How to map a process in an afternoon

When a director tells me 'there must be a better way to do this', the first thing I do is map how it works today. Not the version in the operations manual, the real one, with the spreadsheet someone keeps on their desktop and the phone call that happens every Thursday. It is the single most useful afternoon most businesses can spend before buying any software.

Before the session

• Choose one process with a clear trigger and a clear end, such as 'customer enquiry received' to 'quote sent'.
• Invite the people who do each step, not just their managers. Three to six people is ideal.
• Book a room with a long wall or a large whiteboard, and bring sticky notes in three colours.
• Ask each person to bring a real example from last week: an actual order, quote or invoice.

The four-hour plan

1. 01

   Step 1: Agree the start and end (15 minutes)

   Write the trigger on the far left of the wall and the finish on the far right. Agree what is out of scope. This stops the session sprawling.

2. 02

   Step 2: Walk a real example (60 minutes)

   Take last week's real example and follow it step by step. One sticky note per step, written as a verb: 'check stock', 'email customer', 'type order into ERP'. Put each note in a horizontal lane for the person or team who does it.

3. 03

   Step 3: Mark the systems (30 minutes)

   Under each step, note which system or document is used: the ERP, the CRM, a spreadsheet, email, paper. Every time information moves from one to another by hand, draw a red mark.

4. 04

   Step 4: Add times and waits (45 minutes)

   For each step, ask how long it takes to do, and how long the work waits before the next step. Waits are often far longer than the work itself.

5. 05

   Step 5: Find the leaks (45 minutes)

   Use the second colour to mark re-keying, checking, chasing and rework. Use the third to mark steps nobody can explain the reason for.

6. 06

   Step 6: Agree three fixes (45 minutes)

   Choose three improvements. At least one should be possible this month without any new software. Give each a named owner.

What you are looking for

Patterns repeat across almost every business I work with. Look for these on your wall.

• The same information typed into two or more systems.
• Hand-offs where work waits in someone's inbox.
• Checks that exist because an earlier step is unreliable. Fix the earlier step and the check can go.
• One person who is the only one who knows how a step works.
• Reports produced by hand that could come straight from a system.

After the session

Photograph the wall before anyone tidies it. Within a day, write it up as a simple diagram: lanes for each role, boxes for each step, red marks for the leaks. It does not need to be formal notation; it needs to be clear enough that someone who was not in the room understands it.

Share the diagram with everyone who took part and ask them to correct it within the week. You will almost always get two or three fixes: a step that was missed, a system that was named wrongly, a wait that was underestimated. Those corrections matter, because the diagram becomes the agreed picture of how the work happens today. It is the baseline against which every improvement, whether a simple change of habit or a new system, will be judged, and it is the first thing any supplier should see.

Write down the before-numbers for the three fixes: how long the steps take today and how often they happen. Without those, you will not know whether the fixes worked.

When to bring in help

Most teams can run this session themselves. Bring in an outside view when the process crosses several systems and nobody owns the whole thing, when the fixes need a decision between configuring, buying or building, or when people are too close to the work to see it.

Once a step is mapped and measured, it is often a good candidate for automation. If one of your red marks happens every week and has a clear before-number, it may qualify for a free automation proof on your real data.