Business Process Documentation

Business Process Documentation: Meaning, Benefits, and Challenges

Meaning of Process Documentation

In our everyday lives, we do not write down the workflows as to how we should carry out different tasks. But when it comes to any compound task, we scuffle if we do not have some kind of external guidance or a roadmap. Something similar is experienced by organisations too. Most of the processes and operations involved in those processes are elongated and complex. A certain degree of assistance to the teams and employees executing the process becomes helpful. One of the most effective and proven ways to provide such assistance is by developing and using process documents or SOP manuals.

Process documents or SOP manuals contain the workflow procedures for carrying out processes and operations. These workflow procedures are developed using the most suitable combinations of text, visual graphics, screenshots, etc. Process documents or SOP manuals cover:

  • Workflows or sequences of operational activities from start to end
  • Work required to be done at every juncture
  • Input and output standards or requirements
  • Timelines
  • Work locations
  • Process stakeholders
  • Supervision and accountability
  • Reporting and feedback mechanism, etc.
Business Process Documentation

Benefits of Process Documentation

The biggest advantage of recording and documenting processes is that these documents could be used as operational roadmaps for teams and employees for carrying out business processes and operations. Having process documents is highly useful for new employees, new projects, and complex processes.

Process documents optimise the need for supervision. Employees’ dependencies on assistance are reduced when they have approved operational guide maps in the form of process documents. The need for supervision may not be completely done with but gets limited to only the most difficult operational details.

Process documents provide a facilitating platform for securing the deliverables. Knowing a workflow conceptually is one thing and to see it in an explicit, written form is quite another. Process documents are designed to be explicit and specific about the operational standards and outcomes.

Documenting processes offer a ready-to-go stage for process improvisation. It eliminates the need to amass information from scratch. Deviations could be more easily identified in the backdrop of the established operational standards and procedures as they appear on the process documents.

Challenges in Process Documentation

The lack of process orientation is the foremost impediment to the efforts of process documentation. If there are no defined ways of working existing in an organisation, what remains to be documented? An organisation not having well-defined processes in easy-to-comprehend formats is one thing. But what is far more disadvantageous is not being process-oriented at all.

Process documentation is a massive and highly time-consuming effort. It involves the collection of colossal volumes of data and information on the existing processes and/or the actual practices. Differences and deviations have to be eliminated to come to the same page. Every aspect of every operation has to be considered in light of the broader business goals and objectives. These activities can run up to weeks or months even with a dedicated team working on the exercise that would also entail multiple trial runs before anything is finalised.

Process documentation also demands a certain degree of experience and expertise. It is not a run-of-the-mill activity and thus, businesses usually do not retain the specific internal resources required for such one-off exercises.

How BPX can help

BPX is a business process consulting firm with a growing international presence offering high-end professional solutions to organisations in SOP development, process automation, business process management, and quality management systems. Given below is a snapshot of how BPX can help your business in process documentation and enable your business to become a process-oriented enterprise.

Process Design and SOP Development

We help clients make their businesses become process-driven enterprises. We design and develop varied business process solutions depending on the unique requirements of clients. Every process and its operational details are defined and mapped using SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures). This exercise is carried out by the team of BPX’s expert SOP writing consultants. Comprehensive assessments are made to gather information about the as-is processes and the existing operational practices. The exclusive business and functional requirements are duly taken into account. SOP-bound documented processes provide the groundwork for enterprise-wide employment of process standardisation.

Operational Governance

In developing process documentation solutions, one of our key objectives is to lend robust operational governance. Every process is carefully aligned with the business and functional objectives. Every operation is tied to execuion standards. Nothing is left in the unplanned zone to avoid arbitrary decision-making. An internal monitoring and reporting system works through the SOPs that enable sharing of process-related information from every concerned team and department on a routine basis.

