It’s no secret that we are enamored with value streams here at Scaled Agile. SAFe enterprises identify them, categorize them, organize around them, coordinate them, automate them, map them, measure them, and relentlessly improve them. In fact, value streams are so ingrained in SAFe that you can’t ‘be SAFe’ without them.

With the ever-growing adoption of SAFe and Lean-Agile ways of working, value stream thinking is spreading quickly across the industry. Enterprises, analysts, authors, consultants, and solution providers, en masse, have realized that optimizing the value delivery system from end to end increases competitive advantage. They have adopted the term value stream management (VSM) and, according to Gartner, 70% of companies will use it to improve flow by 2023. [1]

Naturally, this has caused many in our community to wonder how this VSM trend impacts SAFe. Does it compete? Is it complementary? Is there something we all should start doing or stop doing? To address these questions, we published a new advanced topic article that explains what VSM is and how it works in SAFe.

As the figure below illustrates, VSM is a combination of principles, practices, and tooling that maximize flow through the end-to-end value stream.

The good news is that VSM concepts are already built into SAFe. Some are new. Some have been around for years. VSM is simply a perspective on value delivery that blends many Lean-oriented, time-tested concepts into an approach that unites people and functions across the organization. That’s SAFe.

Read the article to learn more about how SAFe implements VSM. Also, be sure to tune into our VSM talks at the 2021 Global SAFe Summit, read an expert’s view of SAFe’s thought leadership in VSM in this new book, and stay tuned for more VSM-related content offerings from SAI.

Be SAFe!

[1] Gartner, Inc. “Predicts 2021: Value Streams Will Define the Future of DevOps.” Gartner, 2020. https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3991376/predicts-2021-value-streams-will-define-the-future-of-devops.