smalBiz
- 1. Process Mapping towards Process Improvement for the Small Business Owner A quick and usable primer from SeaLight,LLC
- 2. Is This Your Company? You have bottlenecks that are preventing you from producing your best product. Things that should be quick, take forever. You’re not able to keep up with customer demand.
- 3. Why Improve your Business Processes? Reason 1 Good process leads to happy employees who produce better product, have more customer loyalty, and who are more innovative and creative...all of which leads to sustained revenue.
- 4. Why Improve? Reason 2 Just to have more fun at work
- 5. Why Improve? Reason 3 To prevent the TEAM CYCLE OF DEATH (next slide)>>>>>
- 7. Why Improve? Reason 4 To outperform everyone else
- 8. Can You Improve Without Business Process Mapping? If you’re lucky If you have about 5 people in your company who are all co-located and communicate with each other constantly
- 9. Why Process Mapping? Reason 1 Process Mapping enables great output. Without it, none of these things would have happened.
- 10. The shoes alone are reason enough but we’ll go on...
- 11. Why Process Mapping? Reason 2 A picture is worth a thousand words
- 12. Why Process Mapping? Reason 3 Process Mapping gives you a framework and a visual to describe what’s happening
- 13. Why Process Mapping? Reason 4 Once it’s clear and visual, you can figure out where to make it better, quickly
- 14. So How Do You Start? Process Mapping and Process Improvement In 7 Sort of Easy Steps
- 15. Step 1: Describe Your Pain Describe your pain in clear language
- 16. Step 1 Directions: Keep it Simple and Specific. Describe in terms of capabilities; in other words, what you are no longer or not capable of doing. Format: We are not able to _____ because ______. Sample: We are not able to get timely payments from our customers because it takes us too long to send invoices. (Step 1 is also called the ‘Current State’)
- 17. Step 2: Visualize Your Goal Describe how it should be
- 18. Step 2 Directions: Again, keep it Simple and Specific. Describe in terms of capabilities you should have; in other words, what you want to be capable of doing. And include a measurement - something to prove you’ve got it. Format: We are able to _____ as measured by ______. Sample: We are able to get timely payments from our customers as measured by the fact that it only takes us 1 week to process invoices. Note the desired end result and the measurement - This is your goal!
- 19. Step 3: Create A Map Create a map with boundaries, actors, processes, decisions, and swimlanes
- 20. Step 3 Caveat Ok - so this is the part that is sort of easy (as opposed to just easy). There are a few key concepts to learn. But you’re smart -you’ll do fine. Here we go...
- 21. Step 3 Concepts There are a few pieces to every process map. Actors These are the people or systems that perform an activity in the process. Process Steps These are the activities the actors perform. These are expressed as verbs. Decision Points These are the places in the process where the process can change direction based on a decision. Boundaries These tell us where the process starts and stops.
- 22. Step 3 Mapping Tools The Actor has a Lane - Called A Swimlane The Process Steps are Rectangles Process The Decision Points are Diamonds Decision The Boundaries are Ovals Start/Stop
- 23. Step 3: Putting it All Together Sample Process. Two Actors. Actor 2 performs a Process Step in his swimlane, which then goes to Actor 1, who makes a decision in her swimlane. Boundaries define the start and stop. Lines indicate the flow.
- 24. Step 3 Directions Figure out the Boundary. Where is the logical start of the process? Where is the logical end? These become your start and stop ovals. Figure out the Actors. Who participates in the Process? These become your swimlanes. Describe each Process step. What does each actor do? What decisions to they have to make? These become your Process Steps and Decision Points. Finally, put each Actor’s steps in their lane. Draw lines between the steps.
- 25. Step 4: Add Visual to the Problem Areas Figure out problem areas with Red, Amber, Green analysis
- 26. Step 4 Directions. Color code steps and decision points as follows: Red - Takes a really long time Amber - Takes a medium amount of time Green - Super quick. Blink and you miss it.
- 27. Step 5: Analyze The Map Figure out if there are any unnecessary issues...er...steps
- 28. Step 5 Directions Look at the Process Map and ask these questions. Why are we doing this step? Are all the decision points necessary? Are all the actors necessary? What changes can we make to remove steps or decision points? Make notes about what you find.
- 29. Step 6: Design the New Map Use the goal from step 2 and your findings from step 5 to create a new map
- 30. Step 6 Directions Revisit your goal in light of your findings. Ask yourself what needs to change in your process to reach your goal. Draw a new map as if the changes have already occurred, removing steps that are not needed. The new map represents the Future State process. It hasn’t happened yet, but if it does, you have visually mapped out the new process, so teaching the process will be easier, as will getting approval to implement the process.
- 31. Step 7 Run it and Adapt it Run the process and make changes as needed
- 32. A Real World Example Company ABC takes 2 weeks on average to process one invoice. They want to get that down to 2 days.
- 33. Step 3 - The Current State Process Map 4 Actors, 7 Process Steps, 3 Decision Points
- 34. Step 4 - Red, Amber Green Analysis We can now see where the bottlenecks are; in approval for employee overtime and approval by the company president
- 35. Step 6 Analysis - This company decided to revamp it’s overtime approval procedures, thereby pulling overtime approval completely out of the invoice process. They also decided to delegate invoice approval to managers, because the president was too busy.
- 36. Step 7 - Future State Process Map With all those steps gone, the process is streamlined and the company reduces process time from 2 weeks to 2 days
- 37. Rules of Thumb for Making a New Process Stick Company Leaders must set the example and follow the process first. Process Maps should be documented and shared with all actors in the process as far in advance of process implementation as you can muster - In other words, don’t surprise ‘em. Beware stagnation - There is such a thing as too much process. Don’t do process for process‘ sake.
- 38. Thanks for Staying This Long! Fine Print: Business Process Management is a discipline with many methods and tools. This presentation offers a few of those methods. To understand more visit www.abpmp.org. If you need help with your processes, contact us at info@sealightllc.com or call 301-842-4177. www.sealightllc.com