Untangling the twists and turns of workflow in a process can be frustrating. Have you ever tried to visualize the flow of a process, from start to finish? In most organizations, it can be convoluted and complex. The goal, of course, of any workflow, it to try and use the most direct flow from point A to point B. That is what exists in an ideal world! The fact remains in organizations, there are silos and protected turf. Everyone wants to ‘touch’ the product or process in the flow. The question then becomes whether those ‘touches’ are valid and provide value to the end result. Simplification of the flow and allowing ‘touches’ from various departments only when necessary to the success of the end result should be required.

Clarity With a Spaghetti Diagram

A Spaghetti Diagram will provide an overhead view or visualization of all the stops or ‘touches’ the product or process encounters before the delivery of the end result. When you can see it, touch it and feel it, you can then start to untangle the mess involved in workflow.  As you trace along the workflow line, you can quickly begin to understand and analyze the value of each ‘touch’ along that flow. Does that ‘touch’ bring bring value to the end product or product? Each touch along the way can then be broken down and evaluated for the value it brings to the process or product. Once a proper and thorough evaluation of those ‘touches’ have been undertaken, you can then eliminate the unnecessary stops or create additional ‘touches’ that are required to add value or quality.

Simplifying For Quality

When applied properly, the Spaghetti Diagram can provide clarity and understanding of the complexities of workflow. Simplicity is the key to success. You can now comfortably eliminate redundancies and unnecessary touches to the flow, which drain quality and increases costs. The tool is valuable in helping break down silos in an organization for better efficiencies. You may not go directly from point A to point B, but your journey along the flow will become much more efficient and cost effective, ultimately delivering a higher quality product or process for the customer.

If you’d like to learn more about Spaghetti Diagrams, check out our podcast episode called “Unappetizing Spaghetti Diagrams“

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Put another way, a Spaghetti Diagram is a visual representation of how bad things really are and are used to expose Waste and Opportunity.

How Bad are Things, Really?

Sometimes, through poor thinking and poor choices, Spaghetti Diagrams aren’t just representations of how things are, but they can be representations of what we have created: sometimes, we turn our processes into Spaghetti Diagrams; this is precisely the case with the U.S. Government and the current Healthcare Debate.

The Democratic Party’s proposed Healthcare scheme is below [1. Source: House of Representatives]:

This map begs several questions:

• Where does it start?
• Where does it end?
• Are all motions equally important?
• What are the value-added steps?
• What are the steps we can do without?
• Can a 15 year old understand what is happening on this map?

It is safe to conclude that the map above is clearly bloated — complexity at its worst.

For me, I have a question that drives clarity and honesty in my thinking:

Can a 15 year old understand this?

If the answer is “No”, then I need to work harder to make my idea clearer and simpler.  Using that question as a litmus test for the Healthcare Scheme above, I believe the answer would be a clear “No.”  In other words, the Map above is a starting point, not an ending point: there is much to improve.

One area not exposed by either of the above maps is, perhaps, the most insidious of all: amidst all the confusion and motion are people that could potentially be harmed.  The patient is the true casualty in either of the above maps: she gets lost in it — indeed, we forget that at the center of Healthcare is the patient.  Broken processes enable our forgetfulness of people.

Broken process unfortunately helps us to forget people

Another map worthy of Spaghetti-like accolades is below [2. Source: The New Republic]:

Again, the presence of many squiggly lines means one thing: OPPORTUNITY for improvement.  This is clearly a starting point, not and ending point.  There is so much to improve.

To be fair, creating a future-state of the above is not trivial, underscoring the fact that Healthcare is clearly complex.  One thing is clear, if anything needs and begs improving, it is Healthcare where the biggest opportunities lie [3. Credit to Kevin for the inspiration].

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