A Crash Course in Process Mapping
Businesses often wish to re-evaluate how they perform certain operational activities or workflows. In other words, they wish to perform “Process Improvement.”
If you missed our 30 Minute Lunch and Learn "How to do Process Mapping Virtually", watch below!
The underlying assumption to improving anything, is that you understand how it is being done right now. In a business setting, when there are multiple departments, roles, or even people within a departmental role, all working together to achieve an outcome; it is hard to say that every step of the way is currently understood.
We have found that Process Mapping is a very effective tool to quickly accomplish the first two steps in our proven DAER(© AJC 2020) methodology: Define and Align.
Process Mapping canquickly and effectively define the current state, and align stakeholders to howthe process should be improved.
In this article we offer a crash course on the subject of Process Mapping. This process also is applicable to Value Stream Mapping. Though the method is relatively standard, everyone will have different flavors or techniques. Ours is described here.
Mapping can be done for three states:
The Current State: The process as it exists today
The Future State: Improvements or change made to the Current State
The Designed State: Something which does not yet exist and therefore is being designed. (this is a Future State that has no Current State from which to build)
The execution steps for each state are the same.
The first step is to determine if you are building a Process Map or a Value Stream Map.
A ProcessMap focuses onthe specific flow of tasks and handoffs required to move from a particularstarting point or trigger, to a particular end point. The first thing to consider are what I callthe “bookends” of the process. Specifically,what is the “First Step” or “Trigger” and “Last Step” or “End” of theprocess? For example, in providing aRequest for Quote, the “Trigger” is the customer asking the company for aquote, and the “Last Step” is the company delivering the quote to thecustomer. Sounds pretty basic, yes? The real trick is in articulating theparticulars. Here is are examplequestions that get to the particulars:
How does the customer request a quote? Email, phone, F2F, letter, online request, (does this still happen) fax?
Who at the company is the first one to receive the request? Sales, Account Managers, Engineering, Administration, Help Desk?
What information is needed for a complete request? Budget, quantity, timeline, design details, user requirements, sketches, drawings, CAD files, technical specifications, size, quality, dimensions; the list can go on and on, depending on the product or service.
By contrast, a Value Stream Map identifies the specific activities required to provide a particular product or service into the hands of the customer, which means it starts with understanding the needs for the product and maps all the way to when the customer receives the product.
Value Stream Maps tend to be higher level.
If we started with a Request for Quote of a manufactured productin a Value Stream Map, the next step would be to “Understand Customer Needs,”then “Design, Source, Build and/or Assemble Product,” and finally to “DeliverProduct.”
Let’s step back and consider the Team.
Process Maps are usually not created in a bubble. Usually, and this tends to be veryilluminating, they are performed with a group of people – all the people who door will participate in the process in some way, including the suppliers ofinputs or customers* of outputs of the process, when possible. We refer to this group of people as“Stakeholders” in the process. *If it is not possible for actualcustomer to participate, people who deal directly with the customers shouldrepresent their needs, often Sales or Customer Success personnel.
Stakeholders are key Team Members, butthey are not the only ones. There are two fundamentalTeam Member roles involved in performing a successful mapping exercise; andthey may come from outside the organization. The most likely external team member role is that of the Facilitator.
“The Facilitator should be someone who can remain objective about the process and will keep the group on focus. This person should be from “outside” the Process, and often times it is best to have someone from outside the company. An objective Facilitator will also be your sanity check on why you do things a certain way, and help you whittle out all the unnecessary waste in your process. ”
If you are serious about mapping, using a strong Facilitator can be a very useful way to get everyone on the same page and improve a process quickly. Another important, but often overlooked role, is the “Scribe,” the person designated to record and distribute important notes during the Mapping session. The last thing you want, after having gathered your Stakeholder Team together for a (very expensive!) day away from their daily work, is to lose all the ideas you came up with during your session! The Scribe will note any Waste, Ideas, Opportunities, or Enablers as they come up, for future reference.
“Additionally, the Scribe will create a “Parking Lot” list for ideas or actions that come up which are not directly related to the process, and maintain that list throughout the session. Once those creative juices get going, people often come up with ideas out of “left field,” many of which are not directly related to the Process you are focusing on, but that you want to capture for further exploration at another time.
