I would like to propose an additional perspective on Krishan’s fabulous VSM Playbook and Canvas. How about taking the customer perspective (pick them up where they are sitting right now), instead of introducing them to systems thinking, kybernetics and the model first?
As a management team you want to make sure all the critical operations, decisions and tasks are allocated and connected appropriately and can be executed in an effective and efficient way. So, what’s in for them?

It’s about Viable Steering and Management 🙂

Aim of the VSM is to ensure the effective steering of all success critical operations in your organization.
It provides:

1. Analysis (diagnosis) of current state of steering of  critical operations/tasks/decisions
2. Optimization of steering structure
3. Alignment of steering structure
4. (Re-)design of the entire organization with regards to steering

My – merely individual – approach to the process is the following, starting with the value add itself:

We start with the strategy and the operations, and introduce the VSM at the very end of this process.

0.) Strategy and 5 most important customer buying criteria

1.) collect relevant operations (SiF) to provide service/product for the customer

2.) collect relevant environment

3.) collect sources for complexity (which influences/incidents can make the operation difficult?)

4.) collect and find methods to reduce or accelerate complexity

5.) Assign these to organizational units or individuals (–> decisions to be made)

6.) Visualize the structure in a steering matrix (–> as provided by M. Pfiffner)

7.) In the end: Match the organizational units with the VSM in order to clarify the steering level in the context of the VSM. Visualize this.