by 
Do you know what process mapping is? And the five steps for its success? Come with me and let’s get to know everything about this strategy.
We can classify process mapping as a gathering of all the necessary steps for a certain production, displaying all the links between its activities and the ones responsible for them.
Along with this idea, there are several tools that can represent this mapping in a visual way, which makes a great difference in the process management results, since, in this case, it is much easier to visualize the activities, stages, decisions and the ones responsible for the production.
But after all, what is the concept of process?
According to the PMBOK guide – 4th Edition, a process is a set of interrelated actions and activities performed to achieve a specified product, result or service. In short, it is the standardization of activities that contain the same purpose.
And what are the advantages of mapping a process?
The advantages include demonstrating the return of a specific activity, i.e. being able to see its results. We can also present all the activities of a process in physical and visual form. We can turn all this into a flow with a task order, along with the part of guiding the production.
However, getting to the main point of this article, how is it possible to successfully achieve all these advantages?
The five steps for AS IS process mapping:
1st: Define key users
Here, the most important point is to choose people who have a mastery of the process and production, and who are operational (in other words, who work effectively in production activities).
2nd: Kickoff meeting
“Kickoff”, or simply start, summarizes this step very well. It is a general meeting with key users, making all the advantages of mapping a clear process. This way, these users drop the resistance and are able to tell in detail how all the activities work, making the process 100% productive.
3rd: Gather information
In this step, the user gathers all kinds of data that is useful for mapping the process, such as spreadsheets, e-mails, projects, reports, etc. Ideally, the user should show this step in the initial meeting, thus adding more content to it.
4th: The interviews
At this stage, the main point is data collection and identification of micro processes in the target environment, which can be a specific activity, a process of a client and so on.
It is important that the key user is related to the target of the collection, so that, if the data collected is incorrect, it gets corrected right away.
Another strategy is to always ask “Input and Output”-type questions, always questioning the key user about the input and output of data, facilitating the mapping activities and flow.
Validation of the data, and collection of signatures that validate them, can also be very interesting.
5th: Final meeting
The essence of this step is the junction of all the previous ones. It is a great example of what can be done, gathering information from one process, which will be the child of another process, thus gathering all the steps.
A new review of the mapping should be done, reviewing each point made, to ensure the quality and efficiency of the process.
Finally, with these steps, we can have an efficient process, always improving the origin and quality, based on all its participants, ready for deployment in your BPM platform, such as Fusion.
Try it for 15 days free right now! Or, if you prefer, request a demonstration from our consultants. Count on us to answer all your doubts and help your company!
