The Lean-Agile Way E-Book

Cecil 'Gary' Rupp

• Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 625

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

In today’s fast-paced business landscape, efficiency is essential. Authored by industry experts Cecil ‘Gary’ Rupp, a Lean-Agile consultant with over three decades of executive experience; Richard Knaster, a SAFe® Fellow and transformation leader; Steve Pereira, a value stream consultant and board advisor; and Al Shalloway, creator of FLEX and PMI’s Disciplined Agile Value Stream Consultant workshop, the book offers proven strategies to streamline processes, enhance products, and improve service delivery.
You’ll start with an introduction to foundational Lean and Agile practices, recognizing the significance of digital enhancements in modernizing business processes. As you progress, you'll learn VSM techniques to identify and prioritize work and investments to provide maximum value to customers. Moreover, you'll grasp Lean-Agile practices aimed at promoting collaboration among teams and ensuring the continuous flow of product-oriented deliveries tailored to address customer needs. Finally, you'll gain executive-level insights on how organizations must access timely information for decision-making and foster a culture of continuous business transformation.
Armed with this knowledge and a robust toolkit, you'll be empowered to drive meaningful change, optimize resources, and stay ahead in the rapidly evolving marketplace.

Leseprobe

The Lean-Agile Way

Unleash business results in the digital era with value stream management

Cecil ‘Gary’ Rupp

Richard Knaster

Steve Pereira

Al Shalloway

The Lean-Agile Way

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Foreword

Imagine if, at every step of your transformation journey, you have access to the world’s most seasoned experts. They guide you to effortlessly avoid the dragons around each corner, secure alignment with every key stakeholder, and continually support your doubling and then quadrupling the productivity of your organization. Envision the effect that this would have on business outcomes, on the happiness of your teams, and on the trajectory of your career. Now consider that all of the wisdom this expert was leveraging was clearly defined and written down in a canonical work combining Lean, Agile, and Value Stream Management (VSM) best practices. This knowledge base is precisely what lies before you in The Lean-Agile Way.

We are constantly seeking expertise to help guide us with both near-term decisions and long-term investments on our journey. Most of us have already tried to get transformation advice from the current breed of Large Language Models (LLMs) and have experienced the disappointment of overly generic and superfluous advice. The LLMs are not to blame. The challenge is that our industry has continued creating new ways to apply and evolve Lean principles to a new era of digital innovation and AI.

I recently ran some experiments feeding content from my 2018 Project to Product book to cutting-edge LLMs. I found the answers and guidance lacking relative to my experience in the domain, largely because the supplementary levels of detail were missing in the answers. What delighted me most about The Lean-Agile Way is that it fills these gaps with both a comprehensive and concise body of knowledge that is missing from other resources available today. This book provides an unprecedented level of detail, implementation guidance models, and expanded frameworks and concepts to accelerate business outcomes with VSM. If you are seeking a summary of the knowledge needed to thrive in the era of AI and digital, hit pause on that last chat session or podcast and dig deep into this book.

The knowledge shared here will eventually be more broadly disseminated and surface in online resources and AI assistants over the coming years. However, I do not think that anyone involved in digital innovation and transformation can wait that long. Industry reports such as State of DevOps1 and the 2023 Project to Product State of the Industry2 make it clear that organizations that have already mastered the Lean-Agile operating model are pulling away from the average and delivering orders of magnitude more value to their stakeholders. We need our leaders and teams to gain mastery of the concepts in The Lean-Agile Way, and to train our own neural networks on the pattern language that is concisely laid out in this book.

I was recently involved in a large organization’s high-stakes reorganization of its engineering teams. The consultant leading the effort was top-tier and had more industry experience running large engineering organizations than most. They ingested data from countless interviews, org charts, financial metrics, and Agile and DevOps tools. The lengthy assessment provided numerous insights into gaps in talent, team sizing issues, and leadership rebalancing opportunities. One of the key recommendations was to move several teams under a very seasoned engineering leader who was particularly well respected according to the interviews. However, when the assessment readout was contrasted with the flow metrics for the leader’s value streams, the data showed that the rate of flow was less than a tenth of other top engineering leaders’ teams. Executing that recommendation would have likely slowed delivery in a precipitous way and made the entire reorganization take a backward step in productivity. However, the consultancy had no clear framework or tooling to surface this problem as their practice did not consider value streams.

Without the instrumentation and metrics detailed in The Lean-Agile Way, which demonstrate that the visibility of siloed organizational structures is ineffective without integrating value stream flow (see Chapter 6), the reorganization would have overlooked value stream dynamics and failed. This example is just one of the many conceptual models that the authors provide in this book.

In the past few years, we have seen a growing body of literature on product-oriented operational models and value streams. The Lean-Agile Way stands out as it is deeply rooted in the long history of Lean and builds clearly and explicitly on the foundations and empirical work done by others over the past decades. This book provides a refreshing departure from the superficial trends often seen in the industry, such as the reliance on blogs, whitepapers, and shallow guidance.

One notable example is the Spotify model, which, while innovative and aspirational, lacked sufficient grounding in empirical evidence. In 2017, Spotify made a data-driven decision to evolve away from this model, highlighting the importance of adaptability and continuous improvement. This contrasts with the ongoing struggles many enterprises face when rigidly implementing the original framework without considering necessary adaptations.

Thanks to the four authors’ profound depth and wealth of practical experience in our field, key topics missed by many others are covered here, ranging from framing value streams with business context to modeling flow economics. In addition to building on the literature and state-of-the-art methods and tools, the authors fill some critical gaps in today’s understanding of VSM implementation.

To help you turn theory into practice, The Lean-Agile Way provides a thorough implementation roadmap and step-by-step guide. This clarity is critical as too many organizations continue to get stuck on experimentation with VSM rather than achieving the massive productivity gains that result from a deliberate and well-structured deployment. The authors’ focus on applying a team of team’s emphasis on Lean-Agile work is of particular relevance as the other challenge that countless organizations experience is a failure to operationalize effectively above the team level.

Other vital contributions unique to this book include the E9 VSM process, approaches to nesting and managing supporting value streams, synchronizing value streams, combining VSM with Wardley mapping, and integrating platform value streams. In Chapter 10, the authors delve into how organizations can harness the volumes of data available to enhance decision-making and action-taking within a lean-Agile enterprise. They also introduce and expand on two key new frameworks, BLAST and BASE. These frameworks facilitate transitioning your organization from simple MVPs to a continuous flow of minimal valuable increments (MVIs), structuring business value backlogs, coordinating at the team-of-teams level, and operationalizing in an iterative approach to delivering business value via minimal valuable releases (MVRs).

To bring all these concepts together in an actionable way, The Lean-Agile Way then tackles what I think is one of the most poorly understood but most critical aspects of success: modeling, understanding, measuring, and improving your value stream network. While a more complex concept, it is distilled clearly with an implementation roadmap that, if followed, is sure to help your business thrive in a matter of months if not weeks. Finally, some excellent case studies conclude this sound and profound contribution to our industry.

