Process Mapping the Big Picture
Where to Start a Process Map?
A process map engages stakeholders to visualize and quickly understand what a process does, preventing miscommunications and possible solution reworks. Universal Process Notation (UPN) takes a simple, flexible approach, with process diagrams each showing 8-10 steps. Any step can drill down into another diagram showing the details of the step. The drill-downs organize the diagrams into a hierarchy - the process map.
Drilling down into increasing levels of detail means that the process mapping begins at the highest level possible. The top-level steps provide an overview of an organization’s program, initiative, or strategy. Each step could be a project or a sub-program that drills down to sub-programs or projects with more details.
Top-Level Questions
Process mapping starts with a program’s goal. Why does management want the program? What benefits do they expect from it? The goal should be well-defined before starting any solution development activity.
Start the conversation about the top-level subprogram or project steps if they are not already known. Ask questions like:
How does the organization intend to run the initiative?
What stages will it have?
How do the stages depend on each other?
The answers determine the top-level diagram’s steps. The diagram should express the steps in terms anyone can understand. The final step should fulfill the program’s goal.
Once the process steps are defined, find out:
Who is primarily responsible for each step?
When will the program start? What activity will initiate it?
The answers to these questions form the basis of the top-level process diagram.
Common Questions
When, what, why, who, and how questions arise when mapping processes. Each step on a UPN process diagram has a place to answer the questions. Drilling down from a step to a diagram answers the step’s “how” question in greater detail.
Each diagram in a process map should also answer these questions. The example below shows how this works.
Wanted: A Higher Business Valuation
A business leader wants to increase her company’s valuation by expanding its customer base and increasing revenue. She has already answered two questions for a top-level process diagram:
Why: Increase company valuation.
How: Expand the customer base, increasing revenue.
Here are the top-level steps to expand the company’s customer base and increase revenue:
Execute a CRM process to acquire new customers
Grow company revenues to increase gross income
Increase company value to achieve valuation goal
Each step includes a process and its outcome, separated by the word “to.”
The top-level diagram below shows the steps in terms anyone can understand:
In step 1, how does executing a CRM process bring in new customers? The step’s drill-down provides the details.
Drilling Down for Revenue
“Execute a CRM process” drills down into three steps:
Marketing attracts unaware prospects, sending new leads to sales
Sales converts qualified leads to new customers
Customer service keeps customers happy to maintain loyalty
Each step specifies a department head (who) running a process (what) to achieve an outcome (why). Here are the steps in a process diagram:
Step 1, “Attract unaware prospects” and step 2, “Convert qualified leads to customers” answer the diagram’s key questions:
When when the program starts
Who marketing and sales
What execute a CRM process
How attracting unaware prospects, converting some to customers
Why to acquire new customers
Steps 1 and 2 each have a drill-down to a process diagram showing how the step works in more detail.
In step 3, when customers need assistance, customer service (who) makes them happy (what) to retain customers (why). A drill-down would answer the ‘how” question.
Completely answering the questions in each process step improves stakeholder communication, replacing unspoken assumptions with specifications of who does what, when, how, and why.
Diagramming the Whole Process
A process map has different thoroughness levels. The top level of the diagram should include all stages of a business program. If “Execute a CRM process” started with “Convert qualified leads to customers,” what is the source of the qualified leads? The “Execute a CRM process” process diagram has “Attract unaware prospects” as the first step to answer that question.
Where do “unaware prospects” come from? Drilling down into “Attract unaware prospects” would show they come from a marketing campaign. A process map should drill down thoroughly enough to answer questions like that.
Each process diagram in a map should include all of the steps to clearly define the process. Reviewing the process map with stakeholders can find process gaps. Failing to fill the gaps could lead to incorrect assumptions about processes. If a solution implements processes with incorrect assumptions, fixing them requires costly rework.
A thorough process diagram contains well-defined steps with no gaps between them. A well-defined step specifies who does what, when, and why. If a step requires more details, like “Attract unaware prospects” from a marketing campaign, the step should drill down to more diagrams to answer all stakeholder questions.
Starting a process map at the business program level ensures the map’s diagrams thoroughly cover processes, improving stakeholder communication, and preventing reworks in development.