Using Value Stream to visualize the end-to-end Flow of Digital Products and Services Managing what flows through Value Stream can help bridge the gap Business and IT Measurement of key metrics can enable data-driven decision making to improve value delivered to customers

2. Why Value Streams are key to
successful Digital Product
Delivery.

3. Housekeeping
• Mute when you are not speaking.
• It will be great if you can have your camera switched-on.
• If you have any questions, raise it in the chat window and I
will go through them towards the end of the presentation.

4. Agenda
● About the speaker
● Recap of the previous Meet-up
● What is Value Stream ?
● What is Value Stream Mapping in
Digital ?
● What is Value Steam Management ?
● Value Stream Metric for data driven
decision making.
● Q & A.

5. 2012 2015 2017 2018

6. Based on Technological Revolutions and the Age of Software, Carlota Perez
Installation Period Deployment Period
Creative
Destruction
Wealth
Generation
Age of Oli &
Mass production
Age of Software &
Digital
??
Degree
of
Technological
Diffusion
2001 - ??
Financial Capital
Production Capital
The Turning Point
Turning
Point

7. Cynefin framework by Dave Snowden
Project Oriented
Mindset
Product Oriented
Mindset
Project plan to optimize
resources of 2-3 years
Adapt > Innovate > Feedback
> Respond

8. NOKIA Case Study.
Disconnect between IT and
Business brought on from
Project Management
Mindset.
Based on the best selling book Project to Project, written Dr Mik Kersten

9. Why Value Streams are key to Digital Product
Delivery ?
• Using Value Stream to visualize the end-to-end Flow of Digital Products and
Services
• Managing what flows through Value Stream can help bridge the gap Business
and IT
• Measurement of key metrics can enable data-driven decision making to
improve value delivered to customers

10. What is a Value Stream?
Value Stream represent the series of steps that an organization uses to provide a continuous flow of value to
customer though a product or service.
Ideate Create Release Operate
Trigger Value

11. Example of Manufacturing Value Stream
• Is used to Visualize the end-to-end
Flow of work.
• Identify and address bottlenecks to
continuously improve quality .
• Reduce wasteful activities and
speed up production.
• Architect Production Flow to cater
for specific Product needs and
Business outcomes.
Adapted from Project to Product by Mik Kersten

12. BMW Plant Leipzig
Ariel view of BMW Plant Leipzig
Documented View

13. Can this be adapted for Digital Products /
Services?

14. Can this be adapted for Digital Products /
Services?
Ideate Create Release Operate
Trigger Value
DevOps Pipeline

15. Can this be adapted for Digital Products /
Services?
Ideate Create Release Operate
Trigger Value
DevOps Pipeline
Visualize and Measure the end to end Value Stream

16. Digital Product & Services prospective:
• Value Stream Maps
• Value Stream Management
Whenever there is a
product for a
customer, there is a
Product Value
Stream. Regardless
organization has
realized it or not.
(Adapted from Mike Rother and John Shook,
Learning to See)

17. • Unaware of value stream methodology as a foundation for Lean business management. As a
result, suffer from slow delivery and fail to adopt customer-centric thinking.
• Organizations who have adopted value stream are underutilizing the methodology because
they do not fully understand how to apply it to digital product delivery.
• Organizations misuse value steam mapping, for example, using value stream to outline and
map processes rather than visualizing end-to-end workstreams to create organization wide
alignment.

18. What is Value Steam Mapping ?
Value stream mapping, is a collaborative technique to visualize, analyze and improve the flow of work
required to produce a product or service for a customer.
Process Step 1 Process Step 2 Process Step 3 Process Step 4
Data:
Process Time
Lead Time
Efficiency
Data:
Process Time
Lead Time
Efficiency
Data:
Process Time
Lead Time
Efficiency
Data:
Process Time
Lead Time
Efficiency
Active Time
Wait Wait Wait
Total: Lead Time
Total: Process Time
Efficiency %
Active Time Active Time Active Time

19. Benefits of Value Steam Mapping

20. Powerful Visual Unification Tool
• Helps visualize work that’s not particularly visual to begin with. (E.g., of Digital Product or Services delivery )
Digital Product / Services delivery
typically:
1. Non-linear flow: Incremental &
iterative elements with constant
feedback loop.
2. Dynamic raw material: The code
and environments are
continuously changing.
3. They do not have the benefit of
tangible and visible objects
flowing through a production
line.

