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.

Seven Types of Process Maps

Process maps come in all shapes and sizes.  High-level process maps, low-level process maps and cross-functional swim lanes maps are three of the seven types of process maps.  Document maps are rich in data detail but can lack activity details.   Document maps show literal documents produced within a process.  At each process step, Document Maps show us what documents to produce, and which to receive.

The last of the Seven Types of Process Maps are activity maps or value stream maps and rendered process maps provide more details.  Rendered process maps help teams manage change.  A rendered process map is similar to a work flow diagram.  It uses many of the same symbols to communicate process flows.

What Can – or Can’t – a Process Map Do?

Process maps only communicate the process steps.  They are not active on their own.  If the process changes then you must update the process map to communicate the new changes.  Process mapping is about communicating your process to others, so you can achieve your goals.

Your processes aren’t “one and done”, are they? Of course not. Those are events, not processes. We need to document events, but not for the sake of repeatability.

Processes are events or tasks we want to repeat an unknown number of times; we’d like some processes repeated indefinitely. If we want our business processes to be consistent — to yield predictable, consistently good results — we need to document them.

We document processes (i.e., write procedures) to ensure consistency and quality of the results. We also document processes so we can train (and retrain) employees. No matter who is performing or supervising the process, no matter when or where they’re taking part, we want quality and consistency.

To develop what we call a “well-defined process”, we use a couple of simple, effective process modeling tools: the SIPOC Diagram (or process map) and the Process Model.

The SIPOC Diagram

This tool gets its name from its five components:

• Supplier;
• Input;
• Process;
• Output; and
• Customer.

Figure 1 - SIPOC Diagram

This tool needs little explanation: because it’s visually oriented, the SIPOC diagram is very effective at breaking down language and other barriers. It helps people understand the purpose for the process and, when linked with similar diagrams of other processes, explains its relationship to other business activities.

The Process Model

Like we said, a one-time event is not a process, just like a one-time repair is not a corrective action. A true process is a cycle — the Deming Cycle, or PDCA, to be exact.

Figure 2 - the Process Model

This ISO process model does an excellent job of illustrating a typical process:

• You PLAN the process, establish process objectives (what the result should be), state the various requirements (customer, regulatory, standards-based, internal, etc.), and describe how you will get from point A to point B and back again;
• You DO, performing the process and collecting process data;
• You CHECK on the process, reviewing the data you’ve collected and analyzing process performance (not just according to stated objectives, but also for variability, consistency, and trends); and
• You ACT on your review findings, either continuing with the process unchanged or modifying the process to make it work better and implementing the process with those revisions.

The PDCA Cycle is the ideal framework for developing business procedures. That’s why at Bizmanualz, we use the process model as the basis for our procedure templates. The process model works for any procedure, whether it’s in Accounting, Human Resources, Sales/Marketing, or any of your other departments.

You’ll find that when you use these simple and effective tools to guide your procedure development, your processes will be well-defined processes and you’ll reach more of your objectives.

Thanks once again for your time and your comments.

* * * * * * *

What about you? Have you used these tools recently? Did you find that they were extremely helpful, or not at all? What tools do you use to develop your procedures?

Have you used Bizmanualz policy and procedure templates? What did you think of them?

Procedures describe a process, while a work instruction describes how to perform the conversion itself.  Process descriptions include details about the inputs, what conversion takes place (of inputs into outputs), the outputs, and the feedback necessary to ensure consistent results. The PDCA process approach (Plan, Do, Check, Act) is used to capture the relevant information.

Questions that need to be answered in a procedure include:

• Where do the inputs come from (suppliers)?
• Where do the outputs go (customers)?
• Who performs what action when (responsibilities)?
• How do you know when you have done it right (effectiveness criteria)?
• What feedback should be captured (metrics)?
• How do we communicate results (charts, graphs and reports)?
• What laws (regulations) or standards apply (e.g., ISO 9001, 8th EU Directive, IFRS, Sarbanes-Oxley)?

We can look at documentation as a pyramid comprised of four levels (or types of documents):

Policies Procedures Pyramid

Level 1 – Policies and Objectives
Level 2 – Procedures
Level 3 – Work Instructions
Level 4 – Forms and other Documents

Level 1 and Level 2 represent your policies and procedures.  What is the difference between policies and procedures? Your policies are at the top of the pyramid, like a beacon from a lighthouse.  They direct the procedure in the proper direction and provide a foundation for the procedure’s description of the process being documented.

