Inside Flowtopia — Helen Beal on the Value Stream Renaissance and the Future of Flow
Helen Beal, Founder and Chief Flow:er of Flowtopia, joins Alan Shimel on TechStrong TV to talk about what’s next for value stream management — and why the conversation is finally moving from “value streams” to flow. Helen traces her journey from IBM and the early DevOps days through chairing the Value Stream Management Consortium to launching the Flowtopia community on Circle, and explains why the practice of value stream management has matured into something every product, engineering, and leadership team needs. She and Alan dig into how AI is reshaping the way teams gather and analyze flow data, why the gap between business/product and delivery is still the biggest obstacle to outcomes, and what’s on tap for Flowtopia Live 2026 on June 24 — a 12-hour, fully virtual event with three tracks (product, engineering, leadership), 50+ sessions, and case stories from organizations like MetLife and the NHS. Whether you call it value streams, flow engineering, or product operations, this is the conversation about how modern enterprises actually deliver value.
