At the core of every business are processes. Whether it is employee onboarding or purchase orders, data needs to move around the office in a certain sequence to get done. Process mapping is a powerful business process technique that uses the symbols, to get a visual depiction of a business activity from start to finish.
Why complete Process Mapping?
Businesses use process mapping to gain more detailed insights into all operational processes and how each may be impacting company-wide goals and other factors like compliance. Overall, process mapping can help companies become more effective, efficient, and agile by providing a clear and comprehensive view into any or all workflows and potential problems.
How to create a Process Map?
- Gather all the stakeholders. You need several voices of people who are both responsible for the process and who are actively involved in the day-to-day activities.
- List out all the tasks. What are all the things that you do as a part of this process? Initially, this is often best done with sticky notes that can be easily moved around later.
- Determine who is responsible for each task. Most tasks will have a single owner. Some might be able to be assigned to a group of people, but someone should be ultimately held accountable for the timely completion.
- Set the sequence of tasks. What needs to happen first? Can some tasks be done at the same time? Which tasks are dependent on others? When is the process complete? While this phase is best done with physical objects like post it notes, eventually, you will want to move to a business process mapping tool that can digitize what you’ve created.
Process maps provide valuable insights into how a businesses or an organization can improve processes. When important information is presented visually, it increases understanding and collaboration for any project.