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Simple activity based costing is used for a wide variety of projects. Everything from identifying waste in processes through to building business cases for change and transformation programmes.

You’ll find there are many different approaches available so you may be asking yourself which is best for you? In this article we explore the simplest form of activity based costing which will typically suit 80% of uses. Plus it will get you to an answer far quicker than a more advanced approach.

So let’s start with some basics:

What is Activity Based Costing?

Also commonly known as ABC, simple activity based costing lets you calculate the aggregate cost of a given set of activities, in other words a process. This means the total cost of all the inputs such as materials required, time taken and the cost of people.

You use activity based costing to calculate the costs for each activity and add them together to get the total cost. This allows you to quickly identify problems in the process.

Often referred to as bottlenecks, these problems typically demonstrate where too much time or money is wasted. 

One common example is where an activity is repeated a number of times because it wasn’t done properly in the first place. This is called rework and happens when the work isn’t carried out to the correct level of quality. The work is passed back to the person that originally did it, so that they must do it again.

Another example is when the work is excessively manual and should be simplified or automated. Think about the times you have spent manually copying data from one system to another, from emails into spreadsheets etc.

These problems, and many more, are quickly highlighted when simple activity based costing is used. Once you have your model in place you can even start to use it to simulate the impact of changes. What would happen if you removed a specific step? How much could you potentially save by automating certain activities? You can estimate this with a good degree of certainty without having to start the hard work of changing things.

What is Simple Activity Based Costing?

Simple activity based costing focuses on the basics and asks these questions:

• What are the key activities? 
• Who does the activities?
• What are the costs of the people doing the activities?
• How long does each activity take?
• What are the direct costs, e.g. the cost of materials to complete the activity?

The benefit of keeping it simple is that you can do it quickly and still get 80% of the answer you need. Which, in most cases, is more than enough to make key decisions.

How to do Simple Activity Based Costing

To perform simple activity based costing you need to:

1. List the key activities – the easiest way to do this is to map the process (check out process mapping guide if you’re new to process mapping).
2. Identify who does it – list the roles against each step of the process (if more then one role is involved you may want to use a roles & responsibilities model such as RACI – find out more here).
3. Determine how long each activity takes – this will be easier for some activities than others. If there is a high degree of variability then try to work out the most common pattern. If it can take between 1 and 10 minutes, is it more likely to take 1 minute than 10, if so, use a duration that is closer to 1 minute.
4. List any direct costs associated with each activity – these are material costs. e.g. if you are sending out letters then the direct costs would include the cost of the envelopes, paper and stamps.
5. Calculate the hourly cost of each role – staff may be paid hourly or through a salary so you will need to calculate the hourly rate based on how many hours a salaried employee typically works per week and how many days per year. You should also include any additional costs to the business that are incurred by each employee. This may include tax, pensions, health insurance and any other benefits that give you the true cost of an employee.

Once you have all the information above the cost of each activity is calculated by:

(Duration X Hourly Cost of the person performing the activity) + Direct Costs = Activity Cost

The sum of all activities will give you the total cost of the process.

Simple Activity Based Costing with Skore

Skore software is designed to make it simple and easy to map and analyse business processes. You can map a very simple process quickly with all the key steps and people displayed visually.

With Skore you can easily enter the durations and direct costs against each step in the attachments panel. Then you can add the hourly cost against each role.

As soon as you enter this data the Quantify dashboard in Skore will show you durations and costs of your process. It also provides further analysis to help you understand the breakdown of costs at each step. This is based on whether it relates to role costs or material costs.

Once you have this view of the process costs you can start to experiment by removing activities or changing roles to see the impact on cost.

Skore also provides further insights to help you identify bottlenecks and even simulate the impact of changes in capacity. 

To learn more about Skore Quantify check out these videos for a complete overview.

What to Remember

Simple activity based costing is a powerful tool to help you quickly identify ways to improve work in your business. More than that, it will help you build a compelling business case for fixing problems or making things even better.

• Use simple activity based costing when you believe a process can be improved but you’re not sure how or need to justify the cost of fixing it.
• The data you use does not have to be perfect but it should be close to what happens most of the time.
• The power of simple activity based costing is not to give you exact durations and costs, but to allow you to see the size of changes. In other words, are you making a 10% cost saving versus a 60% cost saving.

Want to learn more about using Skore to deliver world class improvements to your business? We’d love to hear from you and share more about how we can help you achieve your goals. Take a free trial to get started.

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Process mapping is one of the most powerful tools for problem solving, investigation and generally improving businesses. However, many of us still make simple Process Mapping mistakes. It is for this reason that stakeholders and subject matter experts can sometimes be resistant to take part or support you.

To make things as easy as possible, do your best to avoid these most common mistakes when process mapping.

1. Using the wrong approach

There are many different ways to process map from basic flowcharting, Universal Process Notation (UPN) or even Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN). They each have their own strengths and weaknesses, so make sure you have chosen the right one.

