A prominent sea life researcher at one of the largest sea life research centers in the UK has called the IT service provider to report an issue with the water filtering system. It looks like there's a bug in the program that regulates the water circulation rate in the turtle aquarium. This is causing the water to cool down making the turtles cold and lethargic. While this is bad for supporting the research activity of the sea life center, it also means the turtles aren't eating properly. At the core of the center's sea life strategy is the wellbeing and ongoing reproduction of all their animals. Their IT service provider needs to figure out what's gone wrong as quickly and efficiently as they can. As with any service value chain, the organization, in this case the center's IT service provider, and more generally the research center, need to respond to a demand, the call from the sea life researcher to co-create value. First, the IT service provider will engage with the researcher to understand the nature of the problem and why solving it is so important. Next, IT will need to quickly construct a tactical plan for how they will tackle the problem. The plan will focus on the breeding program set out in the center's strategy. This includes who they need to engage with, what they need to obtain, and when they will deliver and support the program. With a solid plan in place, they need to engage with the third party supplier who designed the system that regulates the water circulation. The third party supplier understands that they need to design a solution and help transition it by visiting the center and integrating it with the larger IT infrastructure. Working together, the IT department and the third party will rapidly design changes to the core infrastructure of the system to support the updated program. The updated program and infrastructure elements are then obtained, built, and tested at the center. With the appropriate change control approval, the new system will be transitioned to the live environment. IT will also engage with the researcher again to make certain that the water circulation problem has been sorted. Once the researcher confirms that it has, the risk of the safety of the turtles will be successfully addressed. By doing so, the IT department will have played their part in co-creating value for everyone involved. Lastly, the IT support provider will deliver training and support on the new system and gather feedback on how they can improve their service in the future to prevent similar issues from occurring. Happy breeding turtles make for happy researchers. Happy researchers make for happy service providers. Happy service providers make for happy third party suppliers. Everyone gains value. It's a win-win-win. This scenario is an example of a value stream. But while this value stream required the IT service provider to use all six activities of the service value chain, many other value streams will only require a few. Whatever your value streams look like though, it will always be defined by transforming demand inputs into co-created value outputs.