Janet Sprimont

Training is a Key Ingredient to a Winning Team

Steps for Developing a Business Process Map

 

In my last Insights in this series, I explained how business process mapping can improve employee productivity and satisfaction, as well as help a company clarify employees’ responsibilities. Now I’ll review a few basic steps to take in developing a business process map. 

Steps to Take

In general, there are a few steps employers can follow if they want to map their business processes. These steps are:

1. Identify the Purpose—Why do you want to do a business process map? What are you trying to determine? Is it to document the process so it can be replicated? Is it to improve the process or identify the gaps?
2. Create a “To Do” List – Write down your company’s most critical processes, then prioritize the list based on which processes have the most opportunity to impact the company’s performance – in other words, the ones that may be causing you the most problems, rework or complaints. The highest priority, or most critical processes, will be the ones you will document first. For each process, you will identify the beginning point of the process (What is the input to the process?), and the ending point of the process (What is the output of the process?). You will then map the steps of the process, starting with the input and ending with the output. 
3. Use an Outside Facilitator—If you want to do a business process map as part of an overall quality process, I would suggest you use an outside facilitator who’s familiar with documenting processes because, from what I’ve seen in my experience, companies are often so close to the processes, they may miss steps or have difficulty seeing opportunities for improvement. Bringing in an outside party that’s neutral to a company’s processes will make them better able to create a business process map and see where there’s room for improvement. 
4. Let the Map Guide You—After your initial business process mapping is complete, your facilitator will lead you through the analysis of each process by questioning why the steps are completed in a certain sequence, and if each step truly adds value to the process. Oftentimes, whenever a company’s processes are documented in black and white, the inefficiencies, as well as the opportunities to improve them, really jump out.

Once the improvement and changes in the process are identified and documented, it is time to implement the changes, communicating the new processes and managing to them.

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