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Value stream mapping vs. process mapping: which will have the greater impact on the efficiency of your team? Despite the similar names, these are two very different approaches with different goals and applications.
Let’s take a deeper look at value stream mapping, process mapping, and the role they play in CI/CD, DevOps, and digital transformation.
Value stream mapping and process mapping may sound similar, but each serves a unique purpose in improving how teams deliver value. Value stream mapping gives a high-level overview of the entire delivery flow, while process mapping dives into the details of individual workflows.
The table below provides a simple comparison to help teams decide which method to use based on their goals and scope.
Using both approaches together gives you the full picture: value stream mapping defines where to improve, and process mapping defines how to improve.
Value stream mapping increases organizational efficiency through a better understanding of how the process stream flows. Imagine a physical stream: there may be blockages, turbulence, or rapids. A boat might pass through some areas of the stream quite quickly but take more time to navigate others.
For software development companies, a value stream map presents all the stages between the project’s planning and release. This value stream map isolates each product stage into a discrete and concrete step that can subsequently be process mapped. Importantly, a value stream map will encompass multiple departments and isolate the value derived from each.
Value stream mapping encompasses the organization’s delivery process from end to end. An organization’s value stream map should quickly reveal areas where the organization could improve. Begin building a value stream map by breaking delivery into small, iterative steps.
Most businesses already have access to all the information a value stream map can provide. But organizing, reading, and gleaning actionable information from the data presented is frequently the challenge. A value stream map provides the simplest possible view of a complex sequence of processes, with opportunities to improve.
Organizations can use their value stream maps to make critical decisions — this is known as value stream management. Value stream management ensures your software development processes align with your business goals and identifies ways to deliver value faster. To achieve this, organizations use value stream management to drive process change, identify inefficiencies, and reduce waste.
Value stream management is an offshoot of Lean production. Lean follows five major principles:
As you can see, value stream mapping is integral to this Lean production technique. Without mapping the value stream, the organization cannot identify disruption in the process flow. By revealing the stream, companies may create flow, establish pull and engage in continuous improvement — principles that align neatly with the DevOps framework and CI/CD practices.
Value stream management occurs at the highest levels of the overall product delivery and integrates key process data. Once a value stream map is fully developed, the organization can identify areas that require improvement. Use a value stream mapping as an overall assessment of the organization’s time management and strengths — as well as a critical tool to drive change.
From these maps, value stream management creates metrics by which a company can:
Process mapping describes the flow of a known process. While value stream mapping occurs at a high level, process mapping occurs at the lowest level. Developers and engineers frequently use process mapping to identify core inefficiencies, redundancies, and gaps in their tasks.
Value stream mapping and process mapping can work together to identify inefficiencies within the organization’s pipeline. When used alone, process mapping will only offer an overview of how individualized processes work. However, these insights can be quite powerful when optimizing and sequencing individual tasks.
Ideally, value stream mapping and value stream management should come first. Value stream management empowers developers to intelligently remove, modify and replace the organization’s current processes and strategies. Because process mapping only identifies inefficiencies in existing processes, you want to make sure those processes are aligned with your business goals. Value stream mapping and value stream management can facilitate large-scale changes to the organization’s process strategies.
Value stream mapping and process mapping yield unique insights and give rise to separate challenges. Value stream mapping is inherently more complex, requiring a macro-level understanding of business and development processes. While process mapping is simpler and faster, process mapping can only dig deeper into existing processes.
For production environments, value stream mapping will identify potential areas for growth — and bottlenecks to avoid. Value stream mapping highlights the organization's idle time and promotes faster, busier pipelines. Process mapping may highlight potential gaps or redundancies in core business processes or inter-department communications.
Even with the right intent, many teams struggle to get meaningful results from value stream or process mapping. These methods only deliver impact when they’re used correctly and continuously refined. Here are some of the most common pitfalls — and how to avoid them.
Teams often start mapping individual processes before understanding how those processes fit into the larger value stream. Without a high-level view, improvements may only optimize local tasks rather than overall delivery.
Both mapping techniques should evolve with your business. As workflows, tools, and teams change, so should your maps. Regular updates keep your data and insights relevant.
While visualization tools are useful, mapping should be a team effort. The goal isn’t just to create diagrams — it’s to align teams and uncover opportunities for improvement through shared understanding.
Mapping workshops can highlight issues, but you still need metrics to confirm where bottlenecks exist. Tracking lead time, change failure rate, and deployment frequency helps validate assumptions and measure progress.
Process efficiency depends on people. Empowering teams to contribute ideas and make improvements ensures sustainable change and drives cultural adoption across the organization.
By avoiding these common mistakes, organizations can turn mapping exercises into actionable insights that drive measurable improvements across the DevOps pipeline.
While both value stream mapping and process mapping can help an organization increase efficiency, value stream mapping provides greater visibility into how work flows through the system. By focusing on the relationship between value stream mapping and process mapping, teams can identify constraints, eliminate waste, and deliver value to customers faster.
As organizations scale, these mapping techniques lay the foundation for DevOps automation and continuous improvement. Copado helps companies take the next step by connecting their value streams through a unified Salesforce DevOps platform that increases visibility, streamlines workflows, and aligns technology with business outcomes.
Ultimately, value stream mapping is a cornerstone of any successful Salesforce DevOps strategy. Together with process mapping, it drives a culture of continuous improvement and lays the groundwork for true digital transformation — powered by Copado.
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