Table of Contents

Lean and Agile ______________________________________________________________ 3 Value Stream Mapping _______________________________________________________ 3

2013 Informatica Corporation. All rights reserved.

Velocity Methodology

Lean and Agile Value Stream Mapping

Value Stream Mapping

Challenge

Data integration activities generally involve multiple teams working together in a coordinated fashion to deliver a solution or provide a service. It is common to see 5-10 different functional groups involved in an end-to-end process for a typical integration effort and frequently some of the groups involved are third-party organizations, such as outsourced service providers or systems integrators. The challenges associated with achieving a lean and agile integration process across multiple teams that is fast, has minimal waste, high quality, and continuously improves, include the following: * Gaining agreement across the teams about which activities are not adding value and should be eliminated, which are the highest priority opportunities and how to go about changing the process. * Limited metrics and no clear ownership for the end-to-end process; all teams may consider themselves green in terms of meeting their service levels or performance targets, yet the business owners view IT project delivery as red. * The motivations and incentives of each of the teams are different so how can one convince a team to change how they do their work that may be sub-optimal from their perspective but results in greater efficiency and speed in the end-to-end process. * There may be few (or no) useful metrics to compare teams as well as resistance to gathering metrics either because teams view it as non-productive or because they fear being embarrassed by the results.

Description
Value Stream Mapping (VSM) is a technique that enables integration teams to achieve breakthrough performance improvements by creating a better overall flow in an entire process rather than isolated improvements to a single point in a process. The value stream mapping activity creates a blueprint for applying problem analysis tools, such as A3 Problem Solving and improvement events. It brings disparate teams together to gain a common understanding of the end-to-end process and helps people to see beyond the symptoms of waste and understand the root causes, so they can make substantial and sustainable improvements. This best practice is not a substitute for learning basic VSM concepts or practicing the techniques. To learn the concepts and basic modeling and notation conventions, there are plenty of resources on the internet. The book Learning To See, by Mike Rother and John Shook, is an excellent primer, and Informatica offers an Integration VSM Workshop on the Informatica Marketplace . The main focus of this best practice is to provide guidance on how to apply VSM concepts in a data integration context. VSM concepts can be applied to virtually any repetitive integration process, but the approach varies somewhat depending on the maturity of the process. All integration processes that are targets for improvement are at one of three stages of maturity based on the 3-S model as follows: 1. Stabilize : In this stage, the integration processes are ad-hoc, inconsistent and may even be viewed as chaotic. In the stabilization stage, the focus for improvements is on clarifying (or defining) who the customer is, how the process is initiated, what exactly the deliverables are and when/how the work is considered complete. Key metrics that are established at this stage include: - Cost per deliverables - Lead time - Customer satisfaction 2. Standardize : In this stage, the focus is on standardizing the steps in the end-to-end process, clarifying roles and responsibilities, standardizing work products and templates, implementing consistent communications and monitoring tools, and generally improving process quality. Key metrics that are established at this stage include: - Cycle Time (of individual steps) - Defects and Rework - First Time Through Percentage 3. Simplify : In this stage, the focus is on eliminating waste, streamlining one-piece flow and establishing a culture of continuous improvement. Key metrics that are established at this stage include:

2013 Informatica Corporation. All rights reserved.

Velocity Methodology

3/7

Lean and Agile

- Value Added Ratio - WIP (Work In Process) Inventory - Cycle Time for individual steps in the process In stages 1 and 2, the processes are often unstable, inconsistent and ad-hoc which is a challenge to identifying consistent metrics that are required for fact-based problem solving (such as in A3). In these situations, Informatica recommends using VSM techniques by selecting a specific instance of an integration process/project, develop a current-state VSM, identify improvement opportunities and initiate A3s (based on approximate or estimated metrics if accurate facts are not available) to address the major opportunities. Once the integration process has matured to stage 3 (Simplify), then lean techniques, such as Control Charts, can be used to identify improvement opportunities on an ongoing basis. VSM is essentially a four step process. 1. 2. 3. 4. Define the product/service Create the current state value stream map Create the future state value stream map Develop an action plan to address opportunities and achieve the future state

