A value steam mapping method for complex processes, which integrates many theory of inventive problem solving and service design concepts to traditional Lean thinking. This method is especially suited for services and digital processes.

1. Value stream analyses
for complex processes
Teemu Toivonen / @number_9_
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2. The Goal
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• Outline the value stream analyses for complex systems approach
• Introduce some new ideas and practical tools that can be incorporated to
traditional value stream analyses
• Understanding (intangible) value
• Generating improvement ideas
• Understanding the “soft” and fuzzy aspects of value streams
• Get you curious enough to study some of the available resources
• Share some real world experiences

3. Traditional value stream analyses
/ mapping
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Shout out:
Thanks Mike
and John – I
learned a lot!
How many of you have done
value steam mapping in
practice?

4. Traditional value stream analyses
/ mapping
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Strengths:
• Introduces as systems thinking perspective
• Visualization and consensus building
• Simple and approachable
• Promotes improvements based on Lean
Weaknesses:
• Understanding intangible value
• Analyzing the soft / fuzzy aspects
• Systematic improvement generation
Analyses of strengths and weaknesses is based on personal experience. Your experience may differ.

5. Value stream analyses for
complex systems
Background
• I mostly work in the context of services (IT, financial sector, other)
• In this context even big changes can often be implemented quickly
• I have a wide variety of professional interests which I “mix and match”
Goals for the method/approach
• Holistic understanding of value (tangible, intangible, different stakeholders)
• Systematic support generating different types of improvement ideas
• Support for analyzing the soft / fuzzy aspects
Background / building blocks
• Lean and especially value stream mapping
• Systematic innovation / TRIZ (theory of inventive problem solving)
• Also some Agile and Design Thinking influences
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6. 1. Understand
value for
stakeholders
2. Define outputs and map
them to the value produced
Step 1 Step 2 Step 3
3. Analyze the workflow
5. Analyse interfaces and
delays between steps
6. Analyse individual steps of
the workflow
Value stream analyzes for complex systems
4. Perception mapping 7. Analyze key problems
8. Create an improvement roadmap

7. 1. Understand
value for
stakeholders
2. Define outputs and map
them to the value produced
Step 1 Step 2 Step 3
3. Analyze the workflow
5. Analyse interfaces and
delays between steps
6. Analyse individual steps of
the workflow
Value stream analyzes for complex systems
4. Perception mapping 7. Analyze key problems
8. Create an improvement roadmap

8. 1. Understand
value for
stakeholders
2. Define outputs and map
them to the value produced
Step 1 Step 2 Step 3
3. Analyze the workflow
5. Analyse interfaces and
delays between steps
6. Analyse individual steps of
the workflow
Value stream analyzes for complex systems
4. Perception mapping 7. Analyze key problems
8. Create an improvement roadmap
The value stream analyses is done by a cross functional team which
represents different roles from the value stream and a facilitator.
Lean knowledge and tools are the foundation of the process. In addition
systematic innovation (TRIZ) tools are integrated into all the phases.
Improvement ideas are generated in EVERY part of the analyses process.
The tools are selected in such a way that improvement ideas will fall into
different categories:
• Minor improvements  getting started, culture of improvement
• High impact quick wins  management buy inn, fast business impact
• Radical breakthrough ideas  alternative ways to produce value

9. Focus for today’s presentation
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Understanding value for customers
and stakeholders
- Mapping tangible and intangible value
- Why understanding stakeholder value is important
- Understanding value and radical innovation
Perception mapping - Workflow for analyzing fuzzy problems
- Analyzing perception maps
- Generating improvement ideas
Analyzing key
problems
- The importance of contradictions
- Workflow for solving contradictions
- The contradiction matrix and inventive principles
Analyse individual steps of the
workflow
- Visualizing the current condition with functional
analyses
- Generating improvement ideas with trimming
questions
This is only scratching the surface. A more complete description with references can be
found the article: “Value stream analysis for complex processes and systems”.

