Useful things to remember
Index
What is a blueprint
- What is a blueprint
- Break-down the process into steps
- Identify all roles involved
- Fill in the matrix
- Highlight pain points and gaps
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What is a blueprint
Blueprint are a visual tool useful to map a process not only from the user perspective but also to understand what are all the resources (human, tools or information) needed to make that step of the process happening. Check this guide to know more about it.
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02
Break-down the process into steps
Identify the key moments that characterises the process or service you are analysing, starting from its beginning, and map them one after the other following a sequencial order. In this way, you will obtain a sort of timeline, that represents the whole development of a process, broken down into specific steps.
Tip: think broadly
When analysing a process, consider steps that could happen before the beginning of the process or after, and that could still be relevant for the analysis.
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03
Identify all roles involved
Once you've positioned the main steps on the horizontal axis, you could use the vertical one to list all the roles involved in the process. Roles could be highly visible and directly involved in the development of most of the steps, or could be operating behind the scene, to provide information, data or other elements needed for the completion of the activity.
Warning: consider non-human roles
Some activities won’t be performed by specific individuals but intelligent autonomous systems – such as iCIMS in the HR process. You can map those as actors well as: databases, softwares and other IT systems often play an active role in organizational processes themselves.
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04
Fill in the matrix
With all the key steps on top and all the actors on the vertical side, you have obtained a sort of table or matrix, that you could start filling by describing what each role is doing at any step of the process. Please note that not all roles will be active in all moments: the process will show a flow of activities, moving from one person to the other in the organization based on everyone's roles and responsibilities.
Tip: add extra layers
When mapping the process, there’re interesting information that could be worth pointing out on the map directly. For example, the time required to perform an activity, or how long it takes to go from one step to the other. You could also consider to add a layer related to the satisfaction or frustration of the actors involved in the different moments, in order to show the most painful areas in the process.
Warning: do research
If you haven’t conducted research yet, it’s important to validate the activities in the map with the direct roles involved. You could ask them to participate in short 1:1 sessions to talk about the part of the process they are directly experiencing, in order to refine your understanding of their activities, as well as to gain insights on their perception, struggles and concerns.
Don’t worry if after a first research phase you still have questions, you can organise another research session (here the practice for the research phase). How to understand when you have enough information? You have a good understanding of all the steps, maybe you don’t know all the details but you have a clear understanding where to dig deeper
Tip: use the blueprint for the interview
During the interview, you could use the map as a support to better navigate the process and share perspectives on it. You can take notes directly on the map, to show how you are capturing the perspective of the other person engaged in the conversation. Maps help developing a common understanding, even of the most complex systems and processes.
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05
Highlight pain points and gaps
Once the map is completed, and you have collected insights by talking to every role involved in the process (or the most important ones), it's time for synthesis. The questions you could ask yourself are:
- what is working well in this process at the moment?
- What is not working well at all?
- Where are the most critical information loss, inefficiencies or problems taking place?
- Are all the step adding value to the output of the process?
- Are there better ways to perform them?
The blueprint will help clearly identifying all the pain points, and potentially start outlining ways in which the process could be simplified.. leading to the next phase of planning.
Tip: use the A3 to collect your findings
Instead of writing the insight you have discovered with the mapping activity in another document use the backouground info, root causes and current design space of the A3 to collect and organise all of your findings.
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