what are some key bene ts to supply chains from the internet and big data
Plutora Blog - DevOps, Release Management, Test Surround Management, Value Stream Management
What is Value Stream Mapping (VSM), Benefits, Process and Value
Reading time 27 minutesTo sympathise value stream mapping, nosotros need to outset understand what a "value stream" is. Simply put, a value stream is a series of steps that occur to provide the product or service that their customers desire or demand. In gild to provide the product or service that the customers want, every company has a prepare of steps that are required. Value stream mapping enables us to improve understand what these steps are, where the value is added, where it's not, and more importantly, how to meliorate upon the collective process. Value stream mapping (VSM) provides us with a structured visualization of the central steps and corresponding data needed to sympathise and intelligently brand improvements that optimize the entire process, not just one section at the expense of another.
Value stream mapping is defined on iSixSigma.com:
"Value stream mapping is a lean manufacturing or lean enterprise technique used to document, clarify and ameliorate the menstruation of information or materials required to produce a product or service for a customer."
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The volume "Value Stream Mapping", written by Karen Martin and Mike Osterling, explains, "Value stream maps offering a holistic view of how work flows through entire systems."
VSM tin exist a tremendous tool to aid decide how to improve commitment chains that require complex processes. If y'all have a highly complex process, VSM tin can be used to create a comprehensive view and understanding of the entire process, or information technology can be every bit focused as needed on a segment of the process to address specific objectives.
It's important to note that the start and endpoints of the mapping exercise, known as fenceposts, can differ depending on your goals and objectives. Yous will also notice that a single company may have several different value streams. Value stream maps can exist created for every individual product and service for every type of business. However, for the purpose of this word and so you can ameliorate empathise how to apply this in the real world, we volition focus on VSM as it relates to feature development for enterprise software solutions utilizing a simplified waterfall methodology. We will refer to software features as the "product" being adult in this process.
Unlike process maps, or flowcharts, that testify only the steps involved in the procedure, a VSM shows significantly more data and uses a very different, more linear format. The VSM enables the team and leadership to meet where the actual value is being added in the procedure, assuasive them to meliorate on the overall efficiency associated with the commitment of a software product or feature request, non only the number of steps.
Using an example of a mortgage company delivering a new application, their process menstruum nautical chart showed 64 different servers with dozens more actual steps in the application procedure. Even so, this flowchart didn't evidence that just a few of those steps really added value to the application procedure. This is where VSM has great value. Information technology not only mapped the key procedure steps only also showed which of those steps actually applied whatever real value to the mortgage awarding procedure. This type of nautical chart tin be an invaluable tool to enable quality procedure improvement discussions with team members and stakeholders. Without it, at that place'southward just no efficient way to convey this information.
Terminology and symbols and what they mean
With so much information packed into a VSM, information technology's no surprise that there are terms and features that may demand some explanation. Even so, while we volition provide an explanation of some of the standardized VSM features, keep in mind that they may be modified to assist attain specific objectives. Every bit such, each value stream map may accept some elements that are unique.
To start, each value stream map typically has three cardinal sections. For example, Figure ane above shows a simplified VSM for a software development lifecycle. Notice the 3 master colored sections. The colors were added to highlight the dissimilar sections of a VSM. These sections evidence Information Flow, Product Flow, and a Fourth dimension Ladder or Lead Time Ladder.
Sections:
Information Flow
This section shows the communication of procedure-related data and the transmission of information. In this simplified instance, the release managing director takes in all customer requests and submits only the approved requests into the development queue (Supplier). Depending on the objective or goal of the mapping practise, information collection and distribution points shown here equally SharePoint and Excel tin include many levels of particular and many other integrated systems.
Product Menstruation
This section maps the steps of the evolution lifecycle from concept to delivery. However, depending on your objectives, this can be refocused on specific sections of the process, making it every bit granular, or as high level, as needed. It typically shows both the task being performed (blueish boxes) and the person or team performing the task in the box immediately below information technology. Below those boxes, yous volition notice smaller fields that prove cardinal procedure data. For the sake of simplification in this example, we've chosen to testify simply a couple of data figures. C/T represents "Cycle Time" and S/T represents "Ready Time." In practical utilise, nevertheless, VSMs tin include whatsoever number of information points in this section, highlighting pertinent information. The yellow triangles evidence the queue of features waiting at each stage of the process. The dotted arrows from 1 stage to the next are chosen "Push Arrows". They show where the product is being pushed from one stage to the side by side vs. being pulled.
