Category: Blog

One of the best investments you can make as an organisation is to create a process library.

Historically, processes were difficult to keep track of and hard to keep up to date as the company evolved. Fortunately, due to the advent of technology, this has completely changed.

It is now possible to keep track of your processes, and this is the help you need to bring order to your chaos.

Let us show you what this means.

What Is a Process Library 

A process library is simply a repository of all your mapped processes.

Your business is run on them.

A business process refers to the series of steps your business takes to accomplish a certain goal. When they work well, these actions should reflect the revenue you receive.

It is not enough to simply have the steps written down as a checklist or existing in your employee’s brains as parts of tasks they do daily.

Processes need to be mapped for businesses to truly flourish. 

If you do not map your processes, you do not understand how your business is run. And if you do not understand how your business is running, you do not know where it is that you may be overspending or losing out on money. 

We’ve had clients that were losing an entire week of work on activities. Once they mapped out processes and utilised Skore as a tool, they gained back precious time and resources to dedicate to their clients.

Had they not taken the time to map out their processes, they would not have figured it out.

Process maps serve to visualise how your company is working. They help you identify places to improve. This can include realising you are missing certain documentation, or that you have a lot of redundant forms. You can also discover that you can source materials closer, giving you a lot more time as a company to dedicate to other tasks.

These are the type of realisations that come from mapping processes.

A process map can take many forms and utilise many notations, but the end goal is always to help you optimise your business and achieve operational excellence.

If you take the time to map out your processes as they currently exist and then continuously check that they reflect the reality of your business, you will begin to practice continuous improvement. Your business continues to grow steadily and efficiently thanks to having them mapped out.

And you’ll compile all of these processes for constant review and update in your process library.

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Why Does My Company Need a Process Library 

In the past, mapping processes was a time-consuming, complicated process that involved sticky notes, pen, and paper.

Having your processes mapped and in one place typically meant filing cabinets or papers that were lost after a very long workshop session. It was a headache to think about where you could keep your maps safe to come back to. More often than not, they were lost or forgotten about. They would have to be remade because by the time anyone looked at them again they were so out of date.

When businesses originally began to map processes, this would be done in long, tedious workshops involving all employees, from stakeholders to front-line workers. Because companies seek to understand exactly how all parts of their business function, they involve all relevant workers involved in a particular process, from different departments as well as the experts and stakeholders. 

This isn’t inherently a bad thing.

It’s helpful for everyone to know each other and understand what they contribute to each process and company goal. Opportunities for new ways of thinking or combining forces can come from these sessions.  

After all, it was at this point that businesses would discover redundant tasks or expenses that were actually unnecessary to their success. To get to that stage, stakeholders and owners needed to understand exactly what each worker was contributing to the overall process and company goals. 

If your employees and stakeholders do not find the value in these sessions, however, they can be perceived as quite frustrating and pointless to attend for all involved parties. Everyone will become reluctant to join and seek ways to avoid them instead. 

Thus, in the past, these workshops would often be considered to be a headache: taking the time to first create the map, which almost instantly became out of date, and then saving it for future improvements or changes that had to be communicated to everyone involved.

Not anymore.  

Software such as ours allows you to design and map your processes on your computer and save it on a cloud-based server: a process library. 

Our tool makes the mapping process collaborative and asynchronous, as employees can add to the maps as things shift according to their tasks. And, thanks to the library, they can always go back to the map if they have any questions, or during training. Process owners are encouraged to review their maps quarterly or annually to ensure they stay up-to-date and relevant. 

As a company leader or business owner, you can also always easily stay updated on how processes are working by checking the library.

Having your process maps saved in one place will also make running workshops for process improvement a lot easier.

It is no longer necessary to use a ton of pen and paper to create them. You can simply create them on a screen and interactively add or remove them as you capture information during the workshop. And, as mentioned above, this can be done with teams asynchronously as well, allowing relevant employees to share their contributions in their own time.

All employees can understand how their tasks contribute to the company, and as an owner, you can refer back to it for improvement or to see how a new tool or vertical would fit. Quite quickly, once you find the best process for specific goals and repeat it enough, you can make it company standard and use it for training.

Thus, with a process library, your company retains knowledge and is able to standardise its processes.

In short, having a process library helps you:

• Create better company alignment so that everyone is aware of how their work contributes to company goals without having redundancies
• Identify new opportunities to grow or verticals to explore, as well as spots to reduce costs and improve your business further
• Understand your own current constraints and work within them, not against them

If you do not have all of your mapped processes available and accessible, keeping track of them becomes a nightmare and your business will suffer for it. You want to build company knowledge, not lose it once your team member that had everything in their head but not mapped out retires or leaves. 

Fortunately, in the 21st century, technology can help you out.

How to Build a Process Library With Skore 

With Skore, it is not only easy to map out a process. It is also easy to create a process library for all of your processes.

You can save that process and refer back to it too via the process library feature.

Managing your processes has never been easier thanks to it.

Utilising and managing it correctly is easy, so long as you remember a few basic factors. The library should be a repository of all process knowledge for the company, easy to find, and easy to navigate via a simple process catalogue and a shared notation language.

At Skore, we prefer to use Universal Process Notation (UPN).

We find that UPN ensures everyone in the company, no matter their rank or role, can understand what is being shown before them intuitively. There is no room for misinterpretations or confusion, no need for additional certifications, and it keeps process maps clean and uncluttered. 

Our software provides a portal of the different maps you can access, as well as a tagging system to make it easier to find one process over the other as needed or to group together certain process types. 

Why would you group some processes under a similar tag? 

Variations, such as accounting for odd payroll situations, or new iterations of processes as you explore different steps or technology you can adapt for improvement. You do not want to edit the official process map until you’ve tried out alternatives.

You are able to edit permissions to certain processes as well as generate reports, all from the comfort of the library portal. And keeping track of edits can be done via a visit to history, to see who has changed it and how it has changed.

Permissions and sharing are encouraged with our tool, as process mapping is a collaborative job. With a library, however, you can share a map but not make it editable for all employees, simply ensure they have the company knowledge to turn to as needed.

Conclusion 

Your business processes absolutely need to be mapped for you to truly understand your business.

Without this visualisation, it is akin to managing your business blind.

But once you map them, how do you keep track of them? How do you use them to train new employees or to continue improving?

Instead of having to constantly map your processes for specific workshops or keeping everything as lists in multiple documents, it is easier than ever to have all of your maps in one place: a process library.

Retain company knowledge, have ready training materials, and explore alternatives or improvements – all in one place!

Get in touch with our team at Skore so that we can help you start building your process library today.

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Legal Industry Trends 2023 – The Great Resignation

This blog post was written by Adam Harbon.

According to an legal industry trends report from Clio, three of the top challenges Legal firms will face in 2023 are:

• Lawyers experiencing the “Great Resignation” trend.
• The increased adoption of remote work, providing flexibility but also causing work-life balance issues.
• The impact of inflation and a potential recession.

Having spent just over a month at Skore and spoken with numerous legal firms in the past few months, I have already witnessed these challenges and agree with the Clio report.

