Devops for Growth

Getting Started

The elements of value work best when a company’s leaders recognize them as a growth opportunity and make value a priority. It should be at least as important as cost management, pricing, and customer loyalty. Companies can establish a discipline around improving value in some key areas:

New-product development.

Our model can stimulate ideas for new products and for elements to add to existing products. Managers might ask, for example: Can we connect in a new way with consumers? Can our customers benefit from integration with other software applications? Can we add therapeutic value to our service?

Pricing.

Managers commonly view pricing as one of the most important levers in demand management, because when demand is constant, higher prices accrue directly to profits. But higher prices also change the consumer value equation, so any discussion about raising prices should consider the addition of value elements. Recall how Amazon’s judicious increases in value helped justify higher prices over time.

Customer segmentation.

Most companies have a formal method of segmenting their customers into demographic or behavioral groups, which presents an opportunity to analyze what each of these groups values and then develop products and services that deliver those elements.

Whenever an occasion to improve value presents itself, managers should start with a survey of current customers and likely prospects to learn where the company stands on the elements it is (or is not) delivering. The survey should cover both product and brand, because examinations of the two may yield different insights. For example, the product itself may deliver lots of value, whereas customers have difficulty getting service or technical support.

The elements of value have an organizational dimension as well: Someone in the company should be tapped to explicitly think about, manage, and monitor value. One pay-TV executive, lamenting the success of Netflix, told us, “I have a lot of people working on product features and service improvements, but I don’t have anyone really thinking about consumer value elements in a holistic manner.”

The concept of value remains rooted in psychology, but the elements of value can make it much less amorphous and mysterious. Abraham Maslow emphasized the bold, confident, positive potential of psychology. The elements can help managers creatively add value to their brands, products, and services and thereby gain an edge with consumers—the true arbiters of value.

This is one sequence (intended to be an archetypical one) that highlights the main patterns along the main waypoints of building and refining a Value Stream. We omitted some smaller patterns to help maintain the big picture perspective. Again, the sequence is only archetypical, and you may find it useful to apply the patterns in an order that differs from that which we describe here.

§ 2  The Mist.

Great works start with a vague longing across some community, and with their attempts to solve great problems locally or individually, and while aspiring to do great things, stop at small, local benefits for want of effective cooperation.

§ 39  Vision.

These longings come together in an articulated vision of the desired future state – the great thing that the Scrum Team will build. Everyone involved in realizing the problem shares this Vision. One person, the Product Owner, comes to embody the Vision by taking responsibility for it, and for the value that emanates from building the product.

§ 41  Value Stream.

An organization congeals around these longings with a passion to build something great and generate value, with a vision not only of the end results but of the means for achieving those ideas and to drive an evolving stream of deliverables to a growing notion of collective self. The sweat, bricks and mortar of design and product realization flow into the Value Stream at points that complement each other and support a harmonious flow of work.

§ 45  Product Roadmap.

Ever with a playful eye to the possibility of change and new ideas, a direction that may attain the greater good starts to congeal out of The Mist. There are several potential paths to building something great and generating value as led by the Vision. The Vision becomes a collection of dreams, of product increments, organized to facilitate early decisions that will guide the best known path to Wholeness at any given time.

§ 46  Sprint.

The Value Stream develops deliverable product increments in uniformly time-boxed episodes of product development called Sprints. Each increment is a Done contribution to furthering the vision. Uniform episodes also give the opportunity for meaningful improvement of Value Stream development processes. A natural cycle of Sprints might Follow the Moon.

§ 54  Product Backlog.

Foresight, experience, and circumstances lend insight on what the best decisions might be at imminent forks in the roadmap. A vision of a specific path through the roadmap emerges to add value at every step, based on today’s best guess of business conditions. The Product Backlog makes the current likely trajectory of long-term delivery visible to all stakeholders. See the Product Backlog Sequence.

§ 55  Product Backlog Item.

The Scrum Team breaks down the product into individual deliverables called Product Backlog Items (PBIs), which are the focus of the effort to build deliverables. Developers accept those PBIs into development that meet the Definition of Ready, and which the developers have estimated, as in Pigs Estimate.

§ 71  Sprint Goal.

The Team commits to a Sprint Goal, the “must do” of the Sprint, which will result when the work of the Sprint is complete. The Sprint Goal creates a focus for teamwork, helping the team work together instead of focusing on multiple independent efforts.

