Flow

A delivery system exists to move value from idea to outcome. Flow is how that movement is understood, designed, and managed.

Flow operates at every level of the organization. At portfolio level, initiatives move through a governance process from hypothesis to active investment to completion. At DVS level, features move from discovery through refinement into delivery. At team level, stories move through a sprint or kanban from ready to done.

Each level has its own flow model — its own artifact, its own kanban, its own metrics. The levels are connected: what leaves the portfolio kanban becomes input to the DVS. What leaves the DVS kanban becomes input to the team.

Two Types of Flow at DVS Level

A development value stream carries two distinct types of work, each following its own flow logic.

DVS Flow moves functionality and technical capability from idea to use. Work in this flow is done when something can be used — when a feature is deployed, released, and available to the people or systems that need it.

Improvement flow moves continuous improvement work from identified need to established capability. Work in this flow is done when behavior has changed — when new ways of working are operating consistently in practice, not when an improvement initiative has been formally closed. This distinction matters: an improvement that has been implemented but not embedded is not done.

The two flows share the same cadence and operate in parallel. They are not in competition — a delivery system that only runs DVS Flow without investing in its own improvement will degrade over time.

Documents

Related

• Needs — the artifacts that flow through each level
• Flow Metrics — how flow is measured at each level
• Value Streams and Flow — the principle that grounds this section