I will not be accused of burying the lead here, and say right up front: Your value stream is wrong. And it always will be. This is a good thing because as we work from day to day, the steps we take to complete our work can subtly or even violently change. When we move from home to work to a special project, there are subtle and important differences to how we do what we do.

The one-value-stream anti-pattern is painful to watch (an anti-pattern is a byproduct of a beneficial act that corrupts that act into something harmful). When people fall into a certain way of visualizing their work or a certain value stream, it becomes comfortable to them. So comfortable, in fact, that they are reluctant or downright resistant to change or improve it. They then flounder in increasingly painful work because their value stream doesn’t match their actual needs.

 …