fine tune the value stream. This exercise requires looking at the current state value stream map (the way things are being done at the moment), with the goal of creating a future state value stream map that is free of the constraints and problems that affect the current state.
Value stream mapping has been in use in production lines, long before it made its way to software development. Software development organisations that follow value stream mapping for their projects have shown positive results in terms of collaboration, hand offs, waste elimination, and project completion rate, as well as profitability.