Understand first the "why" of your Process Mapping Effort.

 "I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious"

Albert Eistein.


It can sound obvious, but the purpose of the process mapping effort should be defined clearly from the beggining. If not, all the construct can be useless and the organization may feel dissapointed with the results of the effort. I have seen several mapping efforts that at the end didn´t fit with what the company expected from it.

I suggest to use techniques, like 5 Whys, to understand the roots of the process mapping effort in order to select what is the best approach. "5 Whys" is a simple technique for problem solving, typically used in the phase of "analysis" of the Six Sigma methodology, Kaizen and Lean Manufacturing, but also can be used in isolation. This technique was originally developed by Sakichi Toyoda and was built by Toyota in its "Toyota Production System".

This technique consists in asking questions iteratively in order to find the root cause of a problem. For example, let´s use this technique to understand the root cause analysis of an initiative of business process mapping:

You can use this technique or any other that help you understand the "why" and the expectations for the process mapping initiative. When you agree with your client what is the purpose, select the best approach for process mapping, in order to guarantee that you will have the proper tools to get the expected outcomes. For example, you can select the tool depending on the business situations as illustrated in the following table:

As you can see, you should select the right approach from the beggining. If there are several issues you want to solve, use a more general approach (like swim lanes or BPMN). For solving specific business situations, you may need to select a specialized technique (like VSM for improving processes).

Process Leaders: is the solution? (II)

The quality of the process will depend greately upon the process leadership and the process team. But, how to select a good Process Leader that improves our chance of a good business process management? Well, the Process Leader selection should be like the hiring process. It implies:

• - To define the competencies required for the job
• - To have a clear job and role description
• - To link process KPIs and targets to their rewards and compensation
• - To have candidates for the job, and go through a selection process

Let´s discuss about the competencies. Competencies are understood as the measurable or observable knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors (KSABs) critical to successful job performance. There are several classification of competencies, but we can use this one for our purpose:

Knowledge competencies - practical or theoretical understanding of subjects.

Skill and abilities competencies - natural or learned capacities to perform acts.

Behavorial competencies - patterns of action or conduct.

After that, you should define the level of competency the Process Leader (PL) should have, based on the following scale proposed by Dreyfus and Dreyfus:

1. Novice: Rule-based behaviour, strongly limited and inflexible
2. Experienced Beginner: Incorporates aspects of the situation
3. Practitioner: Acting consciously from long-term goals and plans
4. Knowledgeable practitioner: Sees the situation as a whole and acts from personal conviction
5. Expert: Has an intuitive understanding of the situation and zooms in on the central aspects

I would not like to elaborate about Competency-based management, so let´s start with these basic definitions. From my expertise, the core competencies a PL must have and he/she should be between the "Knowledgeable practitioner" and "Expert" are:

- Knowlege Competencies

• Process theory and concepts. It is critical. If not, will lose his/her leadership. PL main role is to "teach" these concepts to the team.
• Process methods and tools (like Lead Six Sigma, BPMN)
• Process repository basics. It means, where and how the processes will be documented and maintaned.
• Deep knowledge of the end-to-end process that will be under his/her leadership. PL must suggest improvement based on this knowledge.
• Process measurement and control (KPI, targets, actions, etc.).

- Skill and abilities competencies

• Leadership, and be recognized in the organization as a leader
• Team work, good at working in a team and getting the most from it.
• Excellent communicator. Presentation skills. 
• Change  management skills.
• Program and project management skills.

- Behavorial competencies

• Customer focus
• Alignment to the business strategy
• Focus on service, cost and effectiveness/efficiency
• Thinking in process, instead of function or silos
• Looking for a holistic view of the benefits (look for a greater good)
• Looking for consensus