How can you apply lean principles to IT governance?

Before identifying Value Stream, you need to know what actually value is. The value is defined as perceived benefits/usefulness of a product. Value must be seen from customer' (as they pay for the value) and users' eyes (as they use and sometimes also pay for value) perspective. 2) Identify As-Is Value Stream for products/services and for entire product portfolio - this helps assessing bottlenecks and time it takes for the value to flow through various processes and get delivered to the customer. The organization's strategic objectives get fulfilled in terms of ROI, customer satisfaction & Brand Value once value is delivered to the customer. Faster the value reaches to its user the quicker the organization gets feedback for improvement

Value is indeed crucial, even in IT governance! Incorporating value stream mapping into IT governance can help an organization align its IT processes with its strategic objectives, leading to improved customer satisfaction, innovation, and reduced operational costs. In my view, the process begins with correctly identifying stakeholders and understanding the business context. This forms the foundation for building an organizational structure with well-defined roles for business processes, applications, and infrastructure. This structure should align IT strategy with business strategy, ensuring that the organization stays on track to achieve its strategies and goals.

>Map actual workflows: visually map the processes involved in delivering IT services and products, identifying key stages and decision points. But dedicate your time to flows that bring added value, less reactive support and more predictability. >Identify stakeholders who solve part of the problem: consider internal and external stakeholders to understand their value requirements (e.g. business users, customers, regulators). >Prioritize the value streams that matter: Analyze the criticality and impact of each value stream for the organization's overall objectives. Choose wisely! and stop wasting time on unnecessary bureaucracy.

Applying lean principles to IT governance is like efficiently managing a household. Ensure that technology-related activities align with goals, akin to household chores aligning with maintaining a happy home. Eliminate unnecessary tasks to free up time for valuable endeavors. Streamline IT processes for timely delivery, similar to optimizing value in a household. Regularly seek ways to improve efficiency, drawing parallels to managing chores in a household through simple routines. Empower everyone involved, providing clear instructions and fostering a collaborative and creative environment, similar to principles in a well-organized household that enhances everyone's experience.

It involves a holistic approach to enhance efficiency and value delivery. Begin by mapping the entire IT governance process, identifying redundancies and delays. Streamline workflows by eliminating unnecessary steps and approvals, focusing on activities that directly contribute to organizational objectives. Implement visual management tools to enhance transparency and monitor key metrics, enabling quicker and informed decision-making. Foster a culture of continuous improvement by regularly reviewing processes, gathering feedback, and iteratively optimizing governance practices. Empower cross-functional teams, decentralizing decision-making, and promoting agility to align IT governance seamlessly with evolving organizational needs.

Eliminating waste in IT governance extends beyond just cutting unnecessary tasks; it involves a holistic approach to streamlining operations. This means critically evaluating current IT processes, policies, and systems to identify redundancies and inefficiencies. By adopting agile methodologies and employing robust data analytics, organizations can make informed decisions to refine their IT governance framework, ensuring that every element adds value and supports the strategic objectives. Additionally, a culture of continuous improvement should be cultivated where feedback is actively sought and implemented, fostering an environment where waste reduction is a shared responsibility.

>Identify activities that do not add value: look for redundancies, bottlenecks, rework and delays in processes. And then focus on what makes sense! >Simplify policies and procedures: Simplify complex regulations and approvals by focusing on risk-based controls. Nobody likes excessive bureaucracy and, even if there is a necessary part, that part must be truly agile, automated, eliminate micromanagement and provide autonomy for low-complexity decisions. >Standardize processes and tools: promote uniformity across teams and eliminate unnecessary variations. Lots of people doing the same thing is the opposite of agility and efficiency.

To apply effectively lean principles you shall reduce WIP - Work in Progress. An email waiting in someone’s inbox to be replied is added time to your process and a real waste of time. So be focused in finding WIP that’s holding back your value delivery so your governance framework can be more efficient and effective.