Fourth dimension Ladder
The Time Ladder provides a somewhat simplistic visual representation of the value stream timeline. The upper portion of the time ladder represents the average corporeality of fourth dimension that a feature spends in the queue or waiting at each stage or gate in the procedure. The lower portion of the fourth dimension ladder shows the average corporeality of fourth dimension that each feature was actively being worked on, or more specifically when value is really being added to the feature/product during that specific stage.
Terms:
Cycle time (C/T)
Is the frequency of units/features produced or the average time between the completed production of 1 unit/feature to the completed production of the adjacent. Using our scenario of characteristic development for an enterprise software solution, the bicycle time is the average corporeality of time it takes from the completion/deployment of one feature request to the completion/deployment of the side by side.
Setup Time (Southward/T)
Is the amount of time needed to prepare for a given step. For application to software development, depending on the step, this can point the amount of fourth dimension needed to understand what specifically is being requested or the fourth dimension needed to configure, spin upwards, or allocate a test environment.
Uptime (%)
Gives you an idea of the per centum of the full fourth dimension that the processes or systems are actually active. For our scenario, this can show system uptime or employee availability fourth dimension.
Lead Time
Is the measurement of the average amount of time needed for one characteristic request to brand information technology through the entire development cycle concept to delivery, or from the start to catastrophe fence post.
Takt Time
Is a term that is commonly used with value stream mapping. Information technology refers to the rate at which yous need to produce your products in order to encounter customer demand. Figure 2 shows an case of how takt fourth dimension is calculated and practical.
Kaizen Burst
(Also known equally Kaizen Blitz) refers to a flare-up of team action (3-5 days) that is focused on resolving specific challenges. Where the purpose of the mapping activity is to identify and plan, the purpose of a Kaizen flare-up is to accomplish the actual resolution. It tin can be used to accost bug that are not getting resolved as chop-chop every bit originally planned. One instance would exist to accost a high volume of items in a piece of work queue, to reduce information technology to a more manageable level, or whatever number of other issues. Its purpose is to focus a team's free energy and resources on a particular problem, procedure, or activity in an effort to quickly remove the barrier, waste or implement a solution. Kaizen flare-up activities tin exist an important component of performance management to accost barriers and create solutions as you move from ane level of value stream performance to the next.
How will value stream mapping help?
Business is growing more competitive every day. In lodge to go along up with customer demand and expectations, development teams are having to work faster and be more than efficient than ever before. However, it's non merely the development teams that are impacted by these increased demands. A VSM activity can assist to identify and better coordinate other impacted operational teams and process segments that are integral to the overall development process.
As the value stream mapping activity engages the team members, one of the primal benefits that volition be realized is that it provides an element of understanding to the phonation of the customer. It helps identify what it is that the client is asking for, what they value, what they demand and how to best accomplish exactly that in the most efficient means possible. Agreement quality from the customers' perspective can be invaluable to the performance of the process and the quality of the product.
This mapping activeness tin be immensely helpful in providing leaders, stakeholders, and squad members with a unified view. This new view enables them to step out of their information silos and gain a more holistic understanding of the overall process and their respective roles and contributions to the finished production. This added perspective helps them each to see their private contributions equally more significant, valued and essential to the product commitment process. Without this, team members often lose perspective, distort and/or discount the value of their role. Participating in a VSM activeness is a not bad mode for team members to proceeds clarity and understanding of the value of their respective roles. Of form, this also goes a long way to meliorate private and team morale.