This is the first of a series of blogs from Skore looking at the opportunities for Process Optimisation within legal firms. I’ll focus on the potential implications of implementing a dynamic, insightful and engaging process platform as a way to combat the above issues.

In this first blog let’s examine the Impact of the Great Resignation. Having spoken with a Top 25 UK based legal firm three weeks ago, I was walked through a challenge they were facing with retaining top undergraduate talent, this is not unusual. Unfortunately lots of processes related to client matters within legal firms can be highly complex. The firm was struggling to keep top talent as initially new starters were placed on mundane client work where the processes are unclear or undocumented. In this situation the processes are disparate and split across multiple systems (Visio, PowerPoint, Excel) and some even on paper. These poorly documented processes led to lack of engagement and frustration and contributed to this firm losing top talent to their competition. 

If you consider the cost of hiring and sourcing top undergraduate talent, to lose them to the competition in under 12 months means there is a huge loss associated with this challenge. Let alone the time wasted onboarding and cultivating skills and talent for your firm.

Skore addresses this challenge by ensuring process standardisation. Starting with common client matter processes that are easy to map and document on the platform, the overall goal is to create a legal process library for the firm. This process library, easy to update and share with new talent, provides a constant reference and support to any new talent joining your team and helps you understand where your bottlenecks or frustrations may lie. 

If you’d like to know more about how Skore is helping legal firms or for a summary of the potential you could recognise from implementing Skore or have any feedback on this blog, please comment or contact me: [email protected] 

Read on to explore Adam’s next blog in the series – The Increased Adoption of Remote Working

The entirety of your business is made of a series of steps known as a business process.

Whatever it is that you offer – whether it is a product or a service – works its way through the cycle of these processes to lead you to growth and profit. 

As you can imagine, to ensure that your business grows well, these processes need to be in tip-top shape and working as a well-oiled machine. 

What Is Business Process Management 

Business Process Management (BPM) is a discipline and system focused on business process optimization and improvement. To achieve this, it uses a variety of methods, analysis, tools, and measurements. 

It is not a software, but a school of thought around which to structure your business and its associated processes to reach your goals. There are various types of software that you can use to help you in managing your processes, including Skore.

The focus is on business processes because it is through these processes your business is run. A business process is the name given to the activities and tasks associated with accomplishing the goal of different parts of your business. Examples of business processes include payroll, order to cash, and customer onboarding.

Without having a series of steps and tasks, none of these necessary business components would happen, and you would very quickly shut down as a company. It is through these processes that businesses are truly run. And it is through their optimisation and improvement that businesses find success.

BPM is thus the constant management of these processes to ensure that you are constantly working on improving them and finding steps that may have a bottleneck.

The five key components of BPM methodology are:

• Analyse – firstly, you analyse the process as it is currently running. It is important to note that while BPM is used to analyse processes, it is not the creation of the business process. You are analysing what is currently transpiring in your business, looking for bottlenecks or problems that can be improved. Typically, the way to analyse your processes is to visualize them by creating a process map.
• Model – based on the issues you find in the step above, you want to try modelling different solutions. You draw different process maps that have different possible solutions to the problems you are facing, exploring a variety of scenarios and their possible outcomes.
• Execute – having modelled the new, ideal process, you implement the changes. You should always document what you have changed, and why you have done so. It provides continuity of knowledge for your company, and it helps you remember the reasoning. A great way to keep this knowledge is in a process library.
• Monitor – now that you have executed the agreed upon changes in the process, you have to keep an eye on it to see how it has changed. You should focus on costs lowering, efficiency increasing, and speed as KPIs. You should set up reviews with your team and the process owners to ensure that your process stays up to date.
• Optimise – going forward, you continue to further optimise and improve upon your existing processes. This is the core of BPM – constant improvement. A great way to do this is to add technological solutions such as automation to give you and your team precious time to accomplish more valuable work and get rid of more mechanical tasks.

BPM is therefore the task of constantly updating and improving your existing business processes to achieve further and further success.

Discover for Yourself

Who Is In Charge of BPM? 

BPM is an important job to take on within a company, so you want to make sure you’ve got the right profile for it in your staff.

The roles directly associated with BPM are usually these seven:

• Business Process Director – the leader in overseeing the entire process improvement project. They are the ones with the wider vision and familiarity with the specific methodology being used. Whether this is an established role and title, or you as a business owner, or someone else taking it on, it does not matter. The fact is, a leader-type role with a specific goal should always be present.
• Business Process Consultant – an external expert in BPM that you bring on for a set period of time or indefinitely at a specific rate to help your Director. They will have in-depth knowledge about BPM and the different methodologies, and be able to provide support. While they are good to have on board, you should always run a list of pros and cons when it comes to hiring experts and see if you can try it on your own as well. After all, with the right process mapping software by your side, you might find it simpler than you thought.
• Business Analyst – experts in identifying bottlenecks and suggesting improvements, though not always necessary as internal employees, may be able to offer solutions and ideas.
• Project Manager – works together with the Director to ensure that deadlines are met, and a plan is developed.
• Business Process Architect – often found in larger projects, their role is between the Director and the Analyst. They can be given a particular part of the project and take it on themselves, as they have a good understanding of how processes work and the operations of the company. But they also know about different management methodologies. 
• Business Process Champion – they are tasked with keeping improvement going within an organisation, while keeping everyone involved in communication about these improvements, convincing them.
• Solution Architect – focus on the analytics and technology of understanding processes to maximize results even further.

Some organisations will also have Process Owners: employees dedicated to understanding one process in its entirety from beginning to end. They are the ones that make the big decisions when it comes to making a change, and they are the ones that need to be constantly focused on improving it as well.

Of course, depending on the size of your business, you may not be able to have all of these roles. And that is alright.

Some of these can be self-taught, or easy enough to keep in mind yourself. Experts are well and good, but if you’re trying to cut costs, doing some initial analysis and mapping on your own may be a good first step. At Skore, our software is designed so that everyone and anyone can map a process and review it easily.

Because above all, processes should be as simple as possible to visualize for your business to improve on them.

Why Manage Business Processes? 

And why do you want your business to improve and manage your processes?

Why do you need BPM?

For success.

Companies that practice BPM find that they:

• Maximize resources while minimizing costs – you can lower expenditure on tools or waiting periods that your clients are not paying you for, liberating both cash flow and time for your employees that can best be used elsewhere.
• Gain better visibility and control of their business – because you are constantly improving your processes, you know what is happening when, and why. Especially if you’re using collaborative, easy-to-understand software. There are no unexpected surprises, and you can keep track of your productivity while delegating tasks.
• Find operational challenges to improve on for production efficiency – as you practice constant improvement, you will always be able to find places where your process can use some tweaking for efficiency. You can model out solutions prior to implementing them as you go.
• Make better business decisions and remain competitive – as you are so aware of how your company works, you will know what is best for your company to do at different times. Your business decisions will be based on facts and figures, not guesswork or estimations.
• Constantly fine-tune workflows resulting in operational excellence and agility – operational excellence and constant improvement both lead to a better, more efficient process that costs less. Because you are constantly working on finding problem areas and fixing them, this will be a natural effect of your methodology. Especially if you focus on providing constant value for your client and what they have paid for.

