Value Stream Mapping Isn't Needed If You're Doing Scrum Well

By Allison Grappone

The process of value stream mapping sounds great in theory and is an invaluable tool in many cases. After all, the mapping process helps uncover ways you can provide your clients with the most value possible, while minimizing waste. Through mapping, you can fully visualize your processes to ensure you’re working as efficiently as possible and delivering the most value in the shortest amount of time.

But what if you could still provide the same — or better! — value without actually having to undergo the involved process of value mapping?

By utilizing Scrum, you can do just that. That’s because the core tenets and structures of Scrum are already designed to deliver the most value in the shortest amount of time.

How The Scrum Process Maximizes Value

First, let’s consider the product owner. As the leader and overall vision holder of the product, the product owner is responsible for determining what work needs to be done and when. This results-driven team member develops and maintains strong relationships with their stakeholders, so they can continuously prioritize the product backlog by business value. In a well-managed product backlog, a snapshot of the top user stories should align with the most pressing market demands.

Further, to ensure each sprint is as productive as it needs to be, Scrum teams are cross-functional. This means each team member has the necessary diverse skillset to complete work at every phase of the sprint. While specialization is still encouraged, cross-functional Scrum teams allow everyone to “pitch in” where necessary, preventing unexpected hang-ups from stalling productivity. This keeps projects on track, reducing overall cycle time when developing features and allowing value to be delivered on a consistent schedule as sprints conclude.

Sprints — typically lasting two weeks — help teams develop consistent process times, maintaining productivity and driving increments to “done” on an established schedule. The standard Scrum ceremonies that occur each and every sprint address many of the variables often considered while value stream mapping. With sprint planning to align goals and objectives, daily standups to identify issues quickly, bi-weekly sprint reviews for progress analysis and retrospectives to encourage continuous improvement, Scrum teams are constantly evaluating and reevaluating the value they deliver.

Optimizing Your Scrum Process

However, in order for Scrum to fully take the place of value stream mapping, you need to practice an optimized level of Scrum. Here’s how to get the most out of Scrum:

• Adhere to a strict definition of done. Each sprint should include a fully completed and shippable product. If a user story doesn’t meet established criteria and isn’t fully tested, it isn’t done — and calling it done can be detrimental to your team’s process and to stakeholder relationships.
• Include stakeholders at sprint reviews. Communication between the product owner and stakeholders is crucial for maintaining progress and managing expectations. Your stakeholders may not expect to ship the product until all the features are built. However, demonstrating shippable increments every sprint review provides the stakeholders with an opportunity to ship when most advantageous to market conditions and demands, which may very well be before all features are built.
• Value all team members. When team members feel like their expertise is valued, they’re more likely to voice opinions that could have important influence over the final product. The act of value stream mapping engages the team in visualizing the process. Providing suggestions and solutions to challenges can boost team member morale. This is built into the foundation of the Scrum process through the concept of absolute ownership and is the soul of Scrum ceremonies.
• Develop a solid testing process. A rigorous testing process should be part of your standard tasks as a required component of your definition of done. Be sure to consider test-driven development, automated unit testing, manual quality assurance testing and code reviews. By utilizing consistent and thorough testing, your team can find issues early and keep the bug and rework rates low.

With these standards driving your Scrum process, you can ensure your team consistently delivers a high level of value.

The Variables You Should Still Be Mapping

There are some numbers you would uncover during value stream mapping that you can easily track if you’re doing Scrum well. Tracking these variables can provide valuable information on how your team works best:

1. Cycle time: From total process time — including lead time and waiting periods — to the activity ratio as work passes through the system, tracking cycle times helps identify flaws and areas where efficiency can increase. Luckily, time variables are easy to track in most standard Scrum software tools, like JIRA.
2. Headcount: Different teams will operate better under different headcounts. Find your team’s “sweet spot” by tracking project effectiveness with various combinations of team members. For instance, too many developers could make for a cumbersome team and too few could make Sprints inefficient.
3. Inventory: Keep in mind that you should only have between 30 to 50 user stories on your backlog, 100 at the very most. Be resolute in your precedent to only split the stories that are at the very top of your backlog. Too much splitting can cause your team to lose sight of the bigger product vision.
4. Defect Rate: Utilizing test-driven development (where the unit test is written prior to writing any code) and automated unit tests helps reduce bugs and minimize reworking. By tracking your defect rate, you can see how well this process is working to guarantee quality. If you find issues, bring them up during retrospective. You may need to adjust your testing process and update your definition of done.

Interested in testing the value you provide customers in real-time? Consider having your stakeholders score your sprint reviews and tracking their responses. Any score under a 10 out of 10 can be an opportunity to receive feedback that leads to even greater value.

The bottom line? The more disciplined your sprints, the less necessary value stream mapping becomes. With the value added and delivered through the structure of Scrum, the process of value stream mapping becomes redundant.

About The Author

Allison Grappone is the vice president of marketing and a partner at Ascendle.