Is there a trick for process mapping?

[Processingprocesses]

My manager is obsessed with processes. I'm 3 weeks in and he'd rather me go and "find out the process, write up on it and present to me with your findings" rather than me actually doing any work.

There's so much to do. It's a huge company and my new colleagues are drowning and yet I'm expected to process map their entire jobs 😂 (this wasn't the job I applied for!)

It's doing my head in. And it's making me hate my job. Please tell me if there's am easy way to process mapping?

Brand new industry, brand new job with a billion processes and a billion acronyms.

My manager also loves a spreadsheet about a spreadsheet. And a meeting about meetings.

You know the type. Help me survive 🙏

Well yes. But the man who employed me is also the man who delegates my work - if he says "process map this" then ultimately, as a very new employee - I ought to do what he says.

I'd quite like to pass my probation ya know 😂

As I understand it, our team is likely to double in the next 12 months so I need to process map what we (my busy colleagues) do - so we can train new people more effectively.

But I guess it's also a great way to learn the business 🤔

I just wish I could crack on with doing other things.

Yeah I use lucidchart too and Miro.

I would double check then if he wants a process map or desktop procedures. Does everyone in the team do the same thing?

Hi @Resentful2023 - everyone does different jobs. Engineers and scientists

So I think it'd be worth, as others have said, to really understand the purpose and how they'd be used. If it's just to get new people up to speed on the whole team and who does what then it's probably fairly high level and you can stick to the happy path and PowerPoint would be good enough to document.

Is the manager asking you to process-map because he doesn't actually understand what the team members are doing?

When process mapping across teams, as a start point I consider:

What needs doing
Why is this beneficial
How does it get done
Who does what
When do they do it

Some additional tips to add to what's already been suggested:

youTube is worth checking out, as there are some very nice, easily digestible short tutorials to get started. Believe me, once you get the Process Mapping bug, you'll be addicted (My name is Daisychain and I'm a business process addict

Heres a collection of process mapping tutorials (I hope this link works)

Visio (or equivalent free-ware) make short work of drawing the boxes and arrows, or building swimlanes. If I were in your situation I would be putting in a business case to your manager to get a licence. If your company uses O365, you might be able to get it added onto your corporate license so others get to use it and build the skills wider than just you (gives you a stronger case to invest).

Simplistically, in each of your process boxes, you should restrict the description to a verb (active, doing word) and a noun (a thing) eg:

• Review business case > update financials > submit business case > approve business case
• Enter order details
• Ship order
• Issue Agenda
• Capture actions
• Allocate responsibilities

if your process gets to a point where a decision, a choice eg different actions or options need to be taken, use a diamond shape and have arrows coming off the diamond points eg Yes (if Y, go in this direction) or No (if No, go in this other direction). Get a colleague (ideally the subject matter expert) to read out your process and make sure they agree with the logical flow. If not, get them to tell you what is missing or wrongly stated so you can correct it.

You will never get your process right first time, that's OK it will always need to be tweaked. That's the point. Make a start and build on it. Set up a workshop if you need several people involved and inputting into your process.

Always give your process map a title to increase understanding and context "Sales Order Process" "Financial approvals Process" "Paperclip purchasing Process".

British Computer Society (BCS) does a Process Modelling module - if your manager wants you doing processes, it's worth getting some proper training.

https://www.bcs.org/qualifications-and-certifications/certifications-for-professionals/business-analysis/practitioner-certificate-in-modelling-business-processes/

Anyone else slightly miss the days of running a roll of paper around the room and process mapping on the wall in a group before finessing it on Visio? Back when group meetings in offices were still common.

I don't need to miss it @CyberCritical traditional ways are the best as far as I'm concerned - working it out manually in a group first rather than digitally is quicker in the long run. Roll of Kraft paper, blutac Sharpies and industrial volumes of Postit notes are the way to go

🎶I'm all alone, there's no one here beeeesssssides me🎶

I've been 100% WFH since 2020, so it's all Teams calls and shared documents on OneDrive. I do have a whiteboard above my desk that's regularly used to plot out a post it process map, but it's just not quite the same as having 10 people shut in a room, getting progressively more manic and 'oh oh oh, but what if xxx happens, what then?' As the hours pass by.

Ah in that case you have a point

I have been back in the office for nearly 2 years so I'm out of touch h with all the 100 % wfh. I would be crawling up the electronic whiteboard walls

@CyberCritical @daisychain01 Those of you who are actually working in process mapping deliberately, do you mind me asking how did you get into the field? Is it a realistic transition for someone in a different profession or does it require an existing background/qualifications/skillset? What kind of roles include this?

This thread has just set me wondering because it sounds like something I might like - but I didn't even know it was a possibility as a job of its own. Like the op, it's just something that occasionally gets dabbled in briefly.

