Value Stream Mapping Quotes

“You need to choose wisely: what are the two to five metrics that provide the best reflection of overall value stream performance?”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“The problem is that most organizations have established neither value streams KPIs more process-level KPIs. This is the primary reason why organizations continue to fight fires, don't capture greater market share, don't generate as much profit as they could, have burned-out workforces, and create self-inflicted chaos that they could otherwise avoid.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“Process mapping teams often get stalled by excessive focus on variation and differences within processes, whereas value stream maps reveal macro-level similarities.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“it's unrealistic to expect work systems that have existed for years or even decades to be completely transformed in a matter of months. Any consultant who tells you that it's likely, or even possible, should be shown the door”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“one advantage of working backward is that the reverse perspective can sometimes reveal opportunities and problem-solving strategies that taking the usual course may not uncover.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“When the team members have achieved a deep understanding of the current state and they are mapping on consecutive days, designing the future state often occurs organically- as long as people are open to challenging their existing silo-centric paradigms about how and where work should be performed”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“You want those closet to the work designing tactical-level improvements rather than leaders who are too far from the work to determine exactly what should be done to reach a target condition.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“Depending on the organization, designing an improved state can also require thick skin, intestinal fortitude, and a hefty dose of courage.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“There's a big difference between needing to change a plan because new data or new conditions warrant it and deviating from a plan because an avoidable distraction has taken away the focus of an improvement team”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“experiencing fewer problems and frustrations in their day-to-day work, the work force will become even more engaged in the improvement process”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“By comparing the defined target with actual results, the team can determine if its hypothesis was proven and make appropriate adjustments if it wasn't”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“we use the term countermeasure instead of solution, to aid in creating a continuous improvement culture, which begins with how people think and speak. The word solution smacks of an over-the-wall, permanent-fix mindset, which discounts the ever-changing world we work and live in.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“In practice, all ideas need to be viewed as merely hypotheses; testing and evaluation of the test results must precede across-the-board adoption.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“Improvements are temporary countermeasures, not permanent solutions.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“Beware leaders that want to negotiate for shorter time frames than the team feels is prudent. Most leaders have been away from the front lines for a long time and have grown out of touch with how long it takes to plan and execute well-thought-out improvements.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“In terms of overall transformation plan ownership, we recommend a sole accountable party.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“It bears repeating: in our experience, the plan review meetings are a key success factor in value stream transformation.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“We find a direct link between results and the degree to which the executive sponsor remains visibly engaged.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“Executing and sustaining change requires a different set of organizational behaviors than those required for planning.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“Whereas clarity and ingenuity are required for creating current and future state maps, focus and discipline are essential for successfully executing and sustaining improvement.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“You need to talk about it. Explain it. Let people ask questions.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“In the spirit of respect for people, and as a means to facilitate plan execution, workers who are part of the process or those who will be affected by the improvements must also be aware of the mapping activity and the plan for transformation.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“Following this scientific process assures that everyone involved in making improvements is thinking critically and breaking old habits of prematurely leaping to solutions or rushing through execution for the sake of meeting a deadline.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“When we ask leaders and improvement professionals what the most difficult aspect to making change is, they nearly always say, "Sustaining.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“We cannot empathize this enough: sustaining improvements begins with proper planning, followed by proper execution and management.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“Once you've successfully realized the iterated future state, you must have two things firmly in place to sustain it: (1) someone formally designated to monitor value stream performance to assess how it's performing, facilitate problem solving when issues arise, and lead ongoing improvement to raise the performance bar, and (2) key performance indicators to tell whether performance is on track or not (value stream management)”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“In mature continuous improvement organizations, value stream managers are sometimes given responsibility for profit and loss across the value stream”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“We're often asked how frequently a value stream should be improved. The answer is continuously. We understand that's a tall order for many organizations, but continuous improvement is your only way out of a culture of reactive firefighting, which prevents your organization from excelling on all levels.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“Learning to see and manage work from a value stream perspective is a powerful way to instill new ways of thinking into the DNA of your organization and achieve higher levels of performance.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“During the three-day mapping activity, the team had numerous discussions about the role of software testing, customer involvement and responsibility, striking the right balance of iterations, and how "minimal" a minimally viable product should be.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation