Amplio Value Stream Consultant Learning Journey
An Amplio Value Stream Consultant is trained to diagnose and improve the flow of value across an organization’s end-to-end system — not just within teams or isolated processes. They integrate Flow, Lean, Theory of Constraints, and Jobs-to-Be-Done with Amplio’s principles to uncover impediments, align stakeholders on measurable outcomes, and design Quickest Valuable Releases (QVRs) that accelerate learning and impact. Their focus is enabling continuous, sustainable improvement in how value is discovered, delivered, and evolved across the enterprise.
A value stream consultant’s primary accountability is to help leadership see and change the system — not just improve local flow. The VSC doesn’t manage; they diagnose, redesign, and teach others to improve.
Their typical responsibilities incude:
- Identify, define, and map value streams across the organization (not just within them)
- Diagnose systemic bottlenecks (policies, funding, structure, governance).
- Design organizational structures, flow networks, and roles around value creation.
- Coach executives, managers, and teams to adopt value stream thinking.
- Guide the organization through transition states — from project-based or siloed models to flow-based ecosystems.
- Establish governance and metrics for value realization, not activity.
- A section on Basic Lean-Agile Solution Team (think flexible Scrum @ Scale)
- Speaking to management
- Running a diagnosis so you can take an effective approach to improvement.
The mindset of the Value Stream Consultant is to be the “system designer and sense-maker.”
They apply systems thinking, Lean, ToC, and organizational design principles to improve the structure in which the Value Stream Manager operates.
Think: Architect and educator for value streams.
The Amplio value stream consultant learning journey can be thought of as the Disciplined Agile Value Stream Consultant Workshop on steroids. Both were created by Al Shalloway. When he left the PMI, he reflected on what a value stream consultant workshop should really be. By taking the philosophy of a value stream consultant, extended by the modern methods of the physics of flow, Jobs to be Done, an integrated coaching workshop, a better diagnostic method, and an extensive use of Lucid Sparks (think a better Miro) boards, it goes well beyond the DAVSC while still being consistent with the Disciplined Agile approach.
The ACE program centers around the Amplio Diagnostic which is a way to diagnose an organization’s strengths and weaknesses and then co-create an improvement path with the organization. Scope ranges from running a team to improving an organization’s ability to create and deliver value. An integrated coaching and consulting workshop is also provided. All of the materials used to teach participants are made available, license-free, to participants as long as they are in the program.
“The physics of flow”
Amplio uses an integration of the theories of Flow, Lean, and the Theory of Constraints – sometimes referred to as the physics of Flow. This enables dealing with complexity much more effectively than merely using empirical process control.
Foundations- the Physics of flow. This comprises the science of knowledge work as described with Flow, Lean, and the Theory of Constraints. This is also called “the physics of flow.” While there is complexity in knowledge work too many approaches ignore what we do know. When you eliminate the waste from known causes you can better focus on the risk of the unknown.
The Amplio Learning Kata
While it’s not effective to tell people to do, merely asking questions to get them to figure things out themselves isn’t as effective as it could be either. The intention of coaching is not to convince someone of what is right. It is to guide them in convincing themselves of what is more effective for them. Doing this quickly is important because otherwise people may flounder.
This session introuces a breakthrough method in coaching concepts in addition to coaching improvements. Al Shalloway introduces his coaching method developed in the 90s based which now extends the Toyota Coaching Kata.
The distinction between training, consulting, and mentoring is artificial. We must always be looking to improve. In some sense, starting a new initiative is just the next step. What’s important is always to be looking to improve via better decision-making, collaboration, and learning.
It is no longer sufficient to provide 2 to 3-day workshops and then leave people to fend for themselves. That’s one of the many reasons so many companies are having difficulty with Agile adoptions.
Amplio uses modern training methods that are more effective than old-style workshops. It also provides collaboration boards to help people learn, make decisions, and work together.
Learn more here.
Jobs to be Done Thinking
Jobs to be done thinking is an integration of the Jobs to be Done Framework with Design Thinking,Human Centered Design, and Lean Product Management. Success Engineering continues to expand on this framework in the Amplio Learning Center. Here’s a presentation on it that describes the basic Job to be Done Framework.
Value by design
Value by design is a method used to enable more value to be created in less time and with less cost. It was co-created by Al Shalloway and Tom Gilb and was inspired by how the Toyota Production System overcame the “Iron-Triangle.” The Penta is described in Amplio Axiom #7. The relationshps between scope, time, and cost are not fixed.
The focus is on designing your value adding system to produce more value with less rework and waste to enable more of your capacity to be use for creating value.
Focus on Value
Our purpose should be creating value for our most important stakeholder’s consistent with their values, success criteria and constraints. This provides an overall view that enables alignment across the organization. Amplio follows much of Tom Gilb’s work on value.