Without BPM, you’re essentially conducting business blindly. You do not know what to spend on, what you are already spending on, what your customers are paying for, and why you are losing or gaining revenue.

Simply put, you need to practice BPM if you want to truly succeed.

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The Importance of Mapping Using Skore for Business Process Management

As mentioned previously, it is through mapping your process in visual form that you are able to begin the BPM steps. You analyse what you see

This is why we go through the trouble of mapping out processes.

But mapping out your processes can be a challenge in itself.

There are so many types of diagrams, notations, and software that it can be quite difficult to pick the right one.

At Skore, we’d like to make the case for our tool above all.

Focused on simplicity, Skore utilises Universal Process Notation (UPN) as its core. 

All diagrams are streamlined and uncluttered. As we are cloud-based software, you can attach further information or documentation as needed to the different steps, or you can make sub-processes within a larger process that you drill down on directly with the software. We avoid confusing diagrams and focus on clarity above all.

Furthermore, the notation and signs are very easy to understand. You do not need to get special certification or learn dozens of signs and their meanings to follow along or create a process with Skore. Simply bring in together your decision-makers and the employees that make up a certain process and build it in a workshop. 

As we are a software, you can do this asynchronously or all together at once. And you can then save both your current processes and your modelled solutions in a process library you can constantly refer back to and add as you keep improving as a business.

No need for experts or complications here. Indeed, we are happy to report that our clients use Skore with their own clients to great success.

Having learned about BPM, are you curious about how you’re currently managing your business processes? 

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There are many business process management tools out there.

From tracking solutions, to project management focused tools, to visualizing your workflow processes in charts and diagrams, chances are, someone out there has the answer to your problem.

One such tool is Triaster, a cloud-based BPM solution recommended for large and mid-size business.

In this article, we will provide an overview of Triaster as a tool, before comparing it to some alternatives available on the market today.

Triaster: An Overview 

As mentioned above, Triaster is a BPM solution tool. This means its focus is on business processes.

Its core features include:

• Process mapping – map your business processes to visualize how your business works
• Process sharing – share the different maps between users, so departments can understand how they work together in a unified visualization of where they fit
• Policy and document management – keep all process-associated documentation in one place
• Reporting tools – have your KPIs and how they fit the overall company goals handy for all teams and departments, and keep each other updated of how the process contributes or if it needs changes
• Analysis tools – find bottlenecks and places for process improvement

Processes can be mapped and shared between users, while analysis tools suggest locations for improvement. These solutions can then be modelled, and simulations that compare them to how the process is currently doing can be run. Based on those results, companies can start implementing those changes directly based on. Reports on the success of the solutions implemented can be made.

All of this information can also be saved in a process library, which itself is searchable and serves as a forum where users can post process-related questions. Support for users of this software is available via email, phone and through an online knowledge base where users can pose questions.

It is purchased through a monthly subscription service of $950 per month, and there is no free trial available.

In general, users of Triaster tend to be quite complementary of the software. 

It is lauded by folks from different industries for keeping all process-related needs in one place, as opposed to having to use a combination of different tools and software. The simplicity of the software, the search function, the customer support team and consistency it provides the companies it services are also points that strongly work in its favour. The clarity of the maps made and the fact that they can be linked together is also mentioned repeatedly as a positive. 

A lot of users directly link their use of Triaster to betterment in their company processes and cutting costs. It helps them understand how they all work together with the same goal and has resulted in better communication throughout the company.

But it does also have its limitations.

The first thing to note is that Triaster require a Microsoft Visio Licence to work. It is not a stand-alone system.

We’ve covered Microsoft Visio in the past, and the limitations associated with that software as well – mainly that it was not built specifically with business process mapping in mind. Hence the appearance of Triaster and similar software.

However, if you think about it from an operational excellence perspective, you have to spend on the user licenses for MS Visio, and then also on the considerably more expensive license for Triaster. 

Yes, it’s great that your MS Visio diagrams can be added and updated on Triaster. But you’re unlikely to use it at all going further if you rely on Triaster, even though you’d still have to pay for it.

And, you are also lumped with the option of using MS Visio which in our opinion is not the easiest or clearest way to map processes. 

Additionally, Triaster has been noted to be slow at updating. 

Several users remark that publishing new maps to the process library can take up to 24 hours. And there is no way to determine which maps are still missing. If for whatever reason, a map remains unpublished, there is no warning. Users have to manually check. 

As you can imagine, this makes it difficult to keep things up-to-date.

Users also noted that while it is good that it provides drill-down, up-close looks at process deliverables, it would be good to have that same view for processes themselves. This would be due to the fact that all processes are mapped in two dimensions, leaving no room for detailed looks at the processes themselves.

There is also, as with any software, a learning curve when it comes to using Triaster. This would be fine, except some users note as many as twelve months of learning, a lack of educational content when the software is updated, and the turning off of certain features due to frustration with the functionality.

So, while Triaster may seem like the best solution for all your business process management needs, taking a look at some alternatives before dividing in is not a bad idea.

Alternatives to Triaster 

We’ve already mentioned MS Visio as an alternative, and the limitations therein. Namely, because it was not designed for business process mapping, it is not exactly conducive to it either. While many specialists had to make do with it for a long time, enduring slow, uncomfortable workshops on account of how long Visio takes to use.

This is not the case today when we have many alternative options available for business process management software needs.

The most common of these are your Trello, Asana, or ClickUp types. Based on checklist-style boards and good for time-sensitive project management, these solutions are good for specific projects. Not too useful for process management on a larger scale, however, as they do not have a visualization component in the form of mapping.

Another alternative is Nintex Promapp, a tool more focused on process mapping, namely in the form of swim lane diagrams.

It has the same limitation as Visio however when it comes to being slow at design, thus not conducive to good workshops. Draw.io, another option, has the same problem.

In all three cases, folks will generally draw the processes by hand before uploading them to the software. 

This of course increases the possibility of a mistake, as the data is being handled twice. And this is not good for getting quality measurements and data to analyse where you need to fix your processes. 

And it has all the limitations swim lane diagrams have when it comes to more complex processes and role assignments.

Another alternative is Lucidchart. Like Triaster, it is based on a subscription licence model. The problem is that it uses flowcharts as the base for all of its process maps. All the limitations of using flowcharts, such as the lack of assigned responsibility and space for additional information, are also found in this software.

You could try yEd, though it focuses more on business architecture style diagrams, which are even more complicated than process maps. This is not conducive to making it easily understood by everyone involved in your organisation.

So it seems as if biting the bullet of paying for both Visio and Triaster and accepting slow updates is the way to go.

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Enter Skore.

To us, mapping business processes is about bringing the whole company back to basics so that you can improve and grow further. 

With our software, mapping a process is made easy. And fast. 

