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Flow Methodology

Flow Methodology

Planview Flow Methodology is a guide to optimizing your value streams and achieving optimal flow in order to drive project to product transformation in your organization.

The Flow Methodology capability’s enablers include OKR Performance, Innovation Performance, Financial Analysis, Waste/Delay Performance, Architecture Analysis, Benchmarking, Delivery-Informed Planning, Capacity Planning Analysis, Resource Analysis, Delivery Risk Indicators, Aligning Strategy to Delivery, and Dependency Management. Each capability within the Planview Capability Framework has a distinct set of features and functionality, business processes, best practices, and analytics and reports that deliver value to customers in the form of specific business outcomes.

Flow Methodology

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As you mature in your application of the Flow Methodology capability, your exposure to enhanced Flow Metrics increases, and you begin to deliver on the value that value stream management provides the organization. This capability's enablers are down the left of this grid, and the Flow Maturity steps are across the top of this grid, so you can see that as you mature, you can drive more business value for your organization.

Enabler Level 1
Integrated Flow
Level 2
Visible Flow
Level 3
Predictable Flow
Level 4
Aligned Flow
Level 5
Optimal Flow
OKR Performance

Evaluate your current state and determine if you have existing OKRs.

Add OKRs to Business Results.

Once you have visibility into your flow performance, compare your current state to your desired state to see they align. Based on your Flow Metrics, take action to improve your performance toward OKRs and reach your desired state.

Meet monthly to align OKRs across product value streams.

Continue to adjust your OKRs to ensure you're working toward the right outcomes.

Apply automations to ensure compliance with flow standards at scale.
Innovation Performance Evaluate your current state and identify your innovation funding targets. Once you have visibility into your flow performance, map the work and planning to your targets. Take action to adjust flow to meet your expected innovation target. Provide a cohesive alignment across your value streams. Continue to evaluate your innovation allocation and funding so your organization can scale and respond to new challenges.
Financial Analysis

Identify the cost and investment for your value stream. This includes people, resources, etc.

Analyze your Flow Distribution to see how your work is distributed.

Once your work is visible, understand Flow Distribution and waste (Neglected Work-in-Progress and wait time). Based on your flow performance, adjust your financials and investments as needed. Provide a cohesive alignment across your value streams. Integrate with your investment portfolio.

Waste/Delay Performance

Establish and assess connectivity, traceability, and alignment indexes.

Identify Planview Hub use cases.

Once your work is visible, start to identify areas of waste, including Neglected Work-in-Progress, wait time, bottlenecks, and aging. Manage dependencies and waste across your value stream by making changes to reduce your waste. For the same targeted performance, you get more value and less waste. Use Planview Copilot to identify red flags associated with waste, becoming a more lean organization.
Architecture Analysis Map out your entire software toolchain and understand which products are passing data and which are not. Select the products you want to connect that are not yet connected and identify the fields that need to connect between the systems. Once connected, you can start to track flow against the organizational architecture and start to optimize flow. Continue to optimize and improve flow. Continue to optimize and improve flow.
Benchmarking Evaluate your current state. Once you have visibility into your flow performance, your Flow Advisor can provide benchmarking data comparing your Flow Metrics against other organizations within your industry. Along with your Flow Advisor, you can benchmark time-to-improvement at a value stream level. Along with your Flow Advisor, you can benchmark your value across value streams compared to other organizations. Along with your Flow Advisor, you can benchmark your organizational flow against other organizations in your industry.
Delivery-Informed Planning Evaluate your current state. Once you have visibility into your flow performance, your Flow Advisor can help you understand how you're delivering to plan, and you can start to adjust your plan to meet your business outcomes. Improve flow based on historical and what-if analysis to meet your business outcomes. Optimize flow across value streams based on historical and what-if analysis. Continue to evaluate and adjust flow from strategy to execution across the entire organization.
Capacity Planning Analysis Evaluate your current state. Once you have visibility into your flow performance, you can now analyze how teams collaborate and hand off work and identify areas of improvement to increase flow. Improve flow for your value stream by identifying and removing dependencies, delays, and manual work. Provide a cohesive alignment across value streams, from strategy to execution. Continue to evaluate your capacity so your organization can scale and respond to disruptions, priority changes, and delays.
Resource Analysis Evaluate your current state. Once you have visibility into your flow performance, you can now pinpoint overloaded or underloaded people and teams. Take action to improve flow within your value stream by identifying changes you can make to staff and skillsets. Address overloaded resources across your value streams. Address overloaded resourcing across the entire organization, ensuring there are no hidden risks or impacts.
Delivery Risk Indicators Evaluate and set up your current state of features, defects, debt, and risk. See your flow performance and alignment for the first time and evaluate your current level of risk. Based on your flow performance, start to make changes based on data to reduce risk. Ensure everything is aligned based on data and reduce risk across your organization. Apply automations to ensure compliance with Flow standards at scale.
Aligning Strategy to Delivery Evaluate your current state and ensure everything in the pipeline has a defined strategic alignment. Once you have visibility into your flow, you can now use the Bottleneck Finder to show you how your delivery capacity is aligning to strategy. Start to take action and adjust when work is not aligning to strategy or strategies change and work needs to realign. You can now provide a cohesive alignment across your value streams. Continue to automate, evaluate, and adjust.
Dependency Management Evaluate your current state. Once you have visibility into your flow performance, you can now use the Bottleneck Finder and Flow Modeler to understand how much time is spent in wait states. Start to take action to adjust flow to reduce the bottlenecks and wait time. You can now provide a cohesive alignment across your value streams. Continue to automate, evaluate, and adjust.

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