How do you map your processes before you automate?

What does mapping processes mean?

Mapping processes means writing down how a piece of work runs in practice, from start to finish. Who does what? In which system? Where does the work wait, and where does it go wrong? The result is an overview on paper or on a whiteboard: a process map.

A process is a series of steps with a clear start and finish. For example: from quote request to sent quote, or from incoming order to paid invoice. In many companies, processes like these are not written down anywhere. They live in people’s heads, in emails and in lists.

Why map a process before you automate?

Because otherwise you automate the detours too. Software does exactly what you tell it to do. If your work contains a step that isn’t really needed, the software will do that step from now on as well. It just becomes less noticeable.

A map also helps you choose. Of the companies with 10 or more employed persons that had considered AI in 2024 but did not use it, 74.6 per cent cited lack of experience as a reason. That was by far the most important reason, according to Statistics Netherlands (CBS). You don’t need to know everything about AI first. If you know how your own work runs, you can ask at every step: can software do this, and is that sensible? That way you start with your work and not with a tool. Also read You don’t know where to start with AI.

Which process do you map first?

Start with one process that comes up often and runs in a similar way each time. Not with the most difficult process in your company, and not with everything at once. Good candidates are:

Not sure? Then choose the process in which data is retyped most often. You can recognise it by the same name or the same order number appearing in three systems. Also read You retype the same data.

Agree on the start and the finish beforehand. ‘The orders’ is too big. ‘From an order by email to an order in the ERP system’ is manageable. Each sector often has a different obvious process: the job sheet in construction and installation (in Dutch), trip planning in transport, orders by email in wholesale or shipping at an online shop.

How do you map a process, step by step?

You walk through the whole process once, together with the people who do the work. This is how you go about it:

1. Choose the process and agree on the start and finish. Write them at the top of a large sheet of paper or on a whiteboard.
2. Bring in the people who do the work. Not just the manager. The person who enters the orders knows which customers order differently and which fields nobody fills in.
3. Take a few cases from last week. An ordinary order, an order with a mistake and an order with a special request. That way you draw the work as it actually goes, and not as it is described in a manual.
4. Write each step on its own note. One action per note, with a verb: ‘open order’, ‘look up customer’, ‘check price’. Put them in order.
5. Ask the same five questions at every step. They are in the next section.
6. Add the choices. Where the work can go two ways, write down a question, such as ‘Is the customer known?’. If yes, it goes one way; if no, the other.
7. Write down the exceptions. What happens if an order is incomplete, or if a customer wants to change something? Exceptions later determine how software deals with whatever doesn’t fit the rules.
8. Write down how often it happens. An estimate from the people themselves is enough to start with. If you want to know exactly, keep track for a few weeks.
9. Have the map checked. Put it up and ask whether everyone recognises their work in it.

Explain beforehand why you are doing this. People give a more honest picture if they know it is about the work, and not an assessment of their own pace.

What do you write down for each step?

For each step you write down five things: who does it, in which system, what is retyped, where it waits and what goes wrong. Below is a made-up example of a wholesaler that receives orders by email.

Notes on a wall work just as well as a table. What matters is that you ask the five questions at every step. Especially at ‘retyped’ and ‘waits’ you will later see where software can help.

What does a simple process map look like?

A simple process map consists of boxes and arrows. With four conventions it stays readable:

• A rectangle is a step: someone does something.
• A diamond is a choice, with a question you answer with yes or no.
• An arrow shows what happens next.
• An oval is the start or the finish.

Do several people or departments work on the process? Then give each person or department their own lane: a strip across the width of the sheet. A drawing like that is called a swimlane diagram, after the lanes in a swimming pool. You can then see where the work passes from one person to another. Work can get stuck at such a handover, so look at those closely.

Do you need a method such as BPMN or SIPOC?

For an SME, usually not. A drawing with rectangles, diamonds and arrows is enough. You will come across the names, though, so here is briefly what they are:

• BPMN stands for Business Process Model and Notation. It is a standard for process drawings from the Object Management Group, an international organisation that creates technical standards. BPMN is also laid down as ISO/IEC 19510. It is intended for people from the business as well as for developers who later build the process into software, and it has many more symbols than a simple drawing.
• SIPOC stands for Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs and Customers: who supplies something, what goes in, the process, what comes out and who receives it. It is a high-level overview. It helps at the start of a project to define the scope, especially if it is not yet clear who supplies something and who uses the result.

