Optimizing Value Streams: Turn Friction into Flow

Speed without direction is just expensive movement.

Most teams are getting faster. They're shipping more, delivering sooner, and hitting their velocity targets. The problem is, they're still not generating value.

This course gives you the diagnostic tools to see your system as it actually is, not as it appears on a burndown chart. Using value stream mapping, you'll learn how to make work visible, trace where time disappears, and name the structural forces that keep even high-performing teams stuck.

You cannot improve a system you cannot explain. This course starts there.

Who This Is For

Most projects don't fail outright, they just quietly cost more than they should. The Standish Group's CHAOS research, their most recent full-scale study of software and IT projects, found that only 31% were delivered on time, on budget, and with the agreed scope. Half were "challenged," running over on cost, schedule, or scope, and 19% were cancelled or never used. That gap between planned and actual is exactly what value stream mapping makes visible.

This course is built for anyone who acts as a change agent inside their organization, whatever your title. That includes Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches, Program and Project Managers, Product Owners and Product Managers, and Front Line Managers and Team Leads, among many others.

What matters isn't your title. It's whether you're responsible for how work actually moves, and ready to name what's slowing it down. If that's you, this course gives you the language and tools to make the case with evidence instead of instinct.

What You'll Learn

By the end of the course, you'll be able to:

• Distinguish outputs from outcomes, and explain the structural reasons most organizations default to the wrong one
• Read a value stream map and identify where value is created, delayed, or lost entirely
• Recognize the Three Devils: handoffs, sign-offs, and friction points, the most common sources of systemic waste
• Apply Lean principles to surface improvement opportunities across teams and functions
• Choose the right improvement approach based on the nature of the problem, not habit
• Communicate what you observe as a testable hypothesis that others can act on

Course Details

• Duration: 8 hours
• Format: Instructor-led, available virtually and in-person
• Credential: Scrum Alliance Advanced Microcredential
• Tools: Miro-based activities and a real-world case study

Your Instructor

Joel Bancroft-Connors, CST® | CTC® | PMP | PMI-ACP The Gorilla Coach, LLC Joel co-created Optimizing Value Streams for Scrum Alliance, and the diagnostic lens behind it comes from more than twenty years watching organizations mistake speed for progress. He's been in that room, the one where a team finally sees its own value stream map and realizes 65% of their time was spent waiting, not working. That moment, repeated across dozens of organizations, is what this course is built around. As a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST®) and Certified Team Coach (CTC®), Joel's mission is building more sustainable companies for a better world. He's known as the Gorilla Coach for his reputation for helping teams and organizations face the uncomfortable problem no one wants to name, the gorilla in the room, and deal with it directly. Unlike many agile trainers who come up through a purely technical background, Joel spent years in customer service, QA, product management, and project management before he ever entered the agile world, and he brings that full delivery lens to facilitation and coaching. He's not teaching value stream mapping as a concept. He's teaching it as a diagnostic tool he has used in real systems, with real stakes. 4.92/5 on Trustpilot | 3,500+ professionals trained | Clients include BMW, Stanford, Visa, State and Federal Agencies in the US and Canada.