It has been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. To those businesses that are bent on reaching that next level of performance, a picture may be worth more than that.

Consider an area of your business that leaves a lot of room for improvement. The signs are probably pretty clear: customer expectations on not always being met, the people that are doing the work are frustrated, there are frequent delays and bottlenecks, or continual errors and rework have become the norm.

Process mapping, a visual depiction of the way something gets done in a business, can be an effective tool to facilitate the understanding and resolution of problems that are hurting your business. Not unlike a picture or a flowchart of how activities are performed in the workplace, process mapping is used extensively by quality management practitioners to systematically enhance performance in key areas. It can work equally as well in your business.

Process mapping establishes a clear link between the work you perform (business processes) and the effect it has on your customers (customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction). In other words, it helps you understand what activities add value for customers and shareholders and which ones do not.

By understanding what activities add value, we also identify those activities that offer no value or -- even worse -- negative value. These no value-added steps are consuming company resources of time, money or material but offer no positive outcome for the business. Doesn't it make sense to eliminate these activities and deploy resources on activities that make a long-term difference on profitability?

A process map shows each step in a process in chronological order via text boxes attached by arrows. It also shows who is involved in each step of the activity by the names on the left-hand side of each horizontal row. The customer is always shown on the top line of the Process Map.

When employees develop a process map for a given work process, they will gain a much greater understanding of the process. Here is some of the information that is learned and documented along the way:

** What is the purpose of the process? In other words, what does this process produce - what are the outputs?

** Who are all of the customers of this process? These may be actual paying customers or internal customers (other work groups within the company).

** What are the expectations and specific requirements of the customers?

** What are all of the steps in the process?

** What information and material are needed to make this process happen? Who provides them?

Process mapping can provide immediate returns for businesses of all shapes and sizes, whether they are involved in formal quality management practices or not.

With a little instruction, several employees can tackle a process and map it in as little as an hour. Once the process is mapped, they will have a much deeper understanding of that particular work area. They will also have come to some agreement as to how work is currently being performed.

They can then use the process map to systematically identify root causes of problems and discover significant opportunities for improvement. By looking at the process visually, they can begin to pinpoint and develop solutions for those specific steps or areas that generate:

** bottlenecks,

** customer problems,

** incomplete or inaccurate work (errors),

** obsolete, antiquated or redundant actions, or

** too many hand-offs

Once a process is mapped out it provides several other tertiary benefits. For one, the process is documented so it can be easily communicated to others in the organization or used to assist in the orientation of new hires. Secondly, it lays the groundwork for measuring performance in certain areas based on customer satisfaction, efficiency, productivity or quality.

For those businesses that are truly interested in becoming market leaders, it is critical that they don't assess progress and performance solely based on looking in the rear view mirror at last month's financials.

You can get information about process mapping by contacting the Chamber of Southwest Florida's Quality Improvement Network at 278-4001, Rorie Wilson at BPM International at 936-7110 or roriewilson@bpminternational.com.