What is Process Mapping in Business? A Detailed Guide

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3. Company alignment

Mapping a process means that everyone gets to learn how something is done and should be done. You should involve everyone in your team to participate in the process, allowing them to see how their day-to-day actions directly impact company goals. The organisation then becomes aligned in its way of thinking and doing, as employees can see how they are making a difference.

“Process mapping fosters teamwork and welcomes ideas for improvement from all parts of the company so that everyone feels included regardless of their position.”

Craig Willis

Head of Client Solutions – Process Improvement, Netcall

4. Strategy for intelligent business processes  

Capturing your processes consistently means that your organisation is always ready to launch a project, course-correct strategy or change programme. Process mapping allows change to happen – and happen successfully.

Often, effective process mapping will shape how an organisation makes decisions and changes objectives or procedures for its benefit. Attempting to make a change without a clear understanding of your business operations is a high-risk endeavour that often yields little reward.

If you truly want to make an impactful change, you need to understand why you are making that change and how it is likely to make a difference. While this is predictive and may not always be accurate, it is a much better way of beginning to enact change than simply deciding to switch any aspect of a process without having it mapped out.

With your processes mapped out, you can make data-driven decisions instead. Liberty Spark, our process improvement solution, is a tool that helps you take a map one step further to make such decisions.

Easily providing you with the data you need, simply plug the existing information into your process map for Spark to identify areas for improvement. Once you’ve identified those spots, you can use the Quantify feature to test out different solutions. Identify what’s costing you the most, remove or replace it and adjust your process by adding or eliminating a step. Then, estimate the impact of these changes on your organisation over the next week, month, or year. And to top it all off, a report will be ready for you to review with your stakeholders.

5. Improved performance and tangible benefits

Taking the time to map processes also means that teams have the chance to look at the way they do things and challenge whether those steps are correct. They may also discover a quicker or cheaper way to do things, identify steps where tasks are repeated or think of new ways to improve customer experience.

Process capture enables everyone to evaluate their processes and identify the most effective ways to accomplish tasks. This will mean higher levels of service for all and a more efficient and optimised organisation. This also helps you reduce unnecessary costs and save more to invest in the correct verticals.

6. Increase employee engagement  

Once an organisation has mapped a process, they should be able to share it with everyone. A process should always be constantly reviewed and updated. If it is, it can be an excellent training and induction tool for any employee to use.

Process maps can be stored online or in the cloud easily and in an easy-to-read format, making it effortless for employees. And, because you are constantly checking in with employees about how things are working and whether they think anything can be improved, you ensure that they are always aware of the overall impact they have on the organisation. This fosters loyalty and support.

Common approaches to business process mapping

Like many business activities, there are different ways to approach process mapping. Different notation types and diagrams showcase how your business is run. In this part of our process mapping guide, we will go through some of the main process mapping notations and types, but this list is not exhaustive.

How to make a process map in business

In this section, we’ll show you how to create powerful process diagrams quickly. This will help you:

1. to align your workforce
2. understand your company’s constraints
3. identify vital improvement opportunities.

Step 1: Identify the goal and scope

Before you begin, you need a clear title and the scope of the process you are about to map. The title is generally the easy bit. What process are we going to map? e.g. Sales Process, Marketing Process, or something even more specific like the Expenses Process. Whatever you decide, make sure you clearly outline the process.

The slightly more complex but essential part is the scope. By defining a scope, we are setting the boundaries for what we want to map. This helps to focus everyone and prevent the team from talking about other areas that are not relevant… or ‘Out of Scope’.

To define the scope, you need to think about what triggers the process in the first place and its final output – the start and end points.

The start point

Think about: What is the goal of this process map? Are you trying to fix a specific problem, onboard new employees, or simply document a procedure? Once you know the “why,” you can define the scope.

Let’s look at an example of the Sales Process. It varies by company, but here the sales process starts when a new lead is generated. So, the trigger (Start) may be as simple as “New Lead”.

Remember, it’s not unusual to have multiple inputs, or triggers, to start a process. For example, leads may come from different sources, so your inputs could be: “New Phone Lead”, “New Email Lead” and “New Web Form Lead”. This is especially useful if you manage them differently throughout the process. A New Phone Lead will probably start with a telephone conversation, whereas an Email Lead may require you to arrange a call first.

The endpoint

The end of the process should deliver some sort of value, either to the customer or to the next process in the business. A good way to think about defining this final output is to think about what you would need to see in order to know that the process was finished. So, if we continue with our Sales Process example, we may expect this to only finish once an order has been placed.

In which case, the final output would be “Order Placed”, or “Signed Contract”. Just like the start point, there may well be multiple endpoints. Don’t worry about this. We know that not all leads will convert into sales, so an alternative endpoint might be “No Sale” or “Sale Abandoned”.

