Business Process Mapping - Productivity Improvement

Business Process Mapping BPM

Business Process Mapping (or BPM) details the steps a business takes to complete a process;

a process could include;

• setting up a new client on a CRM system,
• manufacturing a product,
• hiring an employee,
• shipping a product.

A Business Process Map shows the “what”, “when” (the sequence),“where”, and “how” for these steps in the process, and help to understand and to begin to analyse the “why.”

The ONE Insight Only Your Business Process Map Can Tell You!

Your business process map will tell you lots of things as we've mentioned. There is one insight you should gain from your BPM, business process mapping, activity you may never see any where else.

How long does the map take to complete? 

NOTE: this isn't how long does each activity, step take BUT how long does the process take in total? from start to finish?

Think about the process of buying a house through a solicitor;

For most of us the individual activities will only total 4 hours.

The Process Map, the process of buying a house, from the moment we talk to a solicitor; takes 10 weeks to complete because of delays between the activities.

Think about that; the steps, activities that make up buying a house using a solicitor total 4 hours but take 10 weeks to deliver!

If you have a process you're thinking of mapping - STOP! think how long it takes from start to finish, then check.

The ONE Problem Business Process Maps Should Always Uncover 

There is one small problem with processes in businesses;

Processes change! 

people change them - often to try and make them better but often with unintended consequences. 

As a business owner or department head you may have put processes in place, when you first started.  It's inevitable that these will have been changed, altered, or even misunderstood by those who have followed you. 

People who come after you will have a different view and these differences mean that 

1. Work is completed in a different, often longer, sequence to the one you designed,
2. Work takes different times, depending on who does it - due to their training on or knowledge of the process and who changed it,  
3. Work is produced to different quality standards, again depending who completes the process. 

What does that mean for YOU and your CUSTOMERS?  

• If they can't be certain of the quality of the steps in the process, 
• If you can't be certain what each step will be,
• If you can't be certain of the order of the steps,
• If you don't know how long each activity now takes.

If you can't do the above then it's likely you've introduced risk into your business, with that comes costs.

You've also introduced variation which means the customers can't receive your best service, not the one you want anyway.

You're also at risk of losing the chance to plan and work out the capacity of what you can deliver.

It's often usual to even find that staff can't agree where a process actually begins and ends. It's also usual to find that staff don't agree on the names for the major steps in the process.

Think about a simple example, Staff Recruitment; 

does it start with the advert? or the agreement to recruit the member of staff?

Levantar Business Process Mapping

Levantar provide Business Process Mapping solutions that help individuals, departments, businesses to understand the reality of their processes. They can  be used as part of a wider continuous improvement programme or consulting project or to help with training improvement techniques. 

We do this for a range of organisations and departments from Law Firms, to Manufacturing, Engineering to Accounting teams, through to Energy companies.

We also share our knowledge on this subject with students at Leeds University Business School and those on the Goldman Sachs 10KSB programme.

Want to find out more? Fill in the form below to contact Mark Greenhouse for a free chat about how we can help.

Or read about our Business Process Mapping Tips here

He'll get back to you in the next 24 hours.

Providing Productivity Improvement Workshops to Leeds University and Goldman Sachs

Why are Business Process Maps Important?

The building of Business Process Maps means that you draw out from staff their  different interpretations of the process. 

As a first step this will make communication about the process easier.

Once you've got an agreed way - the correct steps in the correct order then you can at least ensure everyone knows what needs to be done, when; that's progress

The next step is to look at how you can improve the steps;

• remove the duplicated steps,
• fix the steps that are broken, poor quality
• identify which steps are bottlenecks
• the steps that no longer add value.

In our experience the best way to improve is to turn your Business Process Map into a Value Stream Map.

If you'd like to explore the problems that many organisations have with Processes - feel free to request our Guide to Frustrations - STOP Throwing Time and Effort Away!

These are the things we have discovered,  during our years helping others, that stop processes from working, as we'd like. The things that frustrate you, your colleagues, your customers.

LEVANTAR     (verb) - to lift, to raise up

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