“Flow Engineering is an ‘actionable textbook’ for product teams seeking to define value, build clarity, and enable flow.…[Flow Engineering] serves as the glue to interconnect target outcomes, current and future value streams, and a set of actions to go from a sub-optimal current state to a desirable future state. With this book, you not only get a map but also a compass!”

—Manjunath Bhat, VP Analyst for Software Engineering, Gartner

Tired of misalignment, friction, and stalled workflow? Flow Engineering is a practical guide to using value stream mapping techniques to align teams, unlock innovation, and optimize performance.

Based on foundations from Value Stream Mapping, cybernetics, and the Toyota Production System, Flow Engineering's lightweight and iterative practices build the value, clarity, and flow required for effective collaboration and collective action. Written by Value Stream Mapping experts Steve Pereira and Andrew Davis, Flow Engineering provides a step-by-step guide for running fast-paced mapping workshops that rapidly build shared understanding.

Using five key maps to facilitate collaborative “flow conversations,” Pereira and Davis show how teams can surface tangled process dependencies, conflicting priorities, and unspoken assumptions that grind progress to a halt. The result? A clear roadmap owned by the people doing the work to accelerate innovation cycles, optimize workflows, and achieve more effective coordination.

Applicable across any industry, Flow Engineering's techniques have helped leading organizations improve critical workflows like customer onboarding, product development, and hiring.

It's time to stop trying one-size-fits-all frameworks to find value, clarity, and flow to improve culture and performance. Flow Engineering meets your organization where it's at and shows you how to move it where it needs to go.

“As a CTO grappling with the challenges of managing diverse teams in a fast-paced tech environment, Flow Engineering provides a refreshing perspective on leadership in the modern workplace. It’s not just about theoretical ideas; the book offers practical tools and frameworks to unlock hidden value within teams and drive innovation. I highly recommend this book to any leader seeking to inspire their teams and deliver greater value to their customers and organization.”

—France Roy, CTO, Balsam Brands, former CTO, Anheuser-Busch InBev DTC

Steve Pereira has spent over two decades improving the flow of work across organizations. He's worked through tech support, IT management, build and release engineering, and as a founding CTO for enterprise SaaS. He serves as lead consultant for Visible Value Stream Consulting, as a board advisor to the Value Stream Management Consortium, Chair of the OASIS Value Stream Management Interoperability technical committee, and co-founder of the Flow Collective to bring flow-focused professionals together. Since 2017, he has been developing and facilitating Flow Engineering to make flow improvement in large organizations accessible, collaborative, and actionable.

Andrew Davis is the author of Mastering Salesforce DevOps. He's a Salesforce architect, developer, and product leader with a focus on the human side of software development. He's the leading figure in introducing DevOps concepts to the Salesforce world. Trained as an engineer, he spent fifteen years as a Buddhist monk, teaching meditation and personal transformation and helping develop communities of practice. These days, he studies the intersection of business, technology, and psychology through systems thinking.

Contents

List of Figures xi

Introduction xvii

PART I The Flow Landscape

1 The Problem with Scale 3

2 Solutions to Scale 17

3 The Elements of Action 29

4 Flow Engineering 35

PART II Mapping the Landscape

5 Outcome Mapping 53

6 Current State Value Stream Mapping 77

7 Dependency Mapping 109

8 Future State Value Stream Mapping 129

9 The Flow Roadmap 145

PART III Navigating the Landscape

10 Principles of Flow Engineering 165

11 Leading Flow Engineering 185

12 Traps to Avoid 199

13 Value Stream Management 213

14 Scaling Flow Engineering 227

Conclusion 249

Appendix 253

Bibliography 263

Notes 269

Acknowledgments 273

About the Authors 275