Process Mapping Approach and Techniques for the Business Analyst 

Build the current state flow using process mapping (Affinity Mapping Process)

1.  Opening the Mapping Process- Appoint the following team roles:

a.  Team leader- process owner- opens the meeting, states the objectives, facilitates the charting and closes the meeting

b.  Documentor/Scribe- captures the issues on flip chart paper

c.  Timekeeper- keeps track of the time for the group

2.  Ground Rules for sessions- encourage communication, create a ‘rough draft’, avoid torpedoes/missiles, go for quantity, use flip chart for parking lot of unresolved issues

3.  Review the source information- Team Leader encourages debate and review of the information.  The group develops a list of questions, concerns and gaps.

4.  Brain-dump the activities- The Team Leader asks the participants to work independently to identify the verb noun activities for the process map.  Using a marker, each participant captures their ideas on post-its and writes their initials on each note.  The members are asked to collate their own post-its into common areas (e.g. customer items, IT items, etc.)

5.  Collate and rationalize- Use the brown- paper to sort the notes in the following order, involving one person at a time:

a.  Relate notes in a time sequence from left to right.

b.  Relate the notes in a level of doing order- high level stuff at the top (e.g. decide strategy, and lower operational stuff towards the bottom)

c.  Be prepared to reorder as you collate the collections

d.  Remove duplicated notes.

e.  The team leader keeps the group focused on identifying anything that might be left out and completing the process map.

6.  (Check) Sequence the activities- Walk through the activities in the process map to check to see what is missing and obtain consensus.  Identify and label the gaps with different color notes.  Capture the questions and notes on the flip chart paper.

7.  Agree on the Strawman Process Map- Check the current views between teams at this stage.  Discuss and refine together.

8.  Checklist of Issues- Is the map balanced in level of detail?  Are we missing steps?  Do we have too much detail?  Do we need to reorder it or space it out better? Etc.