If you’re working with a technical audience, mapping processes that require technical data, then BPMN might be a suitable solution. But imagine if you are working with busy, non-technical business stakeholders. They will not have much patience for processes using a complex array of shapes and symbols that they don’t understand. A common process mapping mistake is to assume that everyone understands the same things that you do.

With this sort of audience you’re going to want to use something much simpler. Something they will find easy to read with very little to no training.

You should also consider how you are going to use technology to map the process. Are you going to map the processes straight into a software tool and share them at the end of the workshop? If that’s the case then an approach like UPN is going to be much more effective.

UPN is so simple you can use it to map the process directly into your software in a real conversation. And you can do this without interrupting the flow of thought. At the same time it is rigorous enough to capture all the details required for virtually any project.

If you are working with lots of different stakeholders, from different teams, then it’s best to choose just one approach. This should be whatever suits the least technical person in the room.

Skore has been designed to map processes at the speed of conversation in live and remote workshops – take a free trial and try it out today today >>

2. Not being clear about the purpose and benefits

To get your stakeholders to take part you need to give them a good reason to do so. You might be able to get people to agree to a short meeting without any reason but if you’re asking them to give up several hours they need to understand the concrete benefits. Many people make the process mapping mistake of not being clear enough from the very beginning.

You normally map processes as part of a wider change initiative, project or programme. We recommend therefore that you start with the objective and benefits of that project. The chances are the stakeholder has already heard about it but there’s no harm in repeating and aligning yourself to it.

Next be clear about why process mapping is needed and why these stakeholders input in particular is required. For example – is it because you are trying to uncover the existing pains in the process? Trying to build a business case for changes? Or identifying the key requirements for a new system?

Finally, share with them any benefits that will directly impact them. Are you removing problems that directly affect them or making some part of their role easier in the future?

Stakeholders are much more likely to engage if they can see a clear benefit that directly affects them.

Check out our guide for preparing and running process workshops >>

3. Not agreeing the title and scope up front

Once your stakeholders are aware of why you’re mapping their process it’s time to be clear about exactly what you will be mapping. Take your time to consider the following – which process are you asking them to tell you about? Is it something high level such as the sales or marketing process? Or is it going to be something more detailed like completing an order?

The scope of the process tells everyone where it starts, i.e. what triggers it to begin, and where it ends. Start mapping without a scope defined is a guaranteed process mapping mistake. Firstly you’ll waste a lot of precious time at the beginning of the workshop discussing this. Secondly, you will find the conversation going way outside the scope of the process again which can frustrate and disengage your participants.

You don’t need to agree on the perfect scope up front because you’re unlikely to know what that is until you’ve mapped the process. However you do want to start with something that helps focus everyone on this process and not to go off in different directions.

This simple How To guide introduces the basics of mapping processes >>

4. Not involving the right stakeholders

Without the various stakeholders and subject matter experts there would be no process to map. In addition we would suggest identifying and involving the right stakeholders in the first place is as important as knowing which process to map.

Having identified the process, the objectives, benefits and scope you’ll probably have a good idea about who the first people to invite are. They’ll be the real experts and people with the knowledge of how things actually get done. But don’t make the process mapping mistakes of not considering who is missing.

Having the experts in the room is great, but having someone that actually feels the pain of the process will be invaluable. Whether it’s someone doing the process, or someone on the receiving end, they will be able to articulate the issues from a personal level. This will help with how you communicate that to others in a recognisable and human way.

Another type of stakeholder that’s worth involving are those that are influential within the teams. They might not be very senior but they are the sort of people that others will listen to. Finding and involving these people will help you understand how they are likely to influence colleagues. Getting them onboard with any change will reduce the chance of any resistance as the project progresses.

5. Taking too long

Everyone’s time is precious and if you’ve put all the effort in to get everything else right you definitely don’t want to squander it by wasting people’s time. To make things even harder you have a very narrow window in which to keep people engaged. 

As soon as everyone leaves the room after a workshop they will be focused back on their day jobs and all the useful discussion around the process will quickly fade away. If you need to follow up with additional questions or require further feedback from the participants you need to do it quickly.

If you plan to capture the discussion as notes and then write the process up afterwards be sure to start immediately after the workshop has finished. You want to get the process map out to the participants within hours of finishing while it’s still fresh in their minds.

Ideally you capture the process with them live during the workshop and straight into a tool so that the maps can be shared straight away at the end. But here too you need to be careful not to waste time. Avoid the situation where the participants are waiting around for you to put boxes on the screen and move them around. They will quickly lose interest and engagement.

Either have someone else in the room mapping the process in another tool, so that it can be shared at the end. Or, use a UPN based software such as Skore that can be used to map the process at the speed of conversation. This ensures that the discussions flow easily, everyone can immediately see the process represented and can access it the minute the workshop is finished.

