There are several areas of a business where the existence of good business process maps can help improve efficiency and productivity. Business executives and business process managers often take organizational-wide business process knowledge for granted, and assume everyone has “adequate” knowledge to perform their job responsibilities. In reality, few tangible, much less credible, business process knowledge assets exist in any organization.

But for those astute executives and managers who recognize the need for adequate business process knowledge content, business process maps are – and should be – one of the first artifacts produced for an enterprise business process knowledge library.

In general, business process mapping…

… helps people learn and understand a process
… helps people analyze or otherwise evaluate business processes
… helps people discover opportunities to improve the process

Efficiently and Effectively Communicates Information

• A business process map provides a graphical view of a process – the time-honored adage of “a picture is worth a thousand words” applies here
• A business process map helps people understand how their process roles and responsibilities impact other process stakeholders’ roles and responsibilities
• A business process map helps to improve communication between workers and departments
• A business process map helps to standardize business vocabulary
• A business process map helps people see the big picture and how their roles and responsibilities fit within the overall process framework
• A business process map helps people see the initiating and concluding events at the start and end of a process – essentially illustrates the so-called boundaries of a process
• A business process map helps reveal tasks that require a person or computer to perform an evaluation or make a decision – and subsequently illustrates the consequences associated with the evaluation or decision
• A business process map helps reveal what is or should be monitored and measured by the process manager(s)

Reveals Business Process Risks, Problems and Opportunities

• Every process is subject to some form of immediate or long-term risk such as:
• The risk of not starting on time or not recognizing a process-initiating condition, situation, or event
• The risk of not completing or ending on-time or upon realization of a process-ending condition, situation, or event
• The risk of a process abnormally stalling or terminating
• Identified risks help process managers to consider and design effective strategies and tactics to mitigate risks and deploy contingencies when risks and adverse consequences are realized
• A business process map almost always helps process managers and performers identify opportunities to make immediate changes in the design and performance of a process
• A business process map helps to identify process wastes such as transportation, inventory, motion, waiting, over-production, underutilized skills, and underutilized ideas
• A business process map helps to identify process bottlenecks
• A business process map helps to identify process inefficiencies

Infers Possible Business Process Performance Metrics

• A business process map helps business process stakeholders identify and understand the tasks and activities that can (and can’t) be measured
• A business process map helps business process managers connect metrics of the process with metrics that can be applied to employee performance appraisals
• A business process map helps business process stakeholders align Service Level Agreements (SLA) and Operating Level Agreements (OLA) with actual performance

Illustrates Decision and Evaluation Tasks

• A business process map helps business process stakeholders identify tasks where decisions and evaluations are required
• A business process map helps business process stakeholders identify the results and consequences of decisions and evaluations
• Exposes complex and complicated decisions that can be better illustrated through the use of another method of structured diagramming, the Decision Model and Notation (DMN)

Exposes where Business Policies and Business Rules Impact Business Processes

• A current state business process map shows where business processes properly or improperly apply business policies and business rules

Supports and Enhances Training

• A business process map helps new employees learn their job
• A business process map helps new customers learn (a.) how to install, assemble, or initiate a product or service, (b.) how to use a product or service, (c.) the procedure for requesting and receiving help, repair services, maintenance services, and (d.) how to return a product; how to request a replacement or refund
• A business process map helps business partners understand how to work with your organization, how their processes, products and services integrate with yours

Improves Software Development Productivity and Effectiveness

• A business process map helps software project managers (a.) identify and understand the business processes that require and would be impacted by automation, (b.) the overall scope of the project, and (c.) possible or potential issues, challenges and risks that might impact the success of the project
• Helps Business Analysts identify business requirements and software functional and technical requirements
• Helps solution designers and programmers understand the high, medium, and low level details of both current-state and future-state business process models; helps them understand discrete business process details, as well as how each process and sub-process relates to and supports upstream and downstream processes
• Helps user acceptance testing testers identify most, if not all user acceptance testing scenarios and test cases
• Helps trainers train users on the use of software
• Helps system administrators to understand the processes - which helps them maintain the system in compliance with business process designs and business rules
• Helps IT Help Desk Agents with incident management, problem management, change management, and release management responsibilities

Supports Organizational Change Management

• Helps to precisely show process stakeholders the exact difference between the old way of processing and the new way of processing – and how it specifically impacts their business process goals, objectives, responsibilities and performance

Supports Business Process Governance and Compliance Responsibilities

• Provides internal and external auditors with detailed information to help them perform their auditing responsibilities
• Reasonably qualifies as a tangible form of business process documentation – to satisfy policy, legal and regulatory compliance requirements

Documentation + Performance Support

• Can and should be considered as a legitimate business process documentation artifact
• Serves as either a separately-referenced document/object, or can be imbedded as an artifact within user manuals, quick reference guides, or online help systems
• Helps eLearning and mLearning designers and developers (a.) understand the system and, (b.) use or embed the document/object

Tags: Process Mapping, Process Modeling , Process Analysis