Flow-thinking is my latest thing. It’s looking at how to achieve value in the quickest way. This is not necessarily going faster – but mostly avoiding delays. I have observed that when I consult with clients I look for the following:
- hand offs (these delay value because they typically cause a degradation in understanding)
- delays in workflow (i.e., waiting for someone)
- interruptions to workflow (often caused by working on too many things)
- delays in feedback – a symptom is when work goes upstream (e.g., dev back to product owners)
- doing less valuable work than what could be worked on
- doing work manually that could be automated
As you minimize these you almost certainly will improve your value delivery. Quality typically goes up as well.