However, BPMN encourages process documentation that is thorough and comprehensive. As a result, you can create process maps of each workflow while recording and archiving business knowledge to provide current staff access. You can use the knowledge in many areas such as new hire onboarding, upskilling, system training, and more. Moreover, business knowledge retention helps to eliminate disruption that occurs when employees leave.
By monitoring processes, you can identify specific areas for improvement while also mapping out the overall activity flow. How can ProcessMaker help with process documentation? ProcessMaker offers an industry-leading low-code intelligent business process management suite iBPMS. It can also help you to automate process documentation.
How can we meet our revenue goals quicker? What changes do we need to make to cut down on operational costs? These are the questions managers mull over every day. But to make these changes, a Many organizations focus most of their marketing efforts and budgets on acquiring new customers.
In the process, they fail to nurture their existing customers leaving many of them to shop for Skip to content What is process documentation? Why do you need business process documentation? Process documentation offers many benefits, such as: Improving a process Many processes are repeatable and necessary for the functioning of a business.
Reducing organizational process uncertainty Business process documentation removes most if not all vague components within a business. Beyond that, documentation also: Clarifies the chain of command Outlines necessary tasks for completing a process Shows who is assigned what Generally speaking, documentation should be easy for employees to access on-demand.
Enhancing analytical elements Businesses can improve efficiency by analyzing processes and streamlining said processes. Preserve institutional knowledge Employees are going to leave your company at some point. Consider these process documentation examples: Which business processes are taking place and when, plus their impact on the business and its bottom line.
The contribution of each step within the process. The roles of various employees within a process. Directions for completing a process or a specific part of a process. What is the objective of process documentation? Process documentation helps to: Improve and streamline various processes Analyze and identify flaws Improve process and output quality Save time and labor power Reduce overall costs Increase transparency across your organization Ultimately, process documentation can increase efficiency and productivity both now and long into the future.
Who is involved in the process? Project team : The project or process team is responsible for documentation. This team should approach producing documentation collaboratively as a team. Stakeholders : Anyone within your company involved in a specific project or process should also be interested in process documentation, no matter how small their role or conversely how senior their title.
They can provide objective opinions and fresh insights. The right resources need to be set aside to support documentation. Guidelines for process documentation: Supports collaboration and feedback Easy but secure access and sharing Friendly on many devices, including smartphones and tablets Flexible and able to perform multiple functions Capture process : How is information captured? How does BPMN help with process documentation? You can break elements down into several categories: Events : Explains what happens during a process.
Simplify process documentation with these 10 easy steps As your organization grows, complexity becomes inevitable. Consider the following steps below: 1. Determine process boundaries Document both the starting and ending point of this business process. Select process outputs What happens when the business process is completed? Choose your process inputs What data do you need to deploy the process? Document activities What steps are involved that move your process from start to finish?
Organize your process Designate the activity sequence of your process flow. Review your process Is your process organized and sequenced adequately enough to align with your process boundaries? Design a flowchart Using the elements described above, create an easy-to-read flowchart to ensure anyone can understand the process.
Final review Talk to the stakeholders and review your process. To illustrate, here is how you could document the new hire onboarding process: Process name: Employee onboarding. Other process documentation examples include: Employee reviews Customer routing process Company equipment maintenance process Product or service delivery process Billing process Accounting process Why is it crucial to document business processes? Other advantages include the ability to do the following: Monitor, measure and modify processes as needed.
Strengthen team member productivity by coordinating activities more accurately and making necessary updates. Use intelligent technologies to address challenges and potential issues. Respond more rapidly to changes in projects. Based on the identified issues and the feedback, how can you improve the process further? Make changes and test the new process. Monitor progress.
Set a reminder to review it within a year. Focus on being specific without getting verbose. An image or screenshot can help cut down unnecessary words. Keep documents accessible. The process documents will never become a natural part of the workflow if they are difficult to find.
The solution? Store documents in a centralized location that is easy to access, such as a knowledge base. Make it easy to edit. Control document changes. Versioning lets you review and restore old versions of the document, and authoring allows several team members to contribute to and rework the content. Review your manuals at least once a year.
Is the process still relevant? Do you need to make any changes so it reflects new best practices? Add a timeline. Once started, within what timeframe does the process need to be completed?
If the process involves waiting time, what is an acceptable amount? Choose a specific, well-defined process. If the scope is too broad, your team members may become overwhelmed when working with it. Instead, narrow down the scope to cover one specific process — then add another, if necessary. Create and use templates. Are several procedures similar? Save time by creating templates that you can reuse again and again.
