Value stream mapping, as a process, comes from Lean Manufacturing principles. At its core, it is designed to reduce bottlenecks in the production line, decrease rework, and improve customer satisfaction. When it is applied to Software Development, the goals remain the same. Reduce bottlenecks, especially in gating actions, eliminate unnecessary rework and improve delivery quality to the end customer, whether it is internal or external.
A value stream mapping exercise is conducted with all the stakeholders relevant to the value stream being discussed. This includes business specialists, technical specialists, and other program participants related to the value stream being mapped. This may also include individuals that are part of feeder processes or ancillary value streams.
This series discusses the theory of constraints and its impact on value streams, the impact of Conway’s Law on development and value streams, and the effect of a value stream mapping exercise on changes to work stream and execution.
| Title | Running Time | Description | Persona |
|---|---|---|---|
| Breaking the Silos | Xm Xs | This presentation was created by Oracle and addresses Conways Law, the Theory of Constraints and Value Stream Mapping | Management |
The Theory of Constraints is a methodology for identifying the most important limiting factor (i.e. constraint) that stands in the way of achieving a goal and then systematically improving that constraint until it is no longer the limiting factor. The constraint is often referred to as a bottleneck.
| Title | Running Time | Description | Persona |
|---|---|---|---|
| DevOps, reducing time to market, and the theory of constraints | 6m 8s | This video outlines what the Theory of Constraints is and a practical application in use cases. | Management |
| What is the Theory of Constraints? | 30m 0s | This reading explains how to identify and eliminate bottlenecks to increase profitability. The Theory of Constraints is a methodology for identifying the most important limiting factor (i.e. constraint) that stands in the way of achieving a goal and then systematically improving that constraint until it is no longer the limiting factor. In manufacturing, the constraint is often referred to as a bottleneck. | Management |
Conway’s law is an adage stating that organizations design systems that mirror their own communication structure. It is named after computer programmer Melvin Conway, who introduced the idea in 1967. It was dubbed Conway’s law by participants at the 1968 National Symposium on Modular Programming.
| Title | Running Time | Description | Persona |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ownership and Conway’s Law | 2m 28s | This video discusses how to keep communication efforts and the cost of change low by assigning complete ownership of a service to one team. | Managment |
| Conway’s Law: Building a strong communication foundation | 3m 31s | This video explains the importance of having an efficient communication structure and the impact of this structure on the business. | Management |
| What Can Conway’s Law Teach Us About DevOps? | 5m 0s | This reading discusses what Conway’s Law means in relation to the DevOps journey and how to improve team alignment within businesses. | Management |
| Conway’s Law: How to dissolve communication barriers in your API development organization | 8m 42s | This reading explains how poor communication across teams in an organization will negatively affect the product being created. | Management |
| How To Design With Conway’s Law In Mind | 12m 35s | This reading first discusses the impact of Conway’s Law on the performance of a value stream. It then outlines how to develop the necessary habits and capabilities in the workforce in order to improve an organization’s performance. | Management |
| Chapter 7: How to Design Our Organiztion and Architecture with Conway’s Law in Mind | 27m 27s | Done incorrectly, Conway’s Law will ensure that the organization creates poor outcomes, preventing safety and agility. Done well, the organization enables developers to safely and independently develop, test, and deploy value to the customer. | Management |
| Title | Running Time | Description | Persona |
|---|---|---|---|
| Understanding value is key | 3m 53s | Value is a word that is used often, but rarely understood. Defining value starts by understanding the core mission of the business. You want to be able to answer important questions, such as what is the core need or desire we want to fulfill? | Everyone |
| Value Stream Mapping | 6m 28s | What is value? Value is what’s important to customers. What’s important to customers? Well, it varies. But mostly it’s what they appreciate and are willing to pay for. Obviously we need to know what this is, but we also need to know what’s involved in delivering this value. The activities, transactions, material and information flows required to deliver this value to the customer. This is called the value stream. Here’s one definition of a value stream. A value stream is all the end-to-end process activities, resources, and information used to transform inputs into outputs that are salable to customers. | Everyone |
| Value stream mapping | 2m 54s | We have a fondness for making things efficient, and value stream mapping is the go to technique to find where waste is in a process. It’s a visual technique that maps out a time series of activities to deliver a result. | Everyone |
| What is a value stream map (VSM? | 2m 7s | This video outlines how to use VSM to visualize the end to end IT delivery process. | Management |
| Creating value stream maps | 3m 22s | The video outlines the physical preparation, logistics, and set up of creating a VSM with a team. Note: This video is describing a manual process, however Oracle will be using a tool to automate the Value Stream Mapping process. | Everyone |
| Lean value stream mapping | 2m 32s | As we look at value stream mapping, I’d like to introduce you to two key terms before we proceed. Lead time. Lead time is defined as the total elapsed time from a time a request for a product or service is made to the time the product or service is made available. | Everyone |
| Create a value stream map | 3m 9s | Most organizations find it pretty challenging to map up their current process. After a while your business processes start to feel like old office furniture. Everyone takes it for granted and they’re comfortable with how it looks. Don’t fall into the trap of accepting things, because that’s the way it’s always been. That’s why you want to spend plenty of time trying to figure out your current process to make high level process improvements. | Everyone |
