A process map is a flow diagram of the primary processes within an organization. It very specifically shows you both who and what is involved in a process.  Process maps visually describe the flow of activities of a process and are not limited to a single business department or function.

Process mapping is about communicating your process to others so that you achieve your management objectives.  You can build stronger communication and understanding with process maps.

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You’ve just been given the task of writing a new procedure that documents an existing business process.  You make sure you understand, and you close with, “I’ll get on this process right away.”

That’s when your boss says, “Process? Did I say ‘process’? I meant processezzz! Plural!”  And before you can blurt out, “What do you mean?”, the boss says you need to develop procedures for all accounting processes, not just the one.  Oh, and he wants them by the end of the month!

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Your process is not living up to expectations, so you’ve decided to implement standard operating procedures (SOP) to improve process consistency, compliance, and effectiveness.  However, that project is stalled: employees are not buying into your proposed changes, and management is growing impatient.

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Business and organizational development is about business process change: not as in “process change – the event”, but “process change – the journey“.  Your business processes change in response to market forces, competition, regulations, customer demand, the economy, culture, personal beliefs, and many other factors.  The question isn’t about what is causing the business process changes — we know your business processes are going to change — the question is…

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Last week we identified another common process maturity level in many organizations, Phase Two — Documentation.  Frequently, this is where organizations get stuck, and are not able to advance in their management system maturity.  We also covered Phase three – Process Stability.  This week we will describe the next two levels in our process maturity model that we use to describe the phases of an improving effective management system.  We call the third level Corrective Action Phase and the fourth level Preventive Action Phase, and we will see why they are so difficult to reach.

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Last week we identified the most common process maturity level in many organizations, phase one — Reactive.  Few organizations are able to advance much farther up in management system maturity.  This week we will look at the next two levels in our process maturity model that describe the phases in which an effective management system comes to life.  The Documentation and Stability Phases.

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During our Well-Defined Processes course we spend a significant amount of time talking about procedures. The role of procedures in documenting processes as well as positive and negative attributes of procedures.

At the very beginning of the course, we ask the participants, “What is wrong with procedures in your organization?” The things that appear on the list are predictable. They include:

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What a year this was. A new policies and procedures manual. New training courses. And, most importantly, over 50 articles on various aspects of business management and process improvement. Our goal here at Bizmanualz is to help you streamline your processes and improve your business performance. If our articles help you achieve this in any way, we feel like we have succeeded.

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Question of the month: How are your vision and strategy related?

With the arrival of the new year, our articles covered strategy and vision. Successful leaders are adept at weaving strategy into their business. You do this by using your vision, your end-to-end process design and the action steps required to make it all happen.

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Your vision is starting to come together. Last week we reviewed your business model in the form of your end-to-end process design, which defines your organizations capability to deliver your vision. At this point you should begin to see a number of gaps between your

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