The Customer's Value Stream

Anyone who has worked with me knows that I am not a big fan of value stream maps in product development. In my experience, they rarely identify the opportunities that have the potential to create dramatic improvements in product development performance. There is plenty of waste in most product development organizations, but a value stream map cannot find the major sources of product development waste: reinvention, design silos and fuzzy value propositions.

However, there is one value stream map that I think every product development team should draw: what is your customer's value stream? In other words, how do your customers use your product to get the value from it that they expected when they purchased the product? Then what additional steps must your customers perform that do not directly contribute to the value they receive?

Here are the steps that a typical consumer software user must undergo to extract value from the product:

• Install the product.
  
• Register the product.
  
• Update the product to the latest version.
  
• Configure preferences for the product.
  
• Learn how to use the product effectively.
  
• USE IT!
  
• Resolve problems.
  
• Install additional updates.
  

Only one of these steps creates value for the customer. All of the other steps are waste. Just as in other value streams, a customer's waste exists on a continuum from necessary waste (required to support value-creating activities) and unnecessary waste. Product updates are probably necessary - but we want to make them as easy and painless as possible. Resolving problems is unnecessary waste - we want to identify the sources of this waste and eliminate it.

I used this tool with a client today. No matter how many times I lead this exercise, the insights always fascinate me. It highlights quick wins to increase end user satisfaction, while it stimulates deeper thoughts about how to create customer value that make the product itself - with all of its "necessary" waste - unnecessary. The results can be exciting and sobering at the same time.