FLOW-assisted value stream mapping in the early phases of large-scale software development

Value stream mapping (VSM) has been successfully applied in the context of software process improvement. However, its current adaptations from Lean manufacturing focus mostly on the flow of artifacts and have taken no account of the essential information flows in software development. A solution specifically targeted toward information flow elicitation and modeling is FLOW. This paper aims to propose and evaluate the combination of VSM and FLOW to identify and alleviate information and communication related challenges in large-scale software development. Using case study research, FLOW-assisted VSM was used for a large product at Ericsson AB, Sweden. Both the process and the outcome of FLOW-assisted VSM have been evaluated from the practitioners' perspective. It was noted that FLOW helped to systematically identify challenges and improvements related to information flow. Practitioners responded favorably to the use of VSM and FLOW, acknowledged the realistic nature and impact on the improvement on software quality, and found the overview of the entire process using the FLOW notation very useful. The combination of FLOW and VSM presented in this study was successful in systematically uncovering issues and characterizing their solutions, indicating their practical usefulness for waste removal with a focus on information flow related issues.