Delivering value continues to increase in complexity and is driven more than ever by digital transformations. The result is a growing emphasis on dependency management and coordination – but that will only get you so far. As organizations realize the benefits of improving their value streams, PMOs and Project Professionals need to pivot from focusing on the project or scope to the value delivered.
Does this sound familiar?
- Our time to market is too long
- Work is not visualized; there is no easy way to see who is doing what
- The time to feedback is long, so we often have missed expectations & rework
- Work spends more time in “waiting” states vs. “doing” states
- Our planning cycles are limiting our business agility
The advantages of improving the flow of value delivered to customers are numerous.
PMOs and Project Professionals need to focus on increasing the flow of value to customers, whether external or internal. They must create great environments, enabling delivery teams in conjunction with support and operational people to focus on achieving the vision of leadership. Most of the problems we see stem from where the work, the value-adding activities, is done and not the people who are doing the work.
We need professionals who understand proven management practices to concentrate on minimum business increments, reduce work in progress, decrease planning cycles, and improve feedback frequency. Value flow management enables improving efficiency while simultaneously reducing the cost of delays, waste, and risk.
In this series of newsletters, I will share experiences, lessons learned, and emerging content that converges on the following:
Where to Learn More
If you are a project manager or in a leadership role, foundational value stream management training is a great first step: Value Stream Management for Project Managers and Leadership (1-day).
About the Author
Joshua Barnes is the founder of Process Mentors; a consultancy focused on improving ways of working. Over the past two decades, Joshua and his staff have had a breadth of engagements, including culture change, increasing productivity while reducing risk and waste, and focusing on the fewest things that significantly impact people, performance, and outcomes.
Joshua’s focus is Disciplined Agile and value stream management, improving the environment in which delivery teams work, thus increasing the flow of value to customers. He is an international speaker, LinkedIn Learning author, host of several live stream series, and a published author.
We help implement lean and agile methodologies to streamline processes in a context-sensitive manner.
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Latest Posts
All Things Value Delivery Management – Value Flow Factor 1: Small Items
Is the size of work the minimum scope to provide value a customer can consume? In most cases, the answer is no. However, whether it is a project, business case, charter, work package, epic, etc., we can almost always identify a minimum business increment. Relentless...
Project Manager to Value Delivery Manager
Here we have a common problem. The “agile team” comprises a product owner, team coach, and team members. Far too often, I hear something like, “there are no project managers in agile.” Agile teams are empowered to make decisions and determine how to get the work done....