Chronological Is Not That Logical

When you’re tasked with documenting your department’s processes, it can be overwhelming. Often times the project is so hard to approach that the gut reaction is to rely on everyone’s favorite method for doing anything: start at the beginning, and take it one step at a time.

Unfortunately, this approach just doesn’t work when documenting business processes. It’s not the processes themselves that present a problem — it’s the people. When you try to document each step chronologically, the inevitable result is a trip down rat-hole lane. Rat-holing is when you get caught up with the minor details and exceptions that occur in any process. I’ve seen documentation sessions go on for hours with little to show for the effort because each stakeholder in the room was preoccupied with the subtle exceptions to the steps that they themselves were most passionate about.

The single largest challenge in process discovery is corralling the focus of the people involved. As long as human beings are in the room attempting to document the process, there will always be that risk of rat-holing. Fortunately, there are two basic things that you can do to avoid rat-holes.

1.) Start with the First and Last Steps

Approach your project with a clean understanding of where the process begins and where the process ends. You must document the first step and the last step first. By doing this, you will build a framework for the rest of the session. Thinking chronologically will only encourage participants to discuss every possible phenomenon that can occur. Once you have the first and last steps on the board, encourage everyone to think only of the biggest, most important steps that occur in the middle. This approach is completely against the grain of how people want to document a process, but it’s going to save hours upon hours of time. Those middle steps should not be brainstormed in chronological order. The idea is to brainstorm the steps in any order so that the small stuff doesn’t pop up and cause the team to get into another rat hole. You can arrange them chronologically only after they have been brainstormed at random.

2.) Remember That Minor Steps Belong in the Parking Lot

A parking lot generally takes the form of a space on the whiteboard where less important steps and details are placed for future consideration. They should only be addressed after the major steps of the process have been identified. For instance, John Doe might want to make sure that you document how he changes his part of the process when there’s a tornado outside, but this simply is not a major step. Instead of trying to capture all the things that happen one percent of the time, put them in the parking lot and deal with them after you’ve put together a clear view of the process as it occurs 85 percent of the time. This will reassure participants that their concerns are going to be addressed, while at the same time keeping the session focused on what really matters.

To summarize: it’s difficult to maintain focus when there are several engaged enthusiastic and passionate people in one room. And this is a good problem to have. But each stakeholder is usually passionate about a few very minor aspects of the process that affect them personally, on a daily basis. While those concerns are important, and need to be addressed, they may not be major steps in the big picture. If you use the two tactics above, you’ll find that your process documentation project will go much smoother and be more effective.

Questions? Leave a comment!