10 Keys to Better Process Mapping
- The people doing the work are the best source of realistic data for building a process map.
- To get cooperation from the people doing the work it is critical that they not be concerned about downsizing resulting from the process changes.
- The people doing the work are the top ‘factual’ authorities on that work and therefore deserve to be treated with the respect due a top authority.
- Generalities are the enemy of good process maps. Push for specifics in your data gathering. To get specifics, break the process down into its items and steps.
- Gather data at the work place with both explanation and demonstration.
- Display each item as a separate line on your map with its own steps.
- Display effects (relationships) between items on your map where one item supplies information that is used to do something to another item (i.e. transcribing information from one item to another, using one item to check information on another, etc.)
- Display alternatives where the work is processed differently under different circumstances.
- Display assembly and disassembly by bringing item lines together and by separating them.
- The real test of a process map is not that it makes sense to people who have never done the work but rather that it makes sense to and is vouched for by those who do the work.
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