While we'd like to believe that every team fellow member follows the team's prescribed processes, the reality is typically far different. While at that place may be a prescribed process for given segments of the process, it's common for these processes to be farther modified or simplified by individuals or teams. Those processes can also vary profoundly from day-to-twenty-four hours depending on who shows up to work, their mood, workload, and a number of other factors. Without a unified and holistic view, full alignment from each of the teams and their squad members on a consistent basis is nearly incommunicable. Granted, in that location will keep to be variations in the prescribed processes, merely at least with the holistic view of the entire procedure, the end result volition likely be improve aligned with the needs of subsequent steps.
The resulting improved processes and understanding will greatly reduce the need to chase downwards and put out fires past increasing focus on fire prevention. This reduction in firefighting problems makes it easier to accurately programme schedules and product delivery. This is because the amount of unplanned labor and project upkeep spent investigating problems and backing out problems is significantly reduced.
Without the holistic understanding that VSM provides, whatever improvements fabricated to the life wheel typically benefit one segment, often at the expense of another. A simplified example would show that if you simply speed upward the development procedure, information technology will likely increment the excess for testing and also result in more than quality bug that tin can detect their style to the production surroundings.
The VSM is besides the most efficient way to record the current land of things. When making changes to the evolution cycle, creating a baseline, or Current Land VSM for future comparing is the best way to go. This enables easy before-and-after comparisons of the operation data to determine if the changes made had the intended affect.
Who benefits from value stream mapping?
The value stream mapping exercise can exist used to meet a diverseness of objectives. For example, information technology can accept a very tactical function when adult and applied at the practitioner/specialist level. On the other hand, it can have a loftier-level strategic role when developed and applied past leadership.
When creating the VSM, it's critical to know from the beginning what the key objectives are and who should be present in the mapping sessions to have the desired touch on. If the objective is for strategic changes, the mapping session needs to exist fabricated upward of the advisable level of leadership who can directly affect and make the necessary strategic changes. Besides, if your objective is more than tactical, you lot'll need to have the appropriate squad members who can execute those types of tactical changes.
While there are a number of benefits that will be realized from the various team members, stakeholders, executives, and even shareholders, the real do good to VSM is realized by the customer. The customer will feel a better-quality product, it will be delivered faster, and information technology will ameliorate run into their needs and expectations.
History of Value Stream Mapping?
Value stream mapping has been growing in popularity in recent years and is withal considered by many to be a relatively new tool in the effort to ameliorate business efficiency. Despite even so having that relatively new feeling, it has been around for quite a while and has seen a number of refinements.
Value stream mapping can exist traced dorsum to more than thirty years agone, to the visual mapping technique used at the Toyota Motor Corporation. It was then known as the "material and data flow". It came about as the company'south focus shifted to proceeds a better understanding of the cloth and information flow throughout their organization. The popularity of this mapping technique grew as American companies observed and studied the efficiency and consistency of Toyotas' operations.
The term "value stream" was first used in a book called "The Machine that Changed the Earth" (1990) written past James Womack, Daniel Jones, and Daniel Roos. It was then further popularized by another volume, "Lean Thinking," (1996) which was besides authored by James Womack and Daniel Jones. These books substantially launched the Lean movement. They defined the value stream as "the sequence of activities an organization undertakes to deliver on a customer request."
Every bit the Lean motion took off, then did this mapping technique that Toyota had developed. Information technology has connected to evolve to become what we now know every bit value stream mapping, which is much more than applicable and useful for businesses and value streams of all types.
How to map your commencement value stream of software development
There are some cardinal steps to creating a VSM for your organisation.
- Define your focus – This is probably the most important step of the entire VSM practise. Get-go with clearly defining the objective. With a clear objective in listen, place the appropriate focus, scope, and process to be mapped. Typical objectives for software development value streams tin can include speed or velocity, improved quality, improved governance and compliance, and improved efficiency.
Next, determine your contend posts, or the start and end points of your mapping exercise. For case, will the starting point be the creation of a customer feature request, or will you lot start with an approved request? This might seem somewhat trivial, but information technology volition matter in your VSM team selection and mapping details. Will y'all end with a delivered product to production, or will you stop with production side customer sign-off? These are things that demand to be determined up front earlier the VSM team meets. The reason for this is explained in the side by side step.