I hope that you enjoy The Lean-Agile Way as much as I did and use it to advance your organization, your team, and your career!

—Mik Kersten, CTO at Planview, Inc.

1. Google Cloud. (2023). Accelerate State of DevOps Report. DevOps Research and Assessment (DORA). Retrieved from https://dora.dev/research/2023/dora-report/

2. Corp. (2023). The 2023 Project to Product State of the Industry Report: Benchmarking the operating model shift for digital innovation. Planview, Inc. https://info.planview.com/project-to-product-state-of-the-industry-_report_vsm_en_reg.html

Contributors

About the authors

Cecil ‘Gary’ Rupp is a Lean-Agile consultant and practitioner with more than two decades of executive-level experience in delivering software-based solutions. With SAFe® SPC, LeSS Practitioner, CSM, CSPO, and PMP certifications, he specializes in managing large software development and enterprise application integration programs involving multiple product delivery teams and is often brought in to get failing software delivery programs back on track. Gary is the author of four books emphasizing Lean-Agile practices and has trained over 600 IT specialists, managers, and executives in applying these practices to support enterprise business transformations. His passion is helping organizations profitably deliver customer value through software.

Richard Knaster has over 30 years of experience in software and systems development and has led large-scale Lean-Agile transformations for over 20 years. He is a SAFe® Fellow, SPCT, and a methodologist. He previously worked for Scaled Agile as a Principal Contributor to SAFe® on the Framework team. He is the author of Value Stream Management for the Digital Age eBook and co-author of the Amazon best-selling book, SAFe Distilled book series. Richard is a global keynote speaker and has written several white papers on SAFe® and Technology Business Management. He is the Chief Scientist for Value Stream Management for Agile Rising where he shares his deep expertise in Value Stream Management, Lean Portfolio Management, and SAFe®. Richard is also a Bain & Company Advisor and has held several executive roles in various industries, including CIO, CTO, and Director of Product Development.

Steve Pereira is a value stream consultant with over two decades of experience in tech. He specializes in helping teams define and optimize their value streams. He’s helped dozens of organizations of all sizes across many industries improve their software delivery performance. Steve is a former startup CTO, systems and release engineer, finance IT manager, tech support phone jockey, and pizza maker. He currently leads several tech communities and serves as a board advisor for the Value Stream Management Consortium, and as co-chair for the Value Stream Management Interoperability technical committee.

Al Shalloway is the CEO of Success Engineering and is renowned for developing FLEX (FLow for Enterprise Transformation) which is the basis for PMI’s Disciplined Agile Value Stream Consultant workshop. He has since created the Amplio system which is getting recognition as a leading Lean-Agile approach. Holding master’s degrees from MIT and Emory in EE and computer science and mathematics, he’s an international speaker, former SPC Trainer, and SAFe® contributor. He is also the co-author of 7 books, spanning Design Patterns to Agile at Scale. Al is an influential figure in Lean, SAFe®, Kanban, Scrum, Design Patterns, and ATDD. Al empowers clients to implement Agile practices at scale and trains internal change agents for efficient team development.

12

Table of Contents

Preface

Part 1: Building on Lean-Agile Foundations: Mastering the Basics

1

Navigating Lean-Agile Transformations

Charting the digital frontier

Understanding the digital economy’s landscape

Embracing Lean-Agile and VSM in the digital economy

Exploring the hallmarks of Lean Thinking

Foundational principles

Streamlining flows

Customer value

Optimized flows

Prioritizing Lean methodologies – redefining operational excellence

Embracing Agile methodologies

Understanding the origins of Agile

Expanding Agile – beyond software development

Iterating to deliver incremental value

Harnessing the power of small, collaborative teams

Combining Lean with Agile

Establishing a strong foundation

Supporting pillars in our Lean-Agile house

Finding shelter in our Lean-Agile goals

Synthesizing modern management principles

Integrated practices for enhanced effectiveness

Introducing the BLAST and BASE frameworks for Lean-Agile transformation

Avoiding local optimization with Value Stream Management (VSM)

Creating a cadence of continuous value delivery

Unlocking value with Value Stream Management (VSM)

The evolving nature of VSM

Describing the VSM methodology

Unveiling the versatility of VSM

Enhancing professional expertise with VSM

Leveraging IT for Lean-Agile transformation

Investing in IT value stream improvements

Evaluating information requirements and flows

Summary

Questions

Answers

Further Reading

2

Solving Complex Business Problems with Agility

Technical requirements

Embodying organizational agility

Understanding the foundations of business agility

Applying Agile principles

Responding with agility

Managing COTS implementations: Agile versus Big-Bang

Embracing Agile frameworks for collaboration

Rediscovering the Agile Manifesto

Moving beyond the Agile Manifesto

Charting Scrum’s ascendancy in Agile practices

Understanding the Scrum Sprint cycle

Applying Scrum’s foundational principles

Adapting to Scrum’s deliberate flexibility

Amplifying team efficacy with Scrum

Mastering the art of small teams

Fostering a culture of collaboration and innovation

Defining team roles and responsibilities

Facilitating effective collaboration through Scrum

Encouraging cross-team collaborations

Exploring the three pillars of Scrum’s empiricism

Embracing the team of teams (TOT) approach

Adopting insights from the ToT philosophy

Summary

Questions

Answers

Further Reading

3

Establishing Lean Flows to Improve Productivity

Technical requirements

Unlocking Lean efficiency

Orchestrating value streams

Understanding the Lean philosophy

Delivering value – the core of Lean

Creating operational efficiency – the Lean way

Meeting customer needs effectively

Valuing the human element

Embracing operational transformation

Identifying waste and constraints

Viewing the spectrum of waste

Tweaking elements of waste by domain

Constraints – the silent value blockers

Mapping a value stream

Amplifying IT’s impact – driving operational efficiency and strategic value

Prioritizing efficiency – the Lean imperative for organizational success

Streamlining value delivery

Classifying value streams

Balancing speed and cost

Enhancing efficiency by minimizing inefficiencies

Carving a niche in the professional world

Installing Lean strategies for a competitive edge

Prioritizing value flows

Demystifying organizational value streams

The Lean paradigm – where efficiency meets value

Crafting competitive advantages with Lean

Paving the way for market leadership

Driving continuous improvement – fostering sustained enhancements through Lean principles

An unwavering focus on impactful Lean improvements

Cultivating a culture of continuous improvement

Charting the course to sustained efficiency and profitability

Championing the transformative power of continuous improvement

Summary

Questions

Answers

Further reading

Part 2: Attending to our Value Streams: Prioritize Improvements by their Value-Added Impact

