Your Process Map Isn't the Process

A process map can look perfect.

Every step is documented. The arrows go where they should. Responsibilities are clear. There might even be some lovely coloured swimlanes.

But there's one problem:

That's the process on paper.

What actually happens can be very different.

Ask someone how they complete a task and they'll often describe the process as it should happen:

Receive request → Check information → Update system → Complete

Then sit with them while they actually do it.

Suddenly there's more:

Receive request → Check information → Open spreadsheet → Look for missing information → Email Dave → Wait for Dave → Copy something from another system → Update system → Make a note somewhere else → Complete

None of that necessarily means the employee is doing anything wrong.

In fact, those extra steps are often how people have found a way to make a broken process work.

That's why I don't like improving a process purely from existing documentation.

The map is the starting point.

Talk to the people doing the work. Watch what actually happens. Look at the workarounds, spreadsheets, emails, waiting, duplication and little manual steps that never made it onto the official process.

There's a Lean principle behind this idea: go to where the work actually happens and observe it directly — often referred to as going to the gemba.

Direct observation can expose differences between the documented process and the real workflow.

Because sometimes the most useful process map isn't the one you've already got.

It's the one nobody has drawn yet.