As of my last post, we had finished up a Current State Value Stream Map. 

Now...what do we do with it?

Well, we're supposed to develop a Future State Value Stream Map.  And I'm all for that.  The issue I've run into, though, is this:  By the time the team gets finished with it's Current State VSM (actually, usually before it's finished), it's generally got more energy for actually addressing the issues identified by the Current State map and not so much for putting together another map.

I don't usually push the issue of developing a Future State map right away too hard.  If the team resists putting together a Future State map immediately, I let them right to solving problems but I do insist that they commit to developing a new Current State map at a later time to capture the improvements they make.  I want to end up with some kind of documentation of the new process eventually but it doesn't have to be right now.

I do like to provide some guidance as to what the team focuses on as it tackles the problems it has identified.  I want to make sure the team is tackling problems that will make a difference.  I have the team step back from the Current State map and ask, "Which problem at which step is causing us the most delays or defects?"  If we identify two or three possibilities, one of which can be addressed more easily than the others, we go for that one.  But I don't tell them team to "pick something easy to start with".  I tell them to go for maximum impact, if everything else is equal.

I remind the team that they are looking for significant reductions in total process cycle time.  Sometimes, team members will focus on issues that make their work at a particular step easier and there's nothing wrong with this approach.  Other times, team members will focus on the small stuff because solutions that would really make a difference are seen as requiring "top approval" and that's understandable.  I tell teams that the goal is to make meaningful, significant improvements to the business.  In the end, it's up to the team as to what it wants to tackle or propose, but I'm one to push to solve the big problems. 

Assuming the team starts right into addressing an important improvement opportunity, your task as facilitator moves from helping them develop a VSM to helping them manage a project. There's a lot to this, more than there was just coming up with the original map, but I'm not going to cover that here.  Just remember to stay focused on the project at hand; there can be a tendency for the team to go wandering back through different problems at different steps in their discussions of the problem it has picked.  Before you know it, a team that was focused on solving a bottleneck in one department is working on a completely different issue in another department.  If the team has made a formal decision to do this, that's one thing but you don't want the team simply to have wandered away from its original project. Stay on track.  When an issue is addressed, go on to another one.   If work on a specific issue is stalled for any reason, go onto another one if possible.