Flomatika

Value Stream Management (VSM) is the process of understanding the criteria that makes your product or service capable of delivering to your customers within the expected value, quality, and speed. It ensures your service level continues to fall within acceptable customer thresholds where you are considered to be fit for purpose.

If you're leading a high-performing team committed to the goal of continuous improvement in delivery, then value stream management (VSM) is the vehicle that'll get you there. From innovating alongside market needs, pivoting when necessary, and focusing resources where they're most valuable. VSM improves project transparency and empowers you to make better decisions about where interventions are needed and how people should be allocated.

As the world continues to see the advantages that lie in a shift to an agile way of working, the structure and format of software delivery remains forever changed. Namely, the decision-making power has shifted. Where the responsibility once sat squarely on the shoulders of the ‘leader’, trickling down through the hierarchy, this decision-making power now extends to those closest to the work—the agile teams operating and innovating rapidly to deliver it.While this provides for faster and more customer-centric releases, it’s clear that leaders don’t have the visibility they once did, which can inhibit your pursuit of continuous improvement. Instead of directives, they give their agile teams implicit trust, forgoing control and visibility for autonomy and speed. Which, in essence, sounds like a good trade off. Unfortunately, a lack of clarity around the end-to-end flow of software delivery can make it more difficult to improve the overall system.

The term ‘Obeya’ originated at Toyota in the 90s while the Prius was in development. Chief engineer of the project, Takeshi Uchiyamada, was fearful that his lack of authority when it came to decision-making could see him overrun by more experienced discipline leaders, to the detriment of the project. This need for senior support is what manifested in the very first ‘Obeya’, which means ‘large room’ in Japanese. Dubbed an area for mutual discussion with all leaders across the project, this space empowered Uchiyamada with full transparency and effective governance from conception to delivery.