Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

by Karen Martin

Wherever there is a request and a deliverable, there is a value stream.

Requests that pass through similar process flow sequences form a single “product family.”

The inclination to jump into the weeds and design micro-level improvements before the entire work system—the macro picture—is fully understood, is a key contributor to suboptimization.*

value stream mapping enables a team to fully understand how work flows through a complex system in a matter of days, whereas detailed process mapping (which serves a different purpose) can take weeks or months and is too detailed to help in making effective strategic decisions.

value stream maps reflect work flow as a customer experiences it versus the internal focus of typical process-level maps.

The ability to visualize non-visible work is an essential first step in gaining clarity about and consensus around how work gets done.

if you can’t describe what you’re doing as a value stream, you don’t know what you’re doing.

Value stream maps also counter the psychological tendency to feel that your world is more complex than any other and that it’s almost unmanageable.

It’s the process of value stream mapping rather than the maps themselves that carries the greatest power by instilling transformational mindsets and behaviors into the DNA of an organization.

Value stream mapping activities are strategic; kaizen events are tactical.

Kaizen events should be heavily biased with the people who do the work being improved, and value stream mapping activities should be heavily biased with the people who oversee the work being improved.

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”

While a picture’s worth a thousand words, value stream maps without metrics have limited use. And one could argue that value stream maps without metrics aren’t value stream maps at all.

When the current state value stream map is socialized across the organization and people come together and agree that, yes, this is how we currently operate, the map has begun to achieve a larger purpose: consensus building to accelerate improvement.

While process time is important, opt for accuracy over precision. Remember, value stream mapping is a strategic look at a series of processes. There’s no need for detailed time studies; you only need to know, directionally, more or less how long it takes to do the work.

optimal performance as delivering customer value in a way in which the organization incurs no unnecessary expense; the work flows without delays; the organization is 100 percent compliant with all local, state and federal laws; the organization meets all customer-defined requirements; and employees are safe and treated with respect. In other words, the work should be designed to eliminate delays, improve quality, and reduce unnecessary cost, labor effort, and frustration.

We refer to those improvements that can be accomplished very quickly (in a day or less), are low risk, and don’t require extensive cross-functional involvement or deep analysis as “just-do-its” (JDI).