Business Process Mapping: Improving Customer Satisfaction

Preface

You are looking for a way to create efficiencies. You are looking for a way to analyze the work that is being done. You are looking for a way to provide better customer service. You are looking for a way to provide innovation. In any of these situations, you are ultimately looking for a way to better understand processes.

In business, just as in life, processes underlie everything we do. It is processes that allow us to come to work, it is processes that allow us to complete our work, and it is processes that bring people together to accomplish objectives. The intertwining of these processes ultimately leads to the success or failure of any enterprise. So, we are all looking for a tool that can help us untangle those processes, understand how they work, and how they can work together toward successful achievement of objectives.

Process Mapping is that tool. It allows reviewers the opportunity to get a better understanding of the process, effectively find ways for that process to be more successful, and ensure that true value is being provided to the customers.

Throughout the years, a number of approaches and techniques have used the name Process Mapping. Technically, there is no clearly defined Process Mapping approach, nor is there a wrong or right approach to Process Mapping. Each approach has its merits and may be applicable in various situations.

However, we have found that our approach to Process Mapping has resulted in numerous successful process analysis engagements. These have ranged from quick one-week reviews of small units to multimonth projects analyzing entire operations. We have used this approach in the past and continue to do so. Our success is measured by the continued requests for this type of review.

Not to put too fine a point on it—our approach works.

It may be misleading to call the overall approach we describe as Process Mapping, because the final product—the Process Map—can sometimes be nothing more than a glorified flowchart. (In fact, our working title for the book was Process Mapping: Flowcharting with an Attitude.) But it is the work around those maps that provides the real insight. What we will do is show an entire approach that leads to a holistic understanding of the process under review.

We begin by taking a closer look at processes and what they are. Starting with a concept that is the cornerstone of moviemaking—storyboarding—we show how Process Mapping can drill down into the area under review. While describing the steps used in Process Mapping, insights into how an operation functions will be discovered. This approach includes working with the client to ensure that everyone has a full understanding of the processes involved; learning the underlying concepts behind the process, such as objectives, risks, and key controls; building the actual maps that are the cornerstone of this approach; and using various approaches to help determine how to make the process better. A number of tools are also provided to more effectively complete the various analyses. Finally, we discuss different applications for Process Mapping, the things that can go wrong while Process Mapping, and additional process analysis approaches that work nicely in conjunction with Process Mapping. We also introduce an application of Process Mapping called Customer Mapping, whereby the principles of Process Mapping are more closely tied to the customer.

For some projects, every step in the book is the right answer. In others, just a few sections are necessary. But it cannot be emphasized enough that the approaches, concepts, and practices outlined in this book can be successful. Ultimately, that is what we want to share with you. Through the explanations and examples that follow, we will show you how to use Process Mapping as an effective analysis tool. The approach is simple yet powerful and can be used by anyone who needs to analyze a process—whether you are working within the department, within the company, or externally.

No doubt, when you are finished with this book, you will have a good understanding of the Process Mapping approach, along with a set of tools to help facilitate the project. But you should also better understand how the work that is done helps achieve company objectives and leads to better customer satisfaction. Finally, when you apply these techniques, we are firmly convinced you will find the same successes we have found.

Let us just end by noting that, while we are Internal Audit professionals, the concepts of Process Mapping go beyond the discipline of Internal Audit. Yes, it is a tool for that profession, but anyone who wants to effectively analyze processes will benefit from this approach.

INTRODUCTION

Pinocchio and the World of Business

A film is a petrified fountain of thought.

—Jean Cocteau

In 1938, Walt Disney held a meeting with his animators to discuss an idea he had for the follow-up to his blockbuster Snow White. He brought the entire group into one room, sat them down, and proceeded to tell a story. He began by describing a lonely woodcarver. He told of how the man carved a wooden boy and wished that boy was real. He told of the Blue Fairy who heard the old man and brought the little wooden boy to life, but left him made of wood. He then told of the boy’s heroic struggles—being captured by the evil Stromboli, going to Pleasure Island where he began to be turned into a donkey, and eventually saving his father from the whale Monstro. At the end, he told of the boy’s transformation to a real boy.

