Process mapping is a fundamental part of the BPM – Business Process Management –process, and crucial if you want to achieve the goal of making your company a lot more competitive. However, when implementing the process mapping, how to do it correctly? What are the mistakes to avoid? That is what we will see next.
Business process mapping, how to avoid these common errors
If you know that process mapping is a must for your company and want to know how to implementing it without making the mistakes other companies do, this post is for you!
1 – Thinking about changes before completely understand the process
It is easy to get ahead of yourself and start to think and implement changes at the beginning of the project. This, however, is not ideal. The business mapping part of the process is all about knowing and understanding the process. We can only change what we deeply understand. How to map business processes? Ask yourself some questions:
- Where does the process start and end? Define exactly what the area of the process is.
- Who is a part of the process? Search for all the participants of the process, all the employees who take part in the activities.
- What kind of process is this? Is it a client process, a management process or an organizational process? This knowledge will be fundamental to map the process accordingly. If you have questions about that, see process definition.
- What tasks are performed in the process? Set the kind of tasks and the order that they are executed.
- Which information pass along the process? Gather the pieces of information that are exchanged, that go up or down.
2 – Not seeing the whole picture
Although we must map process by process when implementing the continuous improvement, we can never forget about the big picture. What are the processes that come before and after the process you are mapping? How do they influence on it? Maybe you are looking for a problem where it does not exist, and the bottleneck is caused by some action in another process.
3 – Not establishing a clear goal
All actions must have an objective in mind, especially inside a company. Starting a project with no end goal is a recipe for failure. So define from the beginning:
- What are the processes you are going to map?
- Why are you mapping them?
- What do you want to achieve at the end of the project?
4 – Not focusing on processes that have a tangible result
There are processes that have a concrete result, such as a product, service, system improvement, etc., and there are processes that have a more abstract approach. For example, decision-making processes, that change the way thing are done, but not in a visible way. Both kinds are important, but the business process mapping will work more effectively, at least at a first moment, on the more tangible ones. So, prioritize and focus!
5 – Not talking to the team
It may seem obvious, but many companies think about and implement changes without talking to the staff. The people who are more indicated to tell you about the process and giving you an inside look are the ones that work with it on a daily basis. So involve all the staff in the business process mapping thinking how to listen to them and how to change every employee in an exciting part of the project.
Final tips and benefits of the business process mapping how to
A very good idea when thinking about business process mapping and how to implement it is to search for a reliable software. A good software will make a difference between a successful process mapping or a project with no goals and no structure. Process mapping will improve communication, increase consistency, improve efficiency and efficacy, cut costs and bottlenecks, increase productivity, add value to the client, make the staff happier and much more.
Now that you know how to do business process mapping in your company, also see how to model processes in your organization and what its benefits are!