Number 165 – Current State and Future State

Identify current state and future state for the value stream.

Practitioners: tactical, integrative, and strategic

After I learned to map processes, the practice became one of the first tasks I undertook when I inherited a new department, function, of operation.  Value stream mapping has many flavors.  The depth of detail can and should shift depending on your objective.  A key idea, however, is the presence of the current state and future state.

Improvement is defined as an act of change or the state of being changed.  This implied a movement from one state to another.  The difference between the current state and the future state is the gap we are addressing.  If the gap is undefined, the change has no direction.  Movement requires direction.  No matter how you define the process or what you emphasize in your value stream map, a gap is needed to align the team around the change. 

The current state is the easier part.  If we are exploring a fabrication department or an assembly line, we can see what is happening through observation.  Go to Gemba, anyone?  When the processes are administrative or transactional, we encounter a little more difficulty.  A mapping method that is gaining familiarity in these situations is called Makigami mapping.  The framework is suitable to examine process steps, information structures, data storage systems, and identify the challenges and breakdowns experience by the process teams. 

Current State and Future State

The future state requires a little more effort.  Gathering the right people to define the strategic imperatives and create a level of clarity for the process team can lead to establishing very clear and meaningful performance measures at the process level.  This alignment between future state and process level performance is critical and often missing when we establish a powerful future state.  Don’t assume anything.  The presence of the sponsor and process owner is required to reach understanding and agreement for the process. 

With a well-defined current state and future state, the process improvement activities have a much greater chance to contribute to organizational success.  The next challenge is bringing the right team members into the process and allowing them to feel a sense of permission and ownership in the change process.  That is for another conversation.

Questions For Your Consideration

How well is the future state of your value stream currently defined?

Who understands the difference between where we are and where we want to be?

How does the gap contribute to the focus of your accountability conversations?

Who do you invite to assess your value stream performance?

More OpEx 4 OpEx