A process analysis sounds like a lot of effort and like consultants sitting in your business for weeks. It does not have to be that way. At its core it is about one simple question: where does time get lost in your business today, and what can be changed about it?

The following sections answer the questions we hear most often before the first appointment. How the analysis works step by step is described on the process analysis page.

We don’t have time for this - how much effort is it for our team?

Less than many expect. We limit the review to an agreed area and schedule the appointments in advance. That way your staff know when they are needed and when they are not.

As a rule we look at one real case, station by station. We plan for about a morning per station. You do not need to prepare a finished process description - that is exactly what the analysis produces.

Who do you need from our business?

Three things help us most:

  • The people doing the work. Staff who handle the work every day. They know the exceptions that are in no manual.
  • Someone who can decide. Things often get stuck at handovers between departments. That needs a person who is allowed to decide across department lines.
  • A real case. A typical order or service case with the programs, lists and documents actually used along the way.

If a system change is on the table, we also record data access, special rules and dependencies on other programs.

We know how we work

That is true, and it is exactly what we build on. Everyone in the business knows their own part very well. What rarely anyone sees completely are the handovers in between: who is waiting for whom? Where is something entered twice? Which information is missing when a case moves to another department?

These gaps hardly show in daily work, because everyone bridges them with experience, follow-up questions and their own lists. In the analysis they become visible, and then you can decide which of them are worth closing.

Won’t this end in a pile of paper?

No. We do not start by writing a thick specification for everything. Instead we first draw a rough picture of the whole, so the direction is right. Then one area after another is worked out in detail - where things get stuck the most.

After each step you decide whether and how to continue. At the end there are three manageable results: process documentation your staff recognise, a high-level concept and, for the first area, a detailed concept with an estimate. What sets the two concepts apart is explained in High-level and detailed concept.

In the end, you just want to sell software

We understand that concern. But not every problem needs new software. Sometimes a clear responsibility or a firm agreement is the better solution, and then we say so.

That is why this matters to us: the documents belong to you. You can use the process documentation, the high-level concept and the detailed concept without any follow-on development order - internally, with another supplier or as the basis for a later decision.

What happens after the analysis?

You have a shared picture of how the process runs today, an assessment of where the biggest benefit lies for the effort and, for the first area, an estimate. With that you can decide whether to change something, what comes first and whether software is needed for it.

If you want the first area implemented, we build directly on the documents. The same people who recorded your processes then also develop the software. That way as little as possible gets lost between analysis and implementation.