The process sheet is an important tool for sustaining a business and optimizing it over time. It brings together fundamental tools such as an operational map and performance indicators.
In addition to being a perfect tool for the continuous improvement of your processes, it will greatly facilitate the launch of new projects, audits, controls, assessments…
Nevertheless, there’s a fine line between “having a process file that’s useful for your business” and “having an unused, out-of-date file deep in your storage space”.
In this article, we’ll share with you everything you need to know to be on the right side of the line.
What is the process approach
This paragraph establishes a common semantics and presents our vision of processes.
Process definition
A process covers one or more of a company’s activities, through a series of consecutive and sometimes simultaneous stages.
A process brings together tasks, employees and customers, software, tools, data, inventory…
Processes are documented, and can optionally be operated using Business Process Management (BPM) software.
The 3 types of process
A company is made up of several processes covering all its activities. There are 3 families of processes:
Business processes
They include all the processes in the company’s value chain: from sales to production, logistics, purchasing, invoicing and delivery of the product or service…
Supporting business lines
And business support systems. These enable the business value chain to function properly. These include accounting processes, HR processes, IS processes, etc.
Management processes
Linked to steering the company, monitoring direction, transformations or strategy…
The ABCs of a process sheet
The process sheet is the identity card of a process. It clearly defines the various stages, organizations, means and resources involved. It must be easy to use and scalable.
Used properly, it is a formidable tool for continuous improvement, as it helps identify risks, bottlenecks, waste, problems… It can even become a business tool for operational staff!
Used improperly, it will linger in an obscure corner of your document storage.
What are the advantages of the process sheet?
- Reduce friction costs and optimize productivity
- Compliance and quality control at every stage
- Increase customer satisfaction by improving lead times, quality and risk management
- Easier duplication of a process in another department or plant
- Better communication and collaboration between teams. Teams more easily understand each other’s work, responsibilities and interactions.
- Simplified training for new arrivals
- Adapting to strategic, regulatory, societal and technological changes
- Innovation opportunities
The process sheet follows standards. Are we obliged to follow these requirements?
Our recommendations
On paper, the process sheet should follow the ISO 9001 standards. But as you’ll see, the requirements are relatively straightforward, so the question is what are your challenges and needs? Depending on your context, it may be preferable to go requirement by requirement, to help you and, above all, your company’s stakeholders better grasp the subject.
If you’re new to these concepts, you can draw on the requirements to compose the best process sheet from your company’s point of view. Don’t forget that the sheet must be easy to use, collaborative and scalable.
If you are doing this as part of a more advanced approach for your company, it is important to follow the ISO 9001:2015 standard and reference.
The list of ISO 9001 standard requirements and our advice on how to get to grips with each requirement.
You will find the list below with our comments
Priority requirements of the process sheet
Identify input data
Which event (and underlying data) triggers the process.
Example: “the order for product X (product and delivery specifications, stock status…) for customer Y (contact details, address, requirements…) with operational standards Z (maximum delivery time, customer relations…).
Correctly carrying out this step will avoid, for example, endless searches for information during the process.
Identify output data
Same as previous requirement.
What information will you make available so that the subsequent process can get off to the best possible start?
Determining interactions
It’s important to be exhaustive and produce a list of consecutive and simultaneous tasks.
These may be interactions between employees, customers and suppliers, but also interactions with tools and software.
One way of meeting this requirement is to model them using flowcharts or maps.
Define monitoring and/or measurement and/or performance indicators
Defining indicators means that, when the time comes, you can compare them with standards and then implement continuous improvement.
However, this can quickly become a tug-of-war, with dozens of indicators to be tracked in all directions, with no real coherence .
We recommend that you start by defining 1 or 2, and then add or remove others as you go along.
Defining responsibilities and authority
Without going into detail, we advise you to produce a RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed), which is a tool that lists responsibilities for each task. Be sure to check that all stakeholders are familiar with the subject before sharing this document.
Identify process drivers
Who manages the process?
Secondary requirements at first, but important to know
Identify and apply methods
Depending on your level of detail, an action may concern a stack of tasks that you don’t necessarily want to represent in your process sheet.
This combination of tasks represents a method, a know-how that enables the action to be carried out.
Defining quality and process objectives
We advise you to note the main objectives in line with your company’s strategy. For example: maintaining high customer satisfaction or increasing margins.
Determine process sequence
Gives you an overall view of how your company operates. It’s not optional, but it’s clearly a step in the process of adjusting process perimeters.
Taking risks and opportunities into account
They represent the basis for process improvement. You can create a risk matrix.
Process evaluation
See later in the article
Modify processes if necessary
Cf. later in the article.