Want to learn more about how to use Skore to capture and analyse processes live in a workshop? Why not take a free trial>>

Avoiding Common Process Mapping Mistakes – remember this!

The most important thing to remember, when embarking on a process mapping exercise, is that your stakeholders and subject matter experts are the most important piece of the puzzle. Without them you cannot get an accurate picture of the process.

Not only that but if you don’t get them on board with what you’re doing they will be resistant to any change that results from the work you are doing – and that is one of the biggest process mapping mistakes to make! It’s essential to put them first and think about how you can make their lives as easy as possible. The more you make it easier for them the more they will make it easier for you.

Looking for a powerfully simple solution for process mapping, analysis and improvement?

In this blog we’ll explore how to create your first to-be process. We’ll also make sure that you include all the information you need to ensure your process map is a success. To understand how to map a To-Be Process, we first need to make sure that we’re clear about what we mean by a to-be process.

In the world of process mapping, and process improvement, To-Be process mapping is all about designing new processes that the organisation isn’t doing today. Another common name for To-Be processes is ‘Future state’.

This is the opposite to an As-Is process, which is a process map of what’s happening right now or what we call the ‘Current state’.

Before we start looking at how to map a To-Be process you may want to check out some of our related guides:

• What’s the difference between To-Be and As-Is, and when to use one over the other. 
• Our Complete Process Mapping Guide.

Consider this before you start mapping your To-Be Process

First things first, do you know why you need to map a to-be process? To understand how to map a to-be process you must understand what outcome or goal you expect this new process to deliver.

Let’s take an example, imagine you are implementing a new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to support the work of your sales team. The goal of this future process might be to make it easier for your sales team to gather and analyse intelligence on customers and prospects. It could also make reporting easier so that sales aren’t spending lots of time creating reports when they could be out selling.

So now you know why you’re designing this new process and can get started. Bring the team together to brainstorm ideas including experts from your sales team, IT and anyone who has involvement in the process.

These ideas will be your guiding principles once you start mapping your To-Be process. Once you’ve learnt how to map a to-be process you can check your process against these ideas. It will be easy to see whether you have achieved them or not.

How to map a to-be process

With the goal of the process, and your ideas and design principles laid out, you can start mapping your To-Be process. As this is a new process it’s important to focus on the work required to deliver the goal.

One tip is to avoid talking about who does the process until you have mapped out all the work. This helps prevent the team from reverting back to the current process and focuses on what you want to achieve in the future.

To start you should map out the key activities in the process. Map out the steps required to reach the goal and the order they happen in. With a To-Be process it’s often easier to start with the very high level steps, or stages, and then break them down into detail later on.

A high level process captured in Skore

Want to know how to map a process? Check out this short ‘How to map processes’ guide here.

Define the perfect roles

Only once you’ve mapped out all the activities in the process should you start thinking about the roles that are needed to perform them. Again, it’s highly recommended that you start by avoiding the job titles that people have today and think about what an ideal set of roles would be in perfect future.

Remember you can start this activity as a discussion to list out a set of roles and then apply them to the process map. This involves working through the process again and assigning at least one role, or system, to every activity.

Refine the roles

Your to-be process map is now almost complete. However it’s important to review the roles you’ve applied to ensure they make sense. In other words, look at all the work each role has to do in the process. Check – does each role have enough work? Or, do some roles have too much work?

If possible use a software that extracts the roles from the process, or can provide a visualisation of the roles against the processes, such as Skore.

Roles and Responsibilities analysis in Skore

Want to see how this is done in Skore? Check out our People change management guide here.

Review each role and then adjust them so that they make more sense. Start with the roles that have too many tasks and start to share these out to roles that have fewer. Then look at the roles with very little work and see if that can be done by others.

What else do you need?

The final thing to consider is what other information do you need to gather for this process. That will depend on why you are mapping this to-be process. If we take a look again at our example of the CRM we could consider what key requirements from the system we need. These could be reports and therefore we would need to consider what sort of data needs to be collected and in what steps of the process.

You can then work systematically through the process to ensure you have everything you need to start building and running your new process.

Things to remember

When learning how to map a to-be process it’s a bit like looking into the future. You’re creating a model of what the work will actually look like when it’s up and running. To get there in the shortest amount of time and with the least number of problems then it’s worth applying these key things:

• Be clear about the goals and objectives for the To-Be process and check back often to make sure the design you are creating will deliver them
• Always define the activities BEFORE the roles, this ensures you don’t confuse what’s happening today with what the future will look like
• Go through your design several times to ensure it makes sense. Following the steps above, in this order, will give you plenty of opportunity to adjust and improve the design before it’s finished

Want to quickly engage stakeholders with a simple approach that can be used to map and analyse processes live? Start your free trial with Skore today.

