Contents of This Page
(Work in Progress)
Name the Central Process
- It's Usually Obvious
- The Most Important Guideline
- Expose the Flows
- More Detail Create Sub-Process Maps
- What Is Inside and Outside of the Central Process?
- How to Name the Central Process
- Central Process Type
- Further Guidelines and Categories If Needed
- Categories of Central Process / Boundary Relationships
How to Name the Central Process
It's Usually Obvious
The name of the Central Process is usually obvious from the context of the session.
If the session is about analyzing or improving a distinct separate process (e.g. department, project, company) the name of the Central Process is how people refer to that distinct separate process.
If the focus is on understanding a general area of interaction, then the name of the Central Process can be a general term for that area of interaction.
The Most Important Guideline
The most important guideline is to let the group participants decide on the name of the Central Process after briefly explaining some of these guidelines and categories.
The experience of the ActionMap team is that groups quickly grasp these ideas and decide on the name for the Central Process. In most cases this takes literally only a few minutes.
And if there's ever any major doubt, then just treat all the entities in the situation as Boundaries. You can always change that later in the session, and you can always draw another Map. The most important result is the group learning experience.
While the Maps are valuable in the final analysis they are simply anchors for people's process knowledge. The shared and combined process knowledge is the thing that counts mos
Expose the Flows
Real process change happens at the transaction level. The transaction is the movement of information, goods, service and money inside and outside of the process. If the transactions do not change, the process really hasn't changed.
We get to the transactions primarily by separating the Boundaries from the Central Process. The Central Process is the tall rounded rectangle in the middle of the Process Map. The transactions (or "Flows" as they are called in the software) are shown as the arrows between the Central Process and the graphics on the sides.
The graphics on the side are called "Side Parts". They are mostly plain boxes that represent people, organizations and systems that the Central Process interacts with. These plain boxes are called Boundaries, and that's how we will refer to the Side Parts in the rest of this article.
More Detail Create Sub-Process Maps
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If we want more detail, we can create Sub-Process Maps, to identify more detailed transactions. Note: in most cases a single Map is all that is needed to produce process effective collaboration results. So the thing to do is focus on the one first Map.
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What Is Inside and Outside of the Central Process?
It's Always a Matter of Choice
There is seldom if ever an absolute border on a process. It always ends up depending on what people say the border of the process is.
- What are the absolute borders of the following?
- "Purchasing"
- "Human Resources"
- "Community Development"
- "Development Project Team"
It finally gets down to saying:
- "In terms of our current effort, these people, groups, tools, transactions and so on are inside the process, and those people, groups, tools, transactions and so on are outside the process...unless we decide to include or exclude them as we go along."
Fortunately, people are strong natural abilities for dividing activities into separate processes. Everyone does it all the time.
- Go to the store
- Take the kids to school
- Commute to work
- Read the article
- Prepare the document
- Attend the meeting
- Watch the movie
With that in mind we can now look at specific techniques for identifying the Central Process when it is not 100% obvious.
How to Name the Central Process
See also this link.
1) Rely on Session Context and Group Input
In most cases the difference between the Central Process and the Boundaries will quickly be clear to group members, based on the subject matter and objectives of the meeting.
- In hundreds of client engagements the ActionMap team has never encountered a significant difficulty in quickly getting to an initial agreement on what was inside and what was outside the Central Process, or what the Central Process should be named.
2) Ask Two Sets of Questions
2.1) Is the focus of the change effort a distinct separate process, or a general area of interaction?
That is:
- Is there already a clearly name, distinct and separate process that we've decided to focus on? Like (yes):
- The Purchasing Department
- The HR Department
- The specific group of formally designated Project Team members
- In this case, the Central Process is that distinct separate process.
- Or is the area of activity that we are looking at a place where different stakeholders interact in a variety of ways, some of which we may not be sure about?
- Competition in a new market
- Everything that happens in a neighborhood
- Negotiations to build a new community center
- In this case, EVERYTHING is a Boundary, and the Central Process is a place that is used like "switchboard" to allow any transaction to go between any Boundaries (unless further specified).
Remember, the key is to expose the transactions. They are the "real things that happen", that people can recognize, react to and contribute their assessments, interests and ideas about.
- Our experience is that the exact sequence and routing of the transactions is rarely needed to produce strong process collaboration results.
2.1) What can we control?
That is:
- What parts of the activity can we directly influence and control (inside the Central process) and what parts of the activity can we only indirectly influence and control, or that we do not intend to try to directly influence and control (the Boundaries).
3) Choose a Specific Central Process Type
The third technique, which is built into the software, is to identify what type of activity is represented by the Central Process. This is called the "Fa". The choices are given in the table below.
Central Process Type
A special Activity in the ActionMap Main Cycle, "Capture Central Process Type", is provided to help further identify the Central Process.
This Activity provides a drop down list of choices for type of Central Process.