I will obviously investigate further myself but thought it would be good to hear from people too if anybody was happy to do so.

It’s not a complete job. I do it as part of being a business analyst - which everyone seems to think is easy, and if you have worked in a department you can become a business analyst.

The whole point of doing business process diagrams, is that you do an “as is” and a “to be”, and to be able to justify the change, the cost of change and the benefits if the change.

You need to sell that vision to the business, defend it to the tech team and deliver the change with the ability to monitor the benefits you have promised. Drawing pretty diagrams is 10% of the role.

I'm in Info Sec, Governance, Risk & Compliance, so process mapping is part of what I do but not a main component, it's more a tool/methodology that's used to identify where a process might be likely to fall apart, or help to improve competence and ensure consistency.

@BrightLightTonight Thank you for explaining. Sorry if I misunderstood or expressed myself badly, I didn't mean to suggest it was an easy option or anything like that. I would always have considered Business Analyst to be a job for people far smarter than me, I certainly wasn't thinking anything on this thread was something I could casually stroll into.

Was just wondering if there was a field out there that I could work towards that would be a better fit for me / that I could eventually do okay at, that's all.

@CyberCritical Thank you, I appreciate the reply.

@user1846385927482658 it is definitely a learnable skill and something you can learn without being in the job. In my opinion it's not something that requires particularly strong IT skills or qualifications but it does require a certain personality type/mindset.

You need to question everything and you need to be able to follow a logical trail.

For example, you want to process map your husband doing the washing up.

You ask him, what are the steps to wash up? He says:

• go to sink
• turn on tap
• add bubbles
• put dirty stuff in sink
• rub with dish brush
• put clean stuff on draining board.

You can map that, it's nice and neat, simple linear process, short and sweet. Or you can question it.

• so what happens if the fairy liquid bottle is empty?
• what do you do with the pan you've left encrusted and mouldering for 3 days, is it the same process, are there extra steps?
• do you dry the pots or just leave on the draining board?
• can everything just be washed in the sink or does anything need rinsing?

.....

If you ask questions you end up with decisions that need to be added, those decisions lead you into loops, or down 2 divergent parallel paths, you may identify that there are pre-requisites that need to be in place before your process can start, ie someone needs to have bought fairy liquid and set the hot water heater to come on.

You'll also find common failure points and process inefficiencies ie he always starts the washing up during an advert break so never actually finishes it or he doesn't rinse glasses so they have to go back into the dirty pile causing duplication.

I had a process improvement role for a bit - quite a lot of process mapping involved in that but you would generally need project management skills to lead the project. Most team members would come from the existing workforce so not a separate role as such.

Actually intelligence in the 'generally understood' sense can be a hindrance. I've worked with many people who understood things quickly, almost intuitively. However they couldn't work out how to explain things to other people, or even 'why' other people didn't understand.

You need a strong sense of logic and excellent communication skills more than 'raw intelligence'. Also the stubbornness to dig into the details and organisation skills to keep it all together!

If you are creative/instinctive instead of detail oriented and don't like following a strict chain of reasoning yes this field isn't for you. But 'not intelligent enough'... that won't really be an issue. Intelligence is about processing speed as well and slow processors (like me) aren't stupid we just take a bit of time! Because I slow down and think, and never assume I am quite good at finding the holes in logic. While many others have sped ahead, assuming that we're all on the same page when really, each person has a different idea!

If you take the OPs situation, they have almost stumbled into the process mapping because their manager wants them to document and formalise what people in the department do.

so, likewise can you position yourself in your organisation as someone who is interested in peoples roles, the jobs they do and what their cor activities are. It's a way of adding value.

and please don't think about yourself as not being bright enough. Everyone has to start somewhere, we've all learned the skill by doing it, being trained on it and showing the value it can add to organisations.

It's a very flexible skill so there's no specific profession that needs process mapping, although IT, business management and organisational design roles very often need those skills. I'd say the best way to get into it, is to be in the right organisation where there's a lot of complexity - process mapping helps to make sense of the work people do, and offer improvements opportunities. It can help identify and cut out waste from processes (that's a discipline called Lean Sigma).

I do a reasonable amount of process mapping. There are standard conventions, and Visio is the tool for documenting proper processes, especially in the production area of our business.

however, for my own local processes I prefer mural. It’s way more creative and I can get the visual process sorted before resorting to Visio if required.

Over the years in various roles process mapping became my role for the organisation, so much so I was creating them for everyone. Visio being my go too and no one else wanting to learn!

Recently with a new project I have started to use a simplistic approach with Excel and an AS-IS process - document all the steps like "bake a cake". In a list with three columns -- Step # - What is done - by Whom.

Positive others found this is easier, relatable with software that's familiar and have started to use the template.