The Business Benefits of Value Stream Management

The editors at Solutions Review have partnered with the experts at Broadcom to provide a brief overview of the business benefits that value stream management (VSM) can provide.

There are more definitions for value stream management (VSM) than most companies know what to do with, which is a problem, considering how valuable the methodology and associated solutions can be to a company’s ongoing strategy. In its truest and simplest form, value stream is ultimately about how companies manage the way they deliver value. It accomplishes this by utilizing human-driven continuous improvement strategies that connect the needs of customers and leadership with the needs of business and technical operational groups.

To clarify things, Lance Knight—the Chief Value Stream Architect at Broadcom—has provided some helpful insights, comparisons, and definitions that identify the unique benefits value stream management and its associated strategies can give a business.

What is Value Stream Management?

As explained above, value stream management is a strategy that focuses on continuously improving a company’s visibility, alignment, efficiency, and predictability. When utilized properly, it can help businesses gain deeper insights into their value streams, align teams toward common goals, optimize workflows, and identify areas for improvement to boost productivity. Lance Knight provides some additional takeaways in the Expert Series Ebook, “Mastering Chaos With Value Stream Management and Pattern Thinking.”

• Value streams, value stream mapping, value stream management, and value management are all related but also stand apart.
• VSM is different from DevOps, Agile, Scrum, Lean, or Kanban.
• You don’t need to create a value stream; you already have them.
• Value management is getting valuable work through the value stream.
• Organizations have to do both value management and value stream management.
• A VSM platform gives you the power of connections and allows you to manage both VSM and value.

To get started, companies should adopt a Value Stream Management Platform (VSMP), which will serve as a centralized hub for optimizing a company’s software delivery processes. This “hub” equips users with the resources they need to connect the various software development tools they use, helping them break down departmental siloes and promote cross-functional visibility.

What Are the Benefits of Value Stream Management?

VSM strategies and platforms can do more than the thing suggests. Alongside improving how companies manage their value streams, these solutions can provide companies across industries with many business benefits. Here are a few of the most significant advantages to know about.

Mapping the Value Stream

Value stream mapping is a tool that can help you better understand your overall system and identify areas of waste and inefficiency. With VSM, companies can develop and visualize a comprehensive view of value creation and delivery. This makes it easier for decision-makers to identify bottlenecks that hinder performance, spotlight each step involved in the production process, and use the resulting insights to ensure that each step in the chain adds actionable value.

Identifying Waste

Identifying waste is often a side effect of mapping out a company’s value stream, as creating an in-depth visualization of an operation is bound to reveal inefficiencies. For example, value stream mapping and management give organizations a look at every part of their production process, from the initial input of raw materials to the final output reaching the customer.

This detailed mapping highlights areas where resources are not used efficiently, such as excessive inventory, unnecessary movements, waiting times, overproduction, and defects. By analyzing these inefficiencies, companies can pinpoint specific sources of waste and take targeted actions to eliminate or reduce them. This will ultimately lead to a more streamlined operation that delivers greater value to customers with minimal waste.

Accelerating Value-Added Activities

One of the critical tools in value stream management is value stream automation, which aims to improve the software delivery process by reducing the occurrence of errors, eliminating manual processes when possible, and improving communication amongst team members. By automating tasks that don’t add immediate value, an organization can free up resources (i.e., workers, systems, etc.) and allocate them to projects and assignments that would benefit from them most. This often leads to higher satisfaction among workers—as they feel empowered to use their unique skills more effectively—and, consequently, accelerates the development of essential activities while still ensuring quality output.

Want to Learn More About Value Stream Management? This Free Ebook Can Help!