Keep in mind that a value stream map is not a procedure flowchart. That said, it doesn't demand to map every possible inflow or outflow of the process. By maintaining focus on the predetermined objectives and fenceposts, the mapping activeness is far more likely to stay on rail and focused. Another affair to keep in mind is that value stream mapping is not tied to a specific methodology. Information technology will piece of work every bit well with waterfall, Agile, DevOps, CI/CD, hybrids or anything else. VSM can also exist used equally a tool to help in the migration from one of these methodologies to another.
- VSM team choice – You will demand to make sure that the appropriate team is assembled to meet the objectives of the value stream mapping activity. The team needs to exist those individuals that are directly able to make the changes that might come up from the action. For case, you don't want to have your team be comprised of simply developers and testers if information technology's determined that changes are needed that require support from operations, or if the adamant changes are organizational and require senior leadership. Likewise, you don't desire to take a grouping of senior leadership tied upwards in the activity if the goal is to improve depression-level tactical processes.
When selecting the team, information technology's of import to not make the mapping team too big. If you get too many people involved, you could suffer from assay paralysis. Having a group of six-10 people is a good goal. Using our example of software development, a mapping team could consist of a product possessor, scrum principal, pipeline engineer, architect, development manager, exam manager, test surroundings director and the release manager.
- Get to Gemba (Walk the Process) – "Gemba" is a Japanese term meaning "the actual place." "Go to Gemba" means become to the place where the piece of work is being done. Visit the customer where the software is being used and understand why they demand the features they are requesting. Visit the release manager, the developers, the testers, the test environment managers, etc. See what it is they do, how they exercise it, understand their process, what does and doesn't work for them. Past doing this, yous volition develop a much more holistic perspective of the process. It is important to do this with a customer mindset – how does the customer benefit from each pace in the procedure. Value stream mapping should never be done from behind a desk. Resist the urge to jump into the weeds and make changes before y'all understand the unabridged value stream. This mistake is the primal contributor to sub-optimized processes in i surface area at the expense of some other.
Depending on the squad and the procedure, information technology is recommended and can be very benign, to have the entire squad "Get to Gemba" with you. This will aid everyone to exist on the same folio with the aforementioned perspective and agreement. Ideally, the team mapping activity should take place at a location that will have the entire process nearby and attainable for additional walk-throughs if needed. This will come in handy as they encounter and come up upward with boosted questions that may require additional visits to 1 or more segments of the process.
- Define the basic Value Stream – Start with a rudimentary VSM to requite your team a starting point. This helps to jump-start the activity when you first come across as a squad. The primal matter here is to outline only the process basics. Then, as a team, add the additional detail together. Doing this skips the heed-numbing activity of discovering the obvious. Information technology also shows a rough case of how it looks and works, and it too moves the activity quickly along to higher quality discussions, inputs and discoveries.
- Team mapping activeness – Value stream mapping is an activity that needs to be adult by a team. Each of the team members is an good in their own respective segments of the process. The team approach provides different perspectives of needed changes and how to best apply them. Changes made in isolation from your VSM team members will most always upshot in flawed attempts that do little more than waste time and money.
The mapping action is a collaborative word to develop the VSM. Depending on the procedure being mapped, this activity tin accept anywhere from several hours to several days to complete. Each of the team members should come prepared with or be able to chop-chop access the data needed to complete their respective segments of the VSM.
- Develop your current state value stream map – Starting with your basic VSM (from step 4), add the additional processes and their respective data, including current cycle times, lead times, up times, takt times, SLA's, etc. This should reflect all stages inside the defined fence posts, and their respective values every bit they currently are, not as they are said to be, or supposed to exist. This is known as your "Current State" VSM. This electric current country version will be immensely important to continue and use as your process baseline.
From this current state, the mapping team will be able to meliorate sympathise the entire process. This enables the team to discuss productive what-if'southward and to develop better solutions to identified hot points. This electric current state VSM will besides come in handy in the time to come after you've implemented changes. Information technology enables you lot to provide a before and after comparison of the process and its performance figures to know if the changes had the desired impact.