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Whatever the reason you are mapping processes, it is essential that you are clear on whether you are mapping the As-Is or the To-Be process. In this article we explore the difference between As-Is and To-Be and provide a series of questions to ask yourself to help decide.

We’ll help you determine whether you need to start mapping the As-Is process or whether it’s safe to jump straight to the To-Be. With this information you can confidently agree the approach BEFORE you start working on the processes and avoid distracting and time consuming debates at the beginning of a workshop.

What do we mean by As-Is and To-Be?

Let’s go back to the very beginning and make sure we’re clear about how we define As Is and To Be. In this case we are talking about business processes and the need to map and understand them. 

As-Is process mapping is about understanding the here and now. It tries to answer the question;

• What is happening in this process right now?
• How does it work today?

As-Is process mapping is also known as the Current State and can include lots of other information about the business.

To-Be process mapping is where we start to explore the future. This time it’s trying to answer the question; 

• How should this process work tomorrow?

You may hear To-Be process mapping called Process Design, or Future State mapping. It might be that we are making minor improvements to an existing process, or designing a process that doesn’t even exist today.

The disagreement many have is whether there is value in spending time documenting the As-Is or whether you should jump straight to the To-Be. As we discuss today this decision really depends on the individual project but it’s up to you to make that clear from the beginning. 

Why are you mapping processes?

The first thing you need to ask yourself is – what are you mapping these processes for? These typically break down into the following types of process mapping; 

• investigation to see what can be improved 
• documenting for compliance / quality / training reasons,
• understanding requirements for an improvement or designing a completely new process.

Be aware that only designing a completely new process can legitimately have a case for going straight to a To-Be. Even if this is the case, you’d need to do some investigation beforehand to understand what the business already knows about this area. You may need to understand if there are any constraints but this doesn’t necessarily require process mapping.

Mapping processes purely for the purpose of creating and maintaining documentation, such as for training or consistency reasons suggests an As-Is approach. However, you may well be documenting processes for the first time. In which case you are capturing As-Is processes but with small improvements as the teams come together and learn from each other and discuss the best way to do things. You are building a future state process but I tend to call it the As-Is Plus.

The other two types of project, investigation and requirements gathering absolutely need some degree of As-Is capture and analysis.

There may be a problem in recognising the value of conducting the exercise. It can be time consuming and focuses too much on the past when everyone is excited about the future of the project. However, it is important for us to understand the here and now so we can understand what needs to change.

So any project that aims to change the way something works today really needs some level of As-Is understanding.

Do we really understand today’s problems?

Building a shared understanding of the problems you’re trying to solve is essential for success. When we understand today’s problems people will buy into the need for change. However one of the biggest challenges here is whether people have the same perception of those problems.

People normally describe problems in terms of the symptoms they experience. As analysts, part of our job is to help identify the root cause of those problems. But if we do that away from the stakeholders they will still see the symptoms they experience as different problems. Our job is to show stakeholders how a solution will solve the problem and relieve their symptoms.

One of the most powerful aspects of process mapping in a workshop environment is that it aligns people firstly around the work that happens and then gives them space to have a conversation about it.

Understanding today’s problems is not just about the project team, it’s also about ensuring everyone else shares that understanding. As-Is process maps are a powerful way of investigating and validating problems with the wider business. Indeed that workshop you organise and the conclusions you make together is key to ensuring that everyone is on the same page going forward. 

Is there a clear business case for all stakeholders?

Having identified and clarified the problems it’s possible to build a business case for improving. The impact of those problems can be measured and then used to assess the viability of potential solutions.

The point here is to ensure that there is a clear business case at all levels. A business case that increases revenue or profits is great but if it requires individual stakeholders to work harder with no additional pay they may not be so keen to implement it.

This is why having alignment on the problems is so important, it allows you to understand how each problem impacts individuals and therefore create a clear business case at each level.

Are all the constraints and risks understood?

Many projects miss important deadlines when a key constraint is only identified in the final stages. Constraints could be anything from legal requirements to legacy technology and it’s essential to know what these are as early as possible.

Again, one of the most powerful aspects of As-Is process mapping is that it provides a simple clear language for lots of different stakeholders to align against. This makes it that much easier to have focused conversations about what might prevent any solution being implemented.

Is Change Management required?

Here we focus on implementation plans. What do we need to know to make sure that the project will be a success, where are the gaps and how are we going to fill them?

The only way to truly identify the gaps is again to understand how things work today, who does them and what with? That is an As-Is process. You need that in order to compare it to your To-Be to identify the gaps in personnel, skills, systems and so much more.

Conclusion – As Is or To Be?

If you answer yes to any of these questions the chances are you need some sort of As-Is process before continuing, The cost of not doing so can be expensive. It is your role to ensure that the business understands the value in taking the time to go through the As Is. The key is to address that question up front, as part of your introduction: “today we are here to map the …. because this will give us ….”Making sure that is understood before your workshop kicks off will save you valuable time and ensure stakeholder satisfaction. 

