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The 10 Questions I ask BEFORE I Map a Process

Jul3

Written by:Carmien Owen
7/3/2009 1:51 PM 

A significant portion of work that we do at Collaboration Consulting Inc. includes understanding what people do.  In fact, 'what do you do?' is one of the first questions asked when determining how to build a process portal or develop an information architecture.  What you do is also a fundamental question, from our point of view, that drives the core of a collaboration strategy.

But how do you make sense of what people do?  Over the past 15 years I've been involved in many process mapping efforts and I realized the other day that there are a set of questions I'll always ask about what people do, regardless of industry, vertical, or scope of the project.  I thought I'd share a high level overview of those questions for review.

1. Who owns the process (or has the lion’s share of process performing resources that they manage)?
o   Is there confusion or a lack of consensus around process ownership?
o   Does the business struggle to commit to a process owner?
o   If a project charter has not been developed I’d also be curious about who owns the budget and will provide executive support
2. What is the purpose of the process?  Why does it exist?
o   What is the first step of the process?
o   What is the last step of the process?
o   Scope creep management, anyone?
3. Who are the suppliers and what is being inputted?
4. Who are the customers, what is being outputted to them, and who is the primary customer?
o   For a process improvement project 3 or more primary outputs is (in my experience) an indicator of an ambitious scope that most likely should be refined
o   Suppliers can be customers
o   Customers set requirements
o   My my point of view the customer is as important as the business
5. Who are the process performers?
o   As a rule of thumb any process improvement project that is going to involve >10 different roles is most likely too broad
o   I often get to discover who is at the table and who should be at the table.  This question is particularly important to consider against the responses to question 1 about process owners
6. Who are the stakeholders?
o   This is not to be confused with the classical Project Management definition for the term.  I want to know who else is out there that cares. 
o   Stakeholders don’t set requirements or specifications
o   Stakeholders are normally a focus of any communication and/or change management plan
o   The answers and what you read/hear between the lines can go a long way to communicating additional political risks
o   Obviously, stakeholders cannot be customers
7. What are the critical measures?
o   As-is and future
o   Cost, quality and time
o   This question will tell me a lot.  I get to gauge process maturity as well as compare the answers here to strategic objectives and operational plans.  Most teams I bump into struggle here (before I get done with them)
o   Most importantly, this question needs to be considered against what outputs were identified earlier
8. What does success look like?
o   This is the beginning of building the objective statement for process improvement
o   This combined with critical measures is the first glimpse of what the process dashboard might look like
9. What are the sources of variation?
o   Variation is the enemy of process.  I normally explain what variation is in simple terms, give them examples, and see how the question is answered
o   I often take notes for this question when they’re answering other questions. 
o   Sources of variation become prime candidates for a process risk discussion later
10. What systems are involved?
o   What technologies are used?

There are more questions and tools to be used when it comes to improving what people do.  But if I've asked these ten questions I always find I have what I need to begin drawing a picture of what people do.

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The 10 Questions I ask BEFORE I Map a Process

Jul3

Written by:Carmien Owen
7/3/2009 1:51 PM 

A significant portion of work that we do at Collaboration Consulting Inc. includes understanding what people do.  In fact, 'what do you do?' is one of the first questions asked when determining how to build a process portal or develop an information architecture.  What you do is also a fundamental question, from our point of view, that drives the core of a collaboration strategy.

But how do you make sense of what people do?  Over the past 15 years I've been involved in many process mapping efforts and I realized the other day that there are a set of questions I'll always ask about what people do, regardless of industry, vertical, or scope of the project.  I thought I'd share a high level overview of those questions for review.

1. Who owns the process (or has the lion’s share of process performing resources that they manage)?
o   Is there confusion or a lack of consensus around process ownership?
o   Does the business struggle to commit to a process owner?
o   If a project charter has not been developed I’d also be curious about who owns the budget and will provide executive support
2. What is the purpose of the process?  Why does it exist?
o   What is the first step of the process?
o   What is the last step of the process?
o   Scope creep management, anyone?
3. Who are the suppliers and what is being inputted?
4. Who are the customers, what is being outputted to them, and who is the primary customer?
o   For a process improvement project 3 or more primary outputs is (in my experience) an indicator of an ambitious scope that most likely should be refined
o   Suppliers can be customers
o   Customers set requirements
o   My my point of view the customer is as important as the business
5. Who are the process performers?
o   As a rule of thumb any process improvement project that is going to involve >10 different roles is most likely too broad
o   I often get to discover who is at the table and who should be at the table.  This question is particularly important to consider against the responses to question 1 about process owners
6. Who are the stakeholders?
o   This is not to be confused with the classical Project Management definition for the term.  I want to know who else is out there that cares. 
o   Stakeholders don’t set requirements or specifications
o   Stakeholders are normally a focus of any communication and/or change management plan
o   The answers and what you read/hear between the lines can go a long way to communicating additional political risks
o   Obviously, stakeholders cannot be customers
7. What are the critical measures?
o   As-is and future
o   Cost, quality and time
o   This question will tell me a lot.  I get to gauge process maturity as well as compare the answers here to strategic objectives and operational plans.  Most teams I bump into struggle here (before I get done with them)
o   Most importantly, this question needs to be considered against what outputs were identified earlier
8. What does success look like?
o   This is the beginning of building the objective statement for process improvement
o   This combined with critical measures is the first glimpse of what the process dashboard might look like
9. What are the sources of variation?
o   Variation is the enemy of process.  I normally explain what variation is in simple terms, give them examples, and see how the question is answered
o   I often take notes for this question when they’re answering other questions. 
o   Sources of variation become prime candidates for a process risk discussion later
10. What systems are involved?
o   What technologies are used?

There are more questions and tools to be used when it comes to improving what people do.  But if I've asked these ten questions I always find I have what I need to begin drawing a picture of what people do.

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Title:
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