Don't just Value Stream map it, Value Stream Design it and execute!
Philip Holt
Business Transformation Leader and COO | MBA | Leadership | Business Transformation | Operational Excellence | C-suite Level Engagement | Lean Thinking | Organisational & Value Stream Design
Value Stream Mapping is great, isn't it? You can get a cross-functional team together, understand the current state and then decide which wastes you're going to take away from it and draw a future state map as an ambition to achieve. The ones that I've been a part of have always been energetic, enthusiastic, and with a lot of hope and optimism at the end of the 2 or 3 days.
But then what?
I'll be honest, I've been involved in far too many that have resulted in too little in terms of real change and business impact and it doesn't take long to understand why, and the key issue for me is the leadership commitment, messaging, teaching and narrative of such events.
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The Leading with Lean Podcast
What I've come to realise over the years is that too much of the discussion is around the Value Stream Map as a tool, and too little on Value Stream Mapping as a process of designing the future of the value stream, creating a plan to execute upon the new design, and making an organisational commitment to make it happen.
Too often it's dislocated from the strategic goals of the organisation and therefore doesn't have sufficient prioritisation and focus to make it a success. Ironically, many of the issues that the strategic priorities are trying to resolve are often discussed during the value stream mapping sessions but somehow there is a collective cognitive dissonance, and the actions that follow the value stream mapping event are misaligned from what was discussed, perhaps even believed to have been agreed, during the session.
What I also find an interesting phenomenon is the way that the outcome of the value stream mapping, a vision of what the future could look like, is often discussed as though a business result has been achieved already, rather than the reality that we simply have the blueprint for a future, which still must be constructed if business results are to be attained.
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Please don't misunderstand me, enthusiasm and excitement are emotions that we wish to foster as an outcome of the mapping activity, but they must be tempered with the reality that the event will have been futile if we don't then do the work to make the future design a reality.
I wrote in my last newsletter about the very real issue of how Lean is viewed by its practitioners, with far too many using a Tool-driven approach to Lean, resulting in a lack of penetration into the belief of its people and, hence, the culture of the organisation, and I observe value stream mapping as being a clear example of that problem.
As Lean Leaders, we must change the approach to value stream mapping, in my view by using different language and ensuring that it is linked very clearly into the overall Hoshin Kanri and as the way of delivering upon the strategic objectives of the organisation.
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My previous newsletter
A good way to start is by talking about the activities as Value Stream Design events, immediately signalling to the organisation that each event is intended to design the future state for one of the value streams and not simply use value stream maps.
However, these value stream design events mustn't be seen as unique events or in anyway disconnected or separate from the overall business objectives. Quite the contrary, they must be integral to how the ambitious breakthrough targets of the business are constructed into a data-driven amalgam of the team's understanding of how the value stream currently works and a blueprint for how it must work in the future with, crucially, a committed plan to deliver it.
This blend of the logical, data-driven PDCA and the emotional, people-focussed design, plan and commit are critical to the success of Value Stream Design that delivers business strategy in an elegant and impactful manner.
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The Making Lean Fly Podcast: Making Value Stream Design Work
When the Value Stream Design activity becomes part of the systematic delivery of business strategy, Value Stream Mapping stops being a tool of the Lean or CI practitioner and instead becomes an instrument of communication, description and translation of objectives into an executable plan.
Despite what you might read or have been taught about Value Stream Mapping, only when we have this committed and executable plan, can we have the recipe for leadership to truly deliver excellence.
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? I am an Accomplished, Growth-focused Leader with tons of experience in Process & Efficiency Improvement and Programme Management. I help companies to connect the dots, and solve complex problems ??
1 年I think that the AS IS Value Stream Map with all the wastes identified by the team lay down the basis for the next which will be the TO BE Value Stream Map. One question that I like to ask during a TO BE event is: If we do not have any resources constraints (money, technology, people, etc) which will be the ideal process for our customers? This helps unleash the creativity of the team! Nice article!