Skore has been designed specifically to make process discovery and analysis easy. It uses UPN (Universal Process Notation) – the simplest way to describe a process. This means that everyone can understand and create a process map. All you need to know is how to describe what happens and why. Its simple to map out processes as people describe their actions.

Any data such as roles, software used, durations, costs, risks, requirements and many more can be captured against the process and generate rapid insights. This not only makes As-Is capture much quicker but also quickly identifies opportunities for your To-Be design. You can find out more by getting in touch below.

Need to know how to map an As-Is process? In this blog we’ll provide the answers to:

1. What question(s) should you be asking/ What is the purpose of your As Is mapping?
2. What’s the scope?
3. Who needs to be involved?
4. How much detail you need?

Mapping an As-Is process is all about understanding and clarifying how things work today. We map the As-Is process to create a process manual or quality management system, to identify improvements or to gather information such as requirements for a new system.

Not sure if you need to be mapping As-Is or To-Be? Check out this article to help you decide which one you should be doing.

Purpose

Firstly, make sure you start at the beginning – you need to be clear on the purpose of the As-Is mapping exercise. As mentioned above, make sure everyone understands why you are doing this. 

Ensure you involve the people you need to get their input into the process.  Having an agreed purpose and objectives will make it much easier to explain why you need their help and time. Think carefully about how the objectives will also benefit the individuals involved as well as the company. This will help you to get support and engagement from them.

Then, before you start mapping the As-Is process, think about the specific question you are trying to answer. Having this question ready and visible during the process mapping will help keep everyone focused and help you reach your objective.

Need a reminder about Process Mapping? Read our handy guide here

Here’s an example, imagine you are implementing a new Customer Relationship Management platform. Your purpose may be to automate manual activities in order to improve customer experience and increase the volume of sales that can be handled at any one time.

The benefits to the company are increased sales and improved customer satisfaction. The benefits to the individuals in the process are; less time doing boring manual activities, less chance of mistakes happening and more sales (more commission). This is what you need to define and make clear to everyone involved.

The Key to How to Map an As-Is Process

Therefore the As-Is process mapping is all about understanding where these manual activities are, identifying common problems and exploring opportunities for improving the process through the new technology. So the question(s) to answer in a process workshop could be:

• What are the must have requirements for the new system? (i.e. what can we not do without?)
• What are the main pain points today?
• What are any potential solutions to these?

The questions are in order of importance so when the workshop reaches the end you can ask whether each question has been answered and if not what follow up work is required to complete it.

Try Mapping an As-Is Process for yourself – Free in Skore

Scope

Just as important as the Purpose is getting the Scope right. Determining the scope of your As-Is process is about being clear on what process it is, i.e. the title, where it starts and where it finishes.

Setting the scope will help you identify who you need to talk to and also keeps everyone focused on the most important area. The title of the process depends on which area you are looking at but if we continue with the previous example it would be the Sales Process.

Make sure you avoid these common mistakes when mapping processes >>

When using Skore, for mapping and improving processes, we recommend that you also consider the level above the process you want to map. This helps to understand the context and also identifies any other potential processes that may impact the one you are mapping.

Therefore, in our example, the next level could include the following processes; Marketing, Sales, Order Processing, Delivery, Billing and Aftercare. 

As a result, the team can see the Sales process but it allows them to also consider whether the new CRM needs to support other parts of the process where the company interacts with the customer.

Stakeholders and Influencers

Put simply, who do you need to involve when mapping the as-is process? Most obviously you need to include the subject matter experts, these are most likely to be the people that actually do the process. In addition it could also include the process owner as well as someone from IT with knowledge of the systems currently in use.

Depending on the process there could be a lot of potential stakeholders so you will need to consider which of those are best suited to take part. You can run focused workshops with a small number of people (read our guide on How to run a Process Mapping Workshop here) and then share the processes afterward. If using Skore you can use the commenting feature to gather feedback.

Consider who the champions and influencers are. These are the people that others will follow. They may not necessarily be in management or leadership positions but are often found bringing new ideas and getting colleagues bought in. They are often seen as experts and the ‘go to’ people. Getting these people involved early will really help bring everyone else along on the journey.

Additional Information

Capturing the As-Is process is one thing but what other, related information, do you need to capture. As-Is process mapping is all about looking at the current state, or how things work today. As well as the steps in the process you may also need to capture:

• Roles
• Systems
• Issues and pains
• Improvement ideas
• Risks
• Control points
• Rules
• Documents
• Policies

And there could be many more. Remember that you will have limited time and you will have set a question that needs answering. Stay focused on your original objective. What additional information do you need to capture in order to answer the question?

Be prepared to capture that information in a structured way that is easy to refer back to. This could be a spreadsheet or database. If you’re using Skore you can capture this information directly against the process steps using Custom Fields which will then allow you to quickly report and share them at the end of the workshop.