The story he told was Pinocchio, based on the book by Carlo Collodi, and Walt Disney intended it to be his next movie. As he told the story, Disney took on the parts of all the characters. He spoke the words. He acted out the scenes. He led the group on the roller coaster ride that would become his next triumph. When the entire story had been spread before them, he told the animators, Make that movie.

The animators were thrown the challenge of taking that series of events—Disney’s re-enacted story of the transformation of Pinocchio into a real boy—and making it into a movie. This was a daunting task. Disney had an exact image—from start to finish—of the animated movie he wanted to make. By talking and gesturing and becoming that movie, he spelled out its story. The animators had the challenge of taking that story and making it a finished product. However, a tool already existed that had proven invaluable in the development of cartoons—storyboarding.

Storyboards are large areas (at that time, four-by-eight-foot boards) on which sketches can be pinned. Key steps of the story are drawn and placed in order. As the story is fleshed out, additional drawings are included. If something is wrong, it is discarded. If the sequence is particularly complicated, more drawings are put in for detail. What results is a pictorial flow of the movie’s transformation from beginning to end.

Using Disney’s vision and the existing tools of the trade, the animators succeeded, and Pinocchio became Disney’s second animated feature movie—another smash. The world fell in love with the puppet boy who wanted to become real. They watched as the Blue Fairy brought him to life, as his naiveté caused him to succumb to Foulfellow and Gideon, and as he saved Geppetto from Monstro—a series of actions that led to his final transformation into a real boy.

At its very core, the story of Pinocchio is a process. As all good processes do, it has an input (Geppetto carving a puppet and wishing it were a real boy), it has an output (Pinocchio becoming a real boy), and between those a series of events—the actions—that achieve that transformation. Disney’s animators documented the process of that transformation through storyboarding.

Every individual has many stories to tell. Each of these stories is a process, a series of actions that takes input, transforms it, and produces an output. Some are dramatic transformations, life-altering events that shake and move them. For example, a person may tell a story about surviving an earthquake. The story begins with the earth shaking around the person (the input). A number of actions are taken—grabbing the children, running out of the house, or just falling to the ground. And the final outcome is safe survival. Other stories are less thrilling, but a process nonetheless. Take, for example, waking up in the morning. The alarm goes off (the input), the body goes through a series of movements (the process), and the body eventually is in an upright and (hopefully) alert position (the output). Each story is a process.

In the business world, every company has a story to tell as well. At its most basic level, that story is the transformation of investments into profits. But for that story to reach a positive conclusion, there are a series of more fundamental stories to tell. One story may be the transformation of steel into an automobile, another may be the transformation of a phone call into customer service, and another may be the transformation of computer data into information. But no matter what the process, it is a story told by a group of individuals. Just as each story is a process, each process is a story.

The tool that brings this all together is Process Mapping—storyboarding for the business world. The development of Process Maps comes from the reviewer sitting with an employee who tells the story. As that story unfolds, the reviewer documents the process in a way that will help the employee visualize the transformation that occurs. At the end, the employee can see the finished product and ensure that the story has been told accurately. Each scene can be put together to provide the reviewer with the final movie that is the entire process. Then, much like a director, the reviewer can analyze the finished product to show how to build a better movie, one that does just what Disney hoped Pinocchio would do—result in a profitable enterprise.

Process Mapping is a way to graphically represent the transactions and stories that make up a business. However, just as storyboarding in and of itself is not a movie (rather, it is a tool used to make that final movie), Process Mapping by itself is not a complete analysis. Instead, it is a tool that helps complete the final analysis of the process under review.

What follows is more than just a description of how the tool called Process Mapping works; it is a description of how it works as part of an overall approach to process analysis. We discuss processes and how to drill down into them. We talk about how processes interrelate with other processes and the information that must be obtained to understand them. Then we discuss the actual mapping of a process—how the Process Mapping tool works and how it can be used to analyze the process.

