The multifunctional process study

The study of a business process is an activity that can serve different causes, and can adapt to different contexts. It is an invaluable instrument in today's enterprise management, to map, control and re-think an organization.

But first of all: what is a (business) process?

I have found this definition: “a business process is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks that produce a specific service or product (serve a particular goal) for a particular customer…”.

Another definition of a business process could be: “a series of logically related activities and/or tasks performed together to produce a defined set of results.” Or simply: “an activity or set of activities that will accomplish a specific organizational goal.”

I think all these definitions are valid, nevertheless, they tend to focus on the stream of activities, without giving much attention to the fundamental elements of the process, with the only exception of the ultimate goal of the process.

Instead, when you go “on the field” to begin a process mapping, which represents the first step of the process study, your first duty is to identify a set of key elements that helps you define the process. The key elements are:

1. what is the purpose and the output of a process
2. who are the clients of the process
3. who are the suppliers of the process
4. where the process starts and what are the inputs

After identifying these 4 key points, another important point you need to deal with is the identification of the people involved in the activities of the process, and the process owner.

It is important to say that not only business processes could be extremely varied, but also process study can have many different objectives; some of the most common are: to portrait the whole picture of an organization, to identify clearly and balance the cost centers, to map and manage the controls, to check the performances of the company, to streamline the flow of the activities, and many others...

Different purposes lead to different kinds of process study, and therefore to different approaches in processes mapping.

Like I mentioned above, process mapping is the first and fundamental step of process study. It is mandatory for every improvement projects of a business process, because allows the consulting team to obtain the information needed about the "current state".

Some of the most significant approaches to process mapping are:

• Process mapping for a general management use.

This kind of mapping could not be strictly related to a specific improvement project: it is more direct to get a global view of the processes, their performances, and their inter-relations, with the aim of rationalizing and improving them globally. This approach has a very high perspective view of the organization and can be used, for example, to set business function objectives and to operate macro - process reengineering. Typically, it is used by the newly appointed top management to clearly define and review the organization chart.

• Process mapping for improvement projects based on Lean Thinking.

This is a very interesting and very specific approach, it is focused on tracing the process flow to find where the added value is, and eliminate the process wastes. This kind of mapping is called "value stream mapping". This map is usually drawn by the lean team, a group made by the consultants and clients' employees. The style of this approach can be very different depending on the different projects, but often the map of the activities is not too detailed, even if with a close attention to performances and quantitative information.

• Process mapping for Internal Audit.

For internal audit it is important to define a very detailed procedure of the process. Every activity should be described carefully to find every deficiency related. In this approach the relevance of the process is very important in economic terms, to define the level of the identified risks, and what is most important is the correct definition of the controls.

• Process mapping for Human Resource management.

In this case the main purpose is to evaluate human resources and identify the skills gaps (and even “motivational gaps”) that can influence the global performance of an organization. The perspective of this approach can have different grade of definition, but it is usually pretty high. Quantitative data and performance measurement are very important to this approach, but “personal” evaluation is even more crucial.

There are many important differences between the approaches. The lean thinking approach, for instance, is usually faster and focused on the value for clients; the HR approach is focused on people and their relations to the performances; internal audit highlights controls more than activities, with a very detailed style. From the other hand, giving a measure of "the numbers" of the process could be important to an approach, essential to another, not too critical for another…. even if, I am certain that it is always good to have a measure of how neatly a process is performing.

In spite of all differences, these approaches share a common root that can be useful to efficiently run an improvement project. In fact, what I have discovered is that we could make use of every different type of mapping, to achieve diverse and non-predictable goals. Of course, you need to have the time to do that; therefore, you have to be involved on a persistent project of organizational changing, with a long-term continuous improvement approach, and not only a “blitz”.

For example:

- the lean team could use a more detailed process map, e.g. from internal audit, to gain knowledge of the process and a preview of some process wastes (even before starting the value stream mapping); the same information could work for the manager who wants to reengineer the stream of a single process.

- from an opposite point of view, a general picture of the process, used for the budgeting activity, can provide the HR department a process chart and a set of quantitative information that can be used as a starting point for deeper analysis of the people involved.

I will not say it is easy to switch from different mapping approaches (with different purposes) but surely, it is not impossible. After all, every process study share a similar logic and similar representations: every process is portrayed as a succession of activities, has some key elements (a starting point and ending point, an input and an output, clients and suppliers) and should be measured. These shared components can be useful information for various and diverse activities.

In my consulting experience, I have tried to achieve an “holistic approach” based on the exchange of information from different mapping approaches. As I mentioned before, the assumption you need to fulfill to do this, is to be involved in a long lasting project that allows you to work from different angles of the organization.

This interconnected approach can cause a loss of focus on the objective of the single analysis, even though all different approaches listed above pursuit the same big goal for the company: improvement. That is why, in the end, I think that the usability of diverse information depends greatly on the flexibility, culture and common sense of the consulting team, that must always consider all the variables, and keep clear the purpose of the process study.