An API change can take weeks to reach approval even when the work itself takes hours. Waste is effort or elapsed time in that delivery process that does not create customer value. Finding it matters before adding automation: a faster individual step may not improve the end-to-end workflow. section 2.0 section 2.4.4
Lean thinking starts by asking what the customer finds useful, then tracing the activities that deliver it. Analysis, design, coding, and API documentation can be value-adding because they produce outputs valuable to the customer. The process also contains value-enabling work and non-value-adding work; do not assume every activity that fails to transform an input is waste. section 2.11
To locate waste in an API workflow:
- Map the steps in the value stream and distinguish value-adding, value-enabling, and non-value-adding activity. section 2.0 section 2.11
- Compare time spent doing work with total elapsed time. Look for queues and periods when a change waits for someone to resume it. section 2.11 section 2.4.4
- Use the map to choose an improvement, then check whether it improves delivery of valuable, high-quality APIs—not merely the speed of one automated task. section 2.0 section 2.4.4
Approval time versus working time
Adding one API operation takes 16 working days (128 hours) of elapsed time but 5.25 hours of actual work. The activity ratio is 5.25 ÷ 128, or 4.1%; for the remaining 95.9%, the change sits idle. A review amendment and final approval take an hour of work yet span a working day because engineers are occupied with other tasks. The map makes that waiting visible as a target for improvement. section 2.4.4