10. 1. Understand
value for
stakeholders
2. Define outputs and map
them to the value produced
Step 1 Step 2 Step 3
3. Analyze the workflow
5. Analyse interfaces and
delays between steps
6. Analyse individual steps of
the workflow
Value stream analyzes for complex systems
4. Perception mapping 7. Analyze key problems
8. Create an improvement roadmap

11. Ideality from a customer point of
view
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Value
Ideality =
Costs + harms
Traditionally Lean focus is often in improving
quality and reducing waste
Increasing the value provided by the
service / product is at least as important

12. What is the value provided by a car?
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13. The value provided by a car – an example
Social – Tangible
• Transport family and friends
• Safe method of traveling
• Environmentally friendly
Social – Intangible
• Social value statement (Prius)
• Identity – ”belonging to a club”
Individual – Tangible
• Travel from A to B
• Move stuff
• Value for money
Individual – Intangible
• Reward myself
• Enjoyment of driving
A man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason.
J.P. Morgan

14. Intangible value as an driver for innovation
Increasing intangible value in current service/product
• Understanding customer value from a holistic perspective provides many
opportunities to increase the value produced
• A more environmentally friendly production process
• Highlighting connection to customer values
• Increasing usability and customer convenience
Alternative ways of providing value
• Once we understand all the value that is provided by the current service / product it
is easier to innovate alternative ways of providing that value
• From transportation to virtual meetings, etc.
• From change management processes to collaborative Agile development
What is waste?
• Something that is waste from tangible perspective can be valuable from an
intangible perspective (Harley-Davidson sound) and vice versa!
Understanding value provides one of the best opportunities for radical improvements
/ innovation!
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15. Stakeholder value
It is often important to understand stakeholder
value as well because modern services are often
better understood as value networks instead of
customer supplier relationships!
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Example about understanding employee value
- Employee engagement and happiness plays a key role in productivity, quality
and customer satisfaction especially in services
- Understanding value from an employee perspective is essential for system
design
- Some as simple as allowing developers to make decisions about tools and
technology can have a huge impact in engagement
- value = autonomy, professional development, working with cool
technologies

16. 1. Understand
value for
stakeholders
2. Define outputs and map
them to the value produced
Step 1 Step 2 Step 3
3. Analyze the workflow
5. Analyse interfaces and
delays between steps
6. Analyse individual steps of
the workflow
Value stream analyzes for complex systems
4. Perception mapping 7. Analyze key problems
8. Create an improvement roadmap

17. Fuzzy problems  sometimes
there is no root cause!
• Lean has strong tradition (and good tools) for root cause analyses
• Root causes only exist for a certain class of problems (complicated)
• Many problems where people play a large role fall into the complex category where no root
causes exists
• Complex problems can still systematically analyzed, but with different tools
• Complex problems are best understood as a network of interconnected agents
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The Cynefin framework by David Snowden
If this idea is new or controversial to you I
suggest reading up on current complexity
research.
The works of David Snowden or John Holland
are good starting points.

18. Perception mapping – the recipe
1. Formulate a question / statement for the fuzzy problem
• “What is stopping us from generating a VAU experience?”
• “XYZ is not the best in it’s field because….”
• “Employee engagement is low because…”
2. Collect perceptions for the question / statement
• Perceptions can me anything loosely related to the question
• Collected from a different roles (cross functional) and customers
3. Define relationships between perceptions
• To which (one) perception do the perceptions lead to?
• Is the perception in contradiction with other perceptions?
4. Visualize the perception network (map)
• Visualize the network / map based on previous steps
5. Identify key perceptions in the network
• Identify significant perceptions in the network based on the relationships
• Significance is based on loops and number of connections and contradictions
6. Generate improvement ideas for key perceptions
• Change the network with PDCA experiments on key perceptions
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19. Perception mapping example
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Part of a loop
Collector point
In this trivial example perception A is the
most important one to influence.
Perceptions B, C and D are also important
(part of a loop).
Perception I is important because it is
collector point.
In reals maps the number of perceptions
is often in the 30 – 60 range!

