Tool Mentioned on Sunny Side Up Podcast

SIPOC Diagram: An approach for process mapping

Do you want to broaden your perspective on the organization, and how your work fits into the productive whole? This is a great place to start! SIPOC will strengthen your understanding of how value is created by giving you a way to focus on a function or team (your own, perhaps) and see it in relation to adjacent functions or teams. And the application of a tool like this is wide-ranging -- you can use tools of this kind to enrich working conversations with suppliers and customers too, if you're focusing on improving how you work together, business to business.

Why Process Mapping?

Process Mapping helps to identify and drive process thinking. When a team invests a bit of time building out a SIPOC Diagram, one of the outcomes is that all the participants come away with a better understanding and command of the way a process creates value for the company. A SIPOC diagram blends a few things -- it helps document the high-level process but then goes on to clarify customers, suppliers, inputs, and outputs. In one or two group conversations, everyone will be better able to communicate the process, train others on it, and gain insights that could become valuable recommendations for improvement! There is tremendous analytic value in learning to see all work as a process, which is why the process takes center stage in the SIPOC. 

What is a process? 

A process is a group of logically related activities (steps or operations) that must be performed in a specific manner, using multiple inputs from various suppliers, to transform material or information into product or service outputs, which must meet specific end-user (customer) requirements.

You probably have a process in mind to focus on. How you showcase this process for yourself and others is important. To describe the process you'll focus on, you'll want to set the context by showing it in relation to other processes and jobs that are recognizable - typically, the department your process occurs in, and the other core functions in that department. Realize also that the description of a process at this point will probably be somewhat of a creative exercise - especially if you and your colleagues haven't tried to express the work in a process map before. 

Step 1 -- select the process you're focusing on

In the example below, the process of "Contracting" is the focus - it's the process we want to dig into. 

Step 2 -- create a "flowdown' diagram to put the process in organizational context. 

When the team decided to focus on Contracting, they also jotted down some other business processes that are co-equal to Contracting, like Targeting, Sales and Customer Service. This helps the reader see that Contracting is a "Function" like Targeting, Sales and Customer Service are Functions. And for anyone who reads the diagram but perhaps doesn't work within the Business Development department, they looked up a level and identified that all of these functions exist within the strategic or organizational department of Business Development. This sets the context of Contracting clearly in the minds of any reader. 

Step 3 -- describe the process in a few key steps. 

Here, the team considered all that goes on in Contracting, and described the "Contracting" process in approximately 4-7 steps (a workable level of detail for the tasks that will follow). They settled on four key steps, beginning with the rough Terms that the deal desk provided, and ending with the Close of the contract with the Customer. The steps in between were the ones where real impact that would eventually affect the outcome took place: the drafting of the Documents, and the Negotiation that occurs before they're finalized and agreed upon. 

Note: there is often a temptation to get overly granular once the team gets going -- and while it's good to consider all the details, it's also essential to then to pull back to 4-7 of the most important steps. Below the "High Level Process" of Contracting, the diagram suggests that more detail surely exists beneath each of the 4-7 selected steps -- but we'll set that aside for now, focusing on the process at a high level.

Step 4: Pause and reflect, and have a brief discussion about the inputs and outputs of the process.

If the process was an assembly line, what raw material is ingested at the front of the line and who supplies it to us? What finished product leaves the end of the line, and who are we making it for? 

In the diagram above, we see the Contracting process, but nothing is evident about the suppliers of inputs to the process, or the customers of outputs created by the process. The SIPOC will add the “S” and “I” before the Contracting process, and the “O” and “C” following the process. With the SIPOC, you’re creating a one-page visual of the entire process. Here’s the basic structure of a SIPOC chart:

Step 5: In a spreadsheet, or on a whiteboard, set up a grid to start capturing the next discussion. 

You can set up a simple template in Excel to capture all the elements. In the middle column, Process, use 4-7 rows (depending on how many steps you defined) to arrange your main process steps from top to bottom. 

Step 6: Identify inputs and suppliers.

To the left of each step, think about what inputs are either consulted (perhaps you refer to an approved price grid) or ingested (perhaps you accept the draft document and begin to review and edit it) at this step and used in the process. Moving further to the left, jot down who (or which department or process) supplies this input -- you're acknowledging here who the process step is dependent upon producing an input that is timely, accurate, and meeting all necessary quality specifications, so that the process works smoothly.

Step 7: Identify outputs and customers.

To the right of the Process column, note what is produced at each stage of the process. It may help to focus here on what is produced that will eventually matter to the customer. It's not unusual to find at some process steps that the thing produced is a notification that the step was done, or a recorded entry on a list of tasks completed for the day. This sort of output is real, but it often matters not at all to the customer. These are the sorts of insight that later may provide opportunities to make the process go faster, or be done less expensively, by carefully removing the "non-value added" steps in the process. Finally, the Customer column is where you'll record the person, department, or customer who cares about the output of that process step. 

Step 8: Finalize your materials into a presentation-worthy flowdown diagram, and a table of Suppliers, Inputs, Outputs, and Customers. At this point, you have an outline of who and what impacts the process, as well as who and what are impacted by it. Have a closing discussion with the team and answer these questions -- write down the answers and share in a final document among all the participants.

1. Go around the whole team of participants - what did you learn about the process that may change the way you do your work, so a "downstream" step is healthier?  

2. Did you identify anything that will help you have a better discussion about the impact of process inputs that are supplied to you?

3. Did you discover anything that you'd like the cross-functional team to work on to improve the process overall?

4. For each improvement, what would its potential impact be? Faster process?  Less errors? Reduction in cost? (This helps you decide where there may be more / less value in doing the improvement work)

Final Notes: A rough draft is often created by the process mapper to get familiar with the tool and the process in focus. Later, more value is revealed when the mapper invites all the participants in the process (including the supplier(s) and the customer(s) to the extent practical) to collaborate and refine the diagram together.