§ 72  Sprint Backlog.

The Development Team plans how it will achieve the Sprint Goal and develop the Product Backlog Items that will allow them to deliver the Product Increment, and creates a work plan called a Sprint Backlog.

§ 75  Production Episode.

The Development Team works toward the Sprint Goal and the delivery of the Product Increment. The developers update the Sprint Backlog every day in the Daily Scrum. The team works largely uninterrupted, Swarming as a team to develop one PBI at a time.

§ 84  Responsive Deployment.

As development progresses, there are small deliveries inside the larger Sprint cycles to address emergencies and fix bugs, or to generate value as opportunistically as possible, without waiting for the end of the Sprint.

§ 35  Sprint Review.

After development for the Sprint is over, the Product Owner, together with invited stakeholders, assess the current state of the product and what parts of it are ready for inclusion in a Product Increment. Work from the most recent Sprint must meet the Definition of Done before the Scrum Team deploys the Product Increment.

§ 36  Sprint Retrospective.

The team also assesses the current state of their process and seeks opportunities for improvement, choosing one key improvement that the team together will realize in the next Sprint, and making it a PBI so that Scrum becomes the vehicle for improving the process: Scrumming the Scrum.

§ 85  Regular Product Increment.

Approved Product Backlog Items compose into a cohesive Product Increment which the Product Owner may choose to make available for use.

§ 86  Release Staging Layers.

The scope of delivery and application of Product Increments expands and contracts as experience testifies to the soundness of a given increment, while weaker increments die off.

§ 89  Value Areas.

Value Streams may have independent tributaries that distinct teams can develop separately, but which the market chooses to use together as an integrated Whole. The enterprise can internally partition such work into Value Areas, each of which works like a small, self-contained entity to develop a product part for which there is no market alternative. All such Value Areas lie behind a market perception of a single product with potentially multiple Value Streams.

§ 90  Value Stream Fork.

Successful Value Streams may grow in scope, and one problem with success is that the result can outstrip the original vision. If so, the original single Value Stream may become multiple streams, each with its own Product Backlog and Product Owner, bringing focus and a refined Vision to each one.

§ 93  Greatest Value.

While it remains in use, the product produces the greatest value possible; and while development is still active, the product direction changes to provide the highest value.

§ 94  Product Wake.

The cycles of life and nature ultimately bring products to the end of their useful life, and they should be brought to an end in a way that returns their resources to nature and that recognizes the dignity of all stakeholders.

Faut-il un expert pour faire une Value Stream Map ?

La réalisation d'une Value Stream Map nécessite une compréhension approfondie des processus de l'organisation, ainsi que des compétences en gestion de projet et en animation d'équipe. Il est donc bénéfique d'avoir une personne formée à la VSM pour faciliter le processus.

Cela dit, il n'est pas toujours nécessaire d'être un expert pour réaliser une Value Stream Map. En effet, l'un des principaux avantages de la VSM est qu'elle est conçue pour être une activité collaborative impliquant les personnes qui réalisent le travail. Ainsi, même si une formation spécifique à la VSM peut être utile, l'essentiel est que l'animateur soit capable de rassembler et de guider une équipe, de comprendre et de visualiser les processus, et de poser les bonnes questions pour identifier les opportunités d'amélioration.

Il est important de noter que si l'organisation est grande ou si le processus à cartographier est complexe, il peut être bénéfique de faire appel à un facilitateur externe ou à un consultant spécialisé en lean management pour aider à la réalisation de la VSM. Ces experts ont généralement une expérience significative de la conduite de la VSM dans divers environnements et peuvent apporter une perspective externe utile pour identifier les gaspillages et les opportunités d'amélioration.

Having made a VSM does not equal value stream optimisation, but with a few steps, you can start reaping a VSM’s benefits. The key is to repeat the process steps described in this blog to achieve continuous improvement that is based on data. It is key to focus on measurable outcomes to really improve your Value Stream and become a highly performant team.

Here are two important things to know about the 5 Levels.

One: The 5 Levels of Planning are ALWAYS ACCURATE but at varying levels of precision.

Two: The 5 Levels of Planning are practiced by THE TEAM. Levels 1 & 2 are not reserved for leaders, Level 3 is not just the PMO, etc. etc. – All 5 Levels are practiced by THE TEAM. Have questions, please comment on the post.

When the 5 Levels are Used