An Easy Guide to Using Business Process Mapping Software

One thing top companies have in common? Great business processes. 

Without spelled out, defined business processes, your company will find itself confused, your employees will be doing extra work, and you will lose out by overspending. 

To avoid that, you want to have great business processes, which you can define by using a business process mapping tool. In the past, this may have been done with sticky notes and a pen, but today, business process mapping software is available and far more useful.

Let’s go over how to make the most of your business process mapping software.

Why Do You Need Business Process Mapping Software? 

Firstly, let’s review why you need business process mapping in the first place. From there, it is easy to know why you require it in a software format for your business.

Processes Need to Be Mapped

The reality is that a business that does not map its processes is likely losing out on revenue

They don’t know it yet, but there is a clog somewhere in the wheels of the machine that make up their business processes that is slowing everything down or costing too much. And the moment something happens, it can make the whole machine stop, taking everyone by surprise.

How to avoid this? You should have a clear understanding of what your current business processes are that are updated as soon as something changes and that can be reviewed often. The best way to do this is to have a business process map.

By mapping out processes, businesses can understand how they are currently working, visualise their processes, and find spaces to improve them. Improving business processes can be anything from finding steps that can be removed to looking for a different material or way to do something related to manufacturing. Generally, to improve on an existing process you want to address overspending money or time on a particular part of the process, and find a way to cut either of those back.

For example, an employee might be spending an entire morning every week on a spreadsheet that then gets sent to the rest of the team. The spreadsheet can be anything from weekly revenue or costs to inventory. As it is weekly, however, no one on the team is really reading it or using it with that high frequency. They have not realised that this particular step is redundant to their actual goals and that, if taken out, would give this employee an additional four hours per week to work on other tasks.

But they would never be able to arrive at this conclusion without seeing it mapped out as part of a process. Mapping them out allows teams to remove themselves from the day-to-day tasks and really take a look at the larger picture. In so doing, they can find the spots that need to be improved upon to save money and time for the business. 

Software Helps Align Teams

Clearly, we can see that processes need to be mapped, and this should happen regularly. It helps businesses review what they are spending money and time on, and where that spending can be cut to benefit the business.

But these maps shouldn’t be kept in filing cabinets or compilations of sticky notes that someone has to piece together many years later. It’s the twenty-first century, and business process mapping software absolutely exists to make your life easier.

Not only does software such as Skore help you visualize and map the processes so that you can find places to improve, but it does so in a way that fosters team collaboration.

Skore’s software asks for all processes to have someone assigned to them to complete the task. By involving all your employees throughout the processes, you ensure that everyone knows what they have to do, and when. You share the correct information with the right employees so that they are informed. Your team is therefore aligned with the new processes and ready to go.

Especially because at Skore we also rely on UPN – Universal Process Notation. As we’ve mentioned elsewhere, UPN is a great way to avoid conflict or disagreements in terms of processes, since all the shapescan only mean one thing. Everyone will arrive at the same conclusion, there can be no differing interpretations of how a process should work. 

A great example of how business process mapping software helps align teams is our work with our client Bovis Homes. Following a period of rapid growth, they had to once again return to basics for all their processes, and align teams in several locations throughout the UK with these new processes. By using Skore, they have been able to slowly but surely build business processes that ensure that safety and health are their top concern.

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What to Use Business Process Mapping Software For 

So now that we’ve reviewed business process mapping and why it is important, let’s review where and how using it as software is the right step.

Of Course, Process Mapping

The first thing you use business process mapping software for is process mapping – this is an easy one.

We’ve gone over how to effectively map out a business process previously, but let’s do a quick review. To map out a process effectively, you need to know: where it falls in the general company processes, who is directly involved at each stage, what the final goal for this particular process is, and how much time is spent on each step.

Once you have these answers, you can ask additional questions to get more information and details out of your team that provides a fuller picture of the process in question. You would want to know how much money and resources are being allocated to this particular section of the process, and what the rationale behind the amounts is.

You want to have as much information laid out as possible, and to visualize it, software is a much better tool. No more endless notes on a whiteboard or on sticky notes, just all laid out in a visually appealing, easy-to-understand way, and it can be done fully remote, which is where we are heading.

With Skore, attaching informational documentation to parts of the process is a piece of cake, and you can edit who can access what, so only those directly involved can see it all.

By switching over to mapping out processes on Skore, our client Carte Blanche was able to understand how their organisation had changed, and how to work on improving their previous processes to work with these changes. They no longer had to rely on antiquated methods or software systems – Skore helped them re-define their processes and re-orient them towards their new goals, and it was all incredibly simple.

Highlight, a monitoring platform that helps clients find the best software solutions on the market, began to use Skore to understand how the departments of the business were speaking to each other. They also wanted to have the processes explained visually and made available to all that needed to know, and not just kept in one employee’s head. 

By utilising software instead of old-school methods, they were able to build and collaborate on building the business processes that had so far not been written down anywhere. This allowed them to not only have them available for future reference, but to also find spots where there was space for improvement. And it was all saved within Skore’s software.

Collaborating on All Parts of the Process

Software allows you to collaborate with your team throughout all the process building, analysing, and improvement. Unlike when you had to rely on paper and pen, software such as Skore keeps everything in one place that can be edited by the team and easily accessed. And because we use UPN, there is no possibility of confusion or differing interpretations of what is meant where.

Not only can you work together to visualize what is happening, how, where, and when, but you can also agree on who and add any additional necessary information, documentation, or rationale behind each choice. By having it all plainly available, it ensures that should the need exist for someone else to step up to a defined role, they can simply study the sections of the processes assigned to them

You can build your processes back up collaboratively with Skore, as our clients have found and put to use.

Several of our clients are consultants, and while they use Skore to evaluate and help improve their own processes, the biggest takeaway is helping their own clients. By utilising Skore, they are able to build their client’s processes and visualise them together with them. They can then start making additional business process maps that demonstrate what the different outcomes would be depending on what they decide to change.

It is a lot easier to have a conversation with a client trying to figure out and convince them of what to change when they can tangibly see it and add to it on Skore. It becomes a lot more collaborative, not just within the team but also with their clients, and helps build bridges and relationships that are stronger as a result as well.

This collaborative part of the equation is only possible by utilising business process mapping software like Skore, and would be impossible to do on paper unless you did it over several days in one sitting with all pertinent stakeholders. Instead, by doing it via software you can map the process in front of the stakeholders in one workshop and get them to sign off on the process there and then. 

Conclusion

Business process mapping is still a necessity, but not one that has to be done on pen and paper anymore.

Software exists that makes the entire procedure a lot more collaborative and easier to understand for all members of the company. 

And while there are numerous examples out there, here at Skore we know we have the best, most encompassing product for business process mapping software on the market. From user-friendly design to a collaborative space using UPN – we have it all!

Want to learn how we can help your business processes? Book a demo today!