Before us we have a challenge much like that faced by Disney’s animators. Every company is telling a story, and every employee within that company has his or her own story to tell—a scene to share. We, as reviewers, want to learn those stories and understand those scenes in order to find out what is going on. Our task is to take those scenes and come up with the final movie—the overall epic of how initial input leads through a transformation to final output.

Our review has to determine whether the movie is the right length. It may take three hours to tell the story, but if no one wants to sit through a three-hour movie, you will sell no tickets. Likewise, if it takes four months for you to deliver your product, there may be no one waiting at the end to buy it. Does the story require a mini-series, or is a one-reeler enough? Is the process taking three hours to tell a ten-minute story?

Our review also has to determine whether each scene benefits the whole. Anton Chekhov was once famously quoted as saying, If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following act it should be fired. What part of the story is truly needed, and what parts are missing? Does every pistol go off? Is every process necessary to build the final output?

Finally, our movie (as they used to say in vaudeville) has to play in Peoria. Even if we have developed the world’s greatest widget in the shortest amount of time, it is useless if the world has moved on to sprockets. Do the customers need the product? Do they need part of it, but not all? If it is unnecessary, what should we be doing instead?

Process Mapping helps us achieve that task, just as storyboarding helped Disney’s animators. And when we are done, we will have a blockbuster, too—an analysis that gives us a holistic view of the process, as well as the cooperation and buy-in of all levels in the company.

We’re ready for our close-up, Mr. DeMille. Lights, camera, action—let the Process Mapping begin.

CHAPTER 1

What Is This Thing Called Process Mapping?

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.

—Douglas Adams

Who Cares about Processes, Anyway?

Most companies spend a great deal of time each year developing strategic objectives and goals. High-level objectives are developed that reflect the overall strategy of the company. Business objectives are then developed at the department level to support overall company objectives. Goals are developed to measure the progress toward achieving particular business objectives. And every employee has individual objectives that support overall strategies.

In a perfect world, there would not be any conflicting goals. All department objectives would actually support the company objectives. Every employee would understand these goals and objectives and understand how the work he or she performs contributes to the achievement of those goals and objectives. The company’s plans would be executed flawlessly and the story would always have a happy ending—the wooden company would become real.

However, such happy endings seem far too rare. Strategic objectives may be developed in isolation—from the top and communicated down. Department objectives may be self-serving and may not support strategic objectives. Department objectives may be in conflict with one another. Employees below the management level may not have any idea what the company’s goals and objectives are or how the work they do contributes to the achievement of those objectives. People only see their own story—follow their plot—and have no idea what is going on around them. They do not always understand the company’s or department’s story, and certainly have no idea how they can help achieve that happy ending.

The accumulation of activities that takes place in each business process is what ultimately determines a company’s success. So processes must be analyzed to ensure that they support key business objectives. Process analysis is particularly useful in ensuring the accomplishment of business objectives relating to customer service, efficiency, effectiveness, and profitability.

Tell Me a Story: Analyzing the Process

A vital key to transforming a business is the complete understanding of the processes involved in it. This understanding is necessary for any change management approach to be of value, and it can be included in total quality management, Sarbanes-Oxley analysis, process re-engineering, International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certification, and even in developing a Baldrige Award- winning approach. But getting a handle on the processes is one of the more daunting tasks reviewers must face.

However, this task is not unlike the one Disney’s animators faced. The animators had to find a way to transform the narrative Walt Disney had told them into a movie. Likewise, reviewers must find a way to transform the company’s story into a concrete, tangible product that can be viewed, verified, and manipulated. To help understand that story, the reviewer needs a storyteller to bring the stories to life. The animators had Walt Disney; reviewers have the company’s employees. Walt Disney knew Pinocchio’s story inside and out. He would tell it to anyone who would listen. The company’s employees know their stories just as well, and they are willing to tell the details of those stories to anyone who will listen—where things are going right and where the plot is not quite so good. Each employee knows the job and knows the processes that are completed. These are movies that go on constantly in their minds. Although they often have not thought about it, they know the beginning, the transformation, and the end.