Identificar e analisar os fluxos de valor permite às organiza??es identificar processos desnecessários, redundancias e atividades que n?o agregam valor. Eliminar o desperdício na governan?a de TI envolve simplificar procedimentos, reduzir burocracia e aprimorar a aloca??o de recursos. Ao otimizar o uso de tecnologias e o gerenciamento de projetos, as organiza??es podem alcan?ar uma governan?a mais ágil, econ?mica e alinhada aos objetivos estratégicos, resultando em benefícios tangíveis para toda a empresa.

IT governance can help to streamline processes, increase efficiency, and eliminate waste. Here are some key ways to apply lean principles in the context of IT governance: 1) Define Value from the Customer's Perspective : Identify and understand the value that IT governance processes provide to the organization and its customers. 2) Map and Streamline Processes: Identify bottlenecks, redundancies, and unnecessary steps in the processes. 3) Empower Cross-Functional Teams: Foster a culture of shared responsibility and collective decision-making. 4) Lean Metrics: Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) aligned with lean principles, such as cycle time, lead time, and throughput.

Track the bottleneck in your value stream. Distinguish activities that contribute to the real valuable output from administrative overhead. Automatize with technology all administrative aspects.

Use visual tools, such as Kanban boards, to make work visible track progress, and enhance transparency in IT governance processes. Establish and document standardized processes where applicable and ensure that best practices are consistently applied to reduce variability. Identify and remove bottlenecks in the flow of work through the IT governance system and optimize the flow of information and tasks to reduce lead times. Deliver services and resources just in time to meet actual demand and avoid over-provisioning and excess inventory of IT resources.

Identify Value Streams Eliminate Waste ? Waiting: Bottlenecks, slow approvals, or inefficient handoffs between teams. ? Overproduction: Creating unnecessary documentation, reports, or features. ? Defects: Repetitive errors, rework, or bugs in software releases. Optimize Value: ? Early and frequent delivery: Releasing smaller, incremental updates instead of waiting for large releases. ? Customer-centric focus: Prioritizing features and services that directly benefit customers. ? Data-driven decision making: Using data to track progress, identify areas for improvement, and measure the impact of changes. Improve Efficiency Empower People ? Lean is a continuous improvement journey, not a one-time project.

Map your value stream: -Visualize the steps involved in delivering IT services, from initial request to final resolution. This includes identifying roles, dependencies, and potential bottlenecks. -Use tools like Kanban boards to track the flow of work and identify areas for improvement.

The focus on understanding and meeting the needs and expectations of customers and stakeholders is fundamental. In the IT sector, where the landscape is constantly evolving, the ability to deliver services and products that not only meet but exceed these expectations is what sets a company apart. Measuring value through indicators like quality, reliability, usability, and security offers a holistic view of the benefits provided. Applying lean principles to enhance these aspects and eliminate non-value-adding processes ensures that resources are effectively used to maximize customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention. Such strategic focus not only boosts a company's reputation but also strengthens its competitiveness in the market.

PDCA should not me an extraordinary activity. It should be embedded in your day to day. Value stream activities should ve cadenced by ceremonies that maximize collective Intelligence. These ceremonies always start by a review and learn which is the C and A of the PDCA

Applying lean principles to IT governance optimizes efficiency, reduces waste, and increases value by streamlining processes, enhancing decision-making and continuous improvement.

Implementar ciclos de melhoria contínua, como o PDCA, para monitorar e ajustar regularmente o desempenho e processos s?o tarefas do dia a dia. Isso n?o apenas nos permitiu identificar e resolver problemas, mas também reduziu erros e riscos, aumentando significativamente a produtividade e a qualidade de opera??es. A abordagem lean proporcionou melhorias tangíveis na utiliza??o de recursos e na entrega de valor.

A automatiza??o de atualiza??es de software, reduzindo esfor?os manuais e acelerando entregas e a reorganiza??o estratégica de equipes para melhor aproveitamento de habilidades específicas pode contribuir significativamente para a otimiza??o do desempenho e ser um ótimo come?o entre a prioriza??o de iniciativas.

