How to map a process from employee interviews
A process mapped in a workshop shows the process as it was designed. A process mapped from the people who do it shows where it actually waits. Here is how to build one map from many interviews.
01Fix where the work starts and where it ends
Every interview should walk the same piece of work from the same start to the same finish: “from an order arriving to the invoice being paid”, or “from the first journal to sign-off”. Without a fixed start and end, each person describes a different slice and the accounts will not join up.
02Walk the last real case with each person
Ask each person to take the last real case and tell you what happened first. Then what happened next. The last case has the detail a general description smooths over: the missing form, the second approval, the email nobody answered.
QUESTIONS THAT WORK
- “Take the last close. What did you do first?”
- “Who did it go to next?”
- “How long did it sit before anyone picked it up?”
03Ask who it went to, and how long it sat
Handoffs are where work waits. At every step, ask who it went to next and how long it sat before anyone picked it up. Write the wait down in the person's own words, such as “two or three days”. Ask which system the step runs in, and whether they keep anything on the side, such as a spreadsheet or a list.
04Combine the accounts into one map, and count
Put each team in its own lane and lay the steps in order. Where several people describe the same step, keep it once and note how many told it. A step only one person mentions is still worth keeping, but it should look different from a step everyone described.
05Mark the waits, and set it beside the written process
Mark every step people said waits, and on whom. If there is a written procedure, set it beside the map and note where it is written one way and done another. Those gaps are often the rules that live in one person's head.
06Let people correct their own steps
Show each person the map of their part and let them fix it: a step that doesn't happen, a step that is missing, a handoff to someone else. A map people have checked is one they will trust when you change the process.
WHERE COMPLEXIN FITS
Complexin does this from interviews: every interview walks the last real case from the same start to the same end, and the Findings draw one map from everyone, with how many told each step and where it waits.
See process and handoffs →