Knowledge Base · Seeing Problems
What is process mapping, and how do I map a process?
Process mapping means drawing a process as a visual flowchart from start to finish, so the work becomes visible to everyone involved. Teams often find the map itself revealing: delays, clunky handoffs, and waste that nobody could see in conversation show up plainly on the wall, and discussion has something concrete to gather around.
Chapter 3 calls process mapping a powerful tool for seeing, and describes it simply: create a visual flowchart of a process from start to finish. When you map a process, you make the work visible. You can suddenly see where it slows down, where handoffs are clunky, and where waste is being generated.
- Choose one process and agree its start and finish points.
- Draw each step in order, including handoffs between people or teams.
- Build the map with the people who do the work, not from a procedure document alone.
- Mark where the process slows, waits, loops back, or produces waste.
- Use the finished map as the focal point for the team's discussion.
The book tells of a claims team session built this way. A huge process map went up on the wall, the leader asked where it hurt, and after a quiet start the map filled with sticky notes, each one a problem, an idea, or an opportunity. The team could finally see how their own piece of work fitted into the bigger picture.
A map does not fix anything on its own. It gives a team one shared, honest picture to fix from.
Open the Guided Process Mapper in ClarionEX (free in Lite)
Related questions
- What is a gemba walk (a "go and see"), and how do I do one?
- What is a SIPOC, and how do I build one?
- How do I decide which problem to solve first?
Source: Continuous Improvement in the Workplace, Ch. 3 (Learning to See).