Professional Expertise

The service design and delivery developed by BPX are carried out by a team of experienced business process consultants. This team is formed and assigned to projects factoring relevant exposure and qualifications. From planning to implementation, each assignment is executed under the supervision of a principal consultant. Every solution is worked at with due adherence to the established processes following a planned and systematic course of action.

IT Integration

Before going to IT solutions, businesses need to focus on process orientation and process standardisation for which prerequisites are process mapping and process documentation. We help clients identify the best-fit IT software solutions for their business processes and operations. We assist them in vendor search and selection, software customisation, and ERP implementation.

Training and Implementation Assistance

The jump from a state of no SOPs or AS-IS SOPs (existing ways of working) to TO-BE SOPs (new processes and new ways of working) brings many challenges for employees. In other words, changes in working practices can be new and different for different employees in different ways. Take the example of using a new software/ERP application. We develop and impart the necessary training to employees to equip them with the theoretical and practical understanding of carrying out the new workflows in an altered IT interface. We also provide backing in SOP implementation with applied and systematic guidance.

Change Management

We identify and outline the new organisational requirements and redesign the organogram necessitated by process improvisations. Our process consultants also assess and present the new staffing requirements. Job analysis is conducted against the backdrop of the new operational framework. The financial and commercial projections for implementing the entire project are also prepared. Internal rebranding and communications remain a prerogative from start to end to keep misconceptions or miscommunications at bay.

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FAQs

Business process documentation is how processes are written down using established methods and standards. The output of business process documentation is process documents or SOP manuals that contain the workflow procedures for carrying out processes and operations.

The simplest example of a business process document is the joining process of any organisation.

Process documents or SOP manuals contain the workflow procedures for carrying out processes and operations. These process documentation templates or workflow procedures are developed using the most suitable combinations of text, visual graphics, screenshots, etc. Process documents or SOP manuals cover:

  • Workflows or sequences of operational activities from start to end
  • Work required to be done at every juncture
  • Input and output standards or requirements
  • Timelines
  • Work locations
  • Process stakeholders
  • Supervision and accountability
  • Reporting and feedback mechanism,
  • Risks and mitigants to be documented in each process

Every process and its operational details must be defined and mapped using SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures). It is better to have expert SOP writing consultants for process documentation exercises. Comprehensive assessments must be made to gather information about the as-is processes and the existing operational practices in the business process analysis document.

ECommerce or Digital Commerce opens up a multitude of avenues for business improvement in B2B. Done right, some of the derivable benefits are:

  • Enhance market reach to cater to new locations and new clients
  • Enhanced transparency in operations with the use of digital systems
  • Better CRM and confidence among parties with enhanced data sharing and communication
  • Use of data analytics for better decision-making and mutual interests

The biggest advantage of recording and documenting processes is that these documents could be used as operational roadmaps for teams and employees for carrying out business processes and operations.

Process documents optimise the need for supervision. Employees’ dependencies on assistance are reduced when they have approved operational guide maps in the form of process documents.

Process documents provide a facilitating platform for securing the deliverables. Process documents are designed to be explicit and specific about the operational standards and outcomes.

Documenting processes offer a ready-to-go stage for process improvisation. It eliminates the need to amass information from scratch.

The lack of process orientation is one of the foremost challenges in process documentation. An organisation not having well-defined processes in easy-to-comprehend formats is one thing. But what is far more disadvantageous is not being process-oriented at all.

Process documentation is a gigantic and highly time-consuming effort. It involves the collection of colossal volumes of data and information on the existing processes and/or the actual practices.

Process documentation also calls for a certain degree of experience and expertise. It is not a run-of-the-mill activity and thus, businesses usually do not retain the specific internal resources required for such one-off exercises.

Process documentation is extremely useful in attempting to achieve process standardisation.

Process standardisation is bringing consistency and uniformity to a business activity carried out over time and location. The activity in question could be a one-time or a repetitive event. But irrespective of where and when it is carried out, the same set of procedures must be followed. It brings certainty to the desired course of action. Having this process in a written-down, universally-comprehensible format facilitates adherence to it.

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