How to use this guide
This is general operational guidance for New Zealand SMEs. Adapt it to the business and the decisions involved. It is not a complete compliance checklist, legal opinion or a substitute for advice about a particular situation. Examples are illustrative and do not describe client engagements or promised outcomes.
Where should a first process map start?
Choose a process with a recognisable start and finish: an enquiry becoming a confirmed booking, a purchase request becoming an authorised order, or completed work becoming an invoice. Agree the boundary with the team. Starting too broadly can hide the very handovers you need to understand, while a map that stops at a departmental boundary may omit the customer’s actual result.
Use a recent, ordinary example and trace its source records. Ask who acted, what information they used, what decision they made and what happened next. Record workarounds and rework without treating them as personal failures. Distinguish a necessary control from an extra step whose purpose is no longer clear. Do not remove an approval merely because it appears slow.
How do you test and improve the map?
Show the map to the people at both ends of each handover. Ask them to walk through a normal case and an exception. Add the waiting time, decision owner and information needed to restart stalled work. Select one improvement that can be tested without losing the original controls. Define what a better result would look like before changing the process.
- Define the trigger, final output and people involved; use plain labels for actions and decisions.
- Map what happens now, including waiting, rework and exceptions, then validate it with the team.
- Trial a small change, observe the effect and update the agreed process and ownership.
A working structure
Process map companion sheet
- Trigger and definition of a completed result
- Action, owner and source information
- Decision, authority and acceptance criteria
- Handover, waiting and rework
- Exceptions and escalation route
- Trial change, measure and review date
Illustrative example
Illustrative example: a service business maps the journey from a customer request to a scheduled job. It discovers that staff repeatedly ask for the same missing site information because no one owns checking the initial request. The team trials a short intake check and makes the next owner visible. The exercise measures whether jobs reach scheduling with the information needed, rather than simply counting how quickly the first email is answered.
Questions about this guide
Do we need specialist diagram software?
No. A whiteboard, paper or a simple shared document can be enough. The value comes from agreeing what actually happens and where responsibility changes, not from the visual complexity of the diagram.
Should we map the ideal process first?
Understand the current process first, then create a clearly separate proposed version. Keeping both makes assumptions visible and helps the team test whether a redesign addresses the actual problem.
Official sources and further guidance
These primary sources provide additional context. The operational suggestions and working outlines above are YJ Consulting’s general guidance; the links do not establish that an authority has endorsed this guide.
When YJ Consulting can help
YJ Consulting can help an Auckland or New Zealand SME map the current practice, organise the relevant records and turn the findings into an agreed improvement plan. The engagement starts by confirming the question, responsible adviser, information available and useful outputs. Legal, payroll, financial or other specialist questions should be identified and assigned separately.
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