See this conversations by Tom Gilb and Al Shalloway on critical stakeholder values and success criteria and what it takes to achieve success. A discussion about the importance of identifying critical stakeholders along with their values, success criteria and constraints will be a part of this. Get a copy of Super Secrets & Strategies for Efficient Value Delivery in Projects and Programs, and Plans. Video. Transcript.
Quick, fit for purpose, starts
Al Shalloway pioneered the concept of the generic value stream in the Disciplined Agile Value Stream Consultant workshop. Amplio’s diagnostic is much more advanced while being simpler to use. There are diagnostics at both the organization level and the team level. See Why Scrum and SAFe Don’t Suggest Doing a Diagnosis Before Implementing Them which provides insights into the weakness of both frameworks and how to go beyond them.
Participate as a co-creator and be mentored as well
People who have time to fully participate engage in the co-creation sessions. This provides a deeper knowledge of the material as well as being mentored in being an expert consultant.
If you want to learn the equivalent of several workshops
Participate by doing a combination of interactive sessions that cover material quickly while allowing for a considerable amount of question and answer sessions. Recorded sessions allow for learning materials at your own speed as well.
If you want your problems solved
At about $160 a month, the program is inexpensive enough if all you want to do is get your problems solved by an expert. You can ask questions at any of the six sessions as well as look up sessions that will provide guidance when you need it.
Learn in the hectic pace of today's world
Because all of the sessions are recorded, many feel free to just take sessions when they have time. And go to the live sessions of greatest interest.
Special considerations
People who like the Disciplined Agile Approach.
The ACE program is led by Al Shalloway, the creator of Disciplined Agile’s premier workshop, The DA Value Stream Consultant. After leaving the PMI in 2021, Al rebuilt what he had intended to do but never fully manifested. Amplio goes beyond DA with more tools, concepts, and theory. It, of course, takes advantage of the DA Browser as it extends DA itself.
The ACE program is the only place to get the scope of the DAVSC from one of the DA thought leaders.
SPCs who want to get stagnated SAFe adoptions moving forward.
Initial SAFe adoptions have enabled many companies to move forward and create value in a quarter where before SAFe delivery in even a year was circumspect. But in many cases, continued success is not sustained. In many others organizations adopting SAFe tend to revert back to where they started. Many times the company will try again and again, only to repeat the same cycle of initial improvement followed by stagnation or regression.
The sense is that if they do it right, they’d continue to improve.
The challenge is, however, that SAFe is missing a few key components to enable sustained success. These are organized as a sub track of Ampio and include:
- Value stream analysis to decouple ARTs.
- Different value creation structures are used to assist in the decoupling of value streams and to reduce the delays caused by the existing coupling.
- Minimum Valuable Increments.
- Using MVIs in Program Increment Planning.
- The role of management as espoused in Lean.
- The practical use of systems thinking
Consulting Companies who want to be able to offer tailored solutions to their client.
Differentiate yourself from those companies that offer predetermined solutions.
Have your staff learn how to diagnose companies to see their challenges. The Amplio GPS also offers how to create tailored solutions for them.
Promote yourself as a company that works with your clients to help them solve their problems instead of merely selling them something.
Curriculum Covered
The ACE Learning Journey covers all of the curriculum in the Amplio System
Amplio Foundations
This is the foundation on which Amplio is based.
Coaches and consultants should start with this.
The topics covered include:
Systems thinking
- Systems thinking provides us with a way to look at the components of the system in a more holistic way.
- It also provides deep insights into how to improve the environment within which we work.
- It creates the context for the rest of the foundations.
First Principles of Knowledge work
- You can think of the “first principles of knowledge work” as the “physics of flow.”
- Without understanding them most things will appear problematic with no sense underneath them.
- With them you can understand what’s happening.
- Theory is needed to adjust practices.
- There are no universal practices. Without theory, practices must be pre-ordained.
- A set of core practices can be adjusted with theory to become fit-for-purposes.
Managing complexity with Inherent Simplicity
- Inherent simplicity is Eli Goldratt’s idea that we can see what’s going on in even complex systems in a straightforward, even simple, manner.
- Managing the damage complexity can cause aligns with Agile methods when this is understood.
Value Streams
- Value streams, while only a metaphor in knowledge work, provides insights on how work flows across an organization.
- They can be used to understand the relationships between different parts of the organization.
- They can also be used to understand the relationships between the organization and its external stakeholders
Factors for Effective Value Streams
Combining systems thinking, first principles, streams provides us with insights on how to improve our work methods.
Christopher Alexander’s approach to system design and patterns.
