1) Customer Value
The first and most important step in a Lean improvement project is to identify the customer of the process and the things that matter to that customer. Only working to customer value is the prime principle of Lean.

2) Analyse Demand
We must ensure you are working to meet customer demand, no more no less. In service organisations identifying Failure Demand is important here. Up to 80% of demand can be caused by failures of the organisation leading to customers calling to complain of errors or inaction.

3) Measurement
This means measuring the capability of the system to deliver what matters to your customers. Measurements of "activity" which skew behaviour away from customer value are removed and measurements of customer value are put in place.

4) Flow
We then follow work to see where and when there are barriers to flow. The blockages will be due to steps in the work that do not deal with creating value.

5) Thinking
Process are certainly not the only thing that can stop a system creating value for the customer. Things such as targets, incentives, regulation, inspection, staff evaluation, reporting and management style. We work together on changing all these conditions in addition to the design of work to ensure that the things that are sub-optimising the current system don't stay to do the same for the new system. This is where top management need to change their thinking.