4

Driving Improvements with Value Stream Management

Laying the groundwork for value stream mastery

Adopting Lean-Agile concepts

Understanding the taxonomy of value streams

Applying VSM principles

Optimizing value flow with VSM

Avoiding the pitfalls of local optimization

Defining the VSM process using the E9 methodology

1. Embark – beginning the journey

2. Educate – Training, communicating, and managing change for success

3. Envision – designing the ideal future state

4. Examine – assessing the current state and identifying inefficiencies

5. Evaluate – assessing inefficiencies and waste

6. Engineer – strategies and planning improvements

7. Execute – implementing changes and adjusting

8. Evolve – evolving through refinement of value stream activities

9. End – retiring a product

Adopting a VSM platform

Summary

Questions

Answers

Further reading

5

Introducing the VSM Implementation Roadmap

Unveiling the VSM implementation roadmap

Learning from history

Examining the need for a VSM roadmap

Exploring the VSM Implementation Roadmap

Implementing Value Stream Management

1. Start – initiating value stream management

2. Assess – evaluating and baselining current performance

3. Vision – creating a unified vision and goals

4. Identify – surfacing value streams

5. Organize – streamlining cross-functional collaboration

6. Map – visualizing process efficiency and opportunities

7. Connect – orchestrating people, processes, and tools

8. Inspect – using the Plan Do Study Act (PDSA) cycle to improve value streams

9. Adapt – communicate, scope, and plan interventions

Comparing VSM methodology and the VSM implementation roadmap

Summary

Questions

Answers

Further reading

6

Navigating Value Stream Optimization

Shifting from projects to products

Evaluating project-centric behaviors

Transitioning behaviors

Contrasting product-centric behaviors

Understanding flow at organizational and individual levels

Identifying obstacles to streamlined workflows

Seeing the organization in terms of flow

Creating pathways to value – understanding and identifying value streams

Charting pathways to value – identifying value streams

Mapping flow

Inspecting efficiency and effectiveness

Refining the process – questions for progress

Optimizing value streams

Streamlining value delivery

Managing value stream evolution

Synchronizing core and supportive workflows

Transitioning from functions to stream-aligned synergy

Summary

Questions

Answers

Further reading

7

Connecting the Value Stream Network

Managing and optimizing value stream networks

Organizing value stream networks

Defining customer journeys

Visualizing value stream proximity to customers

Visualizing organizational workflow

Guiding value stream strategy and investments

Evolving the value stream network

Improving value streams by performance focus

Envisioning value stream dynamics

Evaluating value stream networks

Value stream mapping reveals hidden constraints

Streamlining product and platform value streams

Cultivating a customer-centric approach

Summary

Questions

Answers

Further reading

Part 3: Achieving Lean-Agile and VSM Mastery: For Product-Oriented Business Transformations

8

Implementing the Basic Lean-Agile Solution Team (BLAST)

Technical requirements

Harnessing BLAST

Implementing Basic Lean-Agile Solutions Teams (BLAST)

Categorizing BLAST work activities

Defining BLAST increments

Solution discovery (steps 1 and 2)

MVI planning (steps 3 and 4)

Workflow coordination (steps 5 to 11)

Customer feedback (steps 12 to 17)

Integrating Lean-Agile development concepts

Aligning teams for collaborative excellence

Combining Lean and Agile practices

Defining BLAST roles

Facilitating inter-team collaboration

Balancing decision-making approaches

Embracing Lean leadership

Conducting Gemba walks for Lean leadership

Managing multi-tiered reviews and communications

Prioritizing value delivery in BLAST artifacts

Optimizing Development Cadences and Value Deliveries

Emphasizing customer centricity in Lean-Agile cadences

Embracing Lean flows in modern software development

Pursuing a new model for value delivery

Mastering Lean-Agile Planning and Delivery Cadences

Exploring planning horizons

Facilitating collaboration at scale – the team-of-teams approach

Understanding increments in life cycle management

Embracing Lean-Agile management practices

Championing Lean-Agile management

Harnessing middle management for organizational agility

Tracing BLAST’s history

Summary

Questions

Answers

Further reading

9

Defining a Business Agility System for the Enterprise (BASE)

Technical requirements

Understanding the BASE conceptual model

Defining the virtuous circle for continuous improvement

Understanding the four tenets of the BASE

Eight BASE business processes

Establishing customer-centric foundations

Delivering value across the product life cycle

Leveraging customer centricity for strategic growth

Continuously improving value delivery

Summary

Appendix 9.1 - Business Processes, Activities, and Tasks

Questions

Answers

Further reading

Part 4: Driving Sustainable Transformation: Strategies to Achieve Lean-Agile Mastery

10

Enhancing Decision-Making in the Lean-Agile Organization

Technical requirements

Understanding data’s true potential

Addressing Data challenges and opportunities

Charting a course for data utilization

Transforming data into insights

Organizing business objectives

Creating intelligent businesses

Facilitating informed decision-making

Navigating the surge of modern data

Managing data overload

Crafting actionable intelligence

Conducting BRIA workshops for strategic alignment

Defining the BRIA/QIDA workshop sessions

Preparing to conduct BRIA workshops

Assembling the BRIA team

Scheduling and conducting BRIA workshops

Leveraging AI-based tools to support BRIA workshops

Summary

Appendices

Appendix 10.1 – Value Stream Manager BRIDAI results

Questions

Answers

Further reading

11

Implementing Strategies for Organizational Transformation

Simplifying complexity – navigating Lean-Agile implementation challenges

Applying Lean-Agile practices – streamlining processes and enhancing agility

Customizing Lean-Agile practices for organizational transformation

Lean and Agile – two sides of the coin

Fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement

Building cross-functional teams and encouraging collaboration

Debunking the myth that large teams are more productive

Addressing collaboration and integration challenges in small team environments

Leveraging data and analytics for decision-making

Implementing VSM to align IT development activities

Implementing VSM tools

Enhancing software delivery through Flow Metrics

Adopting a change management framework

Kotter’s 8-step process for leading change

The ADKAR® change model

Summary

Questions

Answers

12

Building Lean-Agile and VSM Mastery

Addressing labor’s declining share of GDP

Promoting corporate responsibility through Lean-Agile practices

Recapping the main concepts and essential takeaways

Connecting cross-cutting themes and real-world examples

Examining cross-cutting themes

Reviewing real-world case studies

Amadeus Lean-Agile Center of Excellence (LACE) case study

Applying cross-cutting themes to Amadeus

Leonardo Worldwide VSM case study

BLAST case study

Empowering change for operational excellence

Reflecting on key messages

Summarizing the main takeaways

A call to action

Questions

Answers

Further reading

Index

Other Books You May Enjoy

Preface

“The Lean-Agile Way: Unleashing Enterprise Potential with Value Stream Management” emerged from the collaborative efforts of lead author Cecil ‘Gary’ Rupp and esteemed colleagues Richard Knaster, Steve Pereira, and Al Shalloway. Together, they aimed to provide a comprehensive guide on modern Lean-Agile and value stream management practices tailored for IT specialists, business professionals, and domain experts across diverse industries and organizations.

Their journey began when Packt Publishing approached Gary to write a new book on modern Lean-Agile practices. Gary was drawn to this topic because of his long-term interest in it, which was fueled by his past practitioner and consulting experiences. Additionally, recent training engagements, including the delivery of an extensive online course to 600 IT specialists for a multinational client, reinforced his enthusiasm for exploring this area. Gary then approached his three colleagues to join him.

