How to Use Value Stream Maps to Reinforce Agility & Effectiveness, Part 1 (Expert Teams)

We talk about cross-functional agile “teams” as if they are the norm. That's what I show in this image: some responsible person creates a ranked backlog that the cross-functional, collaborative team works on. That team delivers increments of value on a regular basis. At some point, the team will demo their work and retrospect on their process.

I can hear some of you now, saying, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what you always say.”

But here's the thing: I do not see enough cross-functional collaborative teams in the wild. Instead, I see teams that are some subset of a cross-functional and collaborative team:

• The team has all the various expertise, but they work as if they were part of a siloed or component team. They do their parts and hand off work to the next person down the chain.
• A cooperative team, where everyone has the expertise, but the team rarely collaborates by pairing, swarming, or mobbing. Instead, the team works mostly independently until they need support from others, such as in code review.
• The team does not have all the expertise it needs. Yes, there is often a core of developers. But, then management thinks they can “allocate” some people as part of “shared services.”

Then, there are the cross-functional collaborative teams who can easily use agile approaches.

If you've ever wondered why things take so long, you might not have a cross-functional collaborative team. You can tell which kind of team you have when you map your team's value stream.

Why Map a Value Stream

There are two reasons to map your team's value stream:

• Measure cycle time. (See Measure Cycle Time, Not Velocity. Once you have enough data, you can use a time series chart to predict what your future cycle times might be. See How to Move from Story Points and Magical Thinking to Cycle Time for Decisions.
• Learn why things take so long. The value stream map might offer more insights into your team's process, especially those feedback loops.

I recommend you start mapping with a new piece of work.  If you have a good memory, start with a recently completed piece of work. However, most of us do not remember enough details if the work took more than a couple of days.

I like to do this on a whiteboard, so we can erase and fix the map as we proceed. Draw a big line across the board. Work time is above the line. Wait time is below the line. (The blank map below might help you start.)

Now, start mapping.

How to Map a Value Stream

1. Note when Person 1 takes the work. That “sets the clock” to measure cycle time. (Yes, I like to draw this in a box so everyone realizes who does the work.) What is the duration of that time? Note the person and the time they spend above the line.
2. What happens when Person 1 is done with their work? If Person 2 is available, as in this blank map, there is no delay. But more likely, Person 2 is not yet available. Make a box below the line to show and measure the delay.
3. Continue to do this for every “step” in your team's process. This is your reality, not your desired process.
4. What happens when work “returns” to Person 1? While the work might “go backward,” time marches on. I put Person 1 and their additional time on the right side of whoever last touched the work.

You now have your value stream map for one feature.

A Three-Person Expert Team Example

Here's an easy example with the image below. Imagine Alice starts work on Monday morning and works for four hours. She's done with “her” part and passes the story to Ben.

But he's not available for 2 more days, so on Wednesday, he starts and works for 2 hours. He declares “his” part is done. But Cody is not available until Friday morning.

Cody takes the story on Friday morning. He finds several problems in his three hours of testing.

Now, it's Friday afternoon. Neither Alice nor Ben will take on anything “new” because they need to finish the “old” work they are doing. (I'll discuss new and old later.)

So the weekend passes. Yes, I count the 48 hours of the weekend because people don't stop wanting finished features on the weekends.

On Monday, Alice spends 1.5 hours and finishes “her” work. Ben is available on Tuesday, so he also finishes “his” work after spending 1.5 hours on the work. But Cody is not available until Thursday, so they have another 48 hours to wait until they know if the work is done.

Finally, on Thursday, Cody retests, and yes, Alice and Ben made good decisions this time. Now, Peter, the Product Leader, is not available until Friday. It only takes 15 minutes to access the story.

Yay! The team finished. Now, what did they learn?

Mine the Value Stream Map for the Data

First, look at the various times:

• The total cycle time was 224.5 hours. Divided by 24, that's almost 9.5 days. Or, two work-weeks.
• The work time was 15.5 hours. While I would love it if people could work an 8-hour day, I often use 5 hours as good day's worth of work. So that's 3 or 3+ days of work.
• But the wait time is terrible: 209 hours. Divide 209 by 24 hours in a day, and that's almost 9 days. (8.7 days.)

How much precision should we have? To be honest, while half-days might be okay, I should probably round everything to the next whole day. That makes the work time 4 days, and the wait time 9 days.

When we round up, we don't let the precision blind us to the meaning of the data: This three-person team spent twice as much time waiting for each other as they did working on this feature. (Yes, this team had unplanned feedback loops. See How Long Are Your Feedback Loops? (Are You On an Agile Death March?) for more info.)

If they had collaborated, they could have finished this one feature in under a week, probably under 4 days. That's a huge difference from two weeks.

Alice, Ben, and Cody are a cross-functional team. They do not collaborate. In fact, their feedback loops look just like a serial lifecycle.

That's the simplified version of what happens when so-called teams work like experts, not as collaborators or cooperators.

The Series:

• How to Use Value Stream Maps to Reinforce Agility & Effectiveness Part 1 (Expert Teams)
• How to Use Value Stream Maps to Reinforce Agility & Effectiveness Part 2 (Cooperative Teams)
• How to Use Value Stream Maps to Reinforce Agility & Effectiveness Part 3 (Collaborative Teams)
• How Value Stream Maps Prompt Us to Ask More Questions, Part 4

P.S. I'll be doing a webinar on April 8 about this topic. Register here.