Have you ever deep cleaned your closets only to discover some long-forgotten favorite item of clothing or pair of shoes? It’s hard to remember what you have to work with when it’s out of mind.
This same concept — that seeing something (whether clothes or jewelry or cash) is vital to using it — also applies to intangible assets like processes and time. You can’t improve how you’re spending resources if you don’t understand how you’re spending resources.
This is why process mapping is so important. Process mapping helps organizations manage and execute their processes in the most efficient, effective way possible.
According to Iowa State University:
Process mapping is a workflow diagram to bring forth a clearer understanding of a process or series of parallel processes.
In government, rules are set by outside forces (re: politicians and the voting public) who have little insight into how the work actually gets done, meaning well-intentioned, even thoroughly vetted laws, still create tremendous workload for government employees. Just look at all the new forms, processes and general confusion generated by the tension between the legalization of marijuana and the desire to regulate marijuana: it all leads to a lot of (paper) work.
The best way to understand what a process entails, and where the opportunities are to improve it, is to list out the steps one by one.
Start with the end in mind
Always keep in mind the end goal of your process. Is it to maximize the number of dogs licensed in your city? Do you want to get all landlords to register their vacation rental properties? Are you looking to regulate parking and prioritize the parking needs of residents, business owners or visitors? The end goal should be front of mind for all process mapping. If your goal is to maximize licensed dogs, then make sure compliance is easy, accessible and affordable. Meet dog owners where they are: working online, at the pet store, in the dog parks. Offer multiple avenues for payment and licensing and maybe some incentives for completing the paperwork on time(the carrot) and also enforce compliance with fines (the stick).
Talk to People
Talk to the people who are doing the work to ensure you understand not only every step of the process, but why things are done a certain way. Maybe there’s a valid reason to print out and mail permits. Maybe the city tried an online system a few years ago and it was a disaster. Figure out what is working and what isn’t and why. Once you know the why you can address the underlying issue.
It’s important at this phase to remember that each interaction costs the interviewer time and energy, so deliver value by way of an improved process. Involve your feedback providers with updates on any process changes and thank them for their involvement. Celebrate the staff members who invested time and energy in studying and improving processes. A positive feedback loop builds enthusiasm and energy and reinforces an organizational culture that seeks out continuous improvement.
Brace yourself
When you start poking around in corners, you might startle a few ghosts. If you’re dealing with a process with any kind of complexity, especially if it has sort of trundled along with minimal oversight for years or even decades, there’s a good chance you’re going to ruffle feathers. Sometimes people are afraid of change. Sometimes they don’t want to change because change is hard and they’ve been coasting.
Prepare for some resistance when you start this exercise. You’re going to get it. This is why it’s important to reward and praise and support the folks who are willing to look behind the curtain and ask tough questions.
Circles and Lines → Sketch it out
But how do you actually model a process? There’s a whole philosophy about process mapping and best practices, but I like to keep things simple with a checklist (to start) and then eventually a flow chart. Every process step is a circle, diamonds are decision points and progress from step to step is an arrow. Simple.
Now what?
Now that you have an idea of how the process should and could work, you can set about figuring out how to make your process better.
But that’s a topic for another post so I’ll leave you with this cute (licensed) pup:
