TL;DR
Flow Engineering is a highly effective and very popular method for improving how value flows towards customers. It often reveals an eye-opening reality of how any process really works end to end. It then has teams collaboratively work through creating a better-informed data-driven future state that has a real chance of having a positive impact. In the end you have a roadmap of how to forge an optimized process that could reduce costs, reduce cycle time and/or simply do more with less.
It all starts with identifying a target optimization to pursue. From there investing a few hours a day for a week will leave you with a solid roadmap of what needs to be done as well as who needs to do it. From there implementation may vary depending on the complexity of the problem and the availability of those involved to implement the prescribed changes.
Success with Flow Engineering depends on small but impactful incremental changes. Beyond that the inclusion of the people doing the work and collaboration makes the magic happen.
Here are some of the high-level details:
- A brief history of how we got here with Flow Engineering.
- Flow Engineering is the current state of the art when it comes to continuous process improvement taking Value Streams to the next level.
- Flow Engineering meets you where you are to improve how value flows toward customers. It involves 5 mapping sessions that can be completed within a few hours each and involve the people who know the work being done best.
- The prescribed Rhythm of Business for Flow Engineering practices
- Some Interesting stats involving flow engineering that will make you wonder how you survived without it.
- Our Flow Engineering Dojo Jumpstart along with Flow Engineering Maturity Model combine to accelerate learning and adoption of Flow Engineering method resulting in higher levels of maturity leading to greater proficiency, mastery, and results.
- Here you can find many of the Nimble Business Planning Terms that we use frequently.
How we got here
Agile ways of working emerged from the “before times” of waterfall project-oriented methods. Giving credit where due, waterfall was what we knew, and it worked. Despite long tedious cycles and its many flaws we managed to release something. Some companies were better than others at this and thrived, but many did not. Eventually we began to realize there were better ways which evolved into agility that many companies ran with.
Going on 20+ years now, agile ways of working have been an enormous success. Agile changed how teams worked to rapidly deliver incremental value. This success spawned the Agile Industrial Complex with variations beyond Scrum, scaling, formal training programs, tooling, consulting and more. All this amplified the success and helped to make it stick. Agile has long been recognized as the benchmark for consistently delivering software that is more aligned with customer needs.
As such being agile is no longer option and considered essential for basic success. The lines between the various types of business are blurred these days because every business relies heavily on software to function. So, it can be said that all companies are software companies to some degree.
The success of moving faster triggered the need for better downstream performance downstream resulting in the rise of the DevOps movement. This in turn lead to the rediscovery of Value Stream Mapping and the current state of the art Flow Engineering for generative process optimization.
Value Streams
With attention now focused on how value flows efficiently toward customers came a more product-oriented mindset. This shift toward the concept of Value Streams established long-running or infinite product evolution cycles over relatively short-lived project cycles with a finite end. This also brought about the introduction of Value Stream Management as a practice that required rich and powerful platforms along with visualizations and Flow Metrics to dynamically see and better understand how value is delivered near real-time. As a new discipline Value Stream Management is more about the ongoing practice of optimizing all value streams across an organization and tends to involve powerful, complex, and expensive platforms. This brings about great results, but the initial setup and instrumentation can be challenging and often requires a lot of time and effort before you see actual gains.
On the other hand, Value Stream Mapping is far more approachable and easier to implement. It can be accomplished with a virtual white board and some along with Flow Engineering applies to a single process, far easier and less expensive to explore.
A new state of the art with Flow Engineering
As was the case with agile, variations in Flow Engineering are likely to surface that are similar in name or approach. These variants may have been altered for a particular purpose and are unrelated to the fine art of continuous improvement. For context, we at NRM subscribe to the Flow Engineering concepts explained in the book Flow Engineering (From Value Stream Mapping to Effective Action) by Steve Pereira & Andrew Davis. The book’s Flow Engineering concepts apply to any industry that produces value, including manufacturing, services, and software development.
Flow Engineering is where the current state of the art is within the Value Stream universe and where we want to see our clients arrive. That said you should not try to fly before you can crawl, walk, or run. How value flows to customers (internal or external) can be crippled if you struggle with any or all these elements:
| Elements | Description |
|---|---|
| Value | Describes both the individual and shared preferences for one outcome over others. |
| Clarity | Represents the ability to fully understand the current situation that we intend to improve upon. |
| Flow | The seamless sequence of events needed to produce the value in question. |
| Alignment | The understanding of common purpose to accomplish something that we be much more difficult to accomplish alone. |
| Collaboration | The generative process of creating something that is the result of various perspectives and experiences to produce something better that any one individual could likely do. |
| Resistance | The status quo suggesting what we have is good enough. The friction the impedes progress toward change that can be so fierce that it could manifest as sabotage. |
Briefly, Flow Engineering adds some more equally important maps that complete the picture and enhance the power of Value Stream Maps. These additional maps, explained below) build on your understanding of what matters most and how value flows through a process. This is a highly collaborative process involving people from your organization that we guide through the Flow Engineering process to build out these additional maps.
Once a process is fully mapped implementation of the proposed change becomes clear with the roadmap. This roadmap details how you get from where you are currently to that new desired future state that your experts designed. Then all you need to do is work through the roadmap that you created.
The 5 mapping sessions of Flow Engineering:
The image below depicts the progression through the 5 Flow Engineering mappings sessions. Each one builds on the previous to gain insights leading to more informed data driven decisions. The end result is a collaboratively generated Roadmap that clearly defines what needs to happen and who needs to do it.
Durations suggest below are typical worst case. With more experience and higher maturity levels durations are usually significantly less.
The following table contains links to pages with more details about each of the Flow Engineering Mapping sessions. As the graphic above suggests these sessions need to take place in sequence as each one has a specific purpose and builds on the complete picture of what is going on within this process.
You can revisit mapping sessions and update them based on some new that was learned along the way. Once you have created and finalized the collection of maps we recommend preserving them as digital assets. The reason being that continuous improvement is a journey and though you have one improvement in the bag chances are good that another improvement opportunity will surface.
| Flow Engineering Map | Description |
|---|---|
| Outcome Map | Decide on the target opportunity to improve on. |
| Current State Value Stream Map | Observe and fully understand the current state of how value flows through this process. |
| Dependency Map | Identify any and all dependencies that influence or depend on this process. This could include data, suppliers and more. |
| Future State Value Stream Map | The collaboratively generated future optimized process. This could reduce costs, eliminate excess steps, reduce delays and more. |
| Roadmap | The clearly defined execution of the steps needed to implement the changes needed to realize the target outcome. |
With up-to-date Flow Engineering Maps readily available subsequent changes within the same process will come about more quickly and easily. For example, the Future State Value Stream Map should become the new Current State Value Stream Map and may only need minor revisions based on new data and learnings. The Dependency Map would likely remain the same and only need to be revisited briefly to ensure the situation has not changed. Here are some recommended Tactics for Managing Flow Engineering Assets as precious digital assets for future reference.
As you will come to see Flow Engineering is very lightweight and approachable. It is not heavy or invasive and, in most cases, tees up nice bite-sized incremental changes that won’t impede normal operations. That said – an experienced & unbiased external facilitator who is well-versed in Flow Engineering is highly recommended. Hiring NRM to lead the way with Flow Engineering practices amplifies your chances for success in living the dream.
The Rhythm of Business for Flow Engineering
Success with many things requires a rhythm of business to keep the heat on and things moving forward. Because Flow Engineering is an ongoing journey it is important to maintain a rhythm of business so that gains occur regularly and momentum remains high.
Here we like to recommend the formation of a Community of Practice around Flow Engineering. Doing so serves two main purposes – establish a rhythm of business as well as build and refine the practice within the organization.
Don’t leave your progression to chance. A regular rhythm does a great deal to ensure that you are making progress. These small but powerful investments will keep you moving forward spreading awareness and enthusiasm as potential improvements become reality.
| Flow Engineering Events | Description |
|---|---|
| Monthly Flow Review | A regular opportunity to gather and review not only progress made but to set the stage for future improvements. This could be a community of practice session so long as you allow time to ponder progress and advance the art. This is also a good opportunity to celebrate wins to formalize broader communication to the entire organization. This is also a good opportunity to involve new hires to get them involved and aware. Also, a good chance to bring in others that missed the boat but want to know more about what is going on and how to get involved. |
| Flow Mapping sessions | As needed but focused on priority and projected value established in Monthly Flow Review. |
| Continuous North Star Quarterly Planning | Small slice of time devoted to celebrating Flow Engineering related gains and harvest inspiration for future targeted improvements. The wisdom of the crowd will bring to light the improvement opportunities for consideration. These will then feed into Monthly Flow Reviews and eventually Flow Mapping sessions. |
Interesting Stats Involving Flow Engineering
The follow table highlights some interest stats involving the impact of Flow Engineering on continuous improvement and performance.
| Description | Stat | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Flow Efficiency such as reducing wait times and bottlenecks | 15-40% | Planview |
| Cycle time reduction as in faster time to delivery | Up to 50% | Axify.io |
| Defect reduction as in less defects introduced and triggering rework | Up to 35% | LinearB |
| Reduced lead times as in more rapid response to customer needs | 25-45% | Axify.io |
| Applied Flow Engineering principles resulting in better predictability and throughput | 30-60% | Planview |
| Discretionary effort as in the individual will to go above and beyond to do more. | Up to 60% | MindsetManage.com |
| Engagement levels related to implementation of Flow Engineering practices | 15-30% | MindsetManage.com |
| Productivity gains linked to improvements in collaboration and efficiency | 25-50% | PeopleManagingPeople |
Flow Engineering Maturity Levels
NRM can help to get you going with Flow Engineering or reach higher levels of maturity for larger gains. Our NRM Flow Engineering Dojo Jumpstart meets you where you are in this journey and gets you moving forward with Flow Engineering. Beyond that thought we have additional guidance on how you can make progress toward higher levels within the Flow Engineering Maturity Model.
The maturity level of your company regarding the Flow Engineering can be summed up as follows:
Flow Engineering alternatives
Flow Engineering as we know and use it applies to the fine art and science of continuous process improvement. It is a lightweight and highly collaborative approach that leverages complexity science for data-driven optimizations in how value is delivered to customers. It should not be confused with similar alternatives such as liquid flow dynamics or AI Prompt Engineering techniques which may refer to Flow Engineering differently.
Flow Engineering alternatives to be aware of:
- Flow Engineering as applied to AI
- Flow Engineering: The Future of AI-Powered Productivity | by Vikingtyphoon | Medium
- Flow Engineering is All You Need. We’re pushing the boundaries of what’s… | by Rohan Balkondekar | Medium
- The Future is Flow Engineering (generativeai.net)
- What is flow engineering? A detailed guide (leewayhertz.com)