The collaborative effort of the authoring team ensures a rich and diverse perspective throughout this book, enriching the discourse and broadening its scope and relevance. It’s worth noting that the authors are not academics in the formal sense; rather, they are professionals who work closely with their clients in real-world scenarios, tackling challenges head-on to facilitate effective work processes.

The primary objective of this book is to introduce the integration of Lean and Agile principles and practices, recognizing the evolution of Lean from manufacturing industries and Agile from the software industry. Lean principles focus on eliminating waste and streamlining processes to deliver value more efficiently with higher quality. At the same time, Agile methodologies prioritize iterative development and constant feedback to enhance responsiveness to customer needs.

The integration of Lean and Agile concepts, often referred to as ‘Lean-Agile,’ leverages the strengths of both approaches. It ensures high-quality, efficient deliveries and the ability to adapt to evolving market dynamics, thereby driving sustained competitive advantage.

At its core lies the fundamental premise that organizations must embrace Lean-Agile principles and practices holistically across the enterprise. This involves optimizing productivity, throughput, and efficiency while remaining sufficiently flexible to adapt to changing business requirements, market dynamics, and customer needs.

Central to this approach is the concept of value stream management (VSM), advocated by the authors for driving continuous improvements across organizational value streams. Value streams organize the end-to-end business processes within organizations, serving as a more effective framework for delivering value to customers. The VSM concept helps organizations break down the cross-functional and departmental barriers that often impede efficient deliveries. By focusing on product-oriented activities and processes, value streams emphasize the importance of delivering value through the development and delivery of customer-centric products and services.

Aligned with their belief that methods must precede tools, the authors present a nine-step VSM methodology designed to assist organizations in identifying and prioritizing value stream improvements efficiently. At the core of this methodology lies value stream mapping, a critical technique for visualizing and analyzing business processes to pinpoint opportunities for enhancing efficiency and reducing waste.

In this book, the authors introduce advanced concepts focused on evaluating value stream improvements across a spectrum, ranging from early-stage development to maturity, characterized by standardized activities, high throughput, quality, and efficient flows. Additionally, they present the Basic Lean-Agile Solutions Teams (BLAST) framework, designed to integrate the work of multiple teams collaboratively using both Lean flow and Agile iterative and incremental development practices. This book also introduces the Business Agility System for the Enterprise (BASE) concepts, which integrates work across an enterprise to produce customer-centric increments of new product-oriented value continuously and on cadence.

In an era dominated by digital technologies, effective information use has revolutionized organizational competitiveness. The authors introduce the Business-Role-Information-Action (BRIA) process as a means to find the information needed to make informed and timely decisions. Beyond theory, BRIA offers practical strategies for harnessing digital advancements to improve business processes, systems, products, and services.

This book is structured into four parts, progressing systematically from foundational concepts to advanced strategies for organizational transformation. Each section offers actionable insights and guidance to facilitate seamless adoption and sustained practice. However, those who are time-limited and need to cut to the chase should read Part 4 (Chapters 10, 11, and 12) first, as these summary-level chapters discuss data and information management, Lean-Agile and VSM implementation, and cross-cutting themes.

As you embark on this learning journey, bear in mind the significance of collaboration and collective wisdom in driving meaningful change. The authors’ goal is not only to disseminate information but also to empower individuals and organizations to embrace Lean-Agile principles with confidence and competence.

While intentionally remaining neutral among the plethora of methodologies and frameworks promoting Lean-Agile and Value Stream Management concepts, the authors focus on advocating foundational principles and practices essential for driving enterprise change toward continuous, customer-centric, and value-based improvements.

Most importantly, the methods, tools, and frameworks presented in this book are designed to simplify and sustain Lean-Agile adoptions, even within organizations already invested in other Lean-Agile frameworks. The authors cut through the clutter, distilling concepts for practical implementation and enduring success.

You are invited to join the authors on this odyssey of discovery—a journey towards Lean-Agile mastery and value stream management, where the quest for excellence and innovation knows no bounds. Welcome to The Lean-Agile Way: Unleashing Enterprise Potential with Value Stream Management.

Who this book is for

This book is for business and technology professionals striving to optimize value delivery while minimizing costs. Whether you’re a VSM manager, a member of a product delivery team, a DevOps engineer, or an IT specialist, this book offers proven methods for effectively identifying and implementing improvement opportunities. Product owners looking to prioritize backlog items and corporate executives aiming to demonstrate positive returns on information technology investments will also find this book helpful.

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Part 1:Building on Lean-Agile Foundations: Mastering the Basics

In Part I of this book, we delve into the challenges of competing in the digital age. Today’s business and technology professionals must navigate increasingly complex environments while continuously delivering value to customers and the business to remain relevant.

In response to rapidly shifting market dynamics and internal organizational challenges, professionals must actively engage in continuous learning, process optimization, and teamwork to achieve superior outcomes. This journey isn’t just about survival; it’s about taking the lead, fostering innovation, and setting new benchmarks in a competitive arena.

In this section, we explain why mastering the concepts behind Lean and Agile principles and practices is necessary to improve an organization’s ability to efficiently deliver customer-centric value and enhance business processes and products through digital solutions.

We then take a deeper dive into the basics of Lean and Agile practices. In Chapter 2, you’ll learn how Agile-based practices leverage an iterative and incremental development approach to address complex business problems, support strategic and tactical planning, and continuously deliver new value through processes, business systems, artifacts, products, and services.

In Chapter 3, you learn how Lean practices help optimize productivity, efficiency, and quality, and accelerate your ability to deliver customer-centric value. Embracing these Lean-Agile principles can help propel you to the forefront of the digital revolution.

By absorbing the insights in the following chapters, you’ll elevate your professional skills and competencies, positioning yourself as a true leader at the forefront of change:

Chapter 1, Navigating Lean-Agile TransformationsChapter 2, Solving Complex Business Problems with AgilityChapter 3, Establishing Lean Flows to Improve Productivity

1

Navigating Lean-Agile Transformations

“The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.”

- Harrington Emerson

Imagine a world where companies invest millions in business transformations and digital solutions but still struggle to meet customer demands and enhance products. This unfortunate reality is all too common today. Welcome to this book, where we’ll uncover the secrets of mastering Lean and Agile practices to improve the ability to efficiently deliver customer-centric value while enhancing business processes and products through digital solutions.

Lean principles boost productivity and efficiency, while Agile methodologies help manage change, solve problems, plan, and drive product development. This chapter explores why Lean and Agile are crucial complements for delivering high-value products and services. We’ll also emphasize the pivotal role of Value Stream Management (VSM) in delivering value from the customers’ perspectives.

Lean and Agile are not limited to software development. Organizations can apply Lean-Agile concepts to optimize business processes, product development life cycles, and flow across value streams of all types. Similarly, digital enhancements can improve business processes, product features, functions, and value stream flows. By mastering these concepts, you’ll navigate transformative practices and witness their impact in real-world scenarios.