A developer can later convert your simple map into a technical drawing. It is more important that the map is correct than that it is drawn according to a method.

What do you see once the process is on paper?

For each step you see whether it can go, whether software can do it, whether AI can help or whether a person has to do it. Go through the map and give each step one of these four labels:

Start with removing: a step that can go doesn’t need to be built. Then look at the retyping. That is usually work for an API integration or workflow automation, without AI. AI suits text that is written differently every time, such as an order in an email or an invoice as a PDF. See processing email automatically with AI and reading invoices automatically.

Where it affects money, agreements or people, a person decides. AI does the groundwork, you decide. This set-up is also called human-in-the-loop. AI can make mistakes in a way that sounds convincing: a hallucination. So for every AI step on the map, write down who checks the result.

An example of what you can build afterwards: for De Rijplaten Specialist and De Slowfeeder Specialist, two online shops from Ede, I built an automated transport planning system. When a new order comes in in Shopify, AI chooses between DHL and own transport. If the order goes with own transport, it goes straight into the delivery driver’s trip. For the same companies I built an automated quote generator. AI recognises a request in the email, puts the details into the system and proposes a price. After a click on approve, the quote goes to the customer. That click is the step where a person decides. Also take a look at the case.

Which mistakes are easy to make when mapping?

Most mistakes happen because the map becomes too pretty, too big or too full:

• Drawing the ideal. The map then shows how it should go, not how it does go. So work with cases from last week.
• Only asking the manager. The person who does the work knows the details and the exceptions.
• Starting too big. ‘All our processes’ becomes a project that stalls. Choose one process.
• Too much detail. ‘Click save’ is too small. A step has a clear result, such as ‘order entered’.
• Choosing a solution straight away. First draw how it goes now. Only then do you think about what could be different.

What do you do with personal data and AI tools on the map?

For each step, write down which personal data it involves and where that data goes, such as names and addresses of customers or employee data. The GDPR applies to that data, also if you later integrate it or have AI read it. Does another company process personal data on your behalf and according to your instructions? Then you conclude a data processing agreement with that company, according to Ondernemersplein (the Dutch government business portal).

The map also helps with your record of processing activities. According to Ondernemersplein, a company with fewer than 250 employees does not have to keep such a record in every situation. It does have to if you process personal data with some regularity, for example of employees or customers. The record includes, among other things, the purpose, the types of data and who you share them with. Those are exactly the flows on your map.

Do colleagues already use AI tools, for example to write emails? Write that down too, along with which data goes into them. An overview like that is called an AI register.

What can and can’t a process map do?

This is what a process map can do:

• show where data is retyped and where work gets stuck;
• structure the conversation with your team, because everyone is looking at the same picture;
• be a basis for a proposal and a price;
• help when onboarding new colleagues.

This is what a process map can’t do:

• Tell you whether automating is worth it. For that you also need numbers: how often does the work occur, and how long does it take?
• Tell you whether your systems can be integrated. That depends on the API of your software packages.
• Fix messy data. Cleaning up is still work afterwards. Also read Your Excel lists have got out of hand.
• Replace expertise. The map shows where a planner or estimator makes a judgement. That judgement stays with that person.

Do it yourself or have it done?

You can map a process perfectly well yourself with the steps above. Having it done suits you if you have little time, if the process passes through many people and systems, or if you want to know straight away what is technically possible.

With me, that is called a business analysis. I come by, talk to the people who do the work, look at your systems and data and map your processes. Someone who isn’t in it every day is quicker to ask: why do we actually do it this way? After the analysis you have this in hand:

• a map of the processes we looked at together;
• for each step, what you can remove, what can be integrated, what AI can prepare and what a person keeps doing;
• a proposal with a fixed price: what can be improved, what it costs and where you start.

The proposal is yours. You have me build it, you do it yourself or you have someone else do it. If you go ahead, I offset the analysis against the follow-up and build it myself, in the systems you already use. Read more in my way of working, about integrations and automation and in What does an AI consultant do? The first conversation is free: book a call.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: Statistics Netherlands (CBS): AI monitor 2024, use of AI technology by Dutch companies (in Dutch) (reasons for not using AI, provisional figures for 2024), Object Management Group: about BPMN and the BPMN specification, AHRQ (US government): SIPOC, Ondernemersplein: Drawing up a record of processing activities (in Dutch) and Ondernemersplein: Privacy legislation GDPR, checklist for entrepreneurs (in Dutch) (data processing agreement). Consulted on 22 October 2026.