I want to take a moment and challenge you to look at the why first as opposed to the what.  Often when driving a lean continuous improvement project you can hit some negativity or proverbial wall which is hard to pass thru.  When this happens, shift your focus from looking at what went wrong and what changes we can make to prevent it from happening again but rather to the why value proposition.  Starting with the why process is important to further the relationship and impact to the real value added.  By focusing on the why before looking at the 8 wastes you are in a better position to define real value and lead the team to find the what.

Focusing on the why will allow you to have a greater emphasis on the bigger picture as apposed to the specific defective you are working to correct.  This is an interesting twist which links into one of my favorite tools, the SIPOC.  If we understand the Suppliers Input and the Customers Output we have a better understanding of the why.  Once we have a better understanding of why, the what should become more obvious to the CIP team.

Beyond this basic concept is an unexpected benefit of increased respect and trust from everyone involved.   As the focus is shifted off of the who and the what to the why you should see greater engagement from everyone on the team, especially the process owner as they will be able to understand the relationship this change of emphasis has on the big picture.  Moving the organization toward the why improves the focus back toward the reason you need each person to get involved.  I have used this many times to improve engagement in projects where the value proposition was not as obvious to key members of the team.  The why plays to the heart which can help open the mind to other possibilities including the value proposition not originally seen in a project.