The following topics will be covered in this chapter:

Charting the digital frontierExploring Lean principlesEmbracing Agile methodologiesCombining Lean with AgileUnlocking value with VSMLeveraging IT for Lean-Agile transformation

Charting the digital frontier

Part1 of this book introduces the contemporary business landscape that requires the attention of all companies, government agencies, and non-profit organizations. Our global economy is undergoing rapid and disruptive change driven by digital technologies and digitally enhanced products. This section briefly introduces the concepts behind Lean, Agile, and VSM practices in a digital context.

Understanding the digital economy’s landscape

The concept of the digital economy is more than just a trend. It’s a new business paradigm. The term digitaleconomy came into use in the 1990s and was the subject of Don Tapscott’s 1995 book, The Digital Economy:PromiseandPerilintheAgeofNetworkedIntelligence.1 As digital computing technologies and the internet have evolved, they’ve significantly transformed how businesses operate, particularly in eBusiness and eCommerce. Today, the lines between digital and traditional economies are increasingly blurred, making it challenging to distinguish between the two.

The digital economy is built on countless daily online exchanges. These exchanges involve diverse participants – from individuals with disparate roles and responsibilities to various entities, such as companies, government agencies, schools, and charitable organizations. Their interactions extend across numerous digital platforms, encompassing everything from large-scale servers to personal devices such as laptops, smartphones, and wearable technology.

Disruptive technology has broad implications. Players such as Airbnb, Amazon, and Uber do more than challenge the norm; they have redefined people’s responsibilities, requisite skills, knowledge, and job opportunities. Navigating this enormous change demands more than tech comprehension – it requires a digital-first mindset. Those leveraging these connections will be able to compete as data-driven relationships between businesses and customers become the norm.

Embracing Lean-Agile and VSM in the digital economy

Lean-Agile principles present a robust structure for staying agile and adaptable to relentless change while remaining productive and efficient. These principles underpin businesses’ ability to swiftly adapt, refine operations, and consistently offer value in a digital world marked by rapid shifts.

VSM complements Lean and Agile, providing a holistic viewpoint to identify, assess, and enhance value flow from end to end.

Pairing Lean, Agile, and VSM practices is the secret sauce for surviving and excelling in the digital economy. These methods are more than survival tools; they’re the scaffolding upon which sustainable, competitive, and ever-evolving businesses can be built.

Let’s begin our exploration with an introduction to Lean Thinking.

Exploring the hallmarks of Lean Thinking

The goal of Lean is to maximize customer value, quality, and efficiency by minimizing waste and non-value-adding costs while optimizing delivery speed and throughput. The elimination of waste is the hallmark of Lean principles, as depicted in Figure 1.1:

Figure 1.1 – Classic eight wastes of Lean

The essence of Lean is simple: organizations should refrain from investing in endeavors that produce excess work, features, or capabilities that customers neither desire nor find valuable. Failing to do so might drive external or internal customers to seek alternative products or services. The complexity lies in determining what customers need and the level of quality they anticipate while eliminating any elements that fail to align with their objectives. Lean practitioners refer to these excesses as waste.

A Lean enterprise’s imperative is continuously maximizing customer value at the lowest possible cost by minimizing waste. The objective is not to reduce staff numbers to achieve these goals, but rather to optimize workforce utilization. The focus is on avoiding and eliminating existing wasteful activities and processes, streamlining workflows, and ensuring that resources are allocated effectively to enhance productivity and deliver superior value to customers.

Figure 1.2 illustrates four focus areas and the 14 elements of Lean Thinking as illustrated in Figure 1.2.

Figure 1.2 – Key elements of Lean Thinking

Foundational principles

The foundational principles focus area centers on the fostering a culture of perpetual enhancement through practices such as continuous improvement (Kaizen) and quality improvement, alongside promoting active employee involvement and cultivating respect for people.

Streamlining flows

The streamlined flows focus area emphasizes optimization of processes by targeting waste reduction (Muda) and employing tools such as VSM and value stream mapping to identify and eliminate inefficiencies. Additionally, Lean advocates for standardization of work procedures and utilizes visual management techniques to enhance clarity and efficiency across operations.

Customer value

The customer value focus area revolves around aligning organizational efforts with customer needs to enhance their overall satisfaction and loyalty. This involves optimizing productivity, efficiency, and cost-reduction strategies to deliver products and services that maximize customer value.

Optimized flows

The optimized flow focus area advocates implementing pull-oriented production control systems, starting new work based on upstream demand signals, thus minimizing waste, and enhancing responsiveness to customer needs.

Having established the key elements of Lean thinking, we will now explore why they are so critical.

Prioritizing Lean methodologies – redefining operational excellence

Too often, in less disciplined organizations, we fall into a trap where everything becomes a priority, which leads to conflict, constant firefighting, and employee burnout. However, Lean organizations cut through all that clutter by constantly evaluating changes that have the greatest impact on adding value to their customers. Through the elimination of constraints and waste and leveraging the resources available, Lean organizations maintain a focus on what truly matters, which sustains competitive advantage and avoids all the issues associated with making everything a priority.

In Lean organizations, operational excellence is not just a goal, but a guiding principle ingrained in every aspect of the organization. Unlike traditional management structures, where inefficiencies may be tolerated or overlooked, Lean organizations prioritize continuous improvement, waste reduction, and customer value creation as core tenets of their operations. By systematically adopting Lean practices and principles, these organizations achieve streamlined processes, empowered employees, and a culture of relentless innovation. From the Agile teams or shop floor to the boardroom, Lean organizations differentiate themselves by their unwavering commitment to efficiency, quality, and customer satisfaction.

This is a book on the integration of Lean and Agile practices. So, now that we have a high-level understanding of the fundamental goals and elements of the Lean enterprise, let’s explore Agile principles and practices to see how they contrast with Lean.

Embracing Agile methodologies

While Lean principles focus on enhancing efficiency and productivity, Agile practices serve as an effective approach to develop new solutions and address business challenges. Agile prioritizes enhancing business agility, enabling organizations to embrace changes to retain value and competitiveness.

Agile introduces methods and tools that facilitate proactive change, foster creativity, and promote innovation, allowing you to tackle complex problems. Unlike Lean’s continuous flow philosophy, Agile advocates an iterative and incremental timeboxed approach empowering teams to create new value in rapid development cycles that align work with customers’ evolving needs and the dynamic business landscape.

This book provides actionable insights into how Agile’s iterative development and incremental delivery mindset can accelerate problem-solving and innovation, benefiting your professional career by honing essential skills. Let’s commence by grasping the core Agile concepts that will empower your professional journey.

Understanding the origins of Agile

To comprehend Agile methodologies, it’s essential to understand their origins. While Lean principles originated in auto manufacturing, particularly at Toyota, Agile emerged from the software industry. This stark contrast sheds light on their unique approaches to achieving efficiency and delivering value.

