I have never written a review in my life, but for this book, I will make an exception.I am a consultant. Most of my firm's (SAI Consulting, LLC) work is focused on the design, documentation, and management of processes, as they relate to improving our clients' operating and financial performance. We are experts at process mapping and the proper use of process mapping in a broad range of strategic and improvement initiatives.
In fairness, there are some good points to this book, but there are also some serious flaws in the approach to process mapping it recommends:
1. The use of individual, isolated interviews to develop an understanding of the current state of the process is a very bad idea, particularly on large, cross-functional processes. The interviewer will chase his tail listening to different versions of the same process. The best approach is a cross-functional team. We have found that teams do a much better job of exposing the real process, and they produce much greater insight and reality into the process.
2. Likewise, the use of the interviewer to analyze the current state of the process and either redesign the process or design a new process is a very bad idea. People will not settle for a method that limits their input to the current state - they want to have a say in the redesign or new design. The authors say the experts 'are the people who perform the work', but they don't let those experts provide the solution?
3. The vertical design of the process maps is not as useful or practical as a horizontal cross-functional flowchart. There are plenty of reasons to choose horizontal over vertical, but - if for no other reason - processes need to be depicted horizontally in order to break away from the functional mindset of most organizations.
3. The treatment of operating measures is almost useless.
4. The book explains the use of 'drill down' maps to expose increasing levels of process detail. These are very difficult to create and maintain without software specifically designed to automate the drill-down structure. Yet, there is no mention of the use of IDEF0 software that would make the production and maintenance of these process models a snap.
My recommendation: Buy the book if you don't know much about process mapping, but don't stop there. If anyone reading this review has questions, I would be glad to discuss them.
Fletcher L. Groves, III
Vice President
SAI Consulting, LLC
PO Box 1755
Ponte Vedra Beach, FL
32004-1755
(904) 273-9840
E-mail: flgroves@saiconsulting.com