”
Depending on theintention to move forward with Execution, additional Team Members that willsupport this work may also participate in the Process Mapping. For example, if a stated goal of the FutureState is to implement a new IT system, the Project Manager, Product Owner,and/or Scrum Master for the future Systems Implementation may be a part of theProcess Mapping, even if s/he is an external consultant.
After the roles ofFacilitator and Scribe are defined, the remaining team members are typicallyparticipants. It is often helpful tohave the Executive or primary Leader of the group present briefly at the outsetof the day about *why* this work is being done, and what s/he hopes the teamwill accomplish. This validates for theteam that their work is valuable, and sets the expectation that everyone willparticipate to the best of their abilities. The Executive or Leader does not typicallystay for the entire session, and this is by design. The Stakeholders who actively perform thework should feel comfortable articulating any and all issues or problems seen,and sometimes having the Leader present prevents people from feelingcomfortable speaking up. Teams with highlevels of trust, a patient Leader who can observe largely without comment, anda tactful Facilitator who can draw people out could be exceptions.
On to the Mechanics of Process Mapping
Logistically, theFacilitator often brings the appropriate materials for the session – it ishelpful to use a big roll of butcher paper (which can be purchased on Amazon.com), multi-colored sticky notesfor writing, Sharpies, as well as red/green/yellow stickers for later use.
After defining thebookends of the process, articulate “what comes next.” The Facilitator will help the group identifythe activity: who performs it, what information is needed to do it right thefirst time, what the specific output of that activity is, where relevantinformation is saved, and how it passes to the next step. If there is a decision to be made, that isalso described, and the resulting options are also mapped. It is very important to drill down on exactlyHOW the next group learns that they need to begin their work; a frequentproblem that I have seen is that there is no systematic way of informing adownstream step that – guess what?! – it’s your turn! Whether a system is used (ERP, MRP,cloud-based workflow or task management tool), or the handoff occurs via email,physical flow, or F2F conversation – it is CRITICAL that everyone agrees on howinformation or materials move from one step to the next. As each activity is articulated, it iswritten on a sticky note and put up on the butcher paper. You can designate what you want the stickynote colors to mean (some have yellow for activities, blue for decisions;others will color them by department). No lines are drawn until the very end, becausethere is a pretty good chance things will move around before the session isover.
Current State Process Map using different colors representing different Departments - intentionally fuzzy
Here is the “Crash” part of thiscourse.
For those of you who haveparticipated in a Process Mapping session before, you realize that detailingout each activity is time consuming, sometimes confusing (“You do what?Why? I didn’t know that!”), and alltogether pretty exhausting! Some groupswill do these as full-day events for a full week to go through Current State,Future State, Enablers, and even get started on the execution – commonly calleda “Kaizen Event.” This is terrific, ifyou have the ability to pull everyone off their day jobs for a week. However, most of AJC’s clients can’t affordthat kind of time away, and quite frankly, our prefrontal cortexes are prettyzapped after 4-5 hours of straight mapping. I typically hold one or two 4-6 hour sessions (including lunch break)for the Current State, another one or two 4-6 hour sessions for the FutureState, and a final review session for all the Enablers and assignment ofactions. Clients often prefer to spacethese sessions out over a few weeks, so they can still perform their normal dutiesin the meantime.
Logistics for thesessions are up to you, but at the end, you should have a Current State ProcessMap for how things are done today – even if it is convoluted and complicated; aFuture State Process Map which has cleaned up the process to get rid of allwaste, confusion, misunderstanding, waiting, with improved flow, fullutilization of the bottlenecks, etc. (for a newly designed Process, this is allyou will have), and a list of “Enablers” which include all the things that needto happen in order to realize the Future State. Sometimes these require a lot of investment – like automatically informingone group when a certain something has been done. If you don’t yet have an automated workflow,this may be something for which a standardized work-around must be developed(i.e. always email the next step when you’re done with XYZ).
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of beinggood enough!
You can always revise theprocess once your company has outgrown the old method and/or has additionalresources to invest in system upgrades. Animportant piece of advice: Document the FutureState process flow BEFORE you buy some software that claims it will give youeverything you need… make sure you know exactly what it is you need first!
Congratulations!
You are ready to Executeand soon realize that amazing Future State and generate Results and Revenue foryour company.