Process Mapping For Beginners

Are you interested in creating process maps for your business but don't know where to start? In today's video, I've broken down the components of a process map and some tools to get you started.

You might want to get a better understanding of the tasks in a process and a process map can identify those elements for you and your stakeholders. In my experience, I've found executives are interested in eliminating a single point of failure, ramping up new employees faster, and having their employees take responsibility.

The process map is just another tool to ensure continuity of service, complete projects faster and more effectively, and quickly train and better retain new talent. Additionally, if you do this right, you'll have something to share when talking about your processes.

Process Mapping Tools

Lucidchart https://www.lucidchart.com

Visio https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/visio/flowchart-software

Transcription

Hi, it's Xavier Chang, Principal of XC Consulting.

Today, I'm back with another episode of Xcel with Xavier and today we are talking about process maps.

You might have heard of process maps and the power of them. And really what I want to do today is explain what they are, what the advantages are, what are some of the tools that you can use to create your own process maps, and then walk you through an example.

Process maps are essentially a visual representation of your process. If you're thinking about the many steps or tasks in your project or your process, this process map gives you the 30,000 foot view. So if you are explaining it to different stakeholders, if you're bringing on different people into the process, you can hand them this process map and they'll get a better understanding of what the individual steps are, the timing, who's involved. That's really how you would leverage something like a process map.

Let me go over to my screen and show you a couple of resources.

The one tool that I use is called Lucidchart and Lucidchart is actually a great tool because it allows you to create process maps, different types of org charts, swim lane diagrams, anything you can think of that you're trying to visually represent complicated steps or visualize anything. Lucidchart is great for that. I will say it is kind of complicated to use. You have to get used to it, but the power of it is that they've already have premade templates. So I'll go through a couple of these so you can build things like flowcharts. And they've got all of these different flavors of flowcharts. You can organize people. So that would be things like an org chart. It's great for that I’ve used that as well. And let's see, developing business strategy. They've got a lot of templates, great tool, resource for that.

The next one that's quite popular as well is Visio, a Microsoft product. Same type of deal. You are able to visualize your processes in something that you can share.

The advantage with SaaS based digital tools is that you can change it, you can update it, you can share it with people. And it's a lot easier than just kind of handing somebody a piece of paper and saying, hey, here's the process. That's the advantage of digital tools. You can share it. You can update it very quickly. You can paste it into presentations. That's why I love using digital tools.

I use Lucidchart and I'm not a paid affiliate. It's just my personal opinion, it's one of the better ones out there.

Let me walk you through the components of a simple process map. We are going to be talking about an importation process. This is actually based off of a real client process and we're going to transform that into a process map.

Some of the key elements that you have with a process map are these rectangular boxes. And this is what you would call the steps or the tasks. That's really how you use this rectangular box.

The next is a decision. This diamond shape is actually a decision point. Typically it would be yes or no. When you are faced with that decision, if you choose yes, you go down one path. If you choose no, you'll go down another path.

And lastly, you have the arrow. And this arrow actually shows you directionally how the process works. So how you would use it is you would connect this arrow to a process and then you could also add another step here. That's essentially how you would connect these two and then you would put another arrow.

Those are the three main elements of a simple process map.

There's so many different types of icons. I mean, you've got things for databases and delays and manual operations, or's, summing junctions.

For a lot of cases, these are the three main elements that you need.

You're going to need the rectangle, you're going to use the diamond for your decisions, and then you're going to use the arrow.

Once you get complicated, maybe if you're in manufacturing or if you're in IT, these process maps can get humongous and very complicated. But for the purposes of this exercise and for folks watching my video, I think these are the three main elements that you'll need.

Let me tell you a little bit about this process before I show you the finished product.

This is actually a process for an e-commerce store that imports their products to the U.S. And they basically laid out this process in terms of how they import things, how they work with suppliers, how they work with the freight forwarders to get it over here. And once it arrives in the U.S., they also need to make sure that it gets labeled and ready to be sold. It needs to be handled by their warehouse to bring it in and make sure that the SKUs gets scanned and put on the shelves and things like that. So that's really what this process is about.

Once again, I want to reiterate the process map is the high level 30,000 foot view. You're not going to get every single detail, but you can walk somebody through it and you can explain, OK, here are the seven high level steps. It's just one of the tools that you would use to explain your process to someone. Let's go to the next tab.

This is the finalized version and I cleaned it up a little bit to protect the client's identity.

But essentially, you start with placing the order. We've got a rectangle and it's a step. We place the order. Then naturally we're going left to right, we're following those arrows. Next step would be writing the purchase order, sending the purchase order to suppliers and then consolidating orders, shipping the product.

I like to call out here: this diamond that we talked about, this is our decision point. What this decision point is asking, "is the shipment already labeled?" For this client, some of the suppliers, they already label the product so it's ready to be imported into the country. Some of them don't. So then they need to work with the partner to get things labeled. If the answer is no, then the product needs to be received and processed at the partner site. It's just another step. If the answer is yes, then it goes directly to the company's warehouse so they can receive and process it.

One other thing I added as well that you might have noticed is timing to understand, okay, what is the timing for each of these different steps? Is it daily? Is it going to take a couple of weeks, several weeks? And then when you take this process as a whole and you add up all the weeks, it can take anywhere from seven to 12 weeks.

Once again, with the process map you don't have to make it super complicated. It's a tool to visually show what's going on with the particular process.

That was a bit about the process map, tools like Lucidchart, you've got Visio and I'm going to link to these different service providers in the description below so you can check them out for yourself.

You also learned a little bit about some of the icons and how you can use them. And there's so much you can do with this, right? You can make it even more complicated, more information. I like to keep things simple, pragmatic, practical, so they really serve whoever is looking at it. And then finally, I walked you through an example of what a sample process map looks like, and this is actually for a client. This is based off of a real life example.

If you enjoyed this video, you learned something, please like this video, consider subscribing to my channel and if you have any questions, I encourage you to write them in the comments. I check these and, maybe we can make a video based off of your comment or I can guide you in the right direction, either if its tools, methodologies, if you want me to explain something a little bit better. Happy to do that.

Thanks so much. And I will see you next week.

Thanks for watching another episode of Xcel with Xavier. I've got new episodes coming out every Thursday morning. Please don't forget to like this video and subscribe to my channel to receive notifications of new content. Thanks again, and I hope to see you again next time.