| Using value stream maps | 2m 30s | This video goes over the step-by-step process of how to create a VSM with a team. Note: We must identify all the members of the value stream who are responsible for working together to create value for the customers being served. In general, this includes: Product owner: the internal voice of the business that defines the next set of functionality in the service Development: the team responsible for developing application functionality in the service. QA: the team responsible for ensuring that feedback loops exist to ensure the service functions as desired. Operations: the team often responsible for maintaining the production environment and helping ensure that required service levels are met. Infosec: the team responsible for securing systems and data. Release managers: the people responsible for managing and coordinating the production deployment and release processes. Technology executives or value stream manager: in Lean literature, someone who is responsible for “ensuring that the value stream meets or exceeds the customer and organizational requirements for the overall value stream, from start to finish” | Management |
| Why Value Stream Management is Essential for Effective DevOps | 59m 39s | While DevOps provides capabilities that improve a business value stream through the implementation of culture, toolchains, orchestration and automation, DevOps alone without Value Stream Management is not sufficient to realize business benefits. | Management |
| Seven common wastes of software development | 5m 33s | There are at least seven common wastes found in software development. It is a safe bet that anyone who has worked in an organization before has experienced most, if not all of them. | Operations |
| Getting Started with Value Stream Mapping | 4m 50s | This video discusses how to use a VSM to automate processes and eliminate waste in continuous delivery. | Management |
| Chapter 4: Besieging the Mountain | 26m 9s | This chapter begins after an initial adjustment period from a shift left effort. These specific sections identify bottlenecks in the process, mismatches in process, and other hidden impediments to accomplishing tasks. Please focus on the narative beginning at Finding the Real Bottlenecks (Value Stream Map) and Behind the Story under Value Stream Mapping. | Management |
| What is Value Stream Mapping | 10m 0s | This reading discusses the benefits and challenges of VSM, and use cases of the application of Value Stream Mapping. | Management |
| What is Value Stream Mapping (VSM), Benefits, Process and Value | 26m 0s | Simply put, a value stream is a series of steps that occur to provide the product or service that their customers want or need. In order to provide the product or service that the customers desire, every company has a set of steps that are required. Value stream mapping enables us to better understand what these steps are, where the value is added, where it’s not, and more importantly, how to improve upon the collective process. Value stream mapping (VSM) provides us with a structured visualization of the key steps and corresponding data needed to understand and intelligently make improvements that optimize the entire process, not just one section at the expense of another. | Everyone |
| Chapter 4: Designing the Future State | 15m 36s | This book is a practical, how-to guide that helps decision-makers improve value stream efficiency in virtually any setting, including construction, energy, financial service, government, healthcare, R&D, retail, and technology. It gives you the tools to address a wider range of important VSM issues than any other such book, including the psychology of change, leadership, creating teams, building consensus, and charter development. Note: This book is about Value Stream Mapping but is not specific to DevOps or Software Engineering, so some context may not be applicable to Oracle’s business. | Management |
| Chapter 5: Selecting Which Value Stream to Start With | 16m 4s | Peter Drucker, a leader in the development of management education, observed that “little fish learn to be big fish in little ponds.” By choosing carefully where and how to start, we are able to experiment and learn in areas of our organization that create value without jeopardizing the rest of the organization. By doing this, we build our base of support, earn the right to expand the use of DevOps in our organization, and gain the recognition and gratitude of an ever-larger constituency. | Everyone |
| Chapter 6: Understanding the Work in Our Value Stream, Making it Visible, and Expanding it Across the Organization | 22m 36s | This chapter discusses how to identify the supporting teams (and players), create the value stream map to show the work, then develop the team, goal, and plan to improve the value stream. | Management |
Whether you are doing it manually, or using a software tool, the process of developing a value stream map is a skill that has to be learned. This series of videos walks you through a VSM exercise if you have not had the opportunity to participate in one before.
| Title | Running Time | Description | Persona |
|---|---|---|---|
| Value Stream Mapping 1 | 3m 46s | Here’s the challenge. Management want to know what’s going on in a specific value stream. Low productivity, poor quality, and long lead times. No one really knows how the entire value stream works from end to end. Here’s the assignment. Map the value stream and identify opportunities for improvement. | Everyone |
| Value Stream Mapping 2 | 2m 40s | Now that you’re finishing mapping your value stream in a Kaizen event, we move on to analyzing the value stream for opportunities. For the analysis session, here are a few tips. Examine the summary timeline and portals for the value stream. | Everyone |
| What is value stream mapping | 17m 37s | Lucidchart software example for creating a graphic value stream map. | Everyone |
| Title | Running Time | Description | Persona |
|---|---|---|---|
| Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation | Book | The first of its kind—a Value Stream Mapping book written for those in service and office environments who need to streamline operations. Value Stream Mapping is a practical, how-to guide that helps decision-makers improve value stream efficiency in virtually any setting, including construction, energy, financial service, government, healthcare, R&D, retail, and technology. It gives you the tools to address a wider range of important VSM issues than any other such book, including the psychology of change, leadership, creating teams, building consensus, and charter development. | Everyone |