How can you help me with my business processes?
A business process is never the first thing people think of when setting up a new business, and their sole focus is getting up and running as quickly as possible. As time goes by, ways of working start to become established and a normal rhythm are established. But how often do business owners stop and look and see if those ways of working or to put is another way processes are working? Are they documented? Are they efficient?
This where Process Envision come in.
discover
Most people don’t consider what they do to be part of a business process – it’s just what they do as part of the day to day job. Once they do a piece of work, it is saved somewhere, or items are produced or sent out, and that is the end of it for them. But this is not the end. It is the beginning for the next person to conduct their task.
The concept of process mapping is, at its core, quite simple, and it is about identifying the steps to produce an output.
Finding out all of the steps in a flow is an art rather than a science. When you perform tasks every day and are asked to describe them, we find people miss-steps, assume something has already been done or include a part of the process that is not theirs.
This is where we can help. Being independent of the organisation, we are removed from any office politics or assumed knowledge. We always ask:
- Why is the task done?
- What is the output?
- Where does it go?
define
Facilitated workshops are ideal for capturing the process independent of any software tool used. A term often used in business analysis circles is the ‘end-to-end’ process.
- HR - Vacancy to Hire
- Supply chain - Purchase to Pay
- Operations - Enquiry to Order fulfilment
Businesses will have many of these processes, but they may not link up seamlessly. If an organisation has been running for some time, there may be many different ways to complete a task with some being more efficient than others.
This define phase, with the right stakeholders in the room, provides an opportunity for everyone to share best practice and agree a common way forward.
Document
Regardless of which software platform you use to document your process, a common methodology and level of detail must be used for all of your processes and associated tasks and procedures.
A well-documented process should barely be noticed, and by that, we mean the user has obtained the information and effortlessly, enabling them to carry on with the task they were trying to do.
Our team have extensive experience in documenting processes from all industries and sectors.