Last Night's Lean Software Group Meeting

Not knowing a "Value Stream Mapping" from an old tire (don't think too much about the analogy), I drove down to last night's Lean Software Group meeting at the Overwatch offices to join 27 other people and to try an tease some meaning out of all this Lean hype.
Scott Bellware gave a welcome message.
Andrew Cahoon gave an introduction of VSM and then Gary ? gave a compelling real world example of a Value Stream Mapping.

My notes:
* Value Stream Mapping is more an analysis and planning tool than a prescriptive activity.
* Don't make a perfect model, it's not worth the effort - just get a good enough model to do your work.
* Customers care about Quality, Cost, and Delivery.
* Kaizen is about continuous improvement and Value Stream Mapping is a tool to get to the next level.