A Quick Guide to Process Mapping

Process Mapping can be as involved and time consuming as you would like. However, based on our experience at PeopleStuf the key is:

• to just get going - it does not need a fanfare nor a committee to begin
• if resources are limited (time and people) then adopt a ‘work-in-progress' approach
• focus on the HR processes which will have an immediate and beneficial impact on the business
• involve those who will be impacted in order to get ownership, commitment and identifying best practices
• identify the ‘handover and touch points' between the different people involved in the process - this is essential if misunderstandings are not to occur and the process is completed accurately and in time.

Process Mapping is a well recognised technique to identify, define and capture all the key stages, activities and people involved in a particular process. It can be used either to ‘map' or enhance an existing process or it can be used to design a new process.

The key to the success of process mapping is:

• To have a senior manager act as a sponsor and identify who has overall accountability for the process
• Be clear what process you are defining and why you are defining it
• Identify ,before you begin, who are the key people involved in the process
• Set up a ‘mapping group' made up of representatives of all the people involved. Where appropriate identify high performers and subject matter experts and include them in the mapping group.
• The mapping group has the responsibility to map the process either ‘as is' or ‘to be'
• The mapping group needs to contract up front about the level of detail required and the potential resources needed (particularly time!)
• A quick and powerful technique to use to capture the high level process map is flip charts and post it notes
• Focus on identifying ‘who does what and when' = wdww

It is recommended at the set-up stage of process mapping to use a facilitator to provide objective guidance, challenge (!) and a systematic approach, agree roles and responsibilities, ways of working, project schedule and outputs.

1. Overview and general description

This is the ‘storyboard' which defines the scope, who is involved, accountable and what the outputs are. Here is an example:

This "Recruitment Plan" process map is a sub process of Recruitment. This process covers the preparation of the Recruitment Plan by the SSC Recruitment Specialist and its approval by the Line Manager.

The Recruitment Plan (e. g. appropriate channels and selection methods and timeline) is created by the Recruitment Specialist in the SSC after the role request has been finalised and the client brief has been run. The SSC Recruitment Specialist then sends it to the Line Manager for approval.

The Line Manager receives the Recruitment Plan created by the SSC Recruitment Specialist and checks the correctness of th

Good luck!