The challenge for any reviewer is to get that information and develop a finished product that anyone can look at and understand, not unlike a finished movie. This requires the reviewer to talk with that employee and learn each of the steps—each of the scenes—that make up that process. Process Mapping is the technique that helps the reviewer transform that employee’s movie into a finished product that anyone can view and understand.

Benefits

We’ve already enumerated some of the more obvious benefits of Process Mapping, including better documentation of the review process, the ability to visually represent the process, and an overall view of the various aspects of the process. However, that only scratches the surface.

As previously noted, if the only step taken when developing Process Maps is to graphically document a process, then Process Mapping can become nothing more than glorified flowcharting. Instead, the Process Maps are part of a larger system. When all the steps of this system are used, there are additional benefits that may not be as readily apparent.

Holistic

In daily life, processes constantly come in conflict as the objectives of one process directly oppose the objectives of another. For example, every workday, millions of individuals climb into their cars to start the process known as going to work. For many, the primary objective of this process is to arrive at work at the proper time. If the individual feels that this primary objective may not be achieved, then speed is at a premium and other objectives fall by the wayside. This individual then runs into a significant conflict with another objective. Municipalities have developed a series of processes intended to ensure achievement of their primary objective related to safe travel. Speed limits, stop signs, and traffic lanes all work together to thwart the time-conscious traveler. The driver’s objective (the need for speed) comes in direct conflict with the municipality’s objective (the need for safety).

In every aspect of our lives, every process is forced to interrelate with other, coexisting processes. The same is true in business. To meet the objectives of keeping shareholders, customers, and employees happy, executives and managers must juggle conflicting priorities—the objective of paying expenses comes in conflict with the objective of making a profit; the objective of keeping employees satisfied comes in conflict with reducing expenses; and the objective of making a top-quality product comes in conflict with the customer’s objective of paying a low price.

Far too often, analysis is done in a vacuum without considering how these processes interrelate. Reviewers will talk to one person or one function and find what works best for that single perspective. As a result, the reviewers may focus on one set of objectives at the expense of another. This analysis in a vacuum far too easily provides benefits to one while taking from another.

Process Mapping provides a method for taking a holistic approach to this analysis. Before sitting and talking with people, the reviewer gains a full understanding of the process’s objectives and how they interrelate with the company’s overall objectives. The objective of each part of the process is also reviewed to ensure that it benefits some greater objective. And, when identifying and recommending changes, the reviewer will keep all these objectives in mind to ensure that the effect of this change is fully understood.

By looking at the whole picture and integrating the various parts, the reviewer sees not only what needs to be changed, but also how the proposed change will affect everyone. With an overall view, the benefits for one can be weighed against the detriments to another, and the ultimate good can be appropriately considered.

Employees’ Buy-In

Too many reviewers come in with the mind-set that management must be pleased. Often, reviewers have preconceived notions of what they will find. And even if the reviewer is open-minded, the review is often done in isolation from the employees. Discussions may be held with management. There may be reviews of procedure. Files may even be reviewed. But the people actually doing the work are never brought into the picture.

Even if discussions are held with line personnel, the ultimate product may still be geared toward management or executives. Many reviewers obtain information on how things are supposed to be done, but they do not use the employee as a resource for understanding how things are really done or how they can be improved. And employees are not so slow-witted as to misunderstand what is happening. They recognize that reviewers are often in the room, but not listening.

Process Mapping allows a true buy-in to the completed product. Maps are developed in real time, and the employee can see exactly what is being recorded. They are developed in an interactive atmosphere that allows the employee to physically change what is occurring. Plus, it allows them to provide input on where the system can be improved. In our experience, we have gone back to offices where employees were excited about the process. They told new employees about the review that was going to be completed and looked forward to their turn to talk to us.

Despite the fears previously addressed, employees are still happy to have someone actually listen to them. They have a story to tell. That story can take up to eight or more hours of their life each day. And when someone actually listens, they are more than willing to share. We have had employees share ideas that changed the way processes worked throughout the company. They were willing to tell anyone who would listen—it is just that no one was listening.

