All businesses and organizations have processes, whether we choose to recognize them or not-shipping a package, performing annual reviews, managing sales leads-these are all business processes each with their own set of specific steps and rules. And processes like these are at work every day in every department: Sales & Marketing, Human Resources, Finance, Manufacturing, Information Technology, Quality Assurance, etc. The first step to improving any process is recognizing and documenting what that process is.

When it comes to documenting processes and procedures, though, most business computer users believe it is too difficult and takes too long to create a useful process map or flowchart, so they resort to text. Or worse, they don't document processes at all.

No matter the department you're in or the size of your organization, you know that visualizing something graphically is often more effective than reading text on a page.

With software tools available today, it's never been easier for anyone to map out business processes. Still, you ask, why should I be flowcharting? Isn't that for quality management specialists and software programmers?

For a complete answer, download our whitepaper

Gain Competitive Advantage by Describing your Business Processes. With a forward by Terry Schurter, CIO, BPM Group.

The benefits to process mapping are many. They include:

These are just a few of the benefits of getting your operations and procedures documented. Find out more by watching the webinar, Visualize Success - Using Business Graphics for Process Improvement, and downloading our whitepaper.

Start Process Mapping Today

To use process documentation to gain a competitive advantage, SmartDraw advocates an approach we refer to as IDOC. The steps are simple:

• Identify the areas of your business or department you want to document.
• Diagram the process as it exists today.
• Optimize. Now that your process has been documented, you can more easily identify opportunities to improve efficiency, and gain buy-in from key stakeholders.
• Communicate your results to employees, management, regulators, investors and other stakeholders.

And remember to keep it simple. The vast majority of every-day business processes do not require complex flowcharts full of hundreds of symbols. Basic business mapping only requires you to connect a few common symbols to clearly document any process.

Two of the simplest diagram types are flowcharts and process maps. Flowcharts document process flow or decision-making.

Process maps show how products-physical or electronic-are constructed from their inputs. In this case, the reader learns the steps, materials and information that generate a product or new piece of information.

At right is a simple flowchart of a receiving process.

Below is a process map showing how a product is shipped to a Web customer.

Industry Thought Leader

The SmartDraw white paper, Gain Competitive Advantage by Describing Business Processes, contains a forward by Terry Schurter.

Terry serves as the Chief Information Officer for the BPM Group, the world's largest Business Process Management community. A global thought leader, Terry is acknowledged as a leading authority on the subjects of Business Process Management, Customer Expectation Management, and Service Oriented Architecture. Terry is noted for his unique insights into the application of technology in support of business goals and business success. Terry is also a contributing author of the book In Search of BPM Excellence, co-author of recently released Customer Expectation Management and co-author of the soon to be released Rats on a Sinking Ship.

BPMG is the largest BPM community in the world with over 20,000 registered members from 124 countries represented in its membership. The organization provides a wealth of resources to the BPM community including BPM training, seminars, conferences and consulting across the globe.