To understand the Agile Stream Framework, let us start by defining a few terms and see how the process looks like.

Agile Stream is the path that a work-item travels upon within the organization, from an idea until it becomes a reality. An Agile Stream typically follows a value stream, but during execution, the work-item interacts with other people and systems, which then become part of the Agile Stream.

Work-items are converted into increments of work within a Sprint by a self-organized and empowered agile team. But when the team encounters activities that slow them from completing a task within a predefined time, they raise a Stream Impediment. As a general rule, tasks that take more than four hours to complete are recognized as Stream Impediments.

As the team attempts to build an increment of work within the Sprint, they can compute the resistance they are facing from organizational drag, in the form of Stream Drag Index (SDI).

Stream Teams (ST) use the Stream Drag Index as metric to prioritize opportunities, and partner with teams, stakeholders, and non-team members to remove impediments.

ST members meet during a Daily Stream Meeting to identify impediments that agile teams are unable to resolve and accept them into their Agile Stream Board.

The Stream Team selects and announces which impediments they intend to solve during that day so that teams can adjust their plans accordingly. Stream Team leverages an Andon-based approach to remove impediments. Once an impediment is resolved, the information is communicated immediately to the Scrum Masters of affected teams, and information is broadcasted during the next Daily Stream Meeting to keep all teams abreast of resolved impediments.

The Stream Owner (SO) is accountable for optimizing the workflow around the Agile Stream. They design Stream Experiments that span one or more Sprints, and their success is linked to improvements in lead-time across the Agile Stream. Their goal is to gain operational efficiencies by removing obstacles from the Agile Stream and enable teams to self-organize.

ASF’s approach allows an organization to partner around the impediment removal approach and optimizes the operational model so that it expends the least amount of effort to convert work-items into increments of work every day.