How to deliver more customer value than your competitors

Value stream engineering uses simple, day-to-day actions to create the success story you’re looking for.

Photo by Christoph Strässler

This two-part article and accompanying video aims to succinctly explain value stream engineering (“VSE”). As a tool, it’s as useful as automated testing or behavior driven development — maybe even more so. Yet many teams have no idea what a “value stream” is or how VSE will transform their day-to-day work for the better.

The main idea

I’ve written about the idea of staying close to your customer before. With TrustCo, for example: a financial services company that famously missed the mark — investing a huge sum to gamify investing, only to learn their customer had absolutely no interest in a dumbed down, video-game-like investing experience.

TrustCo made a few mistakes. The most obvious (and the one I wrote about) was not finding out what their customers wanted. Instead of creating a tight feedback loop, and involving their customers every step of the way, they came up with a product idea in isolation. Someone loved it, but unfortunately, not TrustCo’s customer…