Communicating process knowledge is one of the most challenging parts of the process discipline. At our August 9th meetup, we discussed some principles for the art of "process story telling," or how to organize, structure, and present process information so that others can understand your message without extra explanation or context. Check out our NYC biweekly meetup: https://goo.gl/ZbUVXZ

1. Process Story Telling Meetup (8/9)
Highlights and Q&A

2. Agenda
I. Process Story Telling Highlights
I. Communication – The Primary Objective
II. Audience
III. Story Telling via the “Common Ground”
IV. Business versus System Point of View
V. Capturing the Story with Physical Elements
VI. Adding the System Point of View
VII. The Entire Story
II. Q&A
I. How do you describe process that needs to be very detailed?
II. How do you keep readers engaged across multiple pages?
III. What are the fundamental requirements for any process map?
IV. When is a process map an appropriate document to use?
V. Is there a tool for process mapping that incorporates story telling concepts?

3. Process Story Telling Highlights
How to effectively communicate process

4. Communication – The Primary Objective
• All action that transforms inputs into outputs can be defined as part of
a process. A business’s processes must be fully understood by those
accountable for optimizing or managing them, in order to improve or
control those processes.
• We map process in order to organize, package, understand, and
ultimately communicate those processes to those that are
accountable for them. This is the primary objective for any type of process
capture and visualization, and the first step in any business endeavor that
involves changing a process
• Unmanaged processes tend to become more complex over time, which
increases waste, cost, and the demand for iterative process management.
This need for process management is growing exponentially due to
increasing availability of data and stronger pressure to reduce cost based
on market pressure.

5. With a Diverse Audience, Communication is
Complicated
The types of stakeholders that need to read and understand process maps are
very diverse:
• Operations Professionals and Subject Matter Experts
• Process Engineers
• Technical and IT Resources
• Project Teams
• Executives and Managers
• Third Party Consultants and Vendors
• Audit and Compliance Professionals
In order to visualize process for such a diverse audience, a common
ground has to be established that is intuitive and universal.

6. Story Telling via the “Common Ground”
• People are tactile in nature and can intuitively understand storytelling that
roots them in something they can imagine physically doing, walking
through, or observing.
• Process should be visualized and communicated in a way that anyone
from any background can imagine themselves seamlessly executing all the
steps necessary to perform a process from start to finish.
– Without physical continuity in the story, comprehension is lost.
• There are two points of view to every process: the physical point of view,
which people can easily grasp, and the non-physical point of view, which
supports all processes but confuses understanding for a physically rooted
audience (for example, what happens inside the computer after you submit
something).
The common ground is making sure that all process visualization is done
strictly from the physical point of view

7. Business versus System Point of View
• The physical drivers of process involve any action that is completed by
people to advance the process – this is called the “business” point of view.
• The non-physical drivers of process involve any action that is completed
automatically by a non-person entity to advance the process – this is
called the “system” point of view.
• Every process involves a mix of both elements, and that mix is trending
towards automation as time goes on.
100%
People (Business) Driven
100%
Automation (System) Driven
Processes are becoming increasingly
automated over time

8. Focus Only on the “Business” Process
• As process becomes more automated, the communication becomes
increasingly disjointed and difficult to understand if these non-physical
elements become integrated with the visualization and story telling.
• Separate the “system” process layer when you capture process information
and focus only on the physical “business” process to maintain intuitive
story telling and strong communication.
• The fundamentals of physical story telling are captured by the classic “5 W”
model: what, who, where, when, and why.

9. Capturing the Story with Physical Elements
9
The solution is designed to capture and communicate process based on this model:

10. Adding the “System” Point of View
• There are going to be stakeholders who are more concerned with the automated
(non-physical) behavior that supports the “business” process and completes the
entire story of the process holistically.
• System steps should be kept strictly to commentary in order to add the
necessary context. For very complex system driven processes, additional underlying
layers of process could be associated with the “business” mapping – this is not in
scope for this presentation.
• All stakeholders will be able to understand the “business” process, but some
stakeholders may also require these additional details which can be added as extra
context to the main story.

11. The Entire Story
• At this point you should understand how to structure a cohesive process story: first,
by focusing on the business process and then, by adding system process or context
as needed in a controlled way:
• Once the information is captured and structured this way, the next step to
effectively communicate process is to visually present it in a way that will
consistently and effectively communicate your story to the reader.

12. Q&A
Answering questions from the Meetup

13. How do you describe process that needs to be
very detailed?
• For complex processes, where all the information can not fit in one visual frame, layers of
detail must be used such that every frame contains an entire process with a logical start
and end point.
• Detail layers allow for complex processes to be simplified such that they can fit in one
frame. With less detail, a large process scope can be represented in less space.
• If a reader needs more detail, the higher level process frame can be explained in more
detail in lower level process frames that represent complete sub-processes of the higher
level process
Get out of
bed
Grooming Dress
Eat
breakfast
Brush
teeth
Shave Shower Comb Hair
Find floss
Floss
Teeth
Apply
toothpaste
to brush
Brush
Rinse Out
Mouth
Higher Level
Lower Level

14. • Keep the map organized! Being well organized and easy to read is what keeps
readers engaged.
• Process is intuitively organized in only one way: groupings of discrete, actionable
steps that contain a logical start and end point.
• Steps should always contain one, logically organized unit of action (this could
contain multiple items if they are closely associated or will always happen together)
• Every visual frame presented to a reader should also represent a complete
process step (albeit at a higher detail level) with a logical start and end point;
otherwise, you rely on the reader to absorb partial pieces of information and put it
together between frames – this causes confusion, damages story continuity, and
weakens communication effectiveness.
Frame 1
How do you keep readers engaged across multiple
pages?

15. What are the fundamental requirements for any
process map?
1
5
The essential requirements for any process map of any kind are simply the
information collected around the 5 W’s of physical story telling. The model that
shows how this plays on a map is included again below for reference:

16. When is a process map an appropriate document
to use?
• A process map is the right document to use when trying to communicate what
a process IS or how it is executed.
• You should not use a process map for other communication objectives
such as:
• Explaining why is a process important
• Listing the major outcomes of a process
• Explaining how to change a process
• Explaining the history or context behind a process
• Explaining the reason a process should be used
• Generally, a process map should explain exactly how a process is being
done, the actions behind its workings.
• While a process map can (and should) support many of the communication
objectives above, it is not the correct primary document to meet those objectives.

17. Is there a tool for process mapping that
incorporates story telling concepts?
• This process story telling methodology can be applied within any tool; however,
no tool that we are aware of has been specifically built for it (yet).
• The meetup hosts are currently building a tool called CaVi that would support
process mapping with this solution in mind. If you have any questions about
anything presented here, or our work/progress on CaVi, please email us at
teamcoven@covenholdings.com

18. THANKS FOR COMING!
Thank you so much for coming to our meetup – we hope to see you again in
future sessions and please don’t hesitate to post additional questions on
the group discussion board.
NYBPP Meetup
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