Process landscape: the map of all processes

A process landscape is a one-page overview of all processes of an organization, usually sorted into management (or leadership), core and support processes. It answers “which processes do we have and how do they relate?”, not “how does a single process run?”. From the landscape you choose the processes worth analyzing in detail.

A note on terms

In English, “process map” often means a diagram of a single process, the kind of swimlane diagram described in swimlane diagram. The overview of all processes is called process landscape, process architecture or, in German practice, Prozesslandkarte. This lesson is about the overview.

Three groups of processes

The usual structure has three groups, often drawn as three horizontal bands:

• Management processes steer the organization: strategy, planning, management review.
• Core processes create what the customer receives and pays for: from enquiry and quotation through order processing to delivery and invoicing.
• Support processes keep the core running: purchasing, finance, HR, IT, maintenance, quality.

Example: a mid-sized company

A simple landscape for a mid-sized manufacturing company could look like this. The processes in the second column exist as templates in the app and can be analyzed one by one.

Levels: from overview to steps

Landscapes are usually layered. Level 1 shows the process areas, level 2 the individual processes, level 3 the steps of one process, often as a swimlane diagram in BPMN notation (see BPMN basics). Some organizations add a level for work instructions.

The important rule is that each process on level 2 has a clear trigger, result and owner. That is exactly the scoping described in process scoping with SIPOC. Without it, processes overlap and gaps between them go unnoticed.

How to draw up a landscape

A first landscape can be produced in a two-hour session with the heads of the main areas. A practical order:

1. Collect what the organization delivers to customers: products, services, answers. Each delivery points to a core process that ends with it.
2. Trace each core process back to its trigger: an enquiry, an order, a complaint. Name it as noun plus verb, for example “handle complaint”, so it reads as something that happens.
3. Add the support processes the core depends on: purchasing, invoices, hiring, IT, maintenance. Ask which department would stop the core if it stopped working.
4. Add the management processes: planning, budgeting, reviewing results.
5. Name an owner for each process and check for overlaps: if two processes claim the same result, the boundary between them is unclear.

Process landscape and ISO 9001

ISO 9001 requires an organization to determine the processes needed for its quality management system, their sequence and interaction, their inputs and outputs, responsibilities and the criteria to evaluate them (clause 4.4). A process landscape is a common way to show the sequence and interaction; it is not prescribed by the standard as a specific diagram.

Adding key figures to the landscape

The landscape becomes a management tool when the same few figures stand next to every process. Nobody reads more than three figures per process; what matters is that they are determined the same way for all processes.

The annual number of cases is the most important figure because it weights all the others: one minute less processing time counts many times over in a process with many cases. Where the number comes from when no system counts it is shown in volumes and case counts.

From the landscape to analysis

A landscape does not show where time and money are lost. Use it to choose. Good candidates for a detailed analysis are processes with high volume, many lanes and handoffs, frequent complaints about lead time, or an upcoming change such as a new ERP system (see mapping before an ERP implementation).

The app analyzes each process as a separate model with its lanes, steps, volumes and metrics.

Its process landscape view, with an account also available from your list of processes, shows your own processes at a glance, grouped into management, core and support processes; the groups can be renamed and you choose the group for each process. Each process appears as a tile with title, case volume, lead time, cost per year, staff demand, highest utilization or bottleneck, and a traffic light: red for errors in the checks, when the process cannot be calculated or when a lane is utilized above 100% (the tile then also shows the backlog), amber for warnings or a bottleneck (a lane at 85% utilization or more), green otherwise. Tiles can be sorted, filtered by status and folder and searched, a click opens the process in the editor, and a total row shows cost per year and staff demand across all processes. A future process derived from a current one is marked as such, appears right next to its current process (in its group and folder unless it has its own) and is not counted twice in the total; a second line shows the total with the future processes in place of their current ones. If the same process appears twice, such as the process in your browser next to its cloud entry or a copy with the same content, the second tile is marked “Same content as …” and is not included in the total either. The figures and flags on the tiles are the same as in the editor’s key figure bar: “incomplete” with the reason for each figure and, under overload, “≥” before the lead time with “only without backlog”. With an account the processes come from the cloud; without one the landscape shows the process in your browser and any process files you drag in (from “Export › Process file (JSON)”); the group assignment then only lasts while the page is open. The landscape can be exported as an image (PNG) and as a PDF. The figures on the tiles only exist once a process has been mapped; processes you have not mapped yet stay in a presentation or on paper until then.

Typical mistakes

• Copying the organization chart: departments are not processes. A process such as order processing runs across sales, production planning, warehouse and accounting.
• Going too fine: single activities such as “scan invoice” belong in the steps of one process, not on the landscape.
• Forgetting the customer: core processes start with a customer need and end with what the customer receives. Without start and end, the order is arbitrary.
• No owners: a process without an owner is neither maintained nor improved.
• Treating the landscape as the result: it is the starting point. Findings about lead time, cost and bottlenecks come from analyzing the single processes, for example with process cost calculation.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• ISO 9001:2015, Quality management systems – Requirements, clause 4.4

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