Sharing and Feedback

After the workshop it’s important to share the processes and any related information. People will often remember important things afterward so it’s essential to have a way of capturing those and incorporating them into the process later on.

Again Skore makes this easy by using the commenting feature to capture additional information and feedback from others. This can easily be added to the process and everyone will instantly see the updates.

Conclusion

Capturing the As-Is process is an important first step for a variety of projects. It helps understand what’s happening today and identify the main problems that need to be addressed before making any changes and improvements. However, capturing an As-Is process involves collecting and making sense of a lot of information so it’s essential that you are prepared.

How to map an As-Is process successfully is based on having a good plan, being clear about the purpose and involving the right people with the right tools. There are many tools available to help you gather this information, we’d recommend taking a look at a platform like Skore. Skore was designed to be used by everyone in an organisation and its simple two shape system means you can get mapping quickly and bring all your information together in one place. 

Try Mapping an As-Is Process for yourself – Free in Skore

Why should you bother to map processes? Process mapping is an incredibly powerful tool for understanding what’s happening in a business. Without it your project or programme is at risk of falling apart.

Let’s start with the basics; we map processes to help understand how things work today, or to design how things should work in the future. A process map, or flow chart, provides a visual representation of a set of activities and outcomes.

Processes documented in text are very difficult to read. A visual process map makes them easy to read. It’s especially useful where a process has multiple pathways, where different things happen in parallel, or different events can trigger different sets of activities.

Typically we map processes as part of projects or programmes such as:

• Systems implementation
• Standardisation
• Compliance
• Continuous Improvement

A good process will show the key activities, the outcomes and the roles that are responsible for those activities. More detailed processes can also include; responsibilities (e.g. RACI), systems, requirements, risks, issues and control points among others.

Need to know more about Process Mapping? Read our guide here

To map processes helps us to understand how something works, or how we want it to work, but what exactly does it help us understand? What should you be looking out for when you map process? It breaks down into three things:

• Alignment
• Opportunity
• Constraints

Understanding each of these will ensure you get the most out of any process mapping exercise in the future.

Alignment

For processes to run smoothly, everyone involved must be aligned. In other words, they need to agree how it works. Mapping out the process, in a workshop, shows us whether this is indeed the case.

The process map ensures that everyone is talking the same language early on and has the same understanding. They comprehend the problems they currently face, how they describe them and any future benefits to fixing it.

It’s vital to get alignment early, get everyone onboard, and keep everyone aligned by referring back to the processes throughout the project.

Opportunity

Looking at any process is a chance to improve it. It could be reducing cost, removing unnecessary steps, simplifying, reducing risk, speeding it up or any number of other things. When subject matter experts get together to map out a process, and create that common language, it is much easier to talk about improvements.

Therefore the team needs to ask itself what the opportunities for improvement are. These could be general, such as simply removing waste from the process. Or they could be more focused on something specific like automating the process.

In large and strategic change programmes, opportunities should be looked at through the lens of the programme objectives. What improvements can be made to help achieve the goals of the programme?

Constraints

Whatever change you intend to make must be made within the constraints of the business. Some constraints will be more obvious than others, for example, time, budget and resources. It is process mapping, and the discussion around the process, that helps to reveal the hidden constraints that could trip the project up later on.

These could be anything that prevents the change being a success if not managed correctly. Issues and risks are the most common. A change may be held up simply if standards and compliance requirements impact an individual step. In process mapping workshops you discuss the non functional requirements such as security or usability requirements which are essential to success.

Summary

Process mapping, and process discovery, are the key enablers to change of any kind, whether implementing standard ways of working or completely transforming how things get done. Process mapping ensures that you get alignment among the team, identify the opportunities for improvement and understand the constraints that could prevent you from achieving the desired outcome. Make sure with any process discovery session you have considered these three dimensions effectively before moving on.

Do you need to map and/or analyse business processes? Why not take a free trial of Skore’s powerfully simple process mapping, analysis and improvement software today…

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When working on any change, or transformation, programme we are all familiar with the activity of gathering and documenting the pain points through Process Mapping from across the business. We understand the value of this. 

However how much time have you spent thinking about how and, perhaps more importantly, when you capture them?

Of course talking about, and recording, pain points is useful for many reasons. It helps to focus in on where the issues are and how the issues are perceived. It brings a human perspective, giving participants a stake in the change and feeling like they’ve been listened to.

Starting your Process Workshops

However, the timing and the approach you use can have a significant impact on the overall programme. In a recent webinar, on ERP Implementation, one of the consultants highlighted the challenge of starting off process discovery interviews by asking about pain points.

“In times of change people can become suspicious, especially when an outside consultant has been brought in. We found that when we started asking about what was wrong with the current ways of working some people would become very defensive and close up.”