1. Policies

A policy is used as a course of action to guide and influence decisions.  In an ISO 9001 system this may be found in the “Quality Manual“. The purpose of this level of documentation is to state concisely the policies and objectives of the company, organization, or division.  Policies are similar in some ways to mission statements.

2. Procedures

Your procedures are the second level of documentation, which should be more detailed and describe who does what and when (in sequence or order).  Activities for a department or function might be listed along with the functional titles or positions responsible for the procedure. These procedures can be text based but many use a process map to communicate the information.

3. Work Instructions

A work instruction describes how to accomplish a specific job.  Visual aids, various forms of job aids, or specific assembly instructions are examples of work instructions.  Work instructions are specific.

4. Forms and other Documents

The last level of documentation includes forms used to create records, checklists, surveys, or other documents used in the creation of a product or service.  Records are a critical output of any procedure or work instruction.  They form the basis of your process communications, audit material, and process improvement initiatives.

So, What Is the Difference between a Procedure and a Work Instruction?

• Procedures describe the process: who does what, when they do it, and under what criteria.
• Work Instructions describe how to accomplish the process conversion of inputs into outputs.

Learning how to write policies and procedures is easy once you understand the four levels of documentation and the difference between policies, procedures, and work instructions. Sample policies and procedures from Bizmanualz make it even easier!

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!

A weak “Sure, boss…” escapes from your lips as “el jefe” turns and leaves, but an instant later, you’re thinking, “No way!”  You can’t possibly get all your accounting processes documented that quickly!  Or can you?

Break Down the Documentation Process into Its Component Parts

Start by mapping out the business process you need to document.  The process map acts as an outline for your procedure writing: you have to know the steps in the process that need documenting before you start writing.  With process maps in hand — one for each business process — you’re ready to start writing procedures.  Here’s where using pre-written procedures can save you time.

How You Can Use a Pre-Written Procedure to Save Time

If you’re looking for sample accounting procedures for your accounting processes, the Bizmanualz CFO Accounting Policies-Procedures Manuals set contains many sample accounting procedures you can use as starting points.  The CFO bundle contains 239 prewritten accounting procedure templates and 373 accounting forms, organized into five functional areas, or business manuals.  The CFO set covers the ten core accounting cycles.

Once the manuals arrive, the next step is “find an example procedure – a model for the one you need to write”.  All Bizmanualz procedures are in Microsoft Word format and can be easily tailored to fit your specific business process.  Let’s say you’re writing a procedure for vendor acquisition, or the “new vendor” process.  Where would you start?

The vendor process map you wrote shows eight steps:

1. Evaluate business requirements;
2. Identify qualified vendors;
3. Interview, Inspect and test vendor;
4. Review results and approve vendor;
5. Order from vendors;
6. Log orders and delivery performance;
7. Review performance against specifications; and
8. Vendor-related corrective and preventive actions.

Accounting Manual Index

The Accounting Policies, Procedures, and Forms manual contains a Vendor Selection procedure that you can customize.  How do you find it?  In the back of the manual, you’ll find the “Index”.  Search the index for your keyword, “vendor”.  (You could also look through the table of contents in the front of the manual.)  You find the Vendor Selection procedure, containing three steps, or activities (Vendor Selection, Vendor Inspection, and Vendor Files), in the “Purchasing” section.

Your process consists of eight activities, so you expand the prewritten procedure, adding the other five steps, or otherwise modify the Bizmanualz procedure to reflect your actual situation.  Add your process map (a handy visual aid) to the front of the procedure, and you’re done!

Writing a new procedure can take between 4 and 40 hours, depending on the complexity of the process you’re documenting and whether forms are required.  The complexity of a process, as well as your level of expertise in that subject, determines the amount of research — into standards, laws or regulations, references, and the like — you need to do.  Forms also require time and effort to research and produce, assuming you don’t already have them.  The Bizmanualz Vendor Selection procedure contains six pages of forms, including a detailed vendor inspection checklist.  Many Bizmanualz procedures also include a “References” section, which can help you as you research certain topics.

