What is Business Process Documentation and How to Create a Process Document?

Start Small and Scale Up – You can never be 100% sure that your changes are going to end up being positive. Think, for one specific team or one manufacturing line, rather than department or site-wide. Account for Potential Risks – Sometimes, your improvements might only be a short-term solution. If, for example, you manage to increase manufacturing output.

And you can assign it directly to specific team members, track when they went through it, and test if they understood it. AKA you can hold your team accountable for knowing the process. Remember, this person should be totally unfamiliar with the process. So, to complete it correctly, they’ll need to heavily rely on the process documentation provided. Luckily, your process documentation is ready when they are.

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By the end of the article, you’ll know exactly which tools you should use to document the processes you need. See results instantly by importing prebuilt lists, or customize your own and save to your personal cloud library. Using this method, you will create a visual representation of all interactions between your customer and each transaction’s result. Following this method, you identify the value to the customer and how much the customer is willing to pay for the outcome. Create a flow chart of every step from the first contact to the end result.

Ask them to elaborate on the situation and map such exceptions, as well as the clean case, for each eventuality. Make sure this is done in easy language that all can understand. The ultimate viewer should be able to read the process map as easy as reading a comic book.

Benefits of Process Documentation

Keep a record of processes known only to a few people specialized in doing them. That way even when they leave, the newcomers can resume the work easily. There are more steps, more people, and more things involved that may not always be arranged in the most efficient way. We must have an overview of the company’s products and/or services and value chain activities, putting them in chronological order , define the start and end of the processes.

If you’ll be co-creating a how-to guide, now’s a good time to agree on who will be responsible for creating each part of the document. Want to increase your team’s efficiency and productivity? Scroll down to learn why and how to document a process—with tips and templates you won’t find anywhere else. Schedule regular audits of process documentation to ensure they get updated, even if only once a year. Including screenshots in your documentation is one of the fastest, most effective ways to show colleagues how to do something. Our favorite tool to use for process documentation is Snagit.

Creates accountability

Many readers tell us they would have paid consultants for the advice in these articles. Visit our “Solutions” page to see the areas of your business we can help improve to see if we’re a good fit for each other. Briefly describe what is and what isn’t included as part of the process, i.e. the process scope.

Our steps will include accessing the financial app, calculating various inputs, and notifying a central team when it’s complete. There are several applications for process documentation and various components you can include in them. When you are starting a new project or analysing a new domain, you want to start by analysing the business process. While you document a process, pay attention to how it can be improved. Outline the purpose of the business process document, the purpose of the business process, and the scope of the business process. Outsource easier – when working with contractors, process documents help them quickly adapt to your way of working, even if they are remote.

If you are documenting multiple inter-related processes, these exit criteria would become the entry criteria for the next process. In recent years, the business process view of an organisation has increased in popularity especially when considering business improvements. Google Docs is a widely used collaboration tool where your team can add comments to a document, assign action items to others, and automatically save changes.

Process documents reveal a great deal about your business philosophy. Poorly written and out-of-date documents can signal a lack of caring. Current and polished documents empowers teams and improves efficiency. Process documentation is about keeping track of a process during the execution of a project.

Wiki Software

Detailed documentation helps you preserve that knowledge. Don’t think that you can’t or shouldn’t customize the approach I outlined here. Depending on the scope and number of processes, you can use the same list categories I outlined to organize your project. Develop visual job aids and infographics for your teams to reference daily. You can see a process infographic we use to support our communications process and effective collaboration.

You’ll need a mix of writers and editors who can produce documentation up to the highest standards. Ideally, your company should employ professional technical writers who have experience in preparing documentation. Sometimes, the best person to document a process is the one who is using it every day, so consider this when deciding which stakeholders to get involved.

Centralized document storage, especially as part of a larger automation solution, can simplify document management. Cloud-based, role-appropriate access across platforms and devices makes it easier for team members to access, utilize, and revise process documents as needed. Establish a timeline from the beginning of the process to its completion.

Selecting a different region will change the language and content of slack.com. Join over thousands of organizations that use Creately to brainstorm, plan, analyze, and execute their projects successfully. Helps increase employee productivity as well as satisfaction. Helps identify ideal conditions for effective collaboration and performance. Establish measurements to determine the effectiveness of the process and to help improve it. Establish what will be produced by the process or what result the process will achieve once it is completed.

Business Process Documentation Best Practices

With frevvo’s workflow automation tool, you can use simple drag-and-drop tools to help with process mapping. Now let’s look at how to get started with process documentation. One of the best ways to ensure compliance with policies like expense claims is with documented processes. Employees can refer to the relevant documents to check what items are covered before submitting their claim. It creates a system where employees can share their knowledge with others.

You don’t have to be a graphic artist to add visual aids to your process documentation. Gliffy and Draw.io are popular diagramming tools available as add-ons to Confluence. You can learn more about them and other visual tools at the Atlassian Marketplace. Confluence’s how-to article template can help you make sense of it all. A bonus to using a template is that it will create consistency among all your different pieces of process documentation. Users will have an easier time following your instructions if they know what to expect.

But when projects get really complex, documentation becomes critical to success. Imagine managing the sales, construction, and installation of large solar panels deployed worldwide. There are many local subcontractors involved in every project. Without clear business process documentation, there’s little chance that each new subcontractor would repeat the output of the last. Store documents in a location that is easy to accessible to stakeholders so they can see and review easily.

Perhaps you want to revamp an outdated workflow, or you’re looking to improve efficiency and team collaboration. Use this color-coded roadmap infographic template to map out your marketing strategy from start to finish. With Visme’s document maker, it’s simple and easy to create any process document you need. You can use the templates we’ve shared further down in this article. Or pick any template from our extensive library that best fits your process and customize it. Feel free to play around with fonts, colors, images and more.

enrolled agent salary is also a vital part of patents and trade secrets. Process documentation provides a detailed description of how to carry out a business process. There is nothing better than relying on a standardized process and allowing employees to travel with more ease and confidence.

So, you can create guides effortlessly and improve business processes. All documentation should conform to company standards, use brand-appropriate colors, typefaces, formatting, etc., and have a real-time backup available to mitigate disaster. Consider developing a process documentation template so users can hit the ground running when creating their own process documents.