There is no need to do things by hand first and then transcribe it over to our software. It is just as, if not more, quick and efficient to do it directly there. 

We strongly believe in simplicity and clarity as the key component behind any successful process map. It is only through everyone understanding what others are doing and how you can improve on it that your business will grow, after all.

This is why we’ve based our software on Universal Process Notation (UPN). 

Using UPN means avoiding any misunderstanding or misinterpretations, and allowing non-experts to follow along as well. Stakeholders or employees that live through those processes on a daily basis need to be able to understand the process as well, not just those internal or external experts.

Changes happen immediately, and they are reflected as such in the process. No long waiting cycle or update. We also do not require you to have MS Visio licensing – it is simply our fees that you are responsible for. 

Just as with Triaster, you are able to map processes, share, collaborate, save, analyse, and report on processes with our software. And you can start building this knowledge into a process library for your entire organisation.

Our software also makes it possible to create sub-processes to really drill-down on all that it takes for your business to run. After all, one step in a process may have several smaller steps behind it that are otherwise inconsequential. But you still need to be able to visualize them to understand how it works and what can be improved upon.

And our learning curve has also proven to be a lot quicker, though our customer service team is also made up of rock stars, should you ever need their help.

Conclusion

Business process management software can now be found aplenty.

Depending on your needs, there is definitely something out there for you.

When it comes to business process mapping, no one is offering as streamlined a product as Skore. Not even Triaster.

We’d love to help you improve your business processes with our software.

Get in Touch

You want your business to be excellent – always.

For that to happen, there are a lot of moving parts. From website banners and buttons to ease your clients into check-out or signing up for demos, to warehouse distribution and shift management, there are many places where dropping the ball has repercussions later on.

Avoiding these repercussions and making sure everything is running well or being improved upon, is achieving operational excellence.

What Is Operational Excellence 

Operational excellence is a philosophy that focuses on problem-solving for constant, continuous improvement.

We’ve talked about the importance of constant process improvement for your business in the past. It helps you both adjust to changing times and the availability of new tools. You can grow as a business whilst avoiding losing out on more revenue. 

Operational excellence has continuous improvement as a goal, but it’s focus is on helping everyone in your organisation see and understand how their job provides value to your clients. 

Over time, this results in more efficient business processes and a better working culture. It is a lot easier for your company to run when everyone is clear on what everyone else is or should be doing, when, and why, for your customers.

It can also help you track how the cash you are being paid is reflected in the daily tasks, work, and output of your employees.

An example of how operational excellence may play out in your company is digital transformation: the need to level up your operations to meet the demands of the 21st century. This can be anything from setting up a presence and store online to digitizing part of your warehouse processes with new equipment or software. 

Adopting new technology is great and will usually help you and your employees save time and make everything run more efficiently, resulting in improvement for your business processes and  revenue.

Benefits of Operational Excellence 

As we just mentioned, one benefit of operational excellence is improving process efficiency. 

Streamlined business processes are good for your own employees and for your customers. It means everything is happening at optimal speed. There is less time wasted on unnecessary tasks and less friction between employees. And your customers simply have a better, less complicated experience with your company.

This is in large part because your employees are more productive. With the goal of working for the client as the focus and a clear process with defined steps and responsibilities, you will note an increase in productivity throughout your company.

You will therefore achieve higher Return on Investments (ROI) and high profit margins. After all, if your ship is running well, quotas can be met more consistently and effectively. Either through new technology or training or finding bottlenecks in business processes and dealing with them accordingly, operational excellence historically results in high profits for companies.

A large part of the reason for this is that it leads to a reduction in waste. Waste in business refers to time, money, and inventory, that is being lost due to a bottleneck or misstep somewhere in your process. 

For example: instead of spending more time and money sourcing materials for manufacturing from far away, you may be able to come up with a solution closer to home. You just hadn’t had time to consider this until you sat down with the goal of operational excellence and your processes in hand.

And finally, because you are reducing waste and time, you can start focusing on bigger initiatives thanks to operational excellence. 

You can trust that your process is being followed by your employees, and they can do so independently. They no longer require a manager to be constantly helping them, if the processes are clear and the technology is up-to-speed.

Imagine how much time you gain back to focus on product improvement or additional services you can offer to clients as a business owner looking to expand. Continuous improvement is therefore constantly a focus of your company, allowing you to grow steadily and successfully thanks to the operational excellence philosophy.

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How Do I Achieve Operational Excellence?

Having understood why you want to achieve operational excellence, it is now time to learn how to do so. There are five basic principles for operational excellence:

• Keep everything customer-focused and think about how to add value to their experience
• Eliminate waste (time or cost) and any variation from the standardised processes
• Optimize all process flow and output based on customer needs
• Always involve and empower employees, so they can also understand that it is customer-driven
• A bottom-up approach so that each time you analyse your processes from details to bird’s eye view to find where you can improve

And there are at least three methodologies you can follow to achieve the above five requirements:

Lean Manufacturing

We’ve mentioned it elsewhere in ourblog aboutprocess improvement methodology, but the main purpose of lean manufacturing is to eliminate all waste in your production by focusing on process tasks that add value. 

The goal is to avoid or fix all the bottlenecks in your business processes that may be causing waste. This leads to an improvement in the quality of your product or service as a company whilst reducing costs.

Lean manufacturing traditionally identifies the areas where you can find waste in your process as the Seven Wastes:

• Transportation – any transport that does not add any particular value to your product should be removed from the process, and alternative options found.
• Inventory – this refers to unprocessed inventory that is sitting in storage, which itself will also cost you.
• Motion – actual actions taken by either humans or machines that can be minimized. Anything from smaller distances to utilizing more machinery, and also taking good care of your workers and equipment. 
• Waiting – minimize any type of waiting that takes place throughout your business process as much as possible. Whether it is sending an invoice, shipping a product, or a confirmation email – it needs to be as short as possible.
• Overproduction – this leads to the unprocessed inventory mentioned previously, and the time and costs of making it are never going to return to you.
• Over-processing – any value added that does not actually help the customer in any way. This includes anything from aesthetic choices that are not reflected in the final product to overly long meetings to discuss the product. Both are time and money that do not add value and that will not be returned via customer payment.
• Defects – avoid as much as possible with a streamlined process, anything that requires re-doing any part of your process for customer satisfaction. By the time you have to redo things, you have almost certainly lost that customer entirely.

Six Sigma

The second common methodology utilized to achieve operational excellence is Six Sigma. The goal here is to strive for perfection as much as possible, to arrive at the highest level of customer satisfaction through the elimination of variation.

The two principal approaches are known by their acronyms: DMAIC and DMADV. The latter is used when the situation is dire and requires a complete overhaul of the processes, so it will not be covered in this article.

