7 Key Elements of a Business Process Diagram

Analyze, visualize and optimize: These are the key takeaways you’ll learn from this blog.

Business processes can quickly become discordant and disorganized, and soon enough, they no longer adhere to your business goals, making it difficult to monitor key metrics. However, by standardizing your workflow diagrams, you can keep your organization on track and make it easier to scale your efforts.

A business process diagram is a form of business process mapping detailing each step your organization takes to complete a process. This can be done manually, or you can utilize tools such as process intelligence and business process management (BPM).

Your steps will likely include information such as:

• Who is responsible for each step in the process
• What happens in each step
• When a step must be completed and when it triggers the next event
• Where the task takes place
• How the task is done

Once you have this key information documented, you can then analyze it and find ways to implement process improvement.

There are numerous ways you can map your business processes. Depending on your business needs, such as the complexity of your processes and whether you want a high-level or detailed approach, your process mapping may differ.

Most diagrams follow a business process methodology to help standardize your processes. For example, flow charts will show all the steps involved in the processes and signify each task and event type with a different symbol, such as a circle, rectangle, diamond, etc.

Here, we’ll look at some common examples that many organizations use.

• Business process modeling notation (BPMN): BPMN uses over one hundred standardized symbols to represent workflows and tasks in business processes, making it the gold standard for process models and notations. Its standardized notation ensures clear communication of process flows to prevent misunderstandings. It tends to include flow objects, connecting objects to display task sequences, swimlanes to illustrate how responsibilities are divided among groups or departments, and artifacts to explain processes.

• Gantt charts: These charts use bars to illustrate project schedules, showing task durations, dependencies, milestones and interdependencies. They’re common for time-sensitive projects and help track and record activities sequentially, making it easy to see task timelines.

• Flowcharts: Flowcharts use simple shapes and arrows to illustrate each step in a process and their interconnections, showing how steps progress toward a specific outcome. Flowcharts represent straightforward, sequential business processes.

• Business process flow diagrams: These diagrams provide a detailed visualization of data streams, showing how data enters, flows through and is stored in a system. Unlike flowchart diagrams, these diagrams focus on data flow between process steps rather than the operations themselves.

• Unified language (UML) diagrams: UML diagrams visualize system design and interactions using standardized methods. They include structural diagrams and behavioral diagrams to show the relationships between system objects. They’re especially useful for documenting software processes.

Why do you need to diagram a business process?

Mapping your current business processes can help you identify any bottlenecks, slowdowns or areas of inefficiency. The “how” and “why” of a diagram give you insights and a detailed understanding of your processes, including the people involved and any systems, controls, inputs and outputs encountered in the process. You can then analyze this information and find new ways to optimize your current way of doing things.

The benefits of business process diagramming include:

• Cost savings: Once you’ve broken down each step in a process, you can identify opportunities to automate manual processes. This lowers operational costs by improving efficiency.

• Reduced errors: When everyone better understands a process, fewer errors occur. By reducing the number of unnecessary steps and standardizing how a process is completed, you reduce the chance of mistakes happening.

• Increased transparency: A clear process diagram can show each of your team members their roles and responsibilities. A diagram can also help you track key performance indicators (KPIs) for clearer insights.

• Improved customer service: Diagramming and optimizing your processes helps streamline work and ensure consistency. That means your customers get the same great experience every time.

• Improved employee experience: Whether you’re making it easier for new employees to learn the ropes or helping ongoing staff better understand their responsibilities, a business process diagram can help make work more productive and efficient – with fewer reworks.

1. Document your as-is processes

This can be done as a visual representation or using business process modeling tools to help you and your team better understand each step within a business process. From there, you can analyze the gathered data to find areas for improvement.

2. Involve stakeholders

Speak with those involved in the process as part of your process mapping to understand their roles, uncover inefficiencies and find a better path forward.

3. Implement tools to help

Figure out what software, tools and devices you need to complete a process and identify any new tools and platforms, such as BPM and intelligent automation (IA), that you can introduce to improve your business processes.

SS&C | Blue Prism® Chorus is a BPM platform that helps organizations build and automate processes to better optimize workflows.

4. Assign roles

Now, you’re on to designing your new and improved business process. In each step of your business process flowchart, assign specific people to each task and inform them of how they’re responsible.

5. Set rules and conditions

Set out where certain triggers and conditions must occur for your improved processes. Establish any instances where human involvement may be required versus what can be accomplished through automation.

6. Test and launch

Before you implement these changes into your active business environment, try them out in a test environment, ensuring you gather input from your team. Start small and see if any changes are needed. Once you’re happy with your changes, launch your new process, along with any tools or software, into the business.

7. Continuous improvement

Continually monitor and optimize your processes to ensure they run at their best capacity. This is key to ensuring your processes run effectively and can be scaled across the business.

Using standardized diagrams to visualize your business processes can help keep your organization aligned and scalable. By mapping out each step and who’s responsible for what, you can easily track key metrics, spot inefficiencies and make ongoing improvements.

Each diagramming method has its unique way of showing workflows, timelines and data flows. Sticking to these standard tools ensures clear communication and collaboration both internally and with external partners.

Get started on your business process optimization journey with SS&C Blue Prism Chorus.