Lean principles trace their lineage to post-World War II Japan, where Toyota grappled with limited resources and the aftermath of a global conflict. To thrive under these constraints, Toyota developed Lean practices, focusing on optimizing processes and conserving resources to deliver maximum value with minimal waste, laying the foundation for efficient production systems.

In contrast, Agile methodologies originated in the dynamic realm of software development. Engineers and developers faced a fundamental problem – traditional linear-sequential and plan-driven project management approaches couldn’t cope with the unpredictability of software projects. Agile introduced an iterative development paradigm with rapid deliveries, encouraging small, valuable increments of a product to address evolving requirements and ensure customer satisfaction and product excellence.

Expanding Agile – beyond software development

While Agile’s origins may be in software, its principles have proven highly adaptable and beneficial across various industries and business domains. Agile’s iterative and incremental development approach has found application in sectors ranging from healthcare and manufacturing to marketing and education, offering opportunities for teams to excel.

Therefore, organizations seeking sustainable competitive advantage should recognize that the Agile mindset extends beyond software development, enhancing teamwork and driving continuous improvement across all business domains. This evolution of Agile from a specialized software development approach to a versatile problem-solving and innovation methodology underscores its enduring relevance and impact. It equips teams with a valuable skill set to remain competitive and drive success.

With this understanding, let’s now explore how the Agile workflow differs from the pull-oriented concepts of Lean.

Iterating to deliver incremental value

Agile methodologies prioritize iterative value creation, avoiding upfront requirement predictions that often quickly become irrelevant and a costly form of waste. Instead, they advocate continuous development of small, valuable product increments with active customer and stakeholder involvement, promoting flexibility, adaptability, and responsiveness. This approach contrasts with Lean’s pull-oriented approach, which focus on streamlining processes and minimizing waste through continuous flow. Agile engages in timeboxed iterations, typically lasting 1 to 4 weeks, where work is pulled from a product backlog based on priorities and readiness, enabling focused development efforts. Unlike Lean’s continuous flow, Agile ensures a collaborative yet structured environment by assigning work based on individual capacity and skills. Some Agile teams integrate Lean elements such as Kanban to further optimize workflows, highlighting the flexibility of both methodologies.

Understanding these foundational concepts and Agile’s historical context prepares you to explore its practices and applications effectively. Next, we’ll discuss the importance of organizing work across multiple small teams.

Harnessing the power of small, collaborative teams

Agile methodologies strongly advocate using small teams, typically composed of three to seven members, with a maximum limit of 9. This emphasis on small teams extends across various business domains, including the organization of value streams, for several reasons.

Firstly, small teams have a clearer focus on their goals and a stronger sense of purpose, enabling them to effectively align their work toward shared common objectives. Small teams are renowned for their agility and making decisions swiftly and operating efficiently, thus adapting to changes in the market or evolving customer needs.

Additionally, small teams foster better communication among members, leading to open, transparent, and effective lines of communication. They tend to have more engaged employees who take the initiative and drive innovation. Collaboration and mutual support are facilitated within small teams, with members trusting each other readily and assisting one another when needed.

Moreover, small teams can specialize in certain areas while ensuring they remain self-contained with all required skills in-house. This enhances accountability as everyone’s contributions are visible, leaving no room for favoritism or bureaucratic hurdles. If you need more people, add more small teams and teach them how to synchronize and integrate their work. We’ll discuss this topic in more detail in Chapter 8, Implementing Basic Lean-Agile Solutions Teams (BLAST).

We’ve completed our brief introduction to Lean and Agile concepts as separate strategies for productivity improvements and organizational agility. In the next section, we’ll start to bring them together as complementary practices.

Combining Lean with Agile

As you explore the intricacies of Lean and Agile in this book, you’ll come to appreciate that each methodology brings a distinct set of principles, practices, and advantages to the table. Across industries, Lean’s strength lies in its ability to reduce waste and optimize processes. Conversely, Agile applies an iterative development and incremental delivery process that emphasizes adaptability, flexibility, and customer-centricity.

But here’s where it becomes interesting. The true magic unfolds when you bring these two approaches together, as described in the next section.

Living in a Lean-Agile house

So far, we have explored Lean and Agile principles and practices in isolation. Now, it’s time to bring them together. To do that, we need to grasp the characteristics that define a Lean-Agile enterprise.

To kick off our introduction, we’ll explore our House of Lean-Agile, as depicted in Figure 1.3. This figure depicts an evolved rendition of the traditional House of Lean .

Figure 1.3 – The House of Lean-Agile

This contemporary adaptation expands upon the foundational principles beyond their Lean origins, providing a visual representation of Lean-Agile management within organizations.

Originating from Toyota and integral to its ascent as a global automotive leader, the House of Lean initially symbolized a steadfast commitment to refining operational processes for optimal efficiency and effectiveness. Our updated model, the House of Lean-Agile, retains this dedication while integrating Agile methodologies, emphasizing iterative changes that incrementally deliver new value to our customers.

Let’s consider each aspect of the House of Lean-Agile.

Establishing a strong foundation

The foundation of our Lean-Agile house represents the key enablers for business success. This includes the following:

Lifelong learning: Crucial for staying competitive, lifelong learning in a Lean-Agile house prioritizes continuous development for individuals and the organization. By dedicating resources to learning, teams can adapt to market demands, acquire new skills, and drive innovation.Building quality in: Quality is central in Lean-Agile houses, with a relentless focus on delivering excellence in products and services. Embedding quality into every development aspect minimizes errors or defects, enhances satisfaction, and builds a reputation for reliability.Adapt and evolve: Essential for survival in a rapidly changing landscape, Lean-Agile houses embrace adaptation and evolution. By monitoring trends, responding to feedback, and innovating, organizations stay ahead and remain resilient.Minimize waste and constraints: Lean-Agile teams identify and eliminate waste to boost efficiency and productivity. Streamlining processes, reducing complexity, and optimizing resources deliver value to customers quicker, improve quality, and cut costs.Five principles of Lean: Offering an optimization framework, Lean principles guide process improvement and waste elimination. The five principles are considered a recipe for improving workplace efficiency and include:Defining valueMapping the value streamCreating flowEstablishing a pull systemPursuing perfectionAgileManifesto: Marking a seismic shift in software development, the Agile Manifesto promoted flexibility, collaboration, and customer-centricity. In Lean-Agile houses, it serves as a guiding philosophy for iterative development, adaptive planning, and problem-solving, extending its applicability beyond software to any domain requiring agility and innovation.

Next, we’ll look at each of the three pillars supporting our Lean-Agile house.

Supporting pillars in our Lean-Agile house

While the foundation provides the strength to uphold our Lean-Agile house, we require a framework to bolster the functionality of our organization. Our Lean-Agile house consists of three primary pillars for this purpose.

Pillar 1 – respect for people

In the Lean-Agile enterprise, respecting people is more than a lofty ideal; it is a pivotal force propelling organizations toward excellence. Respect for individuals and teams is critical because if they are unhappy, they may disengage, leave, or even sabotage the organization’s efforts. This fact underscores the significance of cultivating a culture of respect and recognition within Lean-Agile environments to ensure sustained productivity and success.