Let’s say this is a 40-hour procedure to create, with forms.  If you use the Bizmanualz procedure, with minor modifications you could have the same procedure ready in less than a day, saving yourself a great deal of time (and your eyes, a lot of wear).  Using a single procedure, saving 38 hours of time off the 40 you planned on, practically pays for the entire five-manual CFO series.

And you’re going to find more than one procedure you can adapt to your business requirements.  Most companies find dozens of useful procedures, which translates to hundreds of hours of time saved, before you factor in the opportunity cost of waiting for the procedures to be completed.

So, the next time you need to write procedures fast, take a look at the complete collection of Bizmanualz business policies and procedures.  Get your procedures project done now…before the end-of-month deadline your boss gave you.

Checking the procedure is a form of procedure verification.  You run a test before implementing the procedure to verify that the procedure works and meets all the design requirements.  But how do you know if the procedure will work outside of the design space ?  Will it work in the real world, with real users?  At this point, we are beyond procedure verification — we need to validate the procedure to ensure the process and procedure are working.

You are not done with your procedure until it has been validated.  After all, you wrote the procedure to close some gap in compliance, quality, or performance — how do you know your procedure is actually closing the gap?  Procedure validation consists of performing procedure training, process auditing, and completing a process procedure management review that will allow us to confirm that the gap is closed, the process is working, and the procedure works.

Process Procedures Implementaton and Training

Procedure validation starts with process implementation and procedures training.  Procedure training will be your first feedback from the actual users.  Gather the procedure users together and brief everyone on the main procedure tasks, changes, and process objectives.  Use your process maps to visually explain the process.  Highlight individual responsibilities for key performance metrics.  Ask questions and obtain feedback.  Remember: your procedure goal is “a working process”.

If you have a lot of users from multiple work cells or geographic locations, you need to prototype the new procedure — test it in one area before implementing it across the whole business.  Your procedure validation should occur before a widespread implementation.  In a small organization with limited scope, this is often not practical.  In that case, process auditing is critical to ensure that the procedure works.

Process Procedures Audit

Once employees are trained, how do you know if the procedure works or is being used correctly?  To find out, you need to audit the procedure at some point after procedure training. Process auditing is an internal audit of the process and procedure.  At some interval after training, you need to follow-up on your new procedure and see how it’s being used.  Is the procedure followed?  Is the procedure effective?  Is the process working?  Is the procedure working?  Is the procedure integrated into the process?  Simple questions, but they all must be asked.

If the process or procedure is critical to quality, compliance, or performance, you should perform a process procedure audit sooner and more frequently (perhaps 7, 30, and 90 days apart).  You are still in procedure validation and you need feedback to determine if your procedure is working.  Once validation is complete, you may be able to back off the process audit (e.g., cut back from monthly to annually): it all depends on how well the process is working and how critical it is to your firm’s success.

Process Procedures Review and Change Management

Once audited, how will you know if the procedure is performing as expected?  To find out you will need to analyze the audit data and process performance and hold a process procedures management review.  If you started your process procedure journey with a project charter, you have your original quality, compliance, and performance objectives.

Compare your audit data with the project charter to determine if your procedures work, if the process is working as expected, if you’re ready to close out procedure validation, or you need to make changes to improve your process procedures effectiveness.  Change Management can be tricky here.  Process optimization comes later, after you close out the original design, the process is going for a while, and you’re ready to improve once again.  For now, focus on important procedure changes to achieve the original objectives, in order to prevent scope creep.

Conclusion

We started the process procedure journey with a procedure implementation plan.  Your process procedures project continued with a process map, documenting your process procedure design.  If a procedure was required, you had to write a procedure.

The process procedures journey ended with procedure validation, where you ensured the process was working and the written procedure worked.  Once validation is complete, you’re ready to start your next process procedures journey.

Required Policies Procedures

Only company policies and procedures required by standards, regulations or company strategy must be developed.  ISO 9001 requires only six procedures, so why do many companies feel they need to write 40 or more procedures to achieve control?  Occasional users need procedures as a reminder of procedure steps that they do not perform very often.  Frequent or regular users do not need, and often times do not use, the procedure.  So how are those other 34-plus procedures used?  Most procedures are used to train infrequent users.  For training purposes you may only need a process map.  Are you using your procedures to make up for a weak training program?