These could be important outputs to know if, in the future, you want to investigate how you handle these leads. It will help you to understand how to map the process as well

Most importantly, don’t overthink it. It’s better to put something that looks roughly correct to start with; you can always change it as you map out more of the process.

Step 2: Gather information & identify stakeholders

This is the most critical part of process mapping. You need to understand the process from all angles, which means gathering information from the people who actually do the work – the subject matter experts.

The power of a process mapping workshop

A process mapping workshop is the most effective way to gather information. It brings together all the key players, the subject matter experts, to map out how a process works collaboratively.

Workshops are fantastic because they:

1. Allow for real-time collaboration and discussion.
2. Help align different departments or teams that interact with the same process.
3. Surface hidden issues and reveal different perspectives on how the work is actually done.

To run a successful workshop, make sure you invite the right people. If the process crosses multiple departments, everyone involved should be there. A workshop with half the important actors missing will be a waste of time.

This facilitation is a skill to learn all by itself, and you can find out more about how to run a process mapping workshop the right way in this part of the guide to process mapping below.

Choosing the right tools

The tools you use can make or break your workshop.

1. Traditional method: Historically, workshops relied on physical tools like sticky notes and large brown paper on a wall. This visual approach can be engaging and collaborative, but it has drawbacks. It’s time-consuming to document afterwards and sticky notes can fall off, leading to errors. This method also isn’t suitable for remote or hybrid teams.
2. Modern Intelligent Process Mapping: The modern approach uses digital tools. By entering information directly into a laptop and projecting it for the group, you can create a map in real time. This ensures accuracy and allows the team to see changes as they happen.

A simple, user-friendly tool is best. It should be easy enough for everyone to follow along, update and edit the process as they discuss it. With the right tool, your process map is ready to be shared as soon as the workshop is over.

Alternative information gathering methods

While workshops are powerful, they aren’t always feasible. Here are two alternative ways to gather and process information:

1. One-on-one interviews: Interviews offer a focused, one-on-one conversation. This can be particularly useful for sensitive processes where individuals might be hesitant to speak openly in a group setting. The downside is that you only get one person’s perspective at a time, so you’ll need to conduct multiple interviews to get a complete picture.
2. Document review: You can also begin by examining existing documentation, like policies and procedures. This is a great starting point, but it is rarely enough to complete a full process map. Documents often describe how a process should work, not how it actually works in practice. Use this as a foundation to raise questions and discussion points for later review with the team.

Step 3: ‘What happens?’ – The key steps in your process map

These all start with a verb. Following this simple rule makes it much easier for anyone to read and understand the process afterwards.

Then, as you map out a new process, call out all the activities you can think of and add them as boxes. Often, people use sticky notes when doing this on a whiteboard.

When working in a group, throw up all the activities people can think of and sort them into the correct order.

You may end up with lots and lots of boxes on the page, and that’s OK. Just go with it. You will quickly find that some steps are details which sit underneath others. Here you have a choice. Either put all the detailed boxes into the process and create something that is very large and potentially difficult to read. Or you may group detailed steps together and create separate processes for them.

With Liberty Spark, activities are captured in activity boxes answers the question: What is happening in this step?

The idea with our  solution is to start by placing a few boxes on your page. When you do this, Spark itself will begin to ask in each box: What happens here?

Step 4: ‘Why?’ – The reason for doing the work

This step helps you challenge thinking such as “we’ve always done it that way”. It helps people consider steps and suggest improvements.  For example, if these outputs form the handover from one person to another, it helps everyone agree what that handover looks like.

Start working through each activity from the previous step and ask one or more of the following questions:

1. Why do we do this activity?
2. What do we have at the end of it?
3. What could we measure to ensure it has been completed?
4. What do we need to start the next activity?

The output of each activity should become the input to the next. Once you have been through all the activities and added all the outputs, the order of the steps will become even clearer. You may need to rearrange them to make sure.

A look at Liberty Spark’s mapping activity boxes

Step 5: ‘Who does it?’ – The person who makes sure it happens

Now you should have a clear process with all the steps and outputs defined and in the correct order. The next step is to define who or what is performing each activity.

It’s recommended that you use roles or job titles to describe who does each step rather than individuals’ names. This is because personnel may change, or you may have multiple people working in the same role.

By this stage, you will probably notice that you are repeating or iterating through the process. This is, in fact, deliberate. Every time you do this, you’ll realise that someone will probably notice something missing or inaccurate. This part of the process mapping makes your process clearer and more accurate over time.

