Key Research Findings:

In Projects, "Value-adding Activities" Are Problematic!

Adding value is an emergent property of a process, not an intrinsic attribute of its individual activities.

Womack and Jones (1996) defined three types of activities:
1. Value-adding
2. Necessary waste
3. Pure waste
This classification scheme is used widely in process improvement initiatives, but it has at least three problems:
1. Decomposing Type 1 activities reveals sub-activities of all three types.
2. Doing Type 1 activities with bad inputs creates waste.
3. Doing Type 1 activities at the wrong time reduces value.
The process architecture—the structure of the network of activities and their input-output relationships—has a huge impact on process value, regardless of the value of the activities themselves.

In projects, a lack of value often stems less from doing unnecessary activities than from doing necessary activities with the wrong inputs (and then having to redo them).