Step 1: Define the Product/Service The first critical step is to develop a clear picture of the value stream to be analyzed. This can at times be challenging in IT, especially in cases where integration processes are immature and informal, since every handoff in the internal company value chain can be considered a customer-supplier relationship and every customer has yet another customer whom they serve. The questions that should be addressed in this step include: * Who is the customer? The customer may at times be an actual customer of the organization, but frequently the customer of the integration value stream is an internal group like an application owner, a business intelligence competency center, a project team or a data governance council. * How does the customer define value, and are they currently satisfied? If the customer is satisfied there may still be room for improvement, but they should not be the first priority. First, find a customer that isnt satisfied since its likely to find more significant improvement opportunities. * How is delivery started? Does the customer submit a formal request for service or could an informal hallway discussion result in the initiation of work? It is important to put a stake in the ground and define a clear point in time when the flow through a value stream is considered to have started. This is necessary in order to measure lead time and to monitor trends over time. * What is the actual product or service delivered to the customer and what is the definition of done? For example, if the product being delivered is a new real-time data services implementation, is the product considered delivered once it completes system test, or when it is first deployed to production, or once it has been fully rolled out to all the users? Once again, it is critical to define done from the customers perspective and not the perspective of the value stream providers. * Which functional groups or teams are involved in the value stream? Once the start and end of the value stream are defined, it is necessary to identify all the groups involved in doing the work, approving the work, monitoring the work and scheduling the work since the VSM must model both the flow of materials and the flow of information/governance. Many organizations when first applying VSM have poorly-defined or inconsistent metrics to measure productivity, throughput or overall lead time. In this case, Informatica recommends selecting a recent integration project or service delivery that is representative of a typical value stream flow and performing a detailed analysis of what actually happened. Then, identify key participants from all the teams involved and arrange a kickoff meeting to explain VSM concepts in a non-threating way and to describe the five step process. Step 2: Create the Current State Value Stream Map A key objective of VSM is to deepen one's understanding of a value stream by drawing a map of it. In current-state mapping, this is done while observing the actual value stream as work is performed. For example, rather than asking how is the work supposed to flow, ask how does the work actually flow. Value stream maps are often drawn by hand on paper, white boards or post-it notes. The idea is to keep the mapping process real-time, simple and iterative and not let technology get in the way. Software tools, such as Microsoft Visio, OmniGraffle (Mac OS, iPad) and iGrafx, however, can also be used for creating the maps.
2013 Informatica Corporation. All rights reserved. Velocity Methodology

4/7

Lean and Agile

In order to do the VSM on the shop floor, the VSM analyst could walk around and meet with individual staff involved in all the steps of a product/process. Alternatively, the VSM current state map can be developed in a facilitated working session with a group of staff that represents each of the steps in the value stream. If a representative from each group isnt available for a group session, then conduct the session with as many representatives as possible and follow up with the missing teams separately. Some participants, like a project manager, may be able to represent several teams. Key activities in this step include: * Model both the flow of materials (requirements, designs, prototypes, code, tested code, etc.) and the flow of information (status updates, architecture approvals, change requests, test scheduling activities, project reviews, etc.). * Identify which activities are value added from the customers perspective and which activities are waste using three acid test questions: - Is this activity transforming a component for the eventual product/service? - If the customer knew this was being done, would they be willing to pay for it? - Is this being done once or multiple times? * Make a rough outline of the initial map. If done in a group workshop, use group facilitation techniques, such as brainstorming and Go-round. Draw in communication arrows between process steps and the end customer or other stakeholders. Add push and pull arrows to designate whether information or product is being pushed or pulled between process steps. * Capture metrics about each step including cycle time, throughput, idle time, re-work, number of resources, etc. If metrics are not readily available, then develop an estimate based on available informationeven if they are based on anecdotal information. Approximate metrics are better than no metrics. * Calculate overall value stream metrics including Lead Time, Value-Add Ratio and Cost per Unit of deliverable. * Add other data as needed and to include exceptions noticed during walk through. * Determine missing information and create an action plan to follow up.