Your Policies Procedures Template Design

When you do write procedures you will need to standardize on a procedure template design.  Start your policies and procedures template design by thinking through your document and record control procedures.  Your procedure template design should make room for a header block to ensure your procedure communicates your purpose and scope.

Add a Title, Policy, Purpose, Scope, Responsibility, and Definitions section to help people understand your procedure. Clear department responsibilities identify who does what and helps to declare which positions are mentioned in your procedure with a synopsis of what is expected for each position. Key term definitions reduce confusion; industry jargon should be explained in the definitions section of your procedure to help new procedure users.

Writing Policies Procedures

Before you start writing procedures from scratch, look around for examples, or templates, that you can copy.  Pre-written procedures will speed up your development, reduce your research time, and turn writing procedures into editing procedures.  I’ve found it’s a lot easier to edit a procedure than to write one from scratch, depending on the procedure.  Many procedures are really common using business best practices, so why reinvent the wheel?

If you have to write a procedure from scratch, start writing procedures using active voice construction to reduce task confusion. Subject, verb, object provides clear active voice construction for your procedure.  For example, “Accounts Receivable invoices customers” is clearer and contains fewer words than “customers are invoiced by Accounts Receivable.”  The extra “are” and “by” make the sentence longer, put the subject last, and force the reader to stop and reread the action.  Be direct and to the point — use the active voice.

Add references to related documents to improve your procedures’ usability.  Clearly note when your procedure refers to other procedures or forms.  There’s nothing worse than following a procedure and coming to a passage that refers to a company form and…that’s it. You don’t know what the form looks like, where you might find it, or what version of the form you need.  Putting an example of the form, with an explanation, in the procedure will save you and your users time during procedure training and implementation.

List applicable laws or regulations: clearly communicate your company’s need for compliance.  If you’re implementing a records retention procedure, references to IRS or equal employment opportunity (EEO) passages, for example, provide a brief synopsis and help you implement your procedures.

How to Write Policies and Procedures

Policies Procedures Overhead

Large organizations have a large number of procedures.  They have a lot of staff, business operations, and economy of scale to make their procedures work.  Smaller businesses should remember — the more business procedures you write, the more business procedures you have to edit, implement, train, audit, and review.  More procedures may also produce more audit findings in addition to more updates, more documents to control, and more administration overhead.

Many companies fail to plan for this administration and procedure overhead, so it should come as no surprise that their procedures don’t work as well as expected.  Every procedure becomes outdated, eventually.  Also, due to infrequent maintenance and use, some procedures are overlooked when it’s time to update them.  This can result in repeated procedure audit findings or, worse, repeated waste, fraud, and abuse which the procedures were intended to reduce.

The lean thinking solution is (a) to write only procedures that you absolutely have to write to conform to requirements and (b) to improve your training program to build competent and skilled employees instead of writing procedures you don’t have the time or budget to maintain.

Next week, we’ll cover policies and procedures implementation and training.  It’s much easier to comply with standards and train employees when you’re working with written procedures.  If you’re interested in learning more about your procedures, call or e-mail us for a procedure review of your written procedures.  We’re happy to provide feedback on what you’re using and tell you how you can improve your processes.

How can you use the individual steps of your process procedures journey to focus your business on:

• Adapting your core business processes to process change?
• Building repeatable business processes?
• Adhering to process standards or regulations?
• Managing your business processes more effectively?

Each step of your process procedures project results in an important milestone being reached.  Your entire process procedures project will move along better and quicker, with better results, if you achieve each milestone.

Figure 1 depicts the business process procedures journey work flow.  The journey starts with project management.  The extent of a business process change can be large or small — they may or may not require written procedures — but even small process changes require basic project management to avoid having the law of unintended consequences catch up with them.

1. Process Procedures Project Management

To get the buy-in of your employees, start your process procedures project with a project charter that focuses your team on clear project goals and objectives.  For example, if you’re working on an accounts receivable process, be sure receivables clerks consistently follow the process.

Your process procedures project plan should allow time for the six steps in your process procedures journey: allow about 12% for project planning, 13% for process design, 25% for procedure writing, and 50% for process procedure implementation, training, process auditing, and a management review at the end of the project (Figure 2).

Figure 2 – Process Procedures Project Time

Process procedures project management key milestone: completion of your project charter and project plan.

