Overview

This artifact is prescribed by SAFe to define a long-lived system that delivers value. Value Streams are realized by Programs (Agile Release Trains).

While Value Streams are an optional SAFe construct, their inherent benefit in helping organizations articulate and elaborate solutions to get early feedback, define the MVP capabilities and inform engineering effort are critical to improving time to value.

To learn more, visit the Scaled Agile Framework topic Value Streams.

Artifact Template

The Value Stream has a corresponding artifact template that can be used when you create a new Value Stream artifact. The template reminds you about the things you should consider when defining a Value Stream for your Portfolio.

[Value Stream Title]

Summary

<Describe the Value Stream in terms of the capabilities and value to the business and to customers.

Example: Provides customers with a fast, consistent banking experience online or via mobile devices. <remove>

Customer(s)

<Describe the customers that use capabilities provided by this Value Stream.>

Example: Personal banking customers, small business owners. <remove>

Triggers

<Describe the customer activities that trigger usage of the capabilities delivered by this Value Stream.>

Example: Open a new bank account, transfer money, check balances, check recent activity, bill pay, budget management, initiate loans, plan for retirement. <remove>

Inputs

<Describe the inputs involved in the trigger activities.>

Example: New bank account (with customer information), logon to existing accounts (with customer information), new loan. <remove>

Outputs

<Describe the outputs involved in the trigger activities.>

Example: Account opened, money transferred or deposited, bills paid. <remove>

Includes

<Describe the products, subsystems, applications or components that are included in this Value Stream.>

Example: Bank Account Management, Retirement Planning, Loan Management.<remove>

Attributes

The Value Stream artifact type defines the following custom attributes:

• Allocated Capacity - A real number representing the total capacity (resources) actually consumed by the Value Stream in a given planning cycle
• Allocated Investment - A real number representing the total dollar investment actually required by the Value Stream to deliver Capabilities in a given planning cycle
• Budgeted Capacity - A real number representing the disbursement of capacity (resources) at the onset of a planning cycle. This is the Value Stream "budget" of resources.
• Budgeted Investment - A real number representing the disbursement of funds (budget) at the onset of a planning cycle. This is the Value Stream "budget" in terms of dollars.
• Total Market Opportunity - A real number representing the total market opportunity supported by delivery of solutions for this Value Stream.
• Owner - The owner of the artifact
• Status - The status of the artifact (see States below)

States

The Program artifact type has this workflow:

• Draft - Initial state of the artifact
• Under Review - Indicates that the artifact is being reviewed by the Portfolio team
• In Playback - Indicates that the artifact is being reviewed with stakeholders and customers for feedback
• Approved - Indicates that it is approved by the Portfolio team as well as stakeholders/customers
• Rejected - Indicates that the artifact is rejected and no further work will be done
• Deprecated - Indicates that the artifact has been deprecated and there may possibly be a newer version of it

Traceability