2013 Informatica Corporation. All rights reserved.

Velocity Methodology

5/7

Lean and Agile

Step 3: Create the Future State Value Stream Map A future state map builds from the current state view and answers the question, what could be? The future state represents an image of a process as if it was designed and developed from start to finish as the ideal process. It answers questions such as: * What does a perfect process look like? * If there were no restrictions, how would the processes be designed? * What would the process look like if all waste was eliminated? Note that there are two kinds of non-value added activities or waste: Non-Value Add and Non-Value Add But Required. Work that falls into the first category should simply be stopped. Work in the second category may present opportunities for improvement either by reviewing the policy to confirm that it really is required or by changing the process so that the impact on the customer is minimized. The following table lists the seven forms of waste and provides some examples of each. Forms of Waste Transportation (unnecessary movement of materials)

Data Integration Examples Data replication to a data warehouse rather than simply getting it from the system of record Mailing around a MS-word document for team members to edit and review rather than using a central repository so that everyone edits the same document Inventory (excess inventory including work in Legacy data no longer being used Change request backlog is an inventory of user progress) requests that causes waste every time the list is reviewed and re-prioritized Code that is in production that no-one uses is wasted inventory of functionality Motion (extra steps by people to perform the Unnecessary meetings Rekeying requirements from one tool (like Excel) into another work) tool (like PowerCenter) Transferring work from one party to another Time and effort arranging for work to be done (i.e., contract negotiations, quote meetings, complex bidding, supplier selection systems, resource scheduling, etc.) Waiting (periods of inactivity) Approval delays, change request backlog Waiting for data, answers, decisions, review events and capacity availability (human or machine) Waiting for work activities to be scheduled or acted upon Overproduction (production ahead of Data replication rather than real-time access Building more functions into a program than demand) the user requested (sometimes referred to as gold plating) System over utilization; once a system reaches 80% utilization, small changes can have a dramatic effect on through put time Overprocessing (rework and reprocessing) Reinvention waste: Recreating or rediscovering knowledge Redundant Tasks: Multiple inspection points Re-work due to testing defects or design changes once data quality issues are detected Defects (effort involved in inspecting for and Data and code defects External quality enforcement: effort and expenses extended to fixing defects) monitor quality that is never used Functionality that does not meet requirements The goal is to build a value chain where the process is linked to the customer through continuous flow, and each step gets as close as possible to processing only what the customer needs exactly when he or she needs it. In mapping the future state, think outside of the box and develop the process with zero constraints. While the future state vision might not always be achievable, it provides something to aim for and pushes the team to continually improve processes. Step 4: Develop an Action Plan to Address Opportunities and Achieve the Future State Improvement opportunities can be identified either in walk-around or in one-on-one discussions with front-line staff, or as part of a facilitated group discussion. The basic sub-steps are: 1. Develop a list of opportunities without judgment or qualification (use brainstorming or Go-around in a group setting). 2. Prioritize the list by assessing the expected benefit from each of the opportunities. A second level of prioritization can be added by assessing the level of effort or complexity associated with each opportunity (use multi-voting or Go-around in a group setting). 3. Develop a specific action plan for each improvement opportunity using A3 Problem Solving and improvement events, such as Kaizen.

2013 Informatica Corporation. All rights reserved.

Velocity Methodology

6/7

Lean and Agile

It is also important to communicate the VSM findings and the action plan to the people that participated in the process so that they see the results of their contribution. This feedback process is critical for organizational learning and for setting expectations when repeating the VSM process on a periodic basis to identify new improvement opportunities.

2013 Informatica Corporation. All rights reserved.

Velocity Methodology

7/7