Another challenge with asking about pain points, in isolation, is that they tend to be subjective. Admittedly to some extent that’s OK, because you want to see how people feel. However consider that it also means that it’s much harder to size and prioritise a problem. Remember that, different people may articulate the same problems in very different ways, making your task of deciphering them way more complex.  

Getting the right Pain Points in Process Mapping

Daniel Kahneman, in his book ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’, describes the concept of ‘Substitution’. This is where you are asked a complex question but in the interests of answering quickly your intuition substitutes the complex question with a simpler one that has an immediate answer.

To put it into context, imagine you are asked: ‘what are the pains you experience in your job.’. There are probably many. Each have varying degrees of importance and impact to both you and / or the business. However, trying to first remember and then assess each of these is a complex exercise. 

Therefore you are likely to substitute this question in your mind with something easier to answer such as “what was the last pain you suffered in the course of doing your job?”. You then list the pains and importance by the order in which you remember them. It seems logical that the most important pain is the one that springs immediately to mind but actually as Kahneman points out, this is likely to be an incorrect assumption.

Want to learn more about Processes – read our Ultimate Guide to Process Mapping here

Using As Is Process Mapping as a Solution

You could consider instead running an As-Is process mapping workshop. This gives people the chance to first talk about how things actually work today. One of the most important benefits of running a live workshop is that people align on how they believe the process works. Very often people involved in a process have a different view of how it works. Therefore the problems or pains will be approached with a different set of assumptions.

This activity allows the individuals to think more objectively about the process and its problems. It will remind them of issues that hadn’t immediately come to mind and help them re-evaluate other pains in context. The participants  synthesise and analyse the shared knowledge in order to come up with a more accurate picture of the pain points.

Consider when to talk about Pain Points

The next time you are planning process discovery sessions for a change or transformation programme consider when you will raise the pain points. The key to success isn’t just recognising that that pain exists at the end of the day, it’s putting it in the right context. After all, a pain point by itself is nothing, the learning it brings is where the magic happens. 

Skore is the Process Improvement Software Platform that enables everyone to understand their processes. Our simple two shape systems means process mapping and management is even easier than ever before. Try for yourself with a free 14 day trial.

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Introduction

In this How to Map Processes blog we teach you how to quickly create powerful process diagrams. This will help you:

• to align your workforce
• understand your company’s constraints
• identify vital improvement opportunities.

Everything we show you in this how to map processes guide can be done with paper and pens. Why not have a go and see how simple it is?

Why do we process map in the first place?

Business process mapping is used extensively across larger businesses throughout the world and more and more in small to medium sized businesses. Why? Process mapping helps people make sense of patterns of work that involve different people and different tools. Generally you’ll see process mapping in projects such as introducing new software to a business, reducing costs, saving time, improving quality and creating a better customer experience.

However, with advances in technology and changes to how people create and consume products and services, now even the smallest businesses are complex. Therefore even the smallest business needs to clearly understand its most important and valuable processes and learn how to map processes. Even more importantly they should also have the opportunity to understand and access process mapping tools, just like any large organisation.

In the following how to map processes guide we’ll show you a simple, yet incredibly powerful, approach to process mapping that anyone can do no matter how large or small your business is. What’s more, if you’re scaling up a business, the sooner you and your team start learning this valuable skill the faster you’ll be on your way to success. 

Step 1 – Title and Scope

First things first, before you start any process mapping you must agree the title and scope of the process you are about to map. The title is generally the easy bit, what is the process that we are going to map? e.g. Sales Process, Marketing Process, or something even more specific like the Expenses Process. Whatever you decide, make sure you clearly indicate what the process is.

The slightly harder but very important part, is the Scope. By defining a Scope we are setting the boundaries for what we want to map. This helps to focus everyone and prevent the team talking about other areas that are not relevant… or ‘Out of Scope’.

To define the scope you need to think about what triggers this process to start in the first place and the final output of the process. The start and end points.

A pro tip here, you CANNOT simply write Start and End easy as that would be. This won’t tell you anything about the process and means it’s harder to stop people talking about areas out of scope.

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Let’s look at an example 

Let’s take the Sales Process. It’s different for different companies but here, the sales process starts when a new lead has been generated. So the trigger (Start) may be as simple as “New Lead”.

Remember, it’s not unusual to have multiple inputs, or triggers, to start a process. For example, leads may come from different sources so your inputs could be; “New Phone Lead”, “New Email Lead” and “New Web Form Lead”. This is especially useful if you manage them in different ways in the process. A New Phone Lead will probably start with a telephone conversation, where as an Email Lead may require you to arrange a call first.

The end of the process should deliver some sort of value, either to the customer or to the next process in the business. A good way to think about defining this final output is to think about what you would need to see in order to know, categorically, that the process was finished. So, if we continue with our Sales Process example we may expect this to only finish once an order has been placed. In which case the final output would be “Order Placed”, or “Signed Contract”. Just like the start point, there may well be multiple end points. Don’t worry about this. We know that not all leads will convert into sales so an alternative end point might be “No Sale” or “Sale Abandoned”. 