DMAIC, typically used to improve an existing product or service in the manufacturing stage, stands for:

• Define – state the problem, for example, customers are complaining about shipping times.
• Measure – with the above issue in mind, you take a look at your data and existing processes to find what works and what does not.
• Analyse – having measured the above, you can analyse where the issue lies. Following the shipping issue from the Define step, you can come to the realization that your current business cannot take on the burden of shipping.
• Improve – having found the issue, you now come up with solutions and implement them on a smaller scale at first. An example could be utilizing a third-party courier for shipping to ensure speedier arrival times for your customers.
• Control – you test your solution and adjust accordingly. You try out different third-party couriers until you find the one that works best for your needs and budget. And you keep an eye on it to ensure you’re constantly improving.

Kaizen

The third methodology is kaizen, which means continuous improvement in Japanese. Its purpose is to constantly implement positive changes to workplace processes, as these will lead to positive results.

It also has a strong emphasis on teamwork, as employees work together to achieve success via constant, small changes that over time result in operational excellence. All employees must participate for it to truly work, and the change must absolutely be a constant. It is not enough to simply change one part and move on.

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The Role of Skore and Process Mapping in Operational Excellence 

We’ve been talking a lot about processes and evaluating your processes as part of the steps to achieving operational excellence. The way to analyse and review your processes is to visualise them with a process map. 

It is thanks to these maps that business leaders are able to find the bottlenecks and spots to continuously improve as an organisation. Without mapping the process, you do not know what is happening when, where, how, why, or by whom. Process maps answer these questions and are absolutely crucial when the time comes to evaluate your operational level as a business.

You cannot ignore their importance, or take them for granted.

At Skore, we’ve taken process mapping into the digital age. 

Our cloud-based software is collaborative and easily understood by all. Unlike other tools which rely on dizzying diagrams or complicated notation, at Skore our goal is simplicity in your process maps.

Everyone in your company should be focused on operational excellence and bringing value to your customer, so everyone in your company should be able to understand your processes.

We’d love to help you achieve operational excellence via process improvement – you simply need to get in touch. 

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You should always have change in mind when analysing your business processes.

As we’ve explored before, business process improvement helps businesses find places where they could improve the accuracy and speed of their service or product.

On the other hand, business process optimisation is designed to help your organisation find ways to save time and money.

What Is Business Process Optimisation 

Business Process Optimisation, also known as BPO, is one of the final steps in a Business Process Management checklist.

Managing processes involves:

• Identifying a process you are looking to understand better in your company
• Then breaking it down via business process mapping
• Analysing the map to find places for optimisation
• Improving your process by taking the necessary steps 

Optimisation should not be confused with improvement.

Although both processes should be ongoing for businesses to see success, there are subtle differences between the two. 

For instance, optimisation is focused on efficiency and diminishing costs, whereas improvement focuses on accuracy and consistency. It plays out as follows:

With improvement, you may be adding more to your tech stack. Optimisation instead consolidates and removes that which is not being used, instead of adding. 

Both optimisation and improvement involve business process reengineering – that is to say, re-visiting how the processes are run and changing it based on the analysis of the process maps for more and better efficiency. 

The changes should lead to better and quicker interaction with existing customers, speedy replies to new prospects, better internal communication within a company, and the lowering of costs that your company may be looking to eliminate.

At its core, business process optimisation is about helping you as a business owner find places to reduce spending. As an example from the world of manufacturing, it’s about reducing lean waste – essentially, any action or steps you take as a manufacturer that does not result in value to the customer. Because it means that the step or action is not being paid for.

If you make too much of a particular product, it results in additional inventory, space, and hours worked that do not get paid for by a customer, but that you pay for as a business.

Business process optimisation is about helping you find the spots in your process that may lead to such a mistake, and come up with ways to avoid falling into such a trap.

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How Mapping Leads to Business Process Optimisation 

We’ve covered before why businesses should map processes.

Just as with improvement, mapping reveals the best places for optimisation to take place along your process.

Your goal with business process optimisation is efficiency and cost-cutting. You need to be a detective and investigate your own processes to find where this can happen.

In your daily tasks as a company leader, it is unlikely that you are aware of every single step everyone is taking every day. If you start mapping your processes and collecting them in a shareable, cloud-based process library, you can have a better idea of what it takes for your business to run.

Mapping processes is a great way to have a big-picture idea instead of only being aware of the details of your own tasks.

By mapping, you learn how what you are doing fits with what other departments are doing. And you learn if it is not fitting correctly.

An example of how this may play out is the following scenario:

Having mapped your processes, you discover that there are multiple people from different departments filling out the same form. 

Because they were each doing it without communicating with others, they were unaware that this task was being completed several times. A possible reason for this is that they are all using a different tool to complete the form, but they are also not communicating with each other correctly. 

To optimise your process in such a situation, you can do several things.

Firstly, you can reduce the number of tools used to one. Then, you can delegate the task to fill in the form to simply one department. The others can simply check how it has been filled in or if it’s missing by the time it gets to their contribution to the overall process. 

Finally, you can re-evaluate why so many people in different departments of your company had a role that included filling out this form. 

By doing this, you can discover additional time for employees that can then be delegated to other tasks, or you might find that you should reduce your workforce at this time. Role redundancy is something that can very easily go undetected if you don’t take the time to map your processes.

At the same time, you can also discover new services you can offer your existing clients for upselling by assigning these team members new tasks. Or you can ask them to go find new clients to increase your business. 

By mapping out the process, you are able to identify areas and steps that are not getting paid for. You can then brainstorm ways to ensure that you do get paid for even seemingly internal costs. Even during uncertain economic times, by having a clear picture of what each team member or department is contributing, you can find the bottlenecks in your processes and optimise them accordingly.

This extra time you have discovered can be devoted to demonstrating the value of your product or service to current or potential clients, thereby once again resulting in all your steps being paid for. 

For instance, those same employees that were all filling out the form for x amount of time in their day?

They can now devote themselves to reading client feedback, using it to better the product or service, or researching new industries or client profiles you can have your sales team reach out to.

Optimisation should lead to a re-structuring of both the process steps and associated responsibilities.

Cutting Costs With Skore 

But how does one go about mapping a business process?

In its origin, this was done with pen and paper and hours-long workshop sessions. The map would then be put away in binders and difficult to find again. Or, there was just one person with all the knowledge. That knowledge would be lost once they left the company or retired. 

Even if it was preserved digitally, it would depend on what notation style or system they had used, and whether everyone had access to the files. 

It is very easy to make business process mapping a more complicated task than it actually is.

This is why Skore exists today.

Our software is made using Universal Process Notation (UPN) as its base. 

The choice to use this notation was deliberate: simple is best when it comes to process mapping, as there are many players and steps involved. The less additional work and study required for everyone to understand and follow along, the better.

With Skore, our clients are able to run process mapping workshops with stakeholders or clients easily and breezily. As it is a collaborative, cloud-based software, multiple users can contribute to the map itself over time or during the workshop.

And because it is so easy to use and understand, it is easy to find places to optimise your process.

A great example of this is studying your payroll process and finding spots that result in more time worked than needed. 

As the article outlines, if you do not account for certain specific occasions in your initial process ideation, you will simply cause more issues down the line. Your clients are not paying for any missteps or overtime employees might have to commit to should anything go wrong.

