Process mapping and how can it help your organisation

Process mapping and how can it help your organisation

If you've read my newsletters for some time, you may have heard me talk about how I love nothing more than finding a solution to an issue or problem where someone is stumped. A process map or a flowchart is one of my favourite tools to help people gain visibility over and within their processes.

To give you the low down on this helpful tool, I wanted to share what it is, why you should use it and how it helps.

A process map is a visual representation of how your work flows through a system, within a department, or across multiple departments depending on the organisation's size. It can give you high-level visibility of all your processes from start to finish, or you can dive deep into them.

It helps with a variety of tasks, including:

1. Identifying inefficiencies and bottlenecks, where work is getting stuck, where there are unnecessary steps, and where to add improvements.
2. Breaking down complex processes into individual steps lets you physically see the connections between each step. It helps show how everything fits together.
3. Stakeholder communication becomes easier as you can recognise your process stakeholders, what they need, when they need it and why.
4. Once you have mapped your process, you can start looking at how to standardise it and create a documented process that your teams can work to where you ensure everyone follows the same steps in the same way. Standardisation allows you to manage better and optimise what you currently do.
5. Process maps can be used as a training tool for new employees, visually representing how their work fits into the larger process and why what they do is important.

Organisations can continue to improve their processes and increase efficiency by regularly reviewing and updating process maps.

Here are a few examples of areas you could process map and the potential issues that you may be experiencing:

Business Development

• How the business development team looks for potential clients
• Signing customers up
• Supplying them with the product or service (did the business development team understand what the customer wanted?)
• What happens within the conversion process

Customer Service

• How customer calls are handled
• How a customer complaint is handled
• How are customer calls followed up, and by whom?

Operations

• What information is supplied to technicians before they either attend the site or effect a repair virtually?
• How long does it take to affect a system or product repair, and is the right person doing the job?
• How often are your suppliers late for a delivery or cannot provide what you wanted when you wanted it?

Finance

• How does your customer billing work, and is it fit for purpose?
• What happens when a customer leaves? How long do they remain on your system, and how many times will they receive a bill until you remove them from the system?
• How long will an invoice remain unpaid when there is a customer query against it?

Human Resources

• What does the recruitment process look like?
• How are you onboarding new staff?
• How are you managing staff retention?

IT

• Do you know if the systems you currently have are suitable for your needs?
• Do the systems communicate with one another?
• Do any of the systems need upgrading due to them being too slow?

Process mapping can be used across every area of your business; It is an invaluable tool if you know when and how to use it and you use it correctly. You also need to understand what the mapping is telling you and the next steps you need to take to make improvements within the process.

By the way, all the examples above are those I've come across previously, so if you want any advice, support, or training in process mapping, let me know, as it's my favourite tool. You can always send me a direct message via Linked In, and I will be happy to see if I can help. Alternatively, for more information, click here.

Have a fabulous Bank Holiday and a great week.

Liz