- Develop your Target State Value Stream Map – Once the current state VSM has been completed, the squad volition need to then develop a Target State VSM. The target land represents a clear target of where y'all want to end up. These targets tin can be expressed in delivery velocity, quality focused metrics, compliance or whatever combination of these and others. The of import thing here is to identify a goal to piece of work towards equally a squad.
The goal of value stream mapping is to provide a tool to help migrate the process from what is actually happing to what should exist happening.
Once a Target State VSM is complete, it's much easier to create the time to come state VSM's that will be used as steps in a staircase to reach the ultimate target state. Continue in heed that the target state VSM is not something that has to be prepare in rock. Information technology tin evolve with fourth dimension and be drastically changed as needed to reverberate a new focus, or iteratively updated equally appropriate.
- Develop your Future State Value Stream Map – Using your current state VSM, identify the areas that are hot points, bottlenecks, backlogs, strengths, weaknesses, etc. Once these areas are identified every bit well as the Target Country VSM showing what the targeted value stream should ultimately look like, the team tin brainstorm working on holistic improvements to the process.
As improvements to the process are identified and planned, the VSM squad volition need to develop an implementation plan. These improvements volition often crave a phased approach to introduce necessary changes to achieve the target state. To do this, a future state VSM should be created for each country of the implementation programme, which typically includes a 30, 60, 90-mean solar day view. Information technology should reverberate the expected data, times, volume, etc. This allows you to validate your assumptions at each stage of the implementation plan, to make sure the changes are having the desired impact and moving the value stream performance in the right direction. This enables the VSM team to brand corrective changes as needed to go along them on track to reach the desired future state performance objectives. The future state VSM gives yous and your squad members a unified view of the overall process also as targeted objectives to piece of work toward.
Working through the What-if Scenario
At that place are many ways to work through and identify the challenges in your value stream. Many Lean experts will start with current state data and look for hot points, bottlenecks, or bug that can be easily resolved. This method typically looks for the low-hanging fruit and prioritizes changes to the procedure accordingly.
Others will outset with the end in heed. For case, offset with the target state, if they know that they need to have the Takt Fourth dimension under a certain threshold, they volition commencement with that and work their way back, squeezing the procedure downwards until they reach their target.
Using the sample Current Country VSM shown below in Figure three, we can come across in that location are a number of hot points to work through with the VSM squad to brand improvements. Here are a few examples:
Instance #1: Notice that in the "Information Flow" department, the U/I Blueprint and Development teams both use SharePoint, and Excel is used past the testing and build teams.
Possible Solution: Upon give-and-take, the VSM team determines that a unified information sharing solution similar Plutora would increment the transition speed from one team to the side by side and create pipeline visibility. Note that isolated information silos, like those shown here, crusade process inefficiencies, bottlenecks, and poor interdepartmental advice and workflow.
Case #2: In the "Time Ladder" section, we come across that each characteristic asking will sit down for an average of three days before it gets worked on by the U/I Design team. This has created a backlog of xviii features that are ready and waiting to exist worked on. This would be a smashing place to start process improvement discussions with the VSM team.
Possible Solution: The VSM team determines that they can temporarily reassign 1 of their squad members to help work through the iii-twenty-four hours backlog to help get things caught up. That temporary assignment can exist reapplied as needed to help out when someone on the U/I team misses work.
Instance #3: In the "Product Flow" section, nosotros see that the examination squad has an average setup fourth dimension of 45 minutes for each feature and has a backlog of 12 features needing to be tested. The VSM team discussions discover that this is caused by manually reconfiguring the test surroundings each time.
Possible Solution: The VSM squad discusses this and determines that the Plutora test environs management solution would resolve this issue, and too aid reduce the two-day backlog shown in the time ladder between the Dev Team and the Test squad.
Finally, the VSM squad develops a Future State VSM shown in Figure 4 and determines that by implementing these three changes, the Production Lead Fourth dimension is shortened from 12.v to 8 days, which is well inside the desired range.
