Overcoming Barriers to Visualizing Your Business Processes & Integrations
One of the beautiful aspects of visual diagrams, especially those that offer the ability to link to other pieces of documentation, is that it lets you "time travel" to understand how and why processes and systems have evolved over time.
However, growing organizations tend to forgo or underutilize visualizations. In some cases, they're pictures of whiteboards with barely legible handwriting that never make it into a central repository.
There are plenty of reasons for why this occurs, but here are the three reasons I see most often:
Frameworks cause an adoption barrier
Tools are clunky to use without having practice
People say they're already thin on time
Frameworks cause an adoption barrier
There are tons of frameworks for how to do business process and systems diagrams. All of them have their own reasoning for why to use it. Some of them feel as outdated as phone booths and signs that don't list an area code.
Salesforce has an opinion to use Universal Process Notation and they curated a lightweight, self-paced learning module on how to get started. Other large cloud platforms don't have a perspective, which is probably the right approach.
If learning a framework is holding you back or stopping that from happening, don't use a framework.
Tools are clunky to use without having practice
I empathize with this, especially different vendors and apps have their own sets of keyboard shortcuts and opinions on how to use a mouse or trackpad for scrolling and zooming.
There are tons of options that are purpose built for this (e.g. Lucid, Miro, Figma), plus some that are built-in to your computer's operating system, included with your collaboration suites (i.e. Google Workspace or Microsoft 365), and add-ons with your meeting service (e.g. Zoom Whiteboard).
As a team, pick three tools to evaluate and do this exercise:
Write down five "processes" or "systems" in your daily life, which should be things you know well (e.g. steps to take your child to school, your home to office commute)
Try to visualize one of those with your "top 3" tools, and drop the one that feels most clunky
Repeat it twice more with your remaining two tools, then drop the one that feels most clunky
Share your feelings and tips that you learn as you go, but don't cut it short. Finish visualizing those last two processes or systems.
People say they're already thin on time
Sorry, this is not a valid reason to defer something that makes teams aware of how things are supposed to work, for the organization to reduce risk of missing requirements, and to make it easier to onboard new employees and vendors.
Move your deadline into the future, reduce your scope, or toss some cold water on the people that are over-scheduling you (and, don't blame me if they're not happy about that).
TLDR: Start visualizing your processes and systems. Update as changes are made. Use a collaborative tool. Don't get hung up on a specific framework.