For a real-life example of the power of process mapping with Skore when it comes to business process optimisation, we can turn to our client, AI service provider Lawrence & Wedlock.

By utilizing Skore to map out their processes with their own clients, their team were able to cut down discovery time by an entire week. They also were able to switch from using multiple tools to collect information to simply using Skore for their needs, thereby cutting both costs and time. Their efforts are now better spent taking care of even more clients and providing additional services.

Still unsure of how this might play out for your particular needs?

Feel free to read through more success stories in our Case Studies.

Or you can always browse through our process template library to see which process will work for your needs and how it would help you optimise your business for the coming year. 

Our mapping software has successfully helped clients save on 80 days worth of waste in their business and recoup costs they weren’t even aware they had – and you could be next!

Conclusion

Business process optimisation is an important, ongoing task companies should spend time on.

Especially whenever the economic situation becomes uncertain: optimisation over improvement is the way to go.

This is because BPO helps make your business more efficient while cutting costs or unnecessary expenditures.

There is no better way to do this than by taking the time to map out and analyse your business processes. And there is no better software to do this with than Skore.

If you’re interested in easily understood, collaborative process mapping to help you reduce costs, make sure to get in touch with us!

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Having a business process or business processes is vital for all facets of your business.

Whether that process is order to cash, onboarding, payroll operations or any other business process, you must have an idea of the flow and steps you follow in each occasion. Because these processes happen continuously as part of your business. 

You do not want to have to come up with a method or flow each time. To do it right, you need to make sure that you describe all your processes the same way. And for that, you need to know how to standardise a business process.

What Is Business Process Standardisation 

A business process is a series of steps with a particular goal for your company.

Usually, they’re made up of several moving parts, and there can sometimes be sub-processes within a larger process step. The main goal of the process should be simple enough to communicate to employees or stakeholders, even if it takes numerous moving parts to get there. 

Processes should be repeatable, flexible, specific, and measurable.

Repeatable so that multiple people can do it and that it makes sense. Flexible so that unexpected events or troubleshooting can take place. Specific so that you are not trying to do too much at once. And measurable, so you can analyse and evaluate if the process as-is is working.

To evaluate if a process is working correctly and to communicate it with others, business process mapping was developed. By visually having processes laid out, it is easier to find spots where you can change things for improvement.

To get started it is a good idea to map your existing processes, your as-is processes, as they are. A lot of the time you’ll have to ask various team members and yourself what they are doing and when. 

From here, you can then also map out a to-be process, including the improvements you want to add, for example, an automation tool, so that you know how it should fit. Once you start using it you can re-evaluate if it is working as intended. However if you haven’t mapped out the process adequately in the first place then your automation objectives are destined to fail. 

So once you’ve set this up correctly, and tested your way through it, you can then ensure that your organisation is following a standard approach on how to ensure that the way you capture your processes is regulated. Business process standardisation is making sure that your organisation understands how to map out the steps and how to display that information. 

For an easy, everyday example, you can think of ordering at Starbucks as a customer. You go up to the till, tell the worker what you want, give them your name, and wait for your order. This is the standardised process that has since been applied to several other coffee chains and smaller stores.

In the world of B2B, you can think of how you treat your inbound leads. Having a set process for responding to interested prospects, with specific steps and who is in charge of what, is one of the first things any competent business should figure out.

Without having a standardised business process, every interaction can end up being captured differently and thus slowing down operations as well as costing you money and time. Additionally, different people may be applying different approaches, so you will never have clear data on what works well, nor will your customers always go through the same steps. 

Without the consistency of standardisation, engaging in business can prove tiring and exhausting to both you and your customers. This will result in loss.

But simply deciding to standardise your business processes is not enough to actually get it done.

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Challenges With Business Process Standardisation 

Business process standardisation to arrive at best practices is a crucial step for any business, but there are a few innate challenges that companies must overcome in order to achieve it.

The first one is defining the one process to rule them all.

If you have yet to standardise your processes, chances are that you have a situation with too many cooks in the kitchen, each one doing things the way they think is best. Arriving at clear communication is one of the great struggles in business processing and analysis, and conflicting personalities and opinions are just one of the reasons why.

Having one, singular process and ensuring everyone is in agreement without any possibility of different interpretations is a lot harder than it seems at first. Depending on the product you are using to document the process, you are liable to run into the possibility of misinterpretation by those reading the process map. This will only cause confusion and frustration to your team and customers.

Ultimately, you must compromise after reviewing and analysing what everyone is doing. 

Unfortunately, compromising will mean that no one will be truly happy.

But even before arriving at a compromise, it takes a long time to gather all the information and engage with subject-matter experts. You must then take what they tell you and capture it in a process map that they sign off on. Stakeholder sign-offs are notoriously difficult to get in a good time frame.

It can take weeks or months of back and forth with them until you have an actual idea of your existing processes. And the longer you wait to standardise it, the more complex and delayed your process will be for yourself, your team, and your customers.

Then the more complex or open to interpretation the process map is, the harder it will be to have anyone agree and sign off on it. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that takes away precious time from you. You aren’t winning hearts and minds with complicated and technical software.

To quickly and efficiently standardise a business process, the way the map is presented has to be engaging and collaborative for all involved parties as well as easy to review, understand and comment on.

Having a particular expertise in certain symbols to truly follow along with a process map is not the way to determine your best practices and have your stakeholders involved.

How to Achieve Standardised Business Processes 

The first thing to do to arrive at a standardise business process is to agree on the meaning of your mapping. That way you can build it collaboratively and no one can have differing opinions on what each step means.

You want to have a single source of truth and information you can constantly refer back to instead of conflicting narratives.

At Skore, we favour Universal Process Notation (UPN) for this exact reason. It is simple and has unified, clear meanings, so anyone can follow along without requiring certification or testing. A what box and a why box, along with a responsibility section, answer the two key questions of any step in a process.

As a tool, Skore also makes it easy for anyone to follow along and understand a process map at a glance, as we keep everything neat, organised, and streamlined. Any user with access can contribute and add their part, offering transparency and correct accountability for each task.

Your stakeholders will sign off a lot quicker if they attend one collaborative workshop wherein you map the process at the speed of the conversation. They can easily follow along and understand what you are doing without having to be an expert in process mapping or unclear as to the meanings of your notation. 

There are a number of ways that Skore’s guidelines can make your standardisation aims a reality: 

1. By agreeing a common methodology i.e UPN you are already taking a first step to clear standardised business processes. 
2. Standardise how roles are displayed in processes  (avoid duplicate roles with different wording – acronyms or full role names) – Skore helps support this with our role managers functionality. 
3. Agreeing a common responsibility model – Skore helps you to define a default model in your diagram template
4. Keep the basic data of your processes up to date and informed – when was the process published? Who is the owner? Skore ensures all this information is easily available.
5. Design and agree a diagram template and stylesheet to ensure all processes follow the agreed look and feel. (Company branding, logo’s, colours etc) – make sure you have a way to cascade any style changes through every process (Skore’s central management system helps you with this). 
6. Design & agree a process standards process for editors to reference – consider the standardised way all editors should present information or findings in their processes.
7. Agree standardised use of icons to enrich your process maps
8. Design & agree a Process Framework or Hierarchy -Skore’s software makes this incredibly easy to do.

