FreeNo sign-upYour notes stay on your computer
Value Stream Mapping Tool
Map a slow process step by step, with how long each step works on an item and how long the item waits before it, and see where the time goes.
This tool also runs as a stage in a playbook, which takes you through several tools in order:
- Speed up a slow business process Stage 1 of 4: where does the time go? Start at stage 1
Not following the playbook?
The process
One process that repeats, from the customer's request to delivery.
The steps, in order
- A step is where someone works on the item: a check, a decision, a piece of work.
- List them as items really go through, not as the procedure says. Walk the process with the people who do it.
- Waiting is not a step. You add the waits in step 2.
Your notes never leave your browser
The process, its steps and any dates you paste stay on your computer and in your progress file. To write the diagnosis, only the times are sent to our server, by place in your list. How it works
Time each step
Two numbers for every step: how long an item waits before it, and how long someone actually works on it.
- Time what happened, not what people say usually happens: follow ten to thirty recent items of the normal kind.
- Ask the people at each step where items wait, and why.
Have the dates for real items? Paste them, and the tool works out the waits
One row per item, from a spreadsheet or your system's export: the item's number or name (optional), then the date it reached each step, in order, then the date it finished. It should look like this:
Each wait is the time from reaching a step to reaching the next, averaged over the items, less the working time you enter below.
The value stream map
The triangles are the queues in front of each step. The line along the bottom is the timeline: up for waiting, down for working. Amber: the longest wait.
Every step's times
Save your progress
Download your progress file to continue from this point any time, on any computer: choose it under "Coming back?" at the start of the tool. Each new file includes everything so far, including the earlier stages when they are connected, so keep the latest one. Your work stays in this browser only until you close it.
Not saved yet.
Take your results with you
A PDF of the map, every step's times, and the diagnosis.
About the tool
Why it exists
See where the days go before you try to speed anything up
A value stream map puts a whole process on one page, from request to delivery, with two numbers under every step: how long someone works on the item, and how long it waits before that step. Added up separately, they show the gap: in most office processes, work fills less than a tenth of the time.
This tool works on its own, and as stage 1 of our playbook for speeding up a slow business process, where the map goes on to find the step that holds everything up. For the method, see our guide to value stream mapping.
The method
How the tool works
Three terms. Lead time is the total time from start to finish, as the customer sees it. Process time is the time someone is actually working on the item. Waiting time is lead time minus process time: the item sits in a queue.
Real items, not memory. Follow ten to thirty recent items and time what happened. If you paste the date each item reached each step, the tool works out the average wait in front of each step, less the working time you enter.
Calendar time. Waits count every day, as the customer feels them, so the share of the time that is work is worked out on a 24-hour day.
Errors or waiting? If half or more of the items were sent back to be redone, the problem is mostly errors, and Lean Six Sigma is the better tool. This map targets delay.
What leaves your computer. The process, the steps and the dates stay in your browser and your progress file. To write the diagnosis, the page sends our server only the times, by place in your list, and the server keeps nothing.