Free for every practitioner
That gap has a name: Value Erosion. VDS is a free toolkit of diagnostics, tools, Claude skills and an AI assistant to help delivery practitioners design software that moves real business metrics.
No paywall. No credit card. Use it with your team tomorrow.
Example result
Value-Aware, not yet Value-Designed
Illustrative example, not a real result. Your result is built from 5 questions about your own team.
The common enemy
If impact was never designed, no dashboard can show it. The fix is to design value before building, then prove it with evidence.
Features shipped, metric unchanged
The sprint review celebrates delivery. Nobody can say what changed for the business.
"It works" means "it's done"
Technical done gets confused with value done, so value is never checked.
Priorities by pressure
Backlog order follows the loudest stakeholder, not the best impact for the effort.
Start here
Answer 5 questions tailored to your role. See where delivery connects to business impact on your team, and where it doesn't.
A thinking partner that asks the right questions and helps you write your Value Architecture Canvas, QVRs and Impact Hypotheses for a real project.
Free account. Opens in its own workspace.
Drop VDS into the tools you already use. One skill per pillar, so Claude works the way a Value Designer would.
Free online tools
Small tools for the moments where delivery teams lose the thread between work and outcome.
Turn "we should build X" into a testable hypothesis with a metric and a time frame.
Try itScore up to eight candidates by Impact / Effort and get a ranked list with a short queue you can paste into your planning.
Rank your optionsCopy-paste prompts for Claude or ChatGPT: sprint reviews, stakeholder updates, backlog refinement, framed around outcomes.
Open the promptsShare your sprint goal or status report with the Assistant and it points out the erosion patterns it shows, with a sharper rewrite.
Artifacts
See the Canvas, QVR, ROI table, Dashboard and Expansion Loop that the Assistant and the skills produce from a short conversation. Copy them as Markdown or CSV and paste them where you work.
Learn
Value Architecture Canvas, Quick Value Release, ROI Sprint Planning, Value Dashboard and Software Expansion Loop: what each one is, why it matters and a worked example.
Claude Skills
One skill per pillar, plus lenses by role: the same skill adapts its questions to a Scrum Master, a Product Owner or a Tech Lead. Your next planning conversation starts with outcomes, not features.
Design the value before you design the solution.
The smallest delivery that moves a real metric.
Prioritize impact, not pressure.
See whether delivery is creating value.
Turn each delivery into the next opportunity.
All five skills are free to download. Pick your role and Claude adapts its questions to it.
See the skillsFind what's for you
Value Erosion looks different from each role. Start from yours.
For technical roles
Technical work is being commoditized. What stays valuable is the quality of the value questions you ask before you design the technical solution: value architecture before technical architecture.
Tech Leads, Architects, Engineering Managers, QA Leads and Developers each have a different set of questions. Start with yours.
See the questions for your roleA movement, not a product
Everything here is free. VDS is built in the open, with practitioners. Use it, break it, tell us what breaks in your reality, and we'll make it better.
Who is behind this
VDS™ was created by Alex Hernández after 20 years in IT, mostly in delivery roles as Project/Program Manager, Delivery Manager and Scrum Master.