My blog is called Systems Thinking, Lean and Kanban. With the word Lean in the title, and being an active part of the Lean and Kanban community, what am I doing posting an article called The Case Against Value Stream Mapping? Has my recent 22 hour flight to Australia had an affect on my brain?
I have been trained in VSM, have used it, and have found it of value. Its a wonderful tool for helping teams in setting up their Kanban boards; mapping their current Value Stream onto the columns on a board. Alan Shalloway has a great animation of this in action. I also encourage Kanban software tool vendors to have a VSM view in their tool, which will show average delay and process times for a Kanban workflow. In addition when I present at conferences, I reference the usage and results of using VSM in one of my case studies at Lonely Planet. So why this post?
Well, its all to do with how the Value Stream Map is used once it has been created. Lets explore how we learn and how to create change.
Action Science
Chris Argyris, an American business theorist, developed a way of explaining behaviour called Action Science.
In Action Science he describes two simultaneous mental models that make it difficult to create change. The first is our Espoused Theory, which describes the model we say we use to describe how we act (or how we would like others to think we act). The second is our Theory in Use, which is the one we actually use to make decisions.
Mental Models are a way to describe a person’s intuitive perception of the world around them. How we act on that world, our decision rules, are based on our mental models. People always behave consistently with their mental models (theory-in-use) even though they often do not act in accordance with what they say (espoused theory). Within the workplace, we hold generalized beliefs about “what is valued in this organization” and “how things get done around here”. We also hold more specific beliefs about events and people. These beliefs are important because they influence and constrain what we do and don’t do in the workplace.
Single Loop vs Double Loop Learning
Argyris also describes two types of learning. Single-loop learning describes how people learn to adjust their actions in response to natural feedback on the success of those actions in achieving a desired result. They liken this style of learning to a thermostat that adjusts the degree of heating or cooling depending on the temperature of the room. In single loop learning, we may change our decisions, but we leave our underlying mental models and decision rules unchanged. This type of learning solves problems but ignores the question of why the problem arose in the first place (using the previous thermostat example; why is the temperature in the room changing?).
In double-loop learning, we change our underlying mental models and decision rules, which in turn produces new results. Double loop learning uses feedback from past actions to question assumptions underlying current views. Double-loop learning requires not only adjusting one’s actions, but also surfacing, challenging and adjusting the governing variables that are usually taken for granted i.e. our beliefs or “mental maps of reality”.
Double-loop learning adds a powerful dimension to previous experiential learning cycles. In previous models, learning was achieved through reflection on the success (or failure) of your actions. However, in the double-loop model, learning is realized through reflection on the validity and usefulness of your beliefs.
Model I-Inhibiting Double Loop Learning
Argyris tells us that when human beings deal with issues that are embarrassing or threatening, their reasoning and actions conform to a model called Model I. Model I behaviour results in defensive behaviours that block exploring underlying mental models and the resulting maturity that arises. Trying to make change in Model I is difficult because you are dealing with their Espoused Theory. It is neither rewarding nor safe for a person to explore or actually change their mental models and decision rules, so there is a wide gap between their Espoused Theory and their Theory in Use.
Model II-Encouraging Double Loop Learning
Argyris describes a much more productive model that he calls Model II. In Model II, it is safe and rewarding to explore underlying mental models and decision rules. The significant features of Model II include the ability to call upon good quality data and to make inferences. It looks to include the views and experiences of participants rather than seeking to impose a view upon the situation. Theories should be made explicit and tested, positions should be reasoned and open to exploration by others.
The Problem with Value Stream Mapping
With the above in mind, what level of learning will a leader experience when shown a Value Stream Map? Its unlikely they will experience double loop learning. Its more likely that when presented with the map, containing various delay times and process times, that may prove embarrassing or threatening, they will use their current mental models i.e. model 1, and look to blame the workers or blame their managers.
If you have ever watched the ‘Back to the floor’ type TV programmes you will know the problem these kinds of things create, i.e. The boss hears something shocking, goes back into the management factory and issues edicts that make things worse not better. The problem, as always, is two fold. Firstly the boss lacks perspective to understand that a systemic change is required (“This problem has been created by me!”) and secondly is let down by the methods they have learned about how to act.
Top management issuing orders, memos and directives alone is insufficient to change employees’ behaviour. Single-loop learning often leads to organisational malaise resulting in symptoms such as defensiveness, cynicism, hopelessness, evasion, distancing, blaming, and rivalry. There is often a large gap between what leaders publicly “espouse” and the real beliefs that guide their actions. In order to effectively come to grips with new situations, the espoused theories need to be aligned with the theories in use.
Double-loop learning techniques help the organisation members learn together and the organisation change. To do this we need to reveal how the work currently works. We need to reveal the thinking behind the current work design. Value Stream Mapping lists each delay and process time in a flow. It identifies current state and future state and plans for implementation. Waste is identified for reduction. But as John Seddon points out
Managers think that cost is in activity, whereas the counter intuitive truth is that cost is in flow.
Process Mapping
An alternative to Value Stream Maps is Process Mapping. We don’t map the process in a room with brown paper and sticky notes. We don’t ask the managers as they are often too removed from the work to know what is actually going on. We don’t send in a Business Analyst from IT, we don’t talk to proxy customers or talk to a spokesperson for an area. We don’t talk to a few token “doers”. Instead we go into where the work is occurring, with a small team comprised of peers of those who do the work. Why peers? workers tend to tell their colleagues the truth about what’s really going on at work. We also take a leader with the team going into the work to perform the mapping.
As John Seddon states
Studying work as systems reveals counter intuitive truths, challenges to convention, that are more easily understood and accepted if someone sees them for themselves, not if they are told. People need to unlearn and relearn.
Mapping is important because it helps staff to change their perspective on the work.
Firstly it helps them to unlearn what they think is going on in the work. Secondly it helps them to relearn how the work should be designed from the customers’ point of view.
In this regard, process mapping is not simply a means to an end. It is part of the change process.
I will post the mechanics of Process Mapping in a future post, but in conclusion, I suggest it would be more likely for effective change to occur if we go into the work to get knowledge of what is really happening in the work, together with a leader who will experience the same learning as a team and will have the authority to make changes to improve. How we document the process, say in a VSM, is less relevant than the learning acquired.
Agile, Lean, Kanban, and System Thinking 