Alexander provides an approach to decomposing systems enables us to see the relationships between the components. This is consistent with systems thinking. When we learn his use of patterns we can create a model of an organization that describes how its components can work together while enabling each part to work in a way that is fit for purposes for them.
Being an effective value stream consultant
The ACE program centers on making great consultants better.In particular, it trains consultants in:
- being able to diagnose an organization’s challenges at all levels
- creating an improvement path forward
- coaching / training people in this path
Reference workshop: The Disciplined Agile Value Stream Consultant workshop. This aspect of the ACE learning journey goes well beyond the DAVSC which Al Shalloway created for the PMI. It adds more collaboration boards, more focus on the customer journey, a more advanced GPS, and a deeper understanding of the fundamentals of knowledge work.
Being an effective Value Coach
This content improves a person’s ability to engage with people they are leading.
This focuses on how people learn, react, and resist change. It goes well beyond just listening and speaking better. It includes how to decompose complex concepts into small, learnable chunks and to present them to people so they can learn quicly.
Business Agility at Scale
This content works well with the being an effective consultant. It is intended for development organizations of up to 500 people. But can be used to provide insights on how to improve SAFe as well since it has many improvements over SAFe components.
Reference workshop: LeSS. Only not based on Scrum.
Basic Lean Agile Solution Team (BLAST)
This content covers how multiple teams working on related products can collaborate and rely more on alignment than coordination.
Reference workshop: Scrum@Scale. BLAST predates Scrum@Scale by several years and is based on Lean and value stream management. It is more flexible in that it enables teams to use either sprints or daily-timeboxing – or even a pure flow based system.
Product Management
Product management must start at the beginning of the value stream and go through consumption. This involves:
- identifying critical stakeholders both within and outside the organization
- Clarifying their success criteria and constraints
- Defining the investment pillars of the organization
- Translating initiatives into a series of work items – either MVPs for determining if new products are available or MVIs if we’re extending existing ones.
- Using these to sequence the work to be done
- Attending to the customer journey.
- Creating MVIs with full kitting
- Decomposing MVIs into features and stories using a collaboration board.
Advanced Team Level Methods
Amplio is based on Flow, Lean, and the Thoery of Constraints. Teams need to work in a way that works for them. Amplio Team provides a simple start for a team whereas Amplio Development creates a more advanced team level approach.
Creating a simple start with an adaptive framework
Most approaches lock you in by providing preset starts but with no means to adjust them as the need arises.
Amplio provides both a way to create tailored approaches and a way to adjust it as needed. We call this an adaptive framework.
Amplio virtual collaboration boards
Virtual collaboration boards are more important than ever. While most people use them as virtual whiteboards, they can be used for learning, decision-making, and working together. Take the link below to learn more about the boards and which ones are available to you. Participants get copies of the boards after three months in the program.
View all boards
Click "board details" to get more information on why these boards are so useful as well as to see the complete list of boards in Amplio.
Grounded in the science of learning and integrating coaching
It has been well-established that intensive training over 1-4 days is very ineffective. Over 80% of the information presented is lost in just a few days. It’s why no college teaches this way. People learn best in little chunks and where they can apply it between sessions. The Amplio Consultant Educator learning journey is an ongoing study program. Three one-hour sessions are provided each month.
Amplio’s approach is based on Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise and Seeing what others don’t: The Remarkable Way We Gain Insights. “Peak” tells us that it’s essential to stretch people’s skills a little on an ongoing basis. Presenting concepts in patterns instead of just practices makes the material more applicable and creates the foundation for continued learning. “Insights” provides methods to enable people to connect the dots of the advanced concepts presented. These two approaches manifest each week based on a virtual board that participants use to see a problem and learn how to solve it. This not only trains participants in needed skills but these virtual boards can also be used in their workplace.
Great information has little value if it can’t be conveyed in the workplace. Amplio Development, therefore, integrates coaching methods in each lesson.
Learn concepts and practices not in any popular framework
ACEs learn concepts and practices not in any popular framework. We have found these to be essential to be able to tailor an approach to a particular situation while keeping it simple for the adopters. These concepts create a coherent approach and can be adjusted to the situation at hand.
Learning facilitator
Al Shalloway
Al Shalloway is the founder and CEO of Success Engineering. Al is a recognized thought leader in the areas of: Lean, SAFe, Kanban, Scrum, design patterns, Acceptance Test-Driven Development, Lean-management, value creation networks, Lean product management and more. He is the creator of the FLEX system that is the heart of the Disciplined Agile Value Stream Consultant workshop. He has co-written 5 books ranging from Design Patterns to Agile at Scale. He holds Masters degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Mathematics from MIT and Emory respectively. He is an international speaker. He is a former contributor to SAFe and SPC trainer.