Future State Value Stream Mapping

Standing in the office, staring at the wall with your Current State Value Stream Map (VSM) pinned up, you may be thinking that someone needs to hide this thing before the boss walks in.  The communication lines look like one of those sketti-maps, and the work balance chart is normally distributed.  Take a breath and remember that this is a journey, don't stop believin'.

Remember the Normal Distribution?

Time for some calm and rational thinking, what did the Lean Policy Deployment matrix indicate that was the highest priority for the team?  You can see the operational targets and how they relate to what is important, but what does this mean for our processes?  Now we are connecting the dots between where we are now and where we need to be moving toward.  Do we have the measurements in place to help us see where we are?  If not there needs to be a line drawn in the sand for our baseline or starting point.

Take the goals from the Lean Policy Deployment matrix and any yearly "goals & objectives" given to the team, and connect them to your Current State VSM.  What picture emerges?  Does this flatten your work balance chart?  If you find that your goals do not change your VSM, you may have weak or ineffective goals.

Now is the chance to talk with the team.  Get their opinion on the obvious problems pointed out on the map.  What problems do they see on a recurring basis?  What opportunities do they see?  This is a great way to empower and engage the team.  They want to be listened to, they want to know that their input is valuable and that they are not just button pushers making documents go somewhere.

Our VSM friend, the Starburst!

Armed with this data, you have something to talk about with the boss.  Show them where you think the problems exists, show the data, and then show them the starbursts that you and the team created.  Give some credit for the creativity of the team!  Talk about where you think you could improve performance and customer satisfaction.  The boss may provide some more goals to think about for transforming to a Lean flow.

Take the starbursts and place them on a Benefit/Effort matrix and now you and the boss have something to work with to prioritize the improvement activities for the coming year.  Below could be your new best friend for prioritizing opportunities, the PICK Chart.  Decisions made from this matrix will need to be balanced against the Lean Policy Deployment matrix.  Think about what is important to improve and what is attainable. 

PICK Chart

If this is your first time to attempt to formally improve your processes, take the top one or two prioritized opportunities and compare their goals to the Current State Value Stream Map.  What impact will these make to the 4P's or to Safety, Quality, Cost, and Delivery?  These opportunities may enable other improvements, like communication flow or decision making processes.  Don't let the fear of making Quality improvements impact what is executed first.

Now we bring in our tried and true project management skills and abilities.  Write a problem statement without any assumption of root causes, define SMART goals, and determine deliverables.  Document the project on a one-page A3, there is no need for a 125 slide project briefing.  There is nothing brief about 125 slides, seriously, knock it off!  Put the smart people in a room, find the "Belt" person you have heard about and start exploring what is going on with the process.

Share what you have learned with the work team as you go through the project determining root causes and deciding what your going to do about it.  Create some metrics and a desk guide to keep you from backsliding to the old, comfortable, chaotic process.  You are responsible for the team's results, own it!  When the process is fixed, celebrate the success with the team.

In 12 months you're going to go through this again.  Make sure you have your stuff in order.

Is change hard?  Yes, but so is coming into work everyday knowing that poor performance is making an impact to the team's moral and no one cares to make it better.

Have you seen VSM be successfully used as a strategic planning tool or ever been involved in a VSM "Event"?