2. Process Mapping and Process Design

Your procedures process map should include the sequence of process steps with clearly defined inputs, documents, and records.  Make a special note of the process flow metrics, responsibilities, and goals.  For example, an accounts receivable process should note the invoices per hour processed, who is responsible for cash, write-off, or discount approvals, and how close the process is to the goal of collecting within thirty days.  This information will help with later procedure writing, process training, and process auditing.

For many business processes, a process map may be the only documentation needed.  Not all processes require procedures, work instructions, or anything more than a process map.  In fact, a form may be all you need.  It is really a matter of scale: the more employees you have involved in a given function — the more complex it is — the more formal process documentation you’ll need.

Process procedures process mapping and design key milestone: complete “current state” process map with process data.

Next week, we’ll cover writing policies and procedures.  Procedure writing is a result of formal, required compliance and training.  It is often much easier to comply with standards - and train employees – when you work with a written procedure.

If you’re interested in learning more about your procedures, e-mail us at info@bizmanualz.com or call us at 314-863-5079 for a procedure review.  We’re happy to provide feedback on what you’re currently using and show you how we can help you improve your processes.

Your business process procedures journey is driven by your business needs: need to survive, need for effective process change management, need for process consistency, need for process compliance, and need for process control.  Your entire business model is in jeopardy if you fail to:

• Adapt to change;
• Build repeatable business processes;
• Adhere to process standards and guidelines;
• Observe regulations; and
• Manage your business processes — and process change — effectively.

You can achieve effective business process change management, process consistency, process compliance, and process control by focusing on your business process procedures journey (Figure 1), a six-step process comprised of the business process management topics we talk about on the Bizmanualz.com website.

Business Process Procedures Flowchart

Figure 1 – Business Process Procedures Journey Flowchart

Notice how we talk about processes and procedures together.  Your business model is a system of processes.  Business processes need to be identified, communicated, and reviewed for there to be an effective change management process, with effective opportunities for business growth in place.

In Figure 1, the procedure writing steps are colored in red, to signify their optional status.  Not all processes require procedure writing; there’s a lot of overhead tied to every business procedure you write so that the more business procedures you write, the more procedures you have to edit, implement, train people on, audit, and review.  Only company procedures required by standards, regulations, or company strategy must be developed.

Michael Gerber’s book, the E-Myth, explains how important it is for entrepreneurs to think about working “on” their business instead of “in” their business.  Working too closely inside of your business processes is sometimes referred to as “business myopia” — being too close to your processes can keep you from advancing on the business process procedures journey.

Once you start working on your business — not in it — you can identify key business processes, practice communicating critical business process metrics and information, and review those business process metrics against the changing marketplace.  Now you are in control of your business process improvement.

This month we’ll be showing you how to advance — how to implement — each of the six steps of the Business Process Procedures Journey:

1. Process Procedures Project Management
2. Process Mapping and Process Design
3. Required Procedures (optional steps)
   • Policies and Procedures Template Design
   • Policies and Procedures Writing
4. Process Procedures Implementation and Training
5. Process Procedures Audit
6. Process Procedures Review and Change Management

In our next article, we’ll explain how you can use the individual steps to focus your organization on adapting your core business processes to business process change, build repeatable business processes, adhere to process standards or regulations, and manage your business processes more effectively.

At the heart of your improvement plan should be a strategy.  Rendered maps can help you visually represent that strategy.  You need to paint an attractive picture — show a positive future, show the outcome that people will buy into.

We illustrated a strategy of faster turnaround for aircraft overhauls. It was simple. Workers could easily see how the changes being asked of them would result in good outcomes.

We helped an aircraft overhaul facility, or MRO, cut the time required for major service on aircraft overhauls.  Less time in the shop means operators get their planes back in service faster which, in turn, means they make money instead of spending it.  That helped the aircraft overhaul facility garner a competitive advantage.

We mapped process flows and activities throughout the company; for example, how materials were specified, requisitioned, and tracked.  With our process maps, the client saw how small changes would flow through the system and have a big impact.

Had you asked department managers at the time, they would have told you they were already aware of most of the improvement opportunities that we identified. Certainly, the inefficiencies had been there for years, managers would have said. And point solutions had been identified in some cases.

