We introduce a new directed graph structure into the set of alternating sign matrices. This includes Bruhat graph (Bruhat order) of the symmetric groups as a subgraph (subposet). Drake-Gerrish-Skandera (2004, 2006) gave characterizations of Bruhat order in terms of total nonnegativity (TNN) and subtraction-free Laurent (SFL) expressions for permutation monomials. With our directed graph, we extend their idea in two ways: first, from permutations to alternating sign matrices; second, $q$-analogs (which we name $q$TNN and $q$SFL properties). %In our discussion, essential sets, introduced by Fulton in a rather different context, play a key role. As a by-product, we obtain a new kind of permutation statistic, the signed bigrassmannian statistics, using Dodgson's condensation on determinants.