Once everyone has had the opportunity to assign waste, you can then total up the number of times each Lean waste appears, as well as the number of total wastes that appear for each problem. From this exercise, you can not only eliminate
preconceived ideas from the mapping team’s collective mind and focus on what the team as a whole believes is the biggest problem (based upon the number of wastes listed next to each problem), but you can also prepare yourself for many of the issues that will be brought forth by the employees working within the value stream when the Current State Map is presented to them.