Concept: Value Traceability Tree
This page describes the concept of a value traceability tree.
Main Description

Value traceability trees are used to understand what strategies and associated measurements may be appropriate to address target business drivers, as well as what changes to delivery strategies will be required for each strategy to succeed.

Value traceability trees do this by providing models that link each operational objective (such as Reduce Time to Delivery, Improve Quality, Increase Value, and Improve Predictability) to a set of strategies with associated selection criteria that addresses each objective. Symptoms and indicators enable you to understand whether the root causes that each strategy addresses may be present. Each strategy maps to a set of solutions that outline a set of control measurements, delivery practices, products, and services that help you succeed with the strategy.

As in the figure below, a value traceability tree can be used to identify the relationship of business objectives to operational objectives. However, in this guideline, we do not address any specific business objectives. Typically, the business objectives depend on the organization's line of business. For example, one of the business values of an insurance business unit is the claim volume that cannot apply to other lines of business.

 Value Traceability Tree

There is no obvious set of practices or strategies that can improve each operational objective. Some strategies may be able to improve more than one objective. For example, reducing the number of defects can improve the quality of the product and, at the same time, fewer defects means less effort to re-work, which reduces the development lifecycle. Next figure shows the impact of the improvement strategies on other operational objectives.

 VTT Relationship