Welcome, I'm so glad you're joining us!
It's the perfect time to learn more about Value Streams and how working with Flow can revolutionize your work.
It seems everyone in the Agile, DevOps and Tech scene are talking about Value Streams in 2021, and for good reason! Business and manufacturing folks have been focused on value streams for decades, but as maturity and capability evolve in tech, these areas are now combining and the best of each world is being applied everywhere.
Who am I?
I'm a tech veteran who's been through support, development, delivery, infrastructure, management, leadership, and now consulting for over 20 years. I live in Toronto, Canada, love running, biking, and frisbee, sci-fi, philosophy, history, and anything I can hear about in a podcast (lets share recommendations!).
I've focused on value streams and flow after seeing the common threads and patterns that have worked best across industries, and organizations of all sizes. I'm sharing Flow Engineering as the culmination of everything I've learned and used to get incredible results for teams.
Course Overview
This course will give you everything you need to start dramatically improving the flow of value across your organization. It's structured as 7 consecutive days (starting tomorrow!) like this:
- Day 1: How to Begin with the End in Mind - Outcome mapping
- Day 2: How to Map your Value Stream - Value Stream mapping
- Day 3: How to See what's Affecting Flow from Outside - Dependency mapping
- Day 4: How to See what's Affecting Flow from Inside - Capability mapping
- Day 5: How to Run the whole Process - An example case study
- Day 6: How to Get Results - Creating a Flow Roadmap
- Day 7: How to Get Help - More Resources and a Special Offer
Flow Engineering
Imagine the path of your workflow from idea to customer as a stream that currently winds throughout the landscape, off into the distance around you, from upstream to downstream. From where you stand, you can see part of the stream as it approaches you from upstream, and you can see a part downstream as it continues into the distance. If you wanted to improve the flow, you could widen the portion around you, or perhaps carve a more direct path from one curve to the next. You wouldn’t truly be able to see what effect your change had on the stream without a view of the entire flow, and the downstream outcome. The stream could be restricted far upstream beyond your view, or downstream. If you had a map of the stream’s path, and measurement of the flow within the stream, you could ensure it followed the most direct path to your destination, and improve the flow precisely where it would have the most positive effect.
This is the power of a mapping approach to improvement. By creating and leveraging maps of the flow of value in your organizations, you can create the optimal flow of value, by changing precisely what will have the greatest impact.
4 Key Maps to Improve Flow
The 4 Key Maps provide a comprehensive view of the landscape that your value stream traverses. Using the maps to guide your focus, decisions, and efforts, you can scientifically approach your improvement efforts using a visual and easily understood medium.
4 Key Maps Outcome Map: Value Stream Maps: Dependency Map: Capability Map: | Visualization Factors contributing to your desired state Measured workflow performance and constraints External influences on the stream Internal influences on the stream | Focus Clarity, Direction Performance, Quality External Effects Internal Effects |
Homework
- Write down a list of all the value streams that you are connected to in your job (hint: if there's a customer - internal or external - there's a value stream)
Resources
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Thanks for reading, feel free to reply with any questions!
- Steve