Fostering a work environment that values and respects every individual’s contribution is key to cultural change. It focuses on creating a positive, safe, and performance-driven culture where trust and respect form the foundation.

The following three areas are fundamental in demonstrating respect for people within the Lean-Agile organization:

Understand and respect others: Both Lean and Agile stress the importance of understanding and respecting others while fostering collaborative environments. Embracing diverse skills enriches teams, while detractors undermine value and hinder performance. Lean-Agile prioritizes lifelong learning, quality, and waste reduction for competitiveness, guided by continuous improvement and customer-centricity principles.Developpeople: In Lean and Agile, developing people fosters continuous improvement and adaptability. Empowering individuals enhances problem-solving, innovation, and value delivery, enabling swift responses to change and success in dynamic environments. Individuals take responsibility for their development, encouraged by principles of continuous learning and personal growth, aligning with Agile’s collaborative, iterative nature.Foster trust and employee engagement: Trust and engagement are crucial in Lean-Agile, facilitating teamwork and innovation. Effective collaboration and change acceptance enhance productivity and satisfaction, while engaged employees drive organizational goals and continuous improvement. This culture of empowerment, central to Lean-Agile, enables self-organized teams to deliver high value to customers.

In conclusion, it should be evident that the value of respect extends beyond mere courtesy. It serves as a strategic core value in Lean-Agile organizations, cultivating an environment where continuous improvement and collaboration are encouraged and expected. Embracing respect as a core value is essential for any organization aspiring to thrive in today’s fast-paced, ever-changing world.

Pillar 2 – optimize flow

Efficient flow is essential for any Lean-Agile organization striving to deliver value to its customers effectively and continuously. In this subsection, we’ll explore the three key strategies for optimizing flow within the organization. By organizing around value, ensuring uninterrupted flow, and decentralizing execution, organizations can streamline their processes, reduce waste, and enhance overall efficiency.

Organizearoundvalue: Organizing operations around value entails aligning production resources according to value streams, mapping out workflows, and identifying areas for improvement to streamline processes and enhance efficiencyMakevalueflowwithoutinterruption: Adopting pull-oriented production control systems prevents excess work and bottlenecks while identifying and eliminating constraints ensures a steady flow of value by removing obstacles and avoiding unnecessary work-in-progressDecentralize execution: Decentralizing decision-making empowers teams to respond swiftly to customer needs and market changes, fostering agility and adaptability to maintain an efficient flow of value

In conclusion, optimizing flow is integral to the Lean-Agile organization’s ability to deliver value to customers efficiently and continuously. By organizing around value, ensuring uninterrupted flow, and decentralizing execution, organizations can streamline their processes, reduce waste, and enhance overall efficiency. Embracing these principles allows organizations to adapt and thrive in today’s dynamic and competitive business environment.

Pillar 3 – continuously improve (Kaizen)

At the heart of Lean-Agile philosophy lies the commitment to continuous improvement, known as Kaizen. This section explores the principles of ongoing, iterative, and incremental development, which are central to driving organizational growth and success. By embracing the concepts of "Go and see" (Gemba), iteratively improving, and enhancing productivity while reducing costs, organizations can continuously evolve and adapt to meet the ever-changing needs of customers and markets.

Go and see (Gemba): Gemba, or “Go and see,” underscores the importance of firsthand observation in understanding the work environment, identifying inefficiencies, and fostering collaboration with frontline workers to optimize workflows and enhance productivityIterative and incremental improvements: Lean-Agile philosophy embraces iterative improvement, encouraging small, incremental changes based on feedback and experimentation to adapt quickly to changing requirements and drive continuous innovation and value deliveryImprove productivity and reduce cost: Lean-Agile organizations prioritize improving productivity and efficiency through process optimization, waste elimination, and non-value-adding cost reduction measures, enabling accelerated delivery of high-quality products and services while maximizing resource allocation and maintaining competitiveness

In conclusion, the commitment to continuous improvement, embodied by the principles of “Go and see” (Gemba), iterative improvement, and productivity enhancement through waste elimination, lies at the heart of the Lean-Agile philosophy. By embracing these principles, organizations can evolve and adapt to meet the ever-changing needs of customers and markets, driving sustainable growth and success in today’s dynamic business environment.

Finding shelter in our Lean-Agile goals

The roof of the Lean-Agile house embodies the core goal of organizations adopting Lean-Agile practices: maximizing customer value, ensuring high-quality products and services, minimizing waste and non-value-adding costs, and optimizing speed and feedback:

Organizations prioritize value creation by understanding customer needs, refining offerings, and delivering exceptional customer experiences to enhance customer loyalty and market competitivenessQuality is paramount, encompassing reliability, performance, and customer satisfaction, fostering trust and differentiation from competitorsMinimizing waste and costs through streamlined operations and resource allocation enhances efficiency and innovation, sustaining competitivenessSpeed and feedback optimization enable organizations to deliver value swiftly, adapt to market changes, and maintain a competitive edge

In summary, the Lean-Agile house’s roof represents organizations’ overarching goals, driving sustainable growth and customer satisfaction. These objectives lay the foundation for subsequent Lean practices and align closely with Agile values, which we’ll explore further in the next chapter.

In the next section, we’ll explore the business and product improvement principles upon which the House of Lean-Agile is built.

Synthesizing modern management principles

In exploration of modern leadership principles, the authors of this book humbly recognize that these ideas were not born of our own invention. Instead, they draw inspiration from the wisdom and innovations of esteemed predecessors. This list, while not exhaustive, provides examples of the following Lean-Agile leadership principles:

AgileandLeaninfluence: Inspired by Agile and Lean philosophies, we embrace adaptability, collaboration, transparency, and continuous improvement. These principles reflect Agile and Lean mindsets, prioritizing response to change, valuing individuals, optimizing value flow, and fostering a culture of learning and efficiency.Team of Teams approach: General Stanley McChrystal’s Team of Teams approach to work emphasizes decentralization and empowerment, aligning with our mission-driven autonomy principle. This approach empowers teams with clear missions and decision-making authority, fostering collaboration and responsiveness organization-wide.2Flow economics: Don Reinertsen’s flow economics and batch size reduction insights resonate with our focus on optimizing value flow and embracing complexity. By prioritizing flow efficiency and economic trade-offs, leaders can enhance organizational competitiveness.3Flow Framework: Mik Kersten’s Flow Framework guides the management of flow amidst digital disruption, shifting from project-oriented to product-centric views. By applying this framework, leaders navigate digital challenges, optimizing value flow in their organizations.4Leader-Leader model: David Marquet transformed a demoralized crew into an empowered, motivated fighting force. He replaced the military’s traditional “leader-follower” structure with a “leader-leader” model that gave crew members autonomy over their work. The crew learned to think and act proactively, determining what was needed and the best way to do it rather than waiting for detailed directions.5Knowledge creation: Ikujiro Nonaka’s focus on knowledge creation aligns with our shared vision principle. By fostering openness and knowledge sharing, leaders enable innovation and adaptation within their organizations.6System management: W. Edwards Deming’s emphasis on active system management aligns with our adaptive empowerment principle. Leaders empower teams while guiding the overall system, promoting proactive problem-solving and continuous improvement.7Embracing complexity: This principle acknowledges the complexity of modern challenges, resonating with insights from thought leaders. Leaders encourage creative problem-solving, avoiding oversimplified solutions.