Back up the documentation. Ensure that you back up the documentation so you can easily restore it. Keep it secure. Keep it out of the wrong hands by ensuring that your system holds a good security standard, secure log-in, and features a way to manage document access. Link to related documentation. Once a team member has completed this process, what other procedures usually follow? For example, once you've gone through the process for publishing a new blog post, other processes may include sharing the post on social media, adding it to a newsletter, or sending it to select prospects.
Identify the most important, frequent, or fault-ridden processes and start with them. Keep an eye out for improvement. While you document a process, pay attention to how it can be improved. Involve frontline staff. Spend time implementing the new documentation. Working version vs. Do you need more than one version of the material?
If users are active in the document while using it, you risk accidental edits. Having a working version also allows you to finalize your edits before sharing a new user version. Think bigger than checklists. Sometimes, a list can be all you need! But process documents can hold so much more. What supportive information do you need to link to or include? Consider how you can help with troubleshooting, addressing potential risks, and give tips. Software and Tools to Create Process Documentation So, how do you make it as easy as possible to work with process documentation?
Luckily, there are tools to help you: Capturing information with screenshots and video recording. Techsmith has two of the most popular capture tools on the market, Techsmith Capture formerly Jing and the more advanced Snagit.
Both tools let you take screenshots or record the events on your screen. Visualizing information with flowchart tools or graphics. Gathering, storing, and sharing information with a knowledge base. A project like this is initiated best by your Chief Operations Officer and cascaded down through management.
Each team manager will need to ensure that all of their current processes are covered. Part of the process includes giving employees the task of documenting those unique processes to them and checking all employee know-how is covered.
You'll also find that certain company policies and procedures need to create a process documentation, especially when it comes to internal staff operations like requesting holidays, noting sick leave, or applying for internal roles. For this type of documentation, you'll need the help of someone on your human resources team.
Lastly, on this point, consider if everyone involved in creating the process documents needs access to write and edit within your knowledge base tool. Optionally, do you want employees to create them in another format and have one author responsible for putting them together?
If you decide to ask your employees to submit them directly into your company knowledge base, what will you need? You guessed it, a process document for them to follow. The goal of this documentation is to ensure things run smoothly in your business; there are a few structural points to remember when working on your process documentation template. Before you can even begin to document your process, you need to pick old and new processes worth recording in the first place. Try to establish the difference between a process that's likely to change drastically and not worth processing, and one that's regular and constant enough that will benefit from being documented.
Next up, it's time to assign all the details to this particular process. Things like the date documented, the process owner, the project team responsible, and a title that accurately describes what the process is.
When assigning the title, try to keep in mind your larger process documentation strategy and structure. Place yourself in the user's shoes and think about how they would go about finding your process in your knowledge base. If you're initiating that they can search by keyword, then what keywords would they use? If they're searching by the department, then consider if the process lays in more than one department.
These details ensure your document is easy to find in the future. We're not talking a full-blown essay here. An introduction to the process doesn't need to be any more than a few lines.
It's important to establish the goal of the process and explain why this process matters. In doing so, user have something to work towards and understands the value of their output.
If people don't understand why they need to do something, they won't do it with as much care as they would otherwise. You should also try to establish when and how someone needs to use this process. As we discussed earlier, there are different processes and this should be known early on. By doing this, someone will understand the process boundaries, when to start this process, and the necessary factors to proceed with it. A common process documentation example is a standard operating procedure SOP document.
Here's an SOP example created in Nuclino. Nuclino is a unified workspace where you can collaborate on internal documentation , manage projects , onboard new employees , take meeting minutes , collaborate on documents , and bring all your team's work together.
Let's face it — process documentation sounds tedious and boring. Others avoid process documentation entirely, feeling that it's a complete waste of time and money. Most companies feel a push and pull between trying to do the right thing by documenting and trying not to waste resources by documenting. Standardization would only stifle your ability to innovate. Sounds familiar? If so, you're certainly not alone. Henry Ford did not invent the car — he invented a process.
The idea was simple: instead of one artisan creating a product alone, everyone was taught to do one of 84 simple, repetitive jobs. The introduction of the assembly line cut the manufacturing time of the Model T down from At the end of the day, any business is essentially a group of interrelated and often repetitive tasks and processes. But it's only when you formalize them, that you are forced to think about the workflow with productivity in mind. Process optimization.
Identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies by documenting the exact processes. Process automation. Process documentation helps discover tasks that can be easily automated, saving time and resources. New employee training. Company knowledge sharing and retention. Documentation preserves a record of processes known only to a few people specialized in doing them. Without it, when an employee leaves, any process knowledge leaves with them.
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