But the eventual impact of small changes was unclear or unknown, so it was hard for them to justify the time and resources needed to effect change.  So, improvement flagged.

Lighting a fire for change meant we had to change minds.  We illustrated an improvement story that showed certain small changes having a big impact.  Using rendered maps, we illustrated the strategy that was easy to buy into.  We also illustrated a number of systemic improvements that would help sustain the improvements.

Show the Positive Future and Give People a Reason to Change

For example, we selected and illustrated how highly skilled mechanics were spending time and many footsteps getting parts.  Everyone understood that if a wrench doesn’t turn, the plane doesn’t move, and turnaround suffers.

This rendered process map shows mechanics' walk and wait times in the current state. Inefficiency and waste are readily apparent.

In the future state, we instead showed parts being delivered to the mechanics:

In contrast to the current state, the future state is much simpler and, therefore, a marked improvement. As a communications device, it leads workers to ask what is required to achieve and sustain the improvement.

It sounds simple, right?  It was simple, and it tied in with the overall strategy of reducing turnaround.  It made it a great story.  Ultimately, it was the story that had been lacking in the past.

The story, told in rendered maps, helped us get the buy-in that was essential to support the many process changes required to sustain change.  How would the runner know what part to deliver to the mechanic?  When would the  part be delivered?  How would chain of custody be maintained?  Many questions arose that, before, simply froze out improvement, but by telling a story for positive change, the hard work of change became tenable.

By virtue of our illustrating specific improvements, people could see exactly how that lofty strategy translated into their daily work lives.  Our story consisted of sufficient current-state and future-state improvement “concrete steps” and examples to show that improvement was, in fact, possible and exactly how the “positive future” of reduced turnaround time could be achieved.

Telling the Improvement Story Is Part of Your Job

Had we stopped at producing the descriptive maps and left it up to the department heads to structure an improvement program, they surely would have made some incremental improvements in their system.  However, their efforts would have lacked urgency and sustainability.  Change would not have happened fast enough to outpace the industry.  Hungry competitors would not have been overtaken, and no sustainable competitive advantage would have been achieved.

But it was achieved.  As we learned, it’s part of our job as leaders to tell the improvement story. Rendered maps are a tool for telling stories of positive change. Fact-based, tangible, visual stories can illustrate a positive future, and should be in your process mapping toolkit. So, tell the story. Complete the improvement journey. Use a map.

Activity maps display information about the relative worth or value of activities.  They show process steps in columns – activities within each step, or column, are shown.  Activities are color-coded according to the value that customers might derive from them (i.e., are they value-added or non-value-added activities?).  Some activities add value and some do not — those that don’t should be minimized or eliminated.

Assigning a value to activities is, by nature, subjective: we may rationalize our value judgment by attributing it to the customer.  That is shifting the responsibility for the judgment onto the customer, which may ensure that some activities that should be cut are not.

Recapping the Seven Process Map Formats

Let’s recap the maps discussed over the past several weeks.  The following table lists the information each map reveals and the best use for each.  Click on the links for articles and blog posts explaining or applying the highlighted concept:

Moving From Process Observation to Process Improvement

The descriptive process maps help capture the current state.  Activity maps help us collect detailed information about what is occurring.  We use them to reduce the number of steps – we make the process lean.

Convincing others to accept our judgments often requires changing minds, showing people a new way to work.  We move beyond simply describing a process to tell a story, illustrating our point of view.  There are maps that help us do just that; one is the “rendered map”.  In a rendered map, we show enough information to persuade our audience to accept our judgment.

Now, we hear the objection, “Show all the information and let the viewer decide.”  Our objective is to “inform to persuade”.  Everyone has their biases, their own set of filters.  We commonly think of this in relation to news media; however, your relationship to a business process colors your judgment, too.

As an analyst, quality professional, change manager, and executive, your role is to collect and sift through information, form a qualified, professional opinion, and present a compelling case for improvement.

Not having collected and mapped everything you did, your audience doesn’t have the perspective you do.  They know more than you about their specific area, department, or function but you captured key aspects of that in interviews you did.  When the facts are analyzed and the mapping is done, it’s time for you to make your case: convince people to take action in step, in time, and with significant potential impact.

In the next article, we conclude our Process Map series with rendered maps — setting the stage for change.