Continuing on the theme of value stream mapping (and process mapping in general) from my article “Where is your value stream map?”, I outlined the typical scenario: The map is built by the continuous improvement team, and they are the ones primarily engaged in the conversations about how to close the gap between the current state and the future state.

The challenge here is that, ultimately, it’s the line leadership, not the continuous improvement team, that drives whether this effort is successful in the long term.

Getting a continuous improvement culture into place means changing the day-to-day patterns of interaction between people and groups of people. We can put in all the lean tools we want, but if those conversations don’t follow, the system quickly reverts to the previous baseline.

 …