Work Stream

A Work Stream is a chain of linked Work Cards that carries one branch of the Work Breakdown Structure forward toward its Milestones, within the LIØNSBERG Integrated Delivery System.

The Work Breakdown Structure gives a Work Stream its shape: it says what the work is, from The 12 Pillars of LIØNSBERG down to each Activity, with every piece of scope in exactly one branch. The Predecessor and Successor links give it its order: they say in what sequence the work happens, so the stream reads forward (when can this start?) and backward (how late may this be?). Every Activity in the stream has its own Work Card, and no card is larger than fifty hours: five days of ten-hour work.

A Work Stream is the unit a person, a Cell or a Team actually carries. One folder, one person or one Team may hold several at once, and knowing which stream a piece of work belongs to is how it is found, sorted and handed on. Where one stream hands work to another, the Network of Commitments tracks the Handoff Points between them.

This is how Integrated Delivery holds the Whole as one plan without anyone owning all of it: many Work Streams, each carried by those closest to the work, linked across Cells into one logical network and nested into the System Wide Master Plan, whose Critical Path leads toward The Goal. Work Streams lie between the Work Cards that make them up and the Work Breakdown Structure that informs them. Seen whole, a Work Stream is a value stream, where Waste shows and can be removed (Value Stream Mapping).

A Work Stream is also where the orienting questions get their working answer. Where am I? is read from the cards: their state, what each waits on, and what waits on it. What is mine to do next? is the constraint-free card with the least float — one next step, not a list. The same questions are asked at every scale: the day, the stream, the Quest, and the whole.

Work Stream

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