Value Stream Mapping and Alignment
"The feedback was positive from every department. Everyone agreed with the improvements that the project found, agreed that we should do something about them, get started quickly; we moved on to the next item on the agenda."
Towards the end of 2014 we completed a Value Stream Mapping project for a law firm. Nothing unusual in that but there was a late slight complication as we finished.
Our main contact had decided to leave, nothing to do with the project, the time was just right for them to move on. Always a risk for any project when there is one main sponsor.
The team of legal staff, with our guidance and input had uncovered 20+ improvement projects. We ordered them, based on impact and ease of implementation; discovered which ones they could get on with without us.
They did ask us for help with implementing some of the projects, so we duly submitted a proposal; a proposal that would be discussed by the main management board after our main sponsor and contact had left.
We had to trust the Process Improvement Consulting we had delivered. Trust that the Value Stream Mapping had not only found the issues but communicated them in a manner everyone could understand and get behind; not an easy task to complete with leadership teams.
In the middle of January we were promised an answer, the discussion would take place without our main sponsor or ourselves being present.
When it came it proved the value of Lean techniques in aligning leaders behind what their staff have discovered.
The answer "the feedback was positive from every department. Everyone agreed with the improvements that the project found, agreed that we should do something about them, get started quickly; we moved on to the next item on the agenda."
When was the last time your management team was able to align behind not just one change but a series of improvements? improvements that would be driven by your own staff.