Implement continuous process improvement
Cf. later in this article.
We would add to this list the following requirement: the process sheet must be collaborative and scalable. If you can’t easily modify it, or allow others to do so without breaking everything, updating it will be hellish.
A process audit produces a realistic and useful process sheet
Find out more in our article on how to conduct a process audit.
Contents of a process sheet
Example of a process sheet
Quote production process
Pilot: Charles Titouan
Process objectives :
- Produce 30 quotations per salesperson per month
- Turn 50% of quotations into sales
Process modelling with mapping or flowcharting
We’ll tell you all about process mapping in the next section.
Input data
- Entry event: prospect solicitation
- Prospects contact details
- Course before solicitation
- A business briefing
- Budget and deadlines
Output data
- Output event: quotation sent to prospect
- Quotes stored in a shared space
- Quotation amount
- Production forecasts
- Dunning date
Indicators and targets
- Number of days between request and quotation: 30 days max.
- Elapsed time to produce estimate: 5h min
- Estimates: average $3,000
- Number of quotations processed per salesperson: 30
Resources
- Sales
- Contribution of research and production
Tools and software
- Costing spreadsheet
- CRM
- Lapala platform
Deliverables
- Quote
- Sales proposal
- CRM completed
RACI – Realizer, Approver, Consulted and Informed
Other information to suit your needs and context
- The risks
- The opportunities
- Associated documents such as procedures, operating modes…
- Interaction with other processes
Don’t forget that this process sheet must be easy to use and update. Depending on your context, it may be very useful for it to be collaborative and easily upgradeable to become a real tool for operational staff.
How do you model a process?
In the example above, process mapping represents the sequence of actions, conditions and actors. But there are plenty of other ways of representing them, using other diagrams such as BPMN, SIPOC and VSM. What’s more, there are numerous process mapping tools available (office tools, design software, mapping software, workflow software and BPM software).
If you’d like to find out more, we’ve written a dedicated article: Process modeling – Step-by-step guidance and tools
How can the process sheet be used to optimize and improve operations?
Formalizing the process sheet is essentially an exercise in identifying opportunities, risks and problems.
Nevertheless, to be as effective as possible and to give yourself the best chance of optimizing a process, it’s important to involve as many stakeholders as possible in your approach.
So you can easily involve them in a variety of ways, such as interviews, workshops, questionnaires…
Nevertheless, we recommend that you follow a certain method when optimizing your processes. Here are the main phases to bear in mind.
Process identification
Normally, you’ve already done this using the process sheet.
Opportunity assessment
Once you’ve drawn up your list of processes, determine which ones need to be optimized as a priority, depending on the benefits you’re seeking. However, it’s important to strike a balance, as fully automating all processes can be counter-productive. To do this, assess precisely which part of the process and which level of optimization will offer the best return on investment.
To calculate this, identify the financial, organizational and human impacts. Then score each point out of 5. The highest priority processes are those with the highest scores.
Example of a process evaluation grid.
Description
Once you’ve chosen the process you want to optimize and identified the expected benefits, it’s crucial to visualize it to facilitate improvement. Normally, if you’ve followed our instructions correctly, you’ve already modeled your process.
Process improvement and automation.
Now you’re ready to optimize your process. Visualize the problematic steps or groups of steps and modify the diagram until you get a satisfactory result. You can add or remove steps, add or remove human actors, add or remove software tasks, change the nature of the steps, and so on. If you come across a more complex area of your process, don’t hesitate to “zoom in” by breaking down the steps concerned in greater detail.
Find out more in our article on process automation
Here, it is essential to involve the various players in the process concerned. Indeed, people who are not actually involved in the process in the field are rarely able to grasp all its practical subtleties. On the other hand, it can be very useful to bring in people from outside the process with a fresh perspective.
Once you’ve achieved a satisfactory before-and-after result, it’s time to test the new version of your process in the field. Above all, don’t forget to keep this work as documentation, which will make your task easier the next time you decide to work on the process.
Tips for keeping your process sheet up to date and useful
As we said earlier, to give your process sheet the best chance of not ending up forgotten, it’s important that it’s a living document. Don’t hesitate to follow these tips:
- Collaborative document. You can use software that allows editing, commenting or reading by any relevant person in your organization.
- Scalable, easy-to-use design. The way you design the process sheet is important, especially the mapping. If every update is hell… you won’t get very far.
- Recurrent communication with business collaborators. Stakeholders need to take ownership. By integrating information-gathering systems, you can even identify opportunities more easily.
Now you know all about the process sheet. Now it’s your turn! See you soon for more content!
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