Step 6: ‘What else?’ – Any additional information you need to capture

Finally, before finishing, remember the goal: identifying issues and improvement opportunities. Crucially, capture these discussions and link them to the relevant process parts, for instance, by annotating the process. In Liberty Spark, you can attach any relevant information like systems, risks, or documents to steps for easy capture and reporting.

Once complete, remember that a process is dynamic; keep it updated as changes are made. Well-documented processes are easier to share for colleague feedback and ideas.

If mapping a process is frustrating, you’re not doing it right!

It’s an opportunity for your team to come together, check if they are doing things the right way, and see if there’s room for improvement. Even more than that, it is a chance for the team to check they are aligned, that they understand each other’s roles, and they work together to make change happen – it’s a way to inspire loyalty and pride for your organisation.

We have created an extended guide on process mapping best practices and examples, which covers the use of a business process map for industries.

“Processes are an essential part of any organisation. For your organisation to be successful, you need to understand them. In our experience, mapping a process is a sharing, collaborative and engaging experience.  “

Craig Willis

Head of Client Solutions – Process Improvement, Netcall

Use this process mapping guide to ensure you get the most out of this activity every time. And to truly improve and get the most out of your process maps long term, you must practice continuous improvement.

Which process do I start with?

So you know how to map a process, but the most important question is which process to start with. We would recommend looking at our Business on a Page Process template. This one-page exercise will help you identify key processes and decide which ones to start with. Use this to get going with your new process mapping skills.

What is continuous improvement?

Continuous improvement is a philosophy that preaches continuously studying and engaging with your existing processes to improve them. This helps your business run more effectively, manage costs, improve customer satisfaction and optimise your business for success. This part of the process mapping guide will go into more detail about how continuous improvement works.

By practising continuous improvement, you always know how your company is doing. You can recognise changes and emerging trends in positive or negative directions, and adjust your organisation’s processes and goals accordingly.

How continuous improvement in process mapping works

Continuous improvement works by consistently checking in on the effect your current processes are having on your success.

You can typically figure it out with numerical data, such as sales numbers, costs and how well they are doing. The lower your sales and the higher your costs, the easier it is to put together that something is going wrong.  In the past, it could be easy to forget to check this if you didn’t have someone assigned expressly to do so. This meant that even though processes sometimes changed on the ground, only those directly involved found out and owners or stakeholders did not, as there was no good record of these changes.

And when those employees moved on, the new process was lost. Organisations often find it easy to gather and process information, but maintaining that progress is incredibly difficult. This does not need to be an issue anymore.

The link to knowledge management in process mapping  

Continuous improvement is directly linked to knowledge management. By knowledge management, we refer to maintaining information instrumental for your processes to run correctly, stored and saved within your organisation. In the past, your processes (maps and any associated documentation) could not be consolidated in one singular place to function as a centralised source of truth for how your business is run.

But technology has made it possible. How? Simply by creating a process library.

What is a process library in business process mapping?

Without them, you lack sufficient knowledge about how your processes are run to implement continuous improvement. Or you have to re-map your processes every time you remember you want to improve on them, making it an incredibly time-consuming activity you simply keep procrastinating on.

Process libraries are instrumental in continuous improvement.

A process library is a location for all of your processes and their documentation to be stored. It enables you to easily use them for training and workshop purposes, while also helping you retain your knowledge of how your organisation is currently run.

With the right software, you can create and document all your processes and save them in a shareable, collaborative space for everyone to check. And it can even remind you when you should be studying them to see what can be improved based on the numerical data you input – that’s what we’ve done with Spark.

Liberty Spark – business process mapping

Remember, you are never truly done improving your processes; something can always be improved, but you won’t know where to even start if you don’t have your knowledge stored in one place, easily accessible and shareable.

If you found this process mapping guide useful, you can gain access to even more resources below and take a look at our easy-to-use process mapping solution – Liberty Spark. 

Here’s how Liberty Spark makes process mapping easy:

1. Simple & Intuitive Design: Liberty Spark’s simple design lets you capture processes in real time. You don’t need to be a technical expert to create a clear, easy-to-read map.
2. Real-Time Collaboration:  Easy-to-access software means everyone can view process maps, add comments and update information instantly.
3. Beyond the Workshop: Process maps shouldn’t be static. Effortlessly share, engage your workforce and find all your organisation’s key processes in one central repository.
4. Ready for Transformation: A process map in Liberty Spark is more than a diagram – it’s the first step toward business transformation. The data you capture is ready to be used for new system requirements, automation, compliance and more.

About the author

Craig Willis

Head of Process Improvement Solutions

Craig has spent over 20 years liberating organisations from the pain of poor business processes. In his role at Netcall, Craig advises customers on how to empower the workforce to find and implement process improvements at scale. This includes how to rapidly identify opportunities, assess them and design and implement solutions using the Liberty platform.