I was facilitating a group as it developed a value stream map for one of its products.  I couldn't get much energy in the room.  They had been through similar mapping exercises before and nothing much ever came of them.  Previous mapping efforts had always been devoted to identifying costs that might be wrung out of the process.  Usually, it wasn't any trouble to identify costs.  The solutions, however, usually required investments of time and/or money and there was the rub. 

But we got through it, partly, I think, because I kept asking the question, "How long does this step take?"  rather than "How much does this cost?"

Even as the chart was going together and the data being brought to the table by the participants, they could see that this wasn't going to be their father's process flow map.  The attention was on time, NOT money.

It all came together when we finished the first draft of our current state map and I asked them to look carefully at what they had created and answer one question.  (Before I give the question you need to know that a six week  lead time for the product in question was quoted to customers.  And meeting this lead time was iffy for the company.)  The question was:

The first response was....silence.  After that....more silence.  It was apparent that no one had ever asked such a question.  Every improvement effort the team members had ever been a part of had cost reduction as a primary goal. Every meeting was devoted to making each unit of the product more cheaply.  I was asking a question that was difficult to answer...because they had never heard the question  (or anything like it) before.

The silence didn't last forever, of course.  In fact, one participant said, "I think I get, for the first time, what this lean manufacturing is really about." 

More about the specifics of their discussion and other thoughts on value stream mapping in an upcoming post so...stay tuned.