The short answer
To map a business process, choose one process with a clear start and end, get the people who do the work in one room, draw every step as it really happens today (the as-is), write down the system and the time behind each step, mark where work waits, gets redone or is copied by hand, and then draw the improved version (the to-be). For one process in a small company this takes two to four hours.
You do not need special software or BPMN training. You need a whiteboard or a shared online canvas, the right people and honest answers. Here is the method we use, step by step.
Choose one process with a clear start and end
Name the process by what goes in and what comes out: “from enquiry to signed contract”, “from customer order to paid invoice”, “from new employee to first working day”. A process with a clear start and end can be mapped in one session. “Sales” or “operations” cannot.
Start with the process that annoys people most, or the one with the most manual hours. If you are unsure, What should a small company automate first? has a quick way to rank them.
Invite the people who do the work
Invite one person for every role the process passes through, and ask them how it really works, not how the manual says it should. The real process includes the workarounds: the spreadsheet only one person understands, the order that is checked twice because it went wrong once, the email sent to remind a colleague.
Managers are welcome, but they should mostly listen. The person who types the orders knows where the hours go.
Draw the as-is process
Draw one horizontal lane for every role or department (a swimlane diagram), then add the steps left to right in the order they happen. Use three shapes: a box for an action, a diamond for a decision, an arrow for a hand-over. That is enough for almost every small company.
BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation, maintained by the Object Management Group, current version 2.0.2) is useful when the map will be turned directly into software or must be read by analysts. For a first map, a simple flowchart with lanes is clearer and faster.
Add the systems and the data to every step
This is the step most guides skip, and the most useful one. Under each box, write which tool is used (email, Excel, the CRM, the accounting program) and what information is entered or read. Wherever the same information is typed into a second system, draw a red mark.
Those red marks are where automation and integration pay off. In the companies we map, a large share of the manual steps turn out to be copying between systems.
Put hours on it
For every step, ask how long it takes and how often it happens. Multiply to get hours a month, then by the hourly employer cost to get euros. The process stops being an opinion and becomes a number.
What manual work really costs explains the hourly cost and the hidden costs of errors and delays.
Find the bottlenecks
Walk through the map and mark four kinds of trouble. Waiting: work sits in an inbox or a queue. Rework: something is checked, corrected or done twice. Copying: data is retyped between systems. Single points of failure: only one person knows how to do a step.
Searching for information is a bottleneck too. In Microsoft's Work Trend Index, 62% of workers said they spend too much time searching for information during the workday. On a map, it shows up as the arrow labelled “ask a colleague”.
Watch the spreadsheets. A field audit of 50 operational spreadsheets by researchers at Dartmouth found errors in roughly 1–2% of formula cells. A process held together by a spreadsheet is fragile even when it works.
Draw the to-be and turn it into a plan
Now draw the process as it should be: steps removed, decisions simplified, data entered once and passed on automatically. Then list the differences between the two maps. Every difference is one item of work: delete a step, change a rule, automate a hand-over, or build a small tool.
Sort that list by hours saved, and you have a plan. The first item is what to build or automate first.
Process mapping checklist
The process has a clear start and end, written as “from … to …”.
Every role in the process was represented in the room.
The as-is map shows what really happens, including workarounds.
Each step shows the tool used and the data entered.
Each step has minutes, frequency and hours a month.
Waiting, rework, copying and single points of failure are marked.
The to-be map exists, and the differences are a sorted list of work.