21. • Value stream mapping reveals disconnects, redundancies and unnecessary complication that
otherwise aren’t understood by everyone across the organizations.
Digital products scale though loosely coupled microservices
architecture. As they scale, productivity declines and waste
increase due to disconnect between teams
Digital product / service delivery teams:
1. Individual teams have a good understanding
of their responsibility
2. However, beyond single team end-to-end
visibility of the product is lost.
3. It becomes harder for people to see what
impact their work is likely to have on others.
4. These start to surface as waste &
bottlenecks
5. Ultimately disconnecting architecture from
the value stream
Holistic Systems-Thinking Methodology

22. Connect with customer
• Value stream maps provide a clear line of sight to customers for every
function and work area involved in the value stream. This degree of
clarity helps organization make the transition from internally focused
thinking to customer-focused thinking, which is the foundation for
providing greater and greater value.
When delivering digital products /
services:
1. Technical teams are only a segment
of the entire value stream e.g.,
DevOps Pipeline.
2. Business stakeholders & Support
teams are usually excluded.
3. They are rarely aware of the business
outcome, customer value, revenue
and cost.
4. The customer that pulls value is rarely
well defined.
5. Success is based on proxy metrics and
not result oriented business metrics

23. Fragmented and aligned Value Streams
Business
Objectives
Based on Project to Product by Mik Kersten
Product
Management
Delivery Developers Testers Operations
Business
Results
• Siloed teams and Process
• End customer not defined
• Hand-off between teams
• Flow to completion is lost, resulting in delays and rework

24. Ideate Create Deploy Release Operate
Active Time Active Time Active Time Active Time
Wait Wait Wait
Active Time
Wait
Information
Flow
Process
Flow
Time
Functional
Dept
Functional
Dept
Functional
Dept
Functional
Dept
Functional
Dept

25. Measurement of Flow
Plan Build DevOps ITSM
Real-Time Dashboards
Channel Alerts
Automated Reports
Interactive Data Exploration

26. What is Value Steam Management ?
Value Stream Management (VSM) is a systems-thinking practice to improve the flow of business value
from customer need to customer value. VSM provides clear visibility of the progress of work through
an organization and highlights impediments to its smooth flow.
Flow Metrics
• Flow Velocity
• Flow Time
• Flow Load
• Flow Efficiency
Business Results
• Value
• Cost
• Quality
• Happiness
Flow Distribution
Feature Defects Risks Debts
Based on Flow Diagram, Project to Product by Mik Kersten
What value is
the customer
pulling ?
Capturing
flow metrics .
Enable data-
driven decision
making .

27. Dr. Mik Kersten
• Author
• Founder & CEO of
Tasktop https://projecttoproduct.org/
Twitter: @mik_kersten
Flow Framework

28. What flows through Value Stream of a digital
products / services
Flow Distribution
Feature Defects Risks Debts

29. Understanding Value & Pull
Pull:
Customer PULL these value items
Value:
Value is what customers want
and are willing to exchange
some economic unit for it.
(This should be defined by the Product
Management team)
If customers cannot identify the value, they are unlikely to use or pay for the digital service
or product.
How do we know that we are delivering value?
Customers:
Customers can be internal or
external.

30. Flow Items that maximize value
Flow Items Value Pulled by Business outcomes
Features Desirable New Features that customers can identify as
value delivered in shortest sustainable timescales.
Customers Businesses can remain
competitive by consistently
delivering what customers
need.
Defects By fixing broken features or further optimising it will
ensure customers continue to identify value.
Customers Addresses quality issues
that further enhances the
value to the customer.
Risks Essential to ensure value delivered by New Features
and Defect are maintained
Security
Function
Addresses security,
regulation and compliance
requirements.
Tech Debt Enhance the delivery of future New Features Architects Addresses, shortcuts in
software or infrastructure
codebase in order to speed
up development.

31. Flow distribution – Scenario (No visibility)
• Strict deadlines
• Large outstanding
backlog
• Large unplanned
defect work
• Compounding
Technical debts
Add more
heads
Reduce
Features
Accept
Risk
Which option will
add maximum
value to
customers?

32. Flow distribution- Optimization
Flow Distribution
New Feature Defects Risks Debts
New Product with soft
launch
New Product with release
to market launch
Flow Distribution
New Feature Defect Risks Debts
Flow Distribution
Feature Defects Risks Debts
Legacy service

33. Typical Product Life Cycle
Go to Market Stabilize Pay Tech Debt Growth End of Life
Feature Defects
Risks Debts
Features Defects
Risk Debts
Features Defects
Risks Debts
Features Defects
Risks Debts
Feature Defects
Risks Debts
First into the
market
Delight
customers with
Features
Build
Capacity/Fix
defects
Great user
experience
Build quality
lower
operating cost
Enhanced
security
Increased
revenue
Regular stream
of Features
Cost
optimization
Regular defect
& risk
resolution

34. Data driven decision making - Flow
distribution
1. Flow items are explicitly tied to Business Value and help bridge the gap between IT and Business.
2. Flow distribution provides a zero-sum mechanism for deciding how value stream can support business
priorities.
3. It helps will the allocation of the capacity and budget.
4. By providing visibility it elevates the understanding of software delivery trade-offs to the business (Which
technical teams make regularly) .