20. 1. Understand
value for
stakeholders
2. Define outputs and map
them to the value produced
Step 1 Step 2 Step 3
3. Analyze the workflow
5. Analyse interfaces and
delays between steps
6. Analyse individual steps of
the workflow
Value stream analyzes for complex systems
4. Perception mapping 7. Analyze key problems
8. Create an improvement roadmap

21. Key problems – an inventive
approach
How many inventions have we ever made?
• Millions or tens of millions? More?
• 40?
• TRIZ research states that all the inventions in the patent database can be described with 40
inventive principles!
• The claim stands on over three million data points!
Identifying and formulating key problems as contradictions
• Speed vs robustness, quality vs prize, accuracy vs quantity
• Traditional approach is to optimize / compromise
• Lean product development  AND solutions (speed and robustness)
• Solving contradiction without compromise is a key building block of TRIZ
TRIZ tools
• Contradiction matrix (database) for technical, business and IT problems
• 40 inventive principles with examples from different fields
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http://www.triz40.com – matrix and principles for technical problems

22. My problem
General problem
My solution
General solution
Formulate problem as a contradiction
“Better marketing hit rate without
bigger marketing budget”
Generalize problem and choose
appropriate contradiction matrix
“Accuracy vs Cost”
Look up inventive principles used to
solve the general problem
“Inventive principles 6, 18, 37, 13… “
Translate general solutions into specific
solutions for the context
“Use customer support for marketing?”

23. Inventive principle 5 “merging” with
business examples
A. Bring closer together (or merge) identical or similar objects, assemble identical or similar parts
to perform parallel operations.
• Personal computers in a network
• Cell-based Manufacture
• Toyota JIT
• Merge companies with related products
• Internet Cafe
• The ‘Joiner Triangle' - Quality/Scientific Approach/All-One-Team (10)
• ‘Young engineers have ideas, old engineers have bad experiences' Japanese saying
B. Make operations contiguous or parallel; bring them together in time.
• Theory of Constraints (11)
• Enlisting customer help in designing the product (Boeing 777 ‘Working Together Teams)
• Multi-media presentations
• ‘Aligned, Creative and Exploring' Teams (12)
CONFIDENTIAL 24

24. 1. Understand
value for
stakeholders
2. Define outputs and map
them to the value produced
Step 1 Step 2 Step 3
3. Analyze the workflow
5. Analyse interfaces and
delays between steps
6. Analyse individual steps of
the workflow
Value stream analyzes for complex systems
4. Perception mapping 7. Analyze key problems
8. Create an improvement roadmap

25. Analyzing and trimming individual
workflow stepsPurpose
• Create a visual model of a workflow step’s current condition
• A good way of generating a large number of incremental improvement ideas
• Good tool for supporting kaizen
TRIZ Tools
• Functional analyses and trimming questions
Workflow
1. Identify elements (roles, systems, tools, etc.) in step
2. Identify tangible interactions between elements (useful, harmful, insufficient, excessive)
3. Identify intangible interactions between elements (useful, harmful, insufficient, excessive)
4. Visualize functional model
5. Generate improvement ideas based on insufficient and harmful interactions
6. Generate improvement ideas with trimming questions
Facilitation
• Cross functional group + 2 hour workshop
• Post it notes and white board
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26. Functional analyses – an example
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Useful
Insufficient
Harmful
Operator
IT system A
IT system BCustomer
Management
Email report
Informs
Prioritizes
Applies pressure
InformsInforms Updates
Updates
Generates
Confuses &
causes stress

27. Trimming questions
1. Do wee need the useful functions performed by this element?
2. Can one of the other elements perform the useful function?
3. Can we modify another element to provide the useful function?
4. Is there a element or resource around the system that can perform the
function?
5. Is there a element or resource around the system that can be modified to
perform the function
6. Can we perform the function by combining other elements and
resources?
TIPS
• The higher up the questions is in the list the better the improvement ideas
are on average
• Modified version also exists for trimming steps out of the value stream
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28. Questions and comments?
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