Accelerate System Flow: Part 3 - Defining Future State Value Stream

08/23/2024

Combining the power of Value Stream Mapping with Root Cause Analysis to accelerate system flow

Part 3 – Defining the Future State Value stream

In Part 2 of this blog series, Team Toaster Strudel identified the two major bottlenecks that are clogging up their system of value delivery, the Wait Time between the Test and Deploy states and the Wait Time between the Define and Refine states. See Figure 1 below.

Unclogging part 3 figure 1

Team Toaster Strudel completed steps 1and 2 of the 4-step approach of the Value Stream Mapping process. This post will cover Step 3:

  • Step 1 - Mapping the Current State

 

  • Step 2 - Identifying Bottlenecks

 

  • Step 3 - Designing the Future State

 

  • Step 4 - Developing an Action Plan

 

In the prior step, Identifying the Bottlenecks, the team created high level enabler stories for their backlog knowing that these placeholder stories will need to be refined and split since they will take several iterations to complete. In fact, the Scrum Master, Dorothy, encourages the team to treat the implementation of the Future State Value Stream Map effort as a series of experiments. The team decides they will create an enabler Feature with a Benefit Hypothesis for each improvement area to capture their efforts. The creation and refinement of these Features will occur in the final part of this blog series, Developing the Action Plan.

The team focuses their attention on how they can decrease their Flow Time and improve their Flow Efficiency by creating a Future State Value Stream. They start by attacking each bottleneck.

Reducing the Wait Time Between the Test and Deploy States

Using the 5 Whys technique for root cause analysis in the prior step, the team determined that their workflow from Test to Deploy is completely manual and the only way to reduce or eliminate the Wait Time of 20 days between steps is through automation.

The team understands that most of the Wait Time is out of their control. Once they deploy and smoke test their code in the Staging environment, they are dependent upon the Operations team (Ops) to deploy the code into Production. The is in essence a “handoff” and any time there is a handoff between one person or team to another is a source of potential delay.

The Ops team follows a monthly deployment schedule that integrates code from multiple teams, tests it and deploys it to production to ensure stability and security. Although monthly deployments are light years ahead of where the organization was a few years ago with annual deployments, it still isn’t fast enough for some teams who require accelerated value delivery and faster feedback loops.

Dorothy encourages the team to focus their energy on what they can control first and then determine how they can influence the Ops team to accelerate their deployment schedule.

The team determines that 1 of the days in the 20 day Wait Period is the time it takes to deploy their code from the Test environment to the Staging environment. They believe they can significantly reduce that time from a day to minutes by automating that part of their deployment pipeline. This was already on their roadmap to do but they decided to address it now rather than later.

The biggest challenge is working with the Ops team to see if they can deploy the code sooner rather than having it sit. The SM believes there is a solution to this. There have been discussions within the Ops team to create an “Express Lane” to accelerate deployment of code outside of the defined monthly schedule. The Ops team has defined a set of criteria that must be met for the code to be accepted on the “Express Lane” to ensure stability and security.

The team reviews the “Express Lane” criteria and believes they can implement it, but it will take a few iterations to complete the work needed to meet the requirements. These include things like security scans, feature toggles, etc. They realize there will be a few manual steps remaining, but they should be able to reduce the Wait Time from 20 days to 2 days knowing that perfect is the enemy good and that continuous incremental improvements over time will get them to a fully automated deployment pipeline. They also realize that by incorporating the tests that are part of the “Express Lane” criteria as part of their Definition of Done, they will improve the Percent Complete & Accurate numbers from 50% in the Test and Deploy states to 90% or higher by reducing reworking.

The team updates Wait Time and Percent Complete & Accurate with the planned improvements. See Figure 2.

Softworld 23 August, 2024

SAFe Advanced Facilitator: Master Value Stream Mapping with Our Micro-Credential

Introducing the SAFe Advanced Facilitator: Value Steam Mapping micro-credential Introduction In

Softworld 23 August, 2024

Accelerate System Flow: Combining Value Stream Mapping with Root Cause Analysis

Combining the power of Value Stream Mapping with Root Cause Analysis to accelerate system flow

 

Unclogging part 3 figure 2

Reducing the Wait Time Between the Define and Refine States

Dorothy then directs the team’s attention to their second biggest bottleneck, reducing the

Wait Time between the Define and Refine states in their workflow. They used the 5 Whys in the previous step in the VSM process to identify that training on better backlog management and refinement is needed to address the root cause of this bottleneck. The good news is the team has complete control over this bottleneck since they can improve how they write and refine their stories.

The team determines they can reduce the Wait Time from 10 days to 5 days so that refinement is happening on a weekly basis. Gabrielle, the Product Owner, still needs the 5-day lead time to talk with customers and stakeholders and validate that she is capturing what their needs are.

The team updates the Wait Tine for their planned improved Wait Time. See Figure 3 below.

Unclogging part 3 figure 3

Dorothy then has the team recalculate their Flow Time and Flow Efficiency.

Based on these improvements Team Toaster Strudel believes that they can reduce their Flow Time from 42 days to 18 days and increase their Flow Efficiency from 26% to 61% (11 days/18 days x 100). See Figure 4.

Unclogging part 3 figure 4

These are dramatic improvements, and the team realizes that once they get them in place they can further improve by increasing the Percent Complete & Accurate during the Build state and by reducing the Active Time for each state. These improvements will be added to their backlog and addressed as part of their continuous improvement effort.

What’s Next

In the next installment of this series, we will explore Step 4 of the VSM process, Developing and Action Plan, where Team Toaster Strudel creates Features and Stories in their backlog to implement their Future State Value Stream. Check out part 4 here.

Additional References

To learn more about Value Stream Mapping, I highly recommend Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation by Karen Martin and Mike Osterling. This book is the de facto standard VSM.

To learn more about effectively facilitating a VSM workshop in your organization, I encourage you to check out SAFe’s Advanced Facilitator: Value Stream Mapping workshop. This micro-credential is a half day, virtual workshop that covers the VSM process soup to nuts. Learn more at Advanced Facilitator: Value Stream Mapping and please join Frameworx for our scheduled class on August 6th by registering on Eventbrite!

Softworld 23 August, 2024

SAFe Advanced Facilitator: Master Value Stream Mapping with Our Micro-Credential

Introducing the SAFe Advanced Facilitator: Value Steam Mapping micro-credential Introduction In

Softworld 23 August, 2024

Accelerate System Flow: Combining Value Stream Mapping with Root Cause Analysis

Combining the power of Value Stream Mapping with Root Cause Analysis to accelerate system flow

Tom Wessel
Thomas Wessel
Director of Agile Delivery

Tom Wessel brings over 30 years of experience in various industries in software development. His experience spans the entire end-to-end product life cycle from inception to delivery. With over 15 years of experience as a trainer and coach, Tom has worked with various organizations of all shapes and sizes to train, coach, and mature their agile mindset and transform how they deliver value.

View Tom's calendar here to schedule an introductory call.



We’ve got work figured out.

In calm or chaos, you can count on us for guidance. Because we’ve been around, and we’ll be here for you. We know a thing or two about the future of work—and we can’t wait to help you discover what’s next.

Contact us at 800.Kelly.01 and one of our agents will administer your request. Or, if you’d prefer, fill out the form to submit an email.

Let's Talk!