35. Flow Metrics – Flow Velocity
Flow Metrics
• Flow Velocity
• Flow Time
• Flow Load
• Flow Efficiency

36. How much business value is being delivered
to customer? (Flow velocity)
A more specific measure is required to quantify how much business value is being delivered to the customer
over a unit of time. This is called Flow Velocity.
Go to Market Pay Tech Debt Growth End of Life
Feature Defects
Risks Debts
Features Defects
Risk Debts
Features Defects
Risks Debts
Features Defects
Risks Debts
Feature Defects
Risks Debts
Stabilize

37. Flow Velocity
Ideate Create Deploy Release Operate
Features (4)
Risks (1)
Defects (3)
Debts (2)
Story
Points
Story
Points Story
Points
Story
Points
Number
of:
2 week Time-box

38. Flow Velocity Supersedes Proxy Metrics
• Proxy metrics: Number of lines of code written, deploys per day or time it takes from code commit
to code deploy. These are not directly related to Business Outcomes and Customer Value.
• Proxy metrics are valuable in determining technical productivity but not Business Outcomes.
• By combining FLOW ITEMS + FLOW VELOCITY i.e. how much of each flow items (Features, Defects,
Risks & Debts) were delivered can be measured.
• Flow velocity metrics represents productivity from a customers’ point of view i.e., how much value
we delivered to customers or how quickly we went from accepting customers request to delivery.

39. Data driven decision making - Flow Velocity
Features
Risks
Defects
Debts
• Establish if required flow items are being delivered against each of the
milestone.
• Establish if there are meaningful size difference across the flow items.
• Flow velocity can also be used to track productivity or delivery trends so that the
features can be designed to focus on technology, market and customers
Product
Backlog

40. Flow Metrics – Flow Time
Flow Metrics
• Flow Velocity
• Flow Time
• Flow Load
• Flow Efficiency

41. How quick is the value delivered ? Flow Time
• Lead Time: Is a measure of time though the entire process i.e., from requesting a feature to its release.
• Cycle Time: Is a measure of time from when work actually started to when it is completed. It focuses on the
time it takes to complete a step with the processes.

42. A typical DevOps Value Stream
Product
Backlog
Lead Time
Cycle Time
Active Time
Wait
Wait Wait
Active Time Active Time Active Time

43. Topics

44. Ideate Create Deploy Release Operate
2 Debts (14 days)
5 defects (2 Days)
2 Risk (7 days)
2 Features (10 days)
New To-Do In-Progress Done
Lead Time
Flow Cycle Time
Lead Time (Feature, Risk, Debts): Is a measure of time from status New to Done.
MTTR (defect) Lead Time: measure of time from In-Progress to Done.
Flow (Cycle) Time: The duration that it takes for a flow item to go from being accepted for work into the
value stream to completion.

45. Data driven decision making- Flow Time
1. Business has a more granular measure of how quickly different Flow Items (Features, Defects, Risks and
Debts) can being delivered to customers.
2. Business can set various flow time targets to tune business needs.
3. If flow time exceeds expected milestones it is an indication that there are bottlenecks that must be
addressed

46. Flow Metrics – Flow Load
Flow Metrics
• Flow Velocity
• Flow Time
• Flow Load
• Flow Efficiency

47. Flow load - WIP
Ideate Create Deploy Release Operate
9 debts
7 Risks
32 Defects
14 Features
New To-Do In-Progress Done
Flow Load: The number of flow items being actively worked on in a value steam denoting the amount of
Work-In-Progress.
Flow items actively worked on

48. Visualize and limit WIP, batch sizes and queue
lengths

49. Data driven decision making – Flow Load
1. Overloading teams in the Value Stream confuses priorities, causes frequent context switching and
increased overheads.
2. Excessive utilization of Value stream dramatically affects velocity due to excess queue times.
3. By visualizing, measuring and adjusting Flow load, optimal Flow Velocity and Time can be achieved.

50. Flow Metrics – Flow Efficiency
Flow Metrics
• Flow Velocity
• Flow Time
• Flow Load
• Flow Efficiency

51. Flow Efficiency
The purpose of tracking flow efficiency is to determine the proportion of time that flow items are actively
worked on compared to the total time spend in the value stream.
Ideate Create Deploy Release
Active Time Active Time Active Time
Wait Wait Wait
Deploy
Active Time
Wait
Lead Time
Flow (Cycle) Time
Flow Efficiency = Total Active Time / Flow (Cycle) Time

52. Data driven decision making – Flow Efficiency
• Lower Flow Efficiency can indicate more waste is being attributed to Flow Items
• It could also indicate that increased number of Flow Items are in a stagnating state i.e. waiting to be
worked on
• Business can run initiatives to reduce excessive wait time, which if not address will result in delayed
delivery.

53. Conclusion
• Product Value Streams should be made as visible as possible especially at the business level.
• Theire already is abundance of data available but unfortunately most organisations fail to abstract it and
subsequently failing to take data drive decisions.

54. Q & A

55. Topics

56. Topics

57. Topics

58. Topics

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60. Topics

61. Topics

62. Topics

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64. Topics

65. Topics