Lean Enterprise: How High Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale (Lean (O'Reilly))

by Jez Humble

In almost every case we have seen, making one process block more efficient will have a minimal effect on the overall value stream. Since rework and wait times are some of the biggest contributors to overall delivery time, adopting “agile” processes within a single function (such as development) generally has little impact on the overall value stream, and hence on customer outcomes. In most cases we need to rethink our whole approach to delivering value by transforming the entire value stream, starting by defining the measurable customer and organizational outcomes we wish to achieve through our redesign. In order to mitigate the disruption of this kind of change, we usually limit our efforts to a single product or set of capabilities within a product — one which would most benefit customers and the organization as a whole.