A Process Map is a way to lay down how a process must be performed. Process Maps are really common in the industry and especially in Methodology like Six Sigma and they are central to any Process Improvement or just analysis initiatives.
In another words, a Process Map is a visual representation of the process we’re looking to analyze or improve and it shows all the functional steps organized in a logic (algorithmic) sequence. They really help all the stakeholders as this representation is not technical at all even if it has to respect some design rules. By this way we can highlight:
- The Process Flow itself
- The resources involved
- The measures
- The Organisation departments
There exist various formats (design rules) to build these Process Maps like the Swim lane Flow or the Value Stream Map.