If you have ever complained about a lack of organization at work, not knowing how to do something at your company, not finding a step-by-step guide for what you need to do, or not knowing where something is or who has it, you have symptoms of a lack of process—and this article is for you.
Processes within the business world are essentially guides on how to organize and execute tasks, from basic to managerial levels, and it is very important to recognize each of these processes in order to take care of them.
But let's first explain what a process is.
What is a process?
An organizational process is a set of sequential steps that need to be completed to achieve a goal and generate value for a business. Explaining it like this may seem like this is not common, but it is exactly the opposite - everything that has a step-by-step way to be done within the organization is a process, such as:
- Sales
- Customer support
- Preparing reports
- Generating leads
- Taking care of accounts
And these are just a few examples. Basically, anything that involves a series of tasks or activities, anything that has (or should have) a standardized step-by-step format, can be called a process.
There are 3 different types of business processes:
Core processes: These are the essential processes, the fundamental activities for the business of the company. They usually are part of the day-to-day and, without them, the company stops: things like production processes, customer service processes, or marketing processes.
Support processes: These support core and other processes within the company. They are strictly internal processes, such as reimbursement processes or inventory management processes.
Management processes: Here, we are talking about company management, and these processes are responsible for giving leadership visibility into what is happening in the company, to facilitate decision-making: things like performance evaluation processes and strategy development processes.
Why having processes matter
Let's reverse the logic here: imagine not having processes. Each company sale is done in a different way, reimbursements are requested and paid differently every time, and performance evaluations depend on who is doing it, or might not even happen at all.
That would cause chaos, wouldn't it? That is why having processes matters.
A process is responsible for standardizing the way the company's essential tasks are done, so that everyone has the knowledge to both execute and follow.
With processes, the team can do more than standardizing:
- It is easier for everyone to understand the step-by-step logic
- The team can maintain the quality level
- Clear processes also increase productivity
And to take advantage of all these benefits, the processes must be disseminated within the company. This is where process mapping comes in.
How to do process mapping
If a process is a logical set of organized steps that function as a guide for business activities, process mapping must be seen as a kind of instruction book - it is where the process is documented.
When we understand the process and define its steps, mapping is the record of that. There are incredible tools, such as BPMs like Qntrl, that help you keep this record digital and accessible to the entire team.
What needs to be in your process map:
- The logical sequence of tasks that make up the process in the correct order
- The people or departments that should be involved in each step
- What should happen at each step and when
- The expected results
What you get with process mapping:
- The team and leadership have visibility into what is happening
- The process becomes clearer, both to follow and to improve
- You can more easily identify bottlenecks
- Training becomes simpler, because everyone knows what to do and how
- Knowledge is shared about tasks
- Productivity increases and so does the quality of deliveries
As process mapping gives a comprehensive view of the process and also includes responsible team members, deadlines, and results, in addition to facilitating the navigation of the steps, it supports their improvement - which is an undeniable gain.
Would you like to understand more about how to map your processes and see these benefits? Request a personalized demo of Qntrl and we'll show you.
