Companies run on business processes. When we talk about a process, we often assume the other person means the same thing we do – and that assumption is almost always wrong.
I usually illustrate this with two everyday examples: making coffee and doing laundry at home.
Where does making coffee start and end for you? Does it begin when you put the cup under the machine, press the right button, wait for the drink to pour, and take the finished coffee away? For some people, that is the whole process.
For others it ends somewhere else. Maybe after the coffee has poured, they still check whether the machine is signalling that water needs refilling or the grounds container needs emptying. If a light is on, they fix that first – and only then consider the coffee done. That approach already helps the next person, who will not walk into the same problem.
If two people interpret this morning routine differently, it can create real conflict.
Misaligned process boundaries cause friction at home too: when does laundry end? When the machine beeps? After hanging the clothes? When everything is back in the wardrobe? Do you also need to iron first?
It does not matter where coffee or laundry ends – as long as everyone around you has agreed. Then you have a shared way of work.
In an OnlyProcess Process Model project, our goal is to create that shared process language for the company. With designated SMEs, through interviews, we map how the organisation actually works today – the AS-IS.
The project creates an origin point you can build improvement on later. But the most important outcome is not a future promise: it is that the 7–8 people in the process agree on how work moves from A to B.