Measuring the Results
Efficiency can be measured through a wide variety of metrics depending on the organization and the level of detail that is beingness tracked. However, with annihilation that is being tracked, information technology's ever important to accept an established baseline that shows your starting betoken. For example, if the original VSM was created in Jan and at present, in Apr, all the changes have been made and are running smoothly, a comparison of your original current state map from January with an updated current state map from April will provide you with an apples-to-apples comparison of all changes in the performance information. This provides an spread-out view of not simply how the changes impacted the changing area, but likewise the entire process.
Continuous Improvement and what that looks like
Using the above example, we can determine that the new changes will increase the overall process operation by 36%. Even so, because the industry is so competitive, it'south quickly determined that we need to go on efforts to amend the evolution lifecycle operation. Value stream mapping provides a not bad way to make changes and improvements to the procedure without doing so at the expense of other process segments.
Depending on the organization, the value stream mapping activity should be held as frequently as needed for each process. If your project value stream uses a Waterfall methodology that might be a couple of times a year. But if y'all use an Agile methodology, that could be monthly. It tin can likewise be used to focus on smaller segments of the procedure, enabling a deeper dive into those process specifics. Using the above example, we could concord a value stream mapping activity with all the test engineers to focus specifically on the testing procedure or do the same with the Dev or U/I squad.
The goal is to make ongoing iterative improvements to the process, using strategy before tactics. The CI/CD Continuous Improvement Cycle (Figure 5) is a nifty example of what this continuous improvement should await like. Those improvements tin can take multiple forms, such every bit changes in procedures, incorporating automation, adding new tools, increasing headcounts, etc. It'southward also important to note that not all improvements are centered on time or process efficiency. Some identified improvements might focus on improving squad morale, team or cross-team unification, training, improving team focus, or inter-department process and workflow transparency.
Visualizations in the Real World
Staying competitive in business organization requires consequent procedure improvement and monitoring. It's not plenty to get updated performance numbers merely when a VSM team is assembled. These metrics need to exist tracked regularly, some even daily or hourly. And so how are these numbers tracked in the real globe? Most organizations will establish a report, or series of reports, that evidence the data points of interest. Dashboards are also a cracking way to brandish current figures. The example shown in Figure 6 is an example of a dashboard from Lean Teams Usa.
There are, of form, a wide diversity of tools that tin can be employed to track and report the necessary value stream data points throughout the entire mapped process. A few will even provide support for other development lifecycle direction functions. For example, in looking at the enterprise-scale evolution process, Plutora Value Stream Management Solutions has the ability to track and provide detailed reporting and analytics on the entire development process from concept to delivery. This type of dashboard can be a powerful tool to bear witness current state value stream data in most real-fourth dimension. This dashboard as well gives the viewer the ability to hands drill down into data hotspots to identify specific problems and bottlenecks. Y'all can see an interactive demo of this online, called "Visualize Your Value Stream". It besides integrates with tools like ServiceNow to further expand the tracking and reporting capability to include production system uptime, production side release tracking, feature requests and more.
What is Value Stream Management?
As a founding member of the Value Stream Management Consortium, Plutora is committed to helping businesses to deliver more value to their customers. Tools like Plutora are designed to runway and written report on data of all types, including the data used in the value stream maps. These tools are ideal for providing dashboards, reports, and analytics that rail the performance of the entire mapped process in nearly real time. They provide amazing transparency and clarity of current land throughout the unabridged lifecycle. They likewise enable the user to drill down into the data to identify and address problem areas.
Whatever tool you end up using for your current state tracking of metrics, yous will need to make sure it's readily available to those teams and squad members along the unabridged process, so that information technology continues to provide that holistic perspective for every team that is office of the value stream.
At the end of the day, the goal is to develop a corporate culture that provides the best possible product to meet or exceed customer needs and expectations. This is ultimately washed past making continual improvements to the value stream. Every bit our customers' needs and expectations evolve, and so besides will our value streams need to change and constantly evolve.
Learn more about value stream management by reading our comprehensive guide featuring key essentials, core challenges, and tips from the experts; or learn more most how Plutora can help amend your value stream.
Source: https://www.plutora.com/blog/value-stream-mapping
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