These could be important outputs to know if in the future you want to investigate how you handle these leads. It will help you to understand how to map the process as well

Most importantly, don’t overthink it. It’s better to put something that looks roughly correct to start with you can always change it as you map out more of the process.

Step 2 – What happens? The key steps in your process map

Now it’s time to start mapping out the main steps of the process. The key activities, or tasks, that make up the process. These steps describe the work that actually happens whether it’s done by a human or a machine.

Pro tip – Always describe the steps of a process using Verb + Noun. They are activities so they should be described as actions, you are doing something to something. Some simple examples include:

• Create lead
• Register opportunity
• Raise invoice
• Submit purchase request

These all start with a verb. Following this simple rule makes it much easier for anyone to read and understand the process afterward.

Then as you map out a new process call out all the activities you can think of and add them as boxes. Often people use sticky notes if doing this on a whiteboard. If you are using Skore these are called What Boxes because they describe what happens.

When working in a group, throw up all the activities people can think of and sort them into the correct order.

You may end up with lots and lots of boxes on the page and that’s OK. Just go with it. You will quickly find that some steps are details which sit underneath others. Here you have a choice.; Either put all the detailed boxes into the process and create something that is very large and potentially difficult to read. Or you may group detailed steps together and create separate processes for them. In Skore you can create sub-processes easily that link to your high level process. 

Want to learn more about process mapping styles and approaches? Read our guide here.

Step 3 – Why? / So That? The reason for doing the work

This may be one of the harder steps to master but is also the most valuable.

The purpose here is to think about the value that each step brings to the overall process. Every activity should deliver something,  either physical, data, or a change of state. 

This step helps you challenge thinking such as “we’ve always done it that way”. It helps people consider steps and suggest improvements.  For example if these outputs form the handover from one person to another it helps everyone agree what that handover looks like.

Start working through each activity from the previous step and ask one or more of the following questions:

• Why do we do this activity?
• What do we have at the end of it?
• How do we know when it’s finished?
• What could we measure to ensure it has been completed?
• What do we need to start the next activity?

The output of each activity should become the input to the next. Once you have been through all the activities and added all the outputs the order of the steps will become even clearer. You may need to rearrange them to make sure.

Pro tip. Try to avoid using the past tense of the activity as your output. This is simply repeating the activity and adds little value to the diagram. If you really cannot think of a good output you can leave it blank, it’s telling you something about the step and might need more work to understand why there is no clear output. A really important part of understanding how to map a process is being clear about each step, input and output.

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Step 4 – Who does it? The person that makes sure it happens

Now you should have a clear process with all the steps and outputs defined and in the correct order. The next step is to define who, or what, is doing each activity.

It’s recommended that you use roles or job titles to describe who does each step rather than individual’s names. This is because personnel may change or you may have multiple people working in the same role.

By this stage you will probably notice that you are repeating or iterating through the process. This is, in fact, deliberate. Every time you do this you’ll realise that someone will probably notice something missing or inaccurate. This part of process mapping means that your process becomes clearer and more accurate over time. 

Step 5 – What else? Any additional information you need to capture.

Finally you get to this stage and it seems like the end is in sight. It is, but before you finish remember why you started this in the first place. It is vital to understand what the issues are and the opportunities to improve it. What you must make sure you do is capture these and you’ve probably been discussing them all the way through. 

The trick here is to make a note of this information and make clear which part of the process it relates to. The simplest way is to annotate the process. You need to know how you will record this, it can quickly get messy and difficult to read. In Skore you can attach all these notes against the process in a clear and simple format. This allows you to capture information and report on them easily. 

You also may want to reference other related information such as tools, documents, policies, templates and anything that’s relevant. Again annotate the process in your agreed format or use Skore to capture the relationship.

At last your process is complete. Remember however, that a process is a living and breathing thing and should be kept up to date as you make changes and improvements. The better documented the process the easier it will be to share with colleagues and get their feedback, thoughts and ideas.

How to map processes- which process do I start with?

So now you know how to map a process the question is which process do you start with? If you’re a growing business looking to build discipline around your processes so that you can scale effectively we recommend looking at our free Business on a Page template. This one page exercise helps you identify key processes and discuss which ones to start with. Once downloaded you can get going with your new found mapping skills.

And Finally

Remember – whatever anyone may tell you – you only need a pen and piece of paper to map out a simple process. You don’t need to be an expert in BPMN or a master of a drawing software tool. Anyone can learn how to map a process easily. Take back control and learn to how to map a process in your organisation, it’s a vital skill you won’t regret learning.

Skore is the Process Mapping and Improvement Software designed to be used and understood by everyone in any organisation.

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