Process mapping is a strong business process technique that employs symbols to visually represent a company’s action from beginning to end, as seen in the diagram below. This method follows each stage of a process and determines what is being done, who is doing it, where it is being done, when it is being done, and even why it is being done. Business analysis certification is the perfect solution for you to know more about process mapping.
What is business process mapping?
Business Process Mapping is a methodology for developing visual representations of organizational processes. It brought attention to activities involved in knowing what a business analyst does, who is responsible for every department, to what level a business process should be finished, and how the success of a business process can be determined.
This involves defining the hierarchy, timeline, interdependency, approvals, authorities, and limitations.
Extensive processes take the top-down approach. The elaborate techniques are broken into small fragments, and each method is defined independently with a backward and forward reference.
Accounting departments, for example, can use process mapping to identify and document how they process payments, while HR departments can use it to determine how they choose applicants.
Process mapping and process modeling are frequently confused. They are different and serve various goals, even though they work together.
Process mapping is the first stage in identifying and recording tasks or activities inside a business process. It explains the entire procedure, including what is being done, who is participating, and when and where it takes place.
Why Do You Need Business Process Mapping?
Business process mapping is here to manage a firm that relies laboriously on efficiency to plan business processes. Workers or employees are forced to guess and make mistakes regarding best practices when there is no visible depiction of the predictable processes in your business.
Each department and employee must develop their sequence and assignment if a business process is not clearly defined through mapping. When the job owners are not properly allocated, chaos, confusion, and blame result.
Boons of Business Process Mapping in business analysis
Business Process Mapping has several advantages, including systemic control over processes, standardized methods; reduced redundancy; increased process visibility; better compliance with industry standards; clarity regarding the business process, and uniform staff training.
How to Create a Process Map?
- Decide on the manner you want to map your workflow.
- Gather the right people in your team.
- Brainstorm the steps that need to be executed and accordingly organize them.
- Create a baseline map for business processes.
- Evaluate the performance
- Implement improvements.
What is process mapping in business analysis?
A business analyst methodology can also be named more formally as a theoretical lens or a process map for understanding which techniques, methods, or best practices to apply to a project; this could be research work or business analysis tasks.
A huge part of planning business analysis work involves identifying which methodology to apply.
There are two practical approaches to Business Analysis. These approaches are typically applied to software development projects and may also be combined to form a hybrid approach.
- The Plan Driven Approach methodology has characteristics consistent with the Traditional Waterfall and Process Engineering Approach like defining, measuring, analyzing, improving & controlling.
As the name implies, it involves significant upfront planning in a bid to elaborate project details. Business analysis tasks and other project activities happen in pre-defined sequential phases with little chance of overlap.
Plan-driven approaches aim to reduce uncertainty by clarifying requirements upfront as much as possible before system development begins.
- The Change Driven Approach methodology is based on the premise that uncertainty decreases as the project progresses, more information becomes available, and requirements will reveal themselves. They will change and can be refined as delay reduces, and changes to conditions can be implemented based on priorities.
In reality, however, projects do not stick strictly to this course. Improved versions of this analysis methodology involving iterative executions of project phases have been employed over time.
How does process mapping work in business analysts?
A business Analyst is vital in every project as BA understands the customer’s requirements. They support the implementation throughout the process cycle, from gathering and understanding the necessity to test and deploy the product. They are sometimes asked to help the business accept the implemented solution, but that has to be better than suggested. As a BA, we bridge these requirements from a standard language to make it work technically.
- To prepare the documents based on the analysis done over requirements given by the customer.
- We need to pull out multiple best solutions to offer to the customers.
- Verify these solutions as to which suits better with the scenario.
- To design the UI user-friendly.
- Knowledge is transferred to the developers and testers, who are asked for suggestions on the solutions, which helps make the process faster.
- To determine the requirements of the functional (what the project should do) and non-functional (how the project should work).
- After every implementation, confirm the working of the functions and the product from the customer.
- To solve the issues and approve the system/product functionality.
- Take up the change requests, work on them, and transfer knowledge to the team.
- As a BA, we gather the requirements and ensure that the product works and functions well for its design.
- To set up Scrum(daily) meetings to track the project.
- The most important role with all these as a BA is that we need to coordinate, structure, support, and lead these team members to make their roles successful.
Conclusion
The simplicity of Business Process Mapping has surpassed its purely visual appeal. However, it might lead to complexities and issues you’d prefer not to deal with if it’s not done appropriately or critically evaluated. Simplilearn online learning platform is a place to learn how to tackle complex business problems using in-demand tools.
Business analysis is for working professionals looking to pursue a business analysis career and on a flow to understand business analysis techniques while getting hands-on experience and for experienced analysts looking forward to learning the latest tools.