Defining efficiency as the ratio of output to input, and focusing on optimizing the use of resources to produce value, is a key concept. In the realm of IT, where factors like speed, accuracy, flexibility, and scalability play significant roles, the emphasis on continuous improvement cycles like Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) is particularly relevant. Such cycles enable organizations to not only monitor and evaluate their performance systematically but also make necessary adjustments in real-time. This proactive approach to problem-solving, error reduction, and risk management is essential for boosting productivity and quality.

>Decentralize decision making: trust teams to own their processes and make decisions aligned with organizational objectives. Disable approval bottlenecks, and the need for senior management to approve everything! >Encourage feedback and participation: build an environment where everyone feels valued and their ideas are heard. Create a mentoring routine with your key employees, listen to young people, and help everyone in your own way! >Provide autonomy and ownership: empower individuals to take initiative and contribute meaningfully. Nobody has time to control everything anymore, trust who you hired and if you don't trust it's your fault for hiring poorly.

Uma boa dica é oferecer workshops práticos sobre práticas DevOps, onde as equipes aprendem a integrar desenvolvimento e opera??es, acelerando a entrega de software e promovendo uma cultura de colabora??o e estabelecer programas de mentoria(NA PRáTICA), proporcionando uma via para a transferência de conhecimento entre membros experientes e novatos, criando um ambiente propício ao aprendizado contínuo e à inova??o.

Empower people and foster continuous improvement: -Create a culture of collaboration and transparency. Involve everyone in identifying and solving problems, leveraging their expertise. -Implement continuous improvement cycles like Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) to regularly test and refine processes, ensuring they remain effective.

Autonomy and self-organization are fundamental tenets of agile. Autonomy implies that teams can make decisions about their work, manage their tasks, and creatively solve problems. The same stands for lean approach!

Na governan?a de TI, reconhecer o papel fundamental das pessoas é crucial. Ao aplicar os princípios lean, focamos em capacitar da equipe, envolvendo-os na tomada de decis?es, fornecendo papéis e responsabilidades claros, e oferecendo treinamento adequado. Essa abordagem n?o apenas promoveu uma cultura de colabora??o e inova??o, mas também melhorou significativamente o engajamento e a satisfa??o dos funcionários. Capacitar as pessoas revelou-se um passo essencial para a cria??o e entrega eficaz de valor.

Build a Culture of Learning: Promote transparency: Share data and metrics around IT governance performance with stakeholders, creating shared accountability and transparency. Encourage feedback: Actively solicit feedback from all stakeholders involved in IT governance processes, identifying areas for improvement. Learn from mistakes: Foster a culture of learning from mistakes and near misses, using them as opportunities for improvement.

Implement measures to ensure the quality of IT services and products and detect and address defects early in the process to prevent downstream issues. Regularly gather feedback from customers and stakeholders to understand their needs and expectations and use feedback to make data-driven improvements to IT governance processes.

1-Reduce your project/initiatives to MVP 2-Prioritize your MVPs to ensure first things first 3-Breakdown your MVPs in features 4-Place the features on the roadmap talking into account the priority of the MVP, the availability of the resources, the progress of the ongoing features and the interdepencies

Other important ways to apply lean principles include fostering a culture of root cause analysis, feedback loops with stakeholders, data-driven decision-making, small batch sizes for projects, cross-training, Gemba walks, JIT approvals, lean leadership, value-based prioritization, supplier collaboration, error prevention, staff training, and Gemba Kaizen. These approaches collectively promote agility, cost-effectiveness, and customer satisfaction within IT governance, ensuring that decisions and actions align with organizational goals and deliver maximum value.

Additional points for IT governance: -Standardize and simplify policies: Review your IT policies and procedures, eliminating duplicates and unnecessary complexity. -Simplify reporting and metrics: Focus on key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your value definition, keeping data collection and reporting lean. -Promote automation: Automate repetitive tasks wherever possible to free up human resources for more strategic work. -Invest in training and development: Equip your IT team with the skills and knowledge needed to operate effectively in a lean environment.