Use process mapping to find the real bottleneck
When work moves slowly, the busiest team often receives the most attention. Yet the main constraint may be a missing approval, incomplete information or a handover nobody owns. A useful process map shows how work actually reaches an outcome and where progress is being restricted.
Editorial responsibility: Nardus Oelofse, Chief Consultant.
By Chase & Marshal
Choose a clear beginning and end
Select a process with a recognisable trigger and a useful outcome. An enquiry becoming an approved quote is easier to examine than a broad label such as sales. Include the customer or internal recipient who depends on the result.
Follow several recent examples through the process. Record the steps, decisions, systems and people involved. Capture what happened rather than the procedure everyone believes should happen. Differences between the two often reveal the most useful questions.
Separate working time from waiting time
Ask how long the task is actively worked on and how long it sits between steps. Record why it waits: missing information, competing priorities, approval availability or uncertainty about responsibility. A queue can be more important than a slow task.
In an illustrative service business, preparing a quote may take an hour while approval takes several days. Improving the template could help, but clarifying the approval authority and required information may have a greater effect on the time a customer waits.
Include exceptions and repeated work
Trace what happens when a request is incomplete, unusual or changed after approval. Look for work returning to an earlier step and information entered more than once. The standard route may represent only part of the actual workload.
Ask where errors are discovered and who corrects them. A process can appear efficient when rework is hidden in another team. Mapping across departments helps the business see that cost and understand how one decision affects the next person in the chain.
Test one change at the constraint
Identify the point most restricting the overall outcome, then choose a manageable change. That could mean improving intake information, moving a decision earlier, changing authority or balancing capacity. Establish how you will tell whether the change helped.
Review the whole process after the trial. Faster work in one step may simply move the queue elsewhere. Keep the map simple enough to maintain and use it to support decisions. Its purpose is to help people agree where to act and what to measure, rather than produce an elaborate diagram that nobody revisits.
Questions answered
Do we need specialist mapping software?
Start with a format the people doing the work can understand and update. Accurate observation, useful questions and cross-team participation matter more than the drawing tool.
Related
Sources
Sources supporting the factual statements in this article. Findings should be read within their stated dates, geography and scope.
- Improve your productivity - Business.govt.nz. www.business.govt.nz. Publication date not supplied.
- Process mapping - Business.govt.nz. www.business.govt.nz. Publication date not supplied.
Locate the delay that matters
Bring a process with repeated delays or handover problems. We can help make the work visible, identify the main constraint and define a practical improvement.
