Value Stream Mapping usually involves people that are part of a particular Solution or Product that is being delivered. In general each Solution or Product goes through stages such as define, build, validate, and release, and so the Value Stream mapping will involve people representing those areas for a Solution or Product: product owners, UX, development, architects, release management, QA, operations, and so on.

The steps required are as a result of looking at all the tools and processes required, manual and automated, to work a feature through the delivery pipeline. We then look at determining some key metics so we can reason about potential improvements in the flow of value delivery.

Typically a workshop is setup to:

• Determine “as-is” state - what the delivery pipeline looks like today:
  • Determine the steps required to deliver value starting from some trigger (e.g. feature request) through to final release.
  • For each step determine metrics:
    • Process time (PT): How much time does the feature spend in the step where people are actually working on the step (“hands on keyboards”)
    • Delay time (DT): How much time is does the feature spend in queues waiting to be worked on (approvals, delays, etc.)
    • Percentage complete and accurate (%CA): How many times does the work pass between this step and the next so that it does not come back as a result of mistakes.
  • For the whole process capture “as-is” totals:
    • Total Process Time (TPT) = sum (PT1 … PTn)
    • Total Flow Time (TFT) = sum (DT1 + PT1 … DTn + PTn)
    • Flow Efficiency = (Total Process Time) / (Total Flow Time)
    • Flow Velocity = Number of Feature delivered per unit time
    • Total %C&A = %CA1 * … * %CAn
• Determine “to-be” state - what our improved delivery pipeline looks like:
  • Review metrics to determine where we should focus efforts (bottlenecks)
    • What is the Total Process Time, Total Flow Time, Flow Efficiency, and Total % Complete and Accurate?
    • What is the current Flow Velocity and how does it compare to the demand rate?
    • Which steps have the worst PT, FT, and %CA?
    • Which steps have the best PT, FT, and %CA?
  • Identify top causes or delay and solutions
  • Map the “to-be” state of the delivery value stream
    • Updated diagram
    • Updated metrics with forecasted improvement in value stream Flow Efficiency
  • Determine next steps to move us to “to-be” state
    • New features and stories

Typically this will result in a chart like:

These improvements directly translate to improvements that customers and the business appreciate.

Value Stream Mapping is something that should be revisited on a regular basis. The next value stream mapping event for a Solution or Product should be conducted as you see the improvements from the previous event. This might me you do quarterly workshops.

• What Is The Difference Between Value Stream Identification (VSID) and Value Stream Mapping (VSM)?
• What are the Steps in a Value Stream Identification Workshop?
• Paper on a pragmatic approach to the development of a value stream (simple, straight-forward): http://www.netobjectives.com/files/value-stream-maps.pdf
• Video on the process value stream mapping process including conversation to a kanban board