Suggestions for using these choices are provided below
| Choices for "Central Process Type" | What is Inside the Central Process? | What Are the Boundaries? |
| Person, Job or Role | A person | The people, organizations, systems and equipment that the person interacts with. Some equipment and systems might be thought of as belonging with the person (i.e. phone, computer) and thus not be considered Boundaries. |
| Job Function or Task |
A person or team | The people, organizations, systems and equipment that the person or team interacts with. Some equipment and systems might be thought of as belonging with the person (i.e. phone, computer) and thus not be considered Boundaries. |
| Organization or Group |
Organizational Staff, |
The people, organizations and systems that the organization or group interacts with. Some equipment and systems might be thought of as belonging with the person (i.e. phone, computer) and thus not be considered Boundaries. |
| Cross Functional Process | People and systems from multiple departments or groups | The people, organizations and systems that are not directly part of the Cross Functional Process. Note: this distinction is flexible and can be changed by adding and removing Boundaries. The key to distinguishing the Boundaries in this cases is to ask "what parts of this process are we unable to control, or that we do not intend to try to control?" |
| Project | The people directly assigned to the project team | The people, organizations and systems that the project team will interact with |
| Plan | The people who will directly perform tasks of the plan | The people, organizations and systems that the plan team will interact with |
| Area of Interaction | This is a special case in which the Central Process is simply a "switchboard" for transactions among the Boundaries. In this situation the people, organizations and systems that are interacting are known (or of interest), and the transactions that they send and receive among themselves are known (or of interest), however, the specific steps of how these entities interact is not known, recognized or accepted. This choice can be useful when the activity being focused on ▪ does not have specific owners ▪ does not have an accepted structure Examples ▪ negotiation ▪ decision-making ▪ exploration of a new topic ▪ analysis of an unfamiliar situation |
The people, organizations and systems that are interacting through the Central Process. |
| Technical System or Machine | The technical system or machine | The people, organizations and systems that technical system or machine interacts with |
| Automated + Manual Process | A combination of cross functional process and technical system or machine (see examples above) | A combination of cross functional process and technical system or machine (see examples above) |
| Life Form or Biological Process | What goes on inside the life form or biological process | What the life form or biological process interacts with |
| Environmental or Natural Physical Process |
This will be determined by what the group wants to focus on in particular. (This is a good example of how processes do not have absolute Boundaries.) | <== see note |
| Experiment | Similar to a project or technical system | <== see note |
| Other (See Notes under Central Process) |
This can be used if none of the other choices work. The "See Note" comment implies that more information will be added as a Note or Notes under the Central Process | |
| Not Specified | This can be used until a better choice can be arrived at |
Further Guidelines and Categories If Needed
The following is a collection of earlier guidelines, most of which have been included in the material above.
Guideline #1:
The definition of what is a Boundary and what is in the Central Process is flexible and can be changed as the session progresses. In other words, there is no fixed definition of the Central Process and you can't really make a mistake. When in doubt you can Map every entity in the situation as a Boundary (see Category #2 below).
Guideline #2:
The scope of the Central Process is largely defined by what surrounds it; that is, the Boundaries. By adding or subtracting Boundaries we can change the scope of the Central Process at any point during the session.
Guideline #3:
In terms of the area of interest that we are looking at in a group session,
▪ The Central Process contains Activities and entities that we can have some control over and that we want to change in the context of the session. That's why the Central Process is also called the "Focus Process".
▪ The Boundaries represent entities such as people, groups, organizations and systems that we have less control over and/or are not as focused on changing in the context of the session.
Guideline #4:
In terms of the area of interest that we are looking at in a group session,
▪ The Boundaries are sources and destinations of information and resources that support the focus area of interest
▪ The Central Process contains the Activities, Sub-Processes and entities that drive and operate the main Activity in the area of interest.
Guideline #5:
People and other entities can sometimes play different roles in the area of interest. In one role they might be a contributor to the Central Process, and thus be designated as a Boundary, and in another role they may be a driver inside the Central Process.
Using the example of a project, one person might be both:
a) a subject matter expert who contributes specialized knowledge to a project, and could then be seen as a Boundary to the core project Activity, and
b) a business analyst inside the Central Process, creating project documents.
Or in a product development initiative, a vendor might be a supplier of technical specifications, and so a Boundary, and also a partner in production planning, and so part of the Central Process.
Categories of Central Process / Boundary Relationships
Process Mapping situations typically fall into one of three main categories of relationship between the Central Process and Boundaries.
Category #1:
In these situations the Central Process is a distinctly defined entity such as a company, an operating department, an individual's job, a project team, or a set of project activities. In this case
▪ The Central Process can be named directly as that distinct entity or set of Activities.
▪ The Boundaries are the entities that interact with the well-defined Central Process entity.
Category #2:
In these situations the entities involved interact in a way that is either a) relatively free-form or b) not fully understood, that is, the situation is being investigated and learned.
In these situations all the entities can be considered Boundaries. The Central Process can then be considered as a "switchboard" through which all the transactions between Boundaries occur. The name of the Central Process is the name of the general area of interest for the group session.
Category #3:
In these situations the Central Process is somewhat but not on 100% clearly defined. An example of this might be a cross departmental document or materials workflow. In these cases the Central Process can either be treated as a free-form switchboard with all the entities as Boundaries, or the entities that are more clearly "supporting players" can be considered Boundaries and the Central Process can contain everything else. In these situation the details of interest may come out in Sub-process Maps.
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