In summary, these Lean-Agile leadership principles offer a comprehensive approach that embodies the core philosophies of Agile and Lean, enriched by the insights of leadership pioneers. By implementing these principles, leaders can adeptly navigate the complexities of today’s business landscape, empower their teams, and foster continuous improvement. This positions their organizations for success in an interconnected and rapidly changing world. Our Lean-Agile Leadership principles reflect the collaborative evolution of leadership thinking, shaped by the contributions of great minds and a shared pursuit of excellence.

Integrated practices for enhanced effectiveness

This subsection briefly introduces the importance of combining Lean and Agile, highlighting the intrinsic synergy that exists between these practices. While each methodology is robust in its own right, its integration elevates organizational effectiveness and responsiveness to new heights. It’s not about replacing one with the other; it’s about harnessing the strengths of both to create a harmonious and highly efficient culture within your organization.

Introducing the BLAST and BASE frameworks for Lean-Agile transformation

Elevating your understanding of how to integrate Lean and Agile practices at both the team of teams and enterprise levels, we’ll introduce two key strategies later in this book: BLAST and BASE.

Chapter 8,ImplementingBasicLean-AgileSolutionsTeams(BLAST), describes a framework designed to help organizations coordinate the activities of multiple teams involved in product or service delivery, planning, or working on resolving a complex business problem.

These teams may employ both Lean or Agile practices as the situation demands, but the real essence of the BLAST framework lies in establishing a collaborative structure between multiple teams. Here, teams learn to work together seamlessly, driving continuous improvements to enhance the value generated through the organization’s products, services, and business systems.

Chapter 9, Defining a Business Agility System for the Enterprise (BASE), is a conceptual model and pattern language that integrates Lean and Agile practices at the enterprise level, enabling organizations to integrate, coordinate, and synchronize work across the entire enterprise. By embracing BASE, businesses can foster continuous improvements across product life-cycles, delivering customer-centric solutions with agility and innovation.

BASE doesn’t add new roles or responsibilities. Instead, it provides a framework to align product development, delivery, and support activities to meet your customers’ needs. The goal is to simplify, creating a product life cycle model that largely maintains the organization’s existing roles and functions. However, the BASE framework integrates Lean and Agile principles to consistently deliver new value in a predictable pattern repeatably.

Since we’ve introduced the terms framework and patternlanguages, let’s define them in the context of Lean-Agile principles and practices.

Defining a Lean-Agile framework

A Lean-Agile framework provides a structured and comprehensive set of guidelines, principles, and practices that provide a foundation for organizing work, decision-making, and processes within an organization. It typically offers a high-level structure that helps define roles, responsibilities, and the flow of work.

For example, Lean-Agile frameworks, such as the ScaledAgileFramework (SAFe), Disciplined Agile (DA), Scrum@Scale (S@S), NEXUS, or Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS), offer a structured approach to scaling Agile practices across larger enterprises. Like BASE and BLAST, these frameworks establish a common language and a structured approach for teams to work together cohesively while adhering to Lean and Agile principles.

However, BASE and BLAST differ in their ability to align the work of multiple Lean and Agile teams to continuously deliver new increments of value following your organization’s unique business practices, roles, responsibilities, domains of knowledge, and terms.

Defining a Lean-Agile pattern language

In our Lean-Agile methodology, a pattern language offers a carefully selected collection of proven practices to tackle recurring challenges within specific contexts. It provides adaptable patterns, each containing practices aimed at addressing identified problems and leveraging associated benefits.

These context-specific patterns can be tailored to meet project, team, or organizational needs while maintaining alignment with Lean and Agile principles.

For example, BASE and BLAST provide structured approaches to delivering value increments through products and services, following a cadence of minimum valuable increments (MVIs) and minimum valuable releases (MVRs). These approaches can be tailored by organizations to fit their unique industry and business requirements.

In summary, while Lean-Agile frameworks offer top-down organization and scalability, pattern languages provide bottom-up flexibility and context-aware solutions. Both are invaluable in Lean- Agile, with frameworks offering structure and guidance and pattern languages providing adaptability.

Now, let’s shift our focus to prioritizing improvement activities. Organizations must strategically allocate their limited resources to activities with the highest impact, a topic we’ll explore in the next subsection.

Avoiding local optimization with Value Stream Management (VSM)

VSM offers a strategic approach that avoids localized improvements by providing a comprehensive view of your organization’s product delivery process. The issue with focusing on localized solutions is that they may not address the organization’s actual constraints and can have minimal impact. By identifying and prioritizing enhancement opportunities across all areas, you can avoid the common pitfalls of local optimization and significantly increase the value delivered to customers.

VSM provides a powerful framework for examining every aspect of the product life cycle, from concept to delivery. It aligns with the BASE model principles, enabling thorough workflow examination, bottleneck identification, and value creation assessment. Implementing VSM fosters cross-functional collaboration and informed decision-making, paving the way for meaningful improvements.

Before we get into the mechanics of implementing BASE (in Chapter 9), Chapter 4, DrivingImprovements withValueStreamManagement(VSM), will delve into practical implementation strategies for VSM. You’ll receive a step-by-step guide to leveraging this methodology effectively, including techniques for identifying value streams, mapping them, and pinpointing areas for improvement. By that chapter’s end, you’ll possess the tools and knowledge necessary for informed decision-making that optimizes your organization’s capacity to deliver value.

Now that we understand the importance of integrating Lean and Agile principles for customer-oriented value improvements, let’s explore the cadence of deliveries.

Creating a cadence of continuous value delivery

In Chapter 9, Defining a Business Agility System for the Enterprise (BASE), we’ll learn how to implement a cadence to ensure the regular delivery of new increments of value through products and services. These increments, known as minimum valuable increments (MVIs), may contain improvements that enhance organizational flow or address critical business problems, minimizing waste.

Product enhancements and other business-oriented deliverables can be packaged and deployed within a single MVI, or multiple concurrent MVIs may be in flight - deployed as MVRs, each addressing different product and business needs. This flexibility distinguishes the BASE framework, which allows standalone MVIs to be released independently of others.

The concept of MVIs came about as an expansion on the ideas of ‘minimum marketable product,’ a term coined by Mark Denne and Jane Cleland-Huang in their 2003 book Software by Numbers. The word Valuable is used instead of marketable since not all increments are marketed – many are used internally – and it applies equally to businesses and government organizations.

In the BASE conceptual model MVIs encompass a range of deliverables, including products, enhancements, and improvements to business functions and value streams. Each MVI requires a product owner or value manager to assess and guide release priorities based on value considerations, gathering input from various stakeholders.

In the next section, in Part 2