Process Optimization & Business Systems Integration2 min read
Before you buy new software, map the process
New systems often disappoint because they automate a process nobody fully understood. An hour with a whiteboard first saves months later.
A business outgrows its spreadsheets, someone suggests a new system, and a few demonstrations later a contract is signed. A year on, half the team still keeps their own spreadsheet on the side. It is a familiar story, and the software is rarely to blame.
The usual cause is that the system was chosen before anyone wrote down how the work actually gets done.
Software automates what you give it
If a process is unclear, has unnecessary steps, or relies on someone remembering to chase an approval, a new system will carry all of that across. You end up with the same problems, running faster and costing more.
What mapping involves
Pick one process, such as paying a supplier or billing a customer, and trace it from start to finish with the people who do it.
- What starts the process, and what counts as finished?
- Who does each step, and what do they need in order to do it?
- Where does work wait, and for whom?
- Where is the same information typed in more than once?
- What happens when something goes wrong?
What you get from it
Three things, usually. Steps you can remove straight away at no cost. A clear list of what a system must do for you, which makes vendor conversations far more useful. And a team that has already thought about how its work will change, which matters more to a successful rollout than any feature.
Sometimes the map shows that new software is not needed at all, and that the tools you already have are enough once the process is tidied up. That is a good outcome too.
