198 ◾ Making IT Lean: Applying Lean Practices to the Work of IT
in use and procedures were viewed as cumbersome and complex. Adhering
to the controls that characterized all Lean events, there was a high-level
executive champion who helped ensure managers saw the value of com-
mitting their people’s time to the effort. Also as part of preparation, they
identified and prepared process flowcharts of the existing processes using
Value Stream Maps. Semantics also were addressed by agreeing on shared
definitions for business risks or functional specifications. There was an
activity-by-activity review from which they identified a Future State VSM as
well as a new request template. These efforts, which helped to compensate
for the fact that many even