Collaborative learning is essential for transforming work activities that involve a high degree of uncertainty and creativity into a lean value stream. These characteristics are common in enterprise integration initiatives due to unclear and inconsistent data definitions across multiple silos, rapidly changing requirements and lack of perfect knowledge around end-to-end processes. Traditional approaches generally end up propagating the integration hairball which is inefficient and wasteful – and certainly not Lean. You could say that these value streams are simply immature processes that lack standards and metrics, which is true, but the practitioners that are involved in the process don’t see it that way. They see themselves as highly skilled professionals solving complex unique problems and delivering customized solutions that fit like a glove. But yet, the outside observer who looks at the end-to-end process at the macro level sees patterns that are repeated over and over again and what appears to be a great deal of “reinventing the wheel.” (more…)