Although it’s often confused in the business world, business process mapping and business process improvement are not the same thing.
Regardless of whether or not a process can be improved upon, there are still advantages to mapping it out. Here are the distinctions between the two:
- Business process mapping is when you map out all the steps in a process for a certain task.
- Business process improvement is when you take a process you already have in place and look for ways to be more efficient.
A down economy is not only a good time for training and developing employees, but it’s also a great time to take a look at all the processes—or lack of processes—at your company.
There is one common mistake that many employers make:
- No standardization—It’s important for companies with a lot of processes, such as manufacturers or retailers, to have a process book that employees can refer to. Not having process documentation of any kind is a big mistake.
What if something happens? What if an employee is on vacation and someone has to cover his/her job? What if there’s turnover? What if a new employee comes into the company?
All of these questions are reasons why employers need to have process documentation. Also, documentation helps with training and with reducing the “ramp up” time for new employees.
If things are mapped out accurately, then employees and the company will know what needs to happen in order to accomplish a task.
You also run into fewer problems when you have all your processes mapped out.
If you want to effectively utilize business process mapping in your workplace, you should start by creating basic flow charts.
There are plenty of tools on the market that can help you do this, such as Visio. Or you can do it by hand on paper or on a whiteboard using Post-Its and markers.
Do whatever you can to get employees to start thinking about how a task is accomplished—what steps it takes to get from start to finish.
A horseshoe diagram is another way to process map.
How you use this type of diagram is you draw a “U” on your paper/whiteboard. The top-left point represents the beginning of the process. The top-right point represents the end of the process. The catch to a horseshoe diagram, however, is you start at the end of the process and work backwards.
For example, let’s say the ending point in a process is that a document ends up in someone’s inbox. So what you need to do is work backwards and say, “OK, what has to happen before the document goes to the inbox?” Maybe it has to be signed off on. Then you need to think about what has to happen before it’s signed off on, and so on.
When you work backwards through a process, what you’ll find is steps will surface that you might skim over if you worked from beginning to end because we’re often subconsciously on autopilot when we perform tasks frequently.
Working backwards causes your brain to have to really think things through, which ensures you catch all the steps in a process.
There are many different ways to utilize business process mapping in your workplace. You just need to take the time to completely document everything.