One of the biggest mistakes we made when first implementing Process Mapping was something as simple as not sharing the finished product with all employees. We discussed the results with the manager and supervisors, giving them the completed maps. We left assuming that they would share the information. In short order, we heard from the employees that they were very upset. They wanted copies of the completed maps. Even those who had only a small part in the process were interested. It was a product they helped develop. They had ownership, and the owners wanted their product. Ever since, we always make a point of ensuring that all employees are provided with the final product.

Sense of Pride

The previous two benefits lead to the third benefit of Process Mapping. Many employees come to work and understand what they do (their story). They take something, transform it, and make it something else. Some are lucky enough to actually interact with customers and see the effect of what they do. But many see only that input and output.

Process Mapping not only provides management with an overall view of operations, but also provides employees with a view of how their work adds value and how they are part of a team. The holistic approach allows them to see where their work comes from. They can see the steps that lead to the product they receive and understand the work that has gone before. They can also see why they are doing what they do. Each step in the process should lead to further steps in the map. Eventually, this should lead to a final benefit to the customer. Process Mapping is often the first time employees understand why they are doing the work they do. It helps them understand why a bothersome statistic they are required to generate is important to a report that drives future customer transactions. Or it may show why they should not use a certain code they thought would make things run smoother.

In the book Gung Ho!, Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles talk about the spirit of the squirrel—the need for people to believe their work is worthwhile. They go on to state that worthwhile means that people must understand their work; it must lead to a well-understood and shared goal; and values must guide everything they do in their work. Basic to all of this is that people must understand how their work makes the world a better place.

For some jobs, this is easy. Doctors see their patients become healthier, pilots know they take people safely from one place to another, and politicians . . . well, let’s not press it. Other jobs seem so menial or useless that people only think they are part of a cog that makes larger cogs. But looked at as part of a greater process, any job takes on meaning. On one level, the file clerk may only be pushing paper, but on another level, he is ensuring that paperwork is available when decisions must be made. On one level, the janitor handles trash and dirt, but on another level, he is ensuring that the people in the building can achieve their work at its highest level. On one level, the factory worker just puts rivets in metal, but on another level he ensures that the product meets customer specifications in order to achieve customer satisfaction. Process Mapping, done correctly, helps provide the information that will show employees the true value of their jobs.

During one review, we asked employees what their work accomplished. They were not able to tell us. In fact, they told us that when they asked their supervisor why they did the things they did, they were told, You don’t need to know. We showed them how their work fit in with the overall process. Not only did it provide them with a sense that their work accomplished something, but also it led them to suggest changes and elimination of paperwork that cut days off the processing time. Not bad for a bunch of clerks.

Customer-Driven

If a process leads to completion of an output that nobody wants, it is a waste of time—there is no customer. The successful analysis of processes must take customers into account, and that can be any level of customer. Maybe it is the primary customer—the one who buys the product; the one who purchases the car or insurance or legal advice. Or it may be an internal customer—the one who uses that output as their input to their process; the accounting department or the chief executive officer (CEO); or the next step in the production. Bottom line, any analysis must take the customer into account; it must be driven from the customer’s perspective.

Possibly the most important benefit of Process Mapping is that it is customer-driven. To complete a Process Map, everyone must understand what is being delivered to the customer and why. Initial reviews with employees are established in a way that begins this process—the idea of identifying outputs and how they benefit a customer. Likewise, analysis of the inputs helps the reviewer understand whether the customer is getting a useful product.

In addition, evaluation of the process is meant to help ensure that the operation is as transparent to the customer as possible. And transparency is an important component of internal processes. Timely response is the hallmark of perfect customer service, and looking for efficiencies in a process directly affecting customers is a good start. But it is just as important to identify process-caused delays that should not be affecting the customer. For example, if administrative duties such as timekeeping cut into an individual’s ability to provide customer service, a nonsupporting process is affecting the customers. And customers are much less willing to accept the excuse that there was a delay because of administrative issues. These are the processes that must become transparent to the customer, and finding ways to create