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Instead of the usual email exchanges or to-ing and fro-ing that results in a weeks-long wait, you can achieve the same result in one focused workshop and standardise your process a lot sooner.

And a standardised process means clarity and revenue for all.

Above all, you can keep all of your processes in one place, building a process library that you or your employees or stakeholders can constantly refer back to or update easily. This ensures that you do not lose out on built knowledge. 

You can also keep constantly improving your standardised processes for even more efficiency.

Conclusion 

Standardising your business processes is key for you to continue to grow as a business. Without having your best practices outlined and agreed upon, you will simply run into constant problems and spend a lot more time troubleshooting than working on improving your product or service.

But standardising a business process may itself be a complex process.

Not so with Skore.

Our software ensures ease of use for all parties involved, making it easier and quicker than ever before to arrive at a consensus with stakeholders for process consistency.

Interested in seeing how we can help you out?

Get in touch with us, and we’ll get your processes standardised in no time!

Mapping a business process in a flowchart makes sense at first glance.

Flowcharts take a list of steps and help you visualise them with arrows and boxes or bubbles, and we’ve all used them at some point in our lives.

They may therefore seem to be the perfect solution to visually mapping your business processes – but there are challenges to solely relying on them. 

Let’s dive into the world of process mapping with flowcharts, their limitations, and some possible alternatives to consider.

How Does a Flowchart Help Companies

Business process mapping is important for companies because it helps them understand how they are currently managing their business, and where they could improve on it. 

By visualising the steps your company is taking for particular instances instead of simply having a numbered list, it is easier to find where you can improve. It reduces dependency on external experts, makes your working environment more flexible, drives efficiency, and makes it easier to standardise your processes.

There are several different types of process mapping but a flowchart is one way to approach this visualisation.

One of the seven basic quality tools for process improvement, flowcharts have all the simple steps for a particular process, laid out in sequential order and connected via arrows. They are typically done with paper and pen or a basic diagramming tool over the course of several workshops, and split up so that those directly involved with each part of the process can contribute. 

Flowcharts also tend to have specific signs and notations based on which version you’re using, to help you navigate more complicated concepts. You can use different process mapping symbols to help you add context and depth to your process.

When finished, it should be easy to: 

• Understand how that process works
• Plan similar processes
• Communicate it to others so that it may be followed or replicated
• Find spots to improve upon it
• Document it for future use

If you’re struggling with how to map your processes, you may think that flowcharts are a great, easy way to do so. At least until you realise just how complex your processes and their visualisation can become.

But worry not! 

Flowcharts are not the only way to visualise processes, nor are they the most exhaustive way to communicate them. There are different types of process mapping.

What Are the Limitations of Flowcharts for Business Process Mapping 

A flowchart is the start of the right idea for business process mapping.

They’re a visual representation of your process’s steps in sequential order. What could be limiting in that?

More than you think.

Flowcharts are a great starting point, but when you begin to dive into what steps exactly your process is made of, you begin to run into issues.

To begin with, flowcharts typically are started with paper and pen. This is not conducive to retaining knowledge of that initial process map or its edits for improvement. 

Additionally, the time to put together a flowchart that all stakeholders can agree to will end up being too long. Each stakeholder or employee involved in the process will have their own idea of what works and why, as well as their own interpretation of how to communicate that in a visual way. This lack of consensus can slow down the process mapping, as it will only become more confusing if not addressed at this stage. 

Furthermore, what happens to that paper after the workshop? Stuffed in a cupboard gathering dust, it’s easily lost and rarely updated. 

The reason for lack of consensus is that flowcharts are often not the right fit for complex business process mapping. They require too many additional documents to be truly understood, and this becomes a hassle for all parties involved. No one wants to do additional reading and work printing out those documents. 

They are also limiting in their ability to showcase parallel processes or previous activities as part of larger processes. This is detrimental when mapping out business processes as there are a lot of additional, parallel and previous tasks that need to be documented when mapping. It is much harder to show a high level and detailed level of process mapping in a flowchart.

There is also no clear responsibility matrix, so you do not know who is responsible for doing what, and there is also no reporting element. The tasks exist in a sequential ether without clear assignees. 

A flowchart might work for a small-scale school project or even a fiction author’s plot planning, but for a business with lots of moving parts, it is not enough to deal with the complexity. This is why you need to consider the alternatives when you set out to map your business processes.

Alternatives to Flowcharts for Business Process Mapping 

Fortunately, flowcharts are but one option for business process mapping. There are others available.

In a similar manner to flowcharts, data flow diagrams (DFDs) are used to capture information flows. In their case, DFDs show how data flows in an organisation. Developed in the seventies, they do not follow a step-by-step approach, instead focusing on how data is working within your organisation. It’s proven useful as an analytical tool for specific processes, or if your business is driven by data.

Gantt charts, around since the late nineteenth century, are still favoured as a process mapping tool by some organisations. Focused on deadlines, these charts create subtasks to larger tasks that must be completed within specific timeframes. For companies that have processes with sensitive deadlines or timeframes, Gantt charts are a good way to organise tasks. It is more of a checklist approach, however, which is not exactly a flow. For the purposes of business mapping, it does not do enough to capture all the steps.

Functional Flow Block Diagrams (FFBDs) are another option you may look into. In direct opposition to Gantt charts, these diagrams focus on sequential tasks and input and output data dependencies. They focus on covering as many options as possible for the process to go through. They are presented in focus blocks, however, so one block could be one smaller part of a larger whole, and often may still be up for interpretation.

If you’re good at maths, Petri Nets or Colored Petri Nets are another option to consider. Unlike with flowcharts, which as we’ve seen have a difficult time documenting parallel processes, Petri Nets can visualise several sub-processes that have to take place simultaneously or that have to be synchronized to work properly. 

These diagrams include places, transitions and arcs. Of course, as you may have already gathered, there is a steep learning curve to the mathematical language and notation this map alternative utilizes. While it does make up for some of the deficiencies of relying on flowcharts, it is also impossible to expect your average employee or stakeholder to fully understand it.

A similar issue to Petri Nets is found in Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN). 

It is true that BPMN is one type of solution for the process mapping problem. With an overarching industry standard for their rich variety of shapes and symbols, it solves the question of ambiguity in your business process maps. But in order to do so, everyone involved must know what the symbols mean. 

BPMN can be extremely complex visually if you do not have a specialist on your team or contracted to help you navigate the process maps. And what is the point of having such complicated process maps if you cannot refer to them yourself later without needing external help?

This is why we champion Universal Process Notation (UPN) here at Skore.

An alternative to flowcharts and other options for business process maps, UPN focuses on simplicity and clarity so that everyone can follow along. UPN is a computer-first approach to business process mapping, and at Skore we have taken that to heart. Our software is based on sequentially presented what and why boxes, covering the tasks themselves, as well as a space to indicate responsibility for ensuring the task takes place. 

