Committing to Lean – VSM Step 1

VSM is about making Lean improvements across organizational value streams. Most VSM initiatives impact investments and decision-making at the strategic and portfolio levels of planning. Therefore, we need executive and stakeholder commitments to Lean to be successful with VSM. That is the topic of this first section.

It should be evident that an organization cannot be serious about employing VSM if they are not serious about implementing Lean production (development) and delivery (operations) practices. If your VSM initiative is only about improving the DevOps value stream, the organization has missed the point. VSM is about implementing and sustaining Lean practices across all value streams, and ultimately on an enterprise scale.

Before we decide to commit to Lean, we should understand something about its origins and purpose. That is the topic of the next subsection.

Navigating the origins of Lean

The origins of Lean trace back to...