There is no need for additional credentials or hours of study, simply access to our software, a laptop, and a collaborative space is required. It keeps everyone involved and engaged in the process.

Everyone involved is quick to understand what is happening when in your process, additional documentation can be added and accessed with ease if needed, responsibilities are clearly laid out, and workshop timing can be reduced significantly for quicker stakeholder signoff. 

And, you can create and build a knowledge base of your processes to refer to in the future in a process library.

Conclusion 

Flowcharts are a great tool – we don’t dispute it.

But not for complex process mapping. 

There are a lot of alternatives out there, but for us here at Skore, UPN reigns supreme. Integrated into our software as our corner stone, our clients have found success when it comes to process improvement. And this in turn has led to financial success and growth.

Interested in taking the leap to improve your business processes? Reach out to us and we’ll be happy to chat!

Business process mapping is a visual representation of how a business process and its steps play out.

The way this is represented visually can vary greatly depending on the approach and model used. From swim lane diagrams to flow charts, to more complex forms of mapping, the sky is truly the limit.

But in the last two decades, Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN), has truly emerged as the main option championed by business analysts.

In this blog, we’ll go over BPMN, how it’s used, and some alternatives for those of you who’re looking for other options for your process mapping.

What Is BPMN? 

Business Process Modelling Notation or BPMN is specifically used to map and visualise business processes. It merges together several other forms of process mapping under the banner of a common notation, ensuring that everyone is on the same page about meaning.

It was originally published by the Business Process Management Initiative in 2004, but since 2005 is maintained by the Object Management Group consortium. Thanks to their maintenance, the notation remains controlled and there is a group to refer to for meaning and gaining expertise. Having an industry standard removes the ambiguity of other process mapping alternatives.

BPMN has very specific meanings and symbols that bridges the communication gap between process design and implementation. Until recently, it was considered the simplest and best way to capture the complexity of a business process.

The main goal of BPMN is clarity for process improvement and business success and growth.

Having diagramed their existing process utilising the notation, organisations can then find spots where making changes will improve their efficiency and outcomes. Some examples of this are changing procurement locations or automating certain time-consuming tasks. 

The roles most likely to interact with the process maps are business analysts, technical experts, and managers. Just as important are stakeholders, however, as they are the ones who eventually sign off on the final process.

And it is not always easy for them to follow along enough to sign off.

Why?

Well, to understand that, we need to know how BPMN works. 

How Is BPMN Used?

BPMN is a mix of several approaches to business process mapping in one. In this way, it is able to account for the complexity of business processes. And it differs from the others because it was created with the express purpose of being used for business processes as opposed to being adapted.

BPMN is made up of:

• Flow elements: the parts of the process that define its behaviour. As you may guess, this is taken from flowcharts. They include:
  • Activities: the tasks that are part of a process, for example, generating a receipt. Sometimes they have attached sub-processes,
  • Events: something that occurs, externally or internally, that will affect the process. The best example is the start of a process, as that will have an event triggering its need.
  • Gateways: typically serve as an ‘OR’ option to account for parallel outcomes, they document the different possible flows. 
  • Sequence flows: an arrow connecting sequential events.
  • Message flows: document how messages are communicated between different swim lane pools – between different departments.
  • Data: when you need to attach a particular data set to a part of the process, for example an invoice.
  • Groups: sometimes certain parts of the process have to be continuously grouped together and this demonstrates it.
  • Text annotations: provide additional context when needed.
• Swim lanes: just like a regular swim lane diagram, it is how BPMN demonstrates responsibility during a process.
• Connecting objects: they are shown as arrows, the different types of arrows have different meanings of how that flow element connects to the process.
• Artifacts: additional information boxes connected with dotted lines, brief enough that they are not a separate process.
• Data: information that is needed or is produced during a business process. There are different kinds of data as well. 

Does it seem like a lot?

That would be because it is. 

To put it in perspective, in 2016, in order to use BPMN correctly, you had to study a PDF of 538 pages. You can be certified specifically in BPMN.

While this is great for subject-matter experts, it does not translate well as a tool for stakeholders or average employees to understand. And it can cause a loss of important knowledge if you constantly rely on external experts to help you.

So what can you turn to?

BPMN makes use of other types of approaches, and none of those work quite well either.

Enter Universal Process Notation.

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UPN Is the Superior Alternative to Business Process Modelling Notation 

Universal Process Notation (UPN) focuses on two things: simplicity and clarity.

BPMN’s visual complexity and it’s complicated symbol approach mentioned above make it difficult for the average person to interact with its process maps. And because there’s so many symbols, there is room for error and personal interpretation.

Not to mention, often due to the complexity, information has to be discarded to avoid a messy, convoluted flow. Having to selectively pick and choose certain data sets or steps over others means that inevitably something will get lost.

And because it relies on swim lane diagrams to demonstrate responsibility, often in workshops it is necessary to read the entire title of the box, the action, to make sure everyone understands what is being talked about.

UPN took all of the best parts of BPMN and simplified them, which is why we have built our software around it here at Skore.

UPN’s notation is simple and easy to understand, so that all involved parties can follow along. Whether they are a subject-matter expert, a stakeholder with a busy schedule, or a manager explaining their role, no one requires special certification to understand the flow. 

And because UPN was designed for computers, it works incredibly well for collaborative approaches, whether they are in real time or asynchronous, as our Skore software demonstrates. 

Furthermore, because it is designed for computers and software, adding sub-processes is a lot easier and more accessible. It declutters and removes the visual complexity, but it ensures that the information is still there, so at no point have you had to leave something out.

Parallel processes can also be shown and deconstructed without fuss.

This is in large part because UPN, and by extension Skore, show the process sequentially. It focuses on what is happening, before and after what else, why, and it leaves room to identify by who in that same space. It is so much easier to follow along and there is no confusion about the next step or who is in charge of what.

With Skore, adding additional data is no longer more noise on your diagram. Simply attach the relevant documentation to the correct step, and you can refer back to it with ease without being cluttered in the overall process. 

Additionally, you can provide your stakeholders and clients with either a bird’s eye view of your business process, or drill down to specific details in sub-processes as needed. And no one has to consult a manual or bring in an expert to guide you. If anyone has a suggestion, it can be mapped at the speed of conversation so that you can work your way through the new process in real time.

Not convinced yet?

Our clients have been able to achieve an increase in use by mapping out their processes, work in tandem with their own clients from different industries by mapping processes out together, and improve communication flows within their own company.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg of what we can help you achieve. 

For a visual idea, you can always take a look at our workshops. We practice what we preach, and seeing Skore in action and how easy it is to use has served to convert more than one prospective customer to our side. 

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Conclusion 

BPMN is a great option for business process mapping, and one that combines the strengths of several adopted approaches.

Or at least it was until UPN came around.

We’re biased, we know, but when it comes to clarity and ease of use, there is no better path to mapping processes than UPN.

If you’re looking to improve your business process maps and want to take control of your business, you’ve come to the right place.

Get in touch and we’ll be more than happy to help you out!