Process mapping basics: five symbols, swimlanes, and the two clocks

An approval took eleven days. The people involved worked on it for about one day in total. The other ten days it sat in someone's inbox. This page covers the five symbols a process map actually needs, swimlanes that show where the handoffs are, and the two clocks that tell you which step to fix first. The print-ready A4 PDF is at the bottom.

Five symbols

• Oval: start and end.
• Box: a step someone does.
• Diamond: a decision, yes or no.
• Document: a form, a mail, a ticket.
• Arrow: the handoff. Waiting lives here.

BPMN has dozens more. You will not need them for a map whose job is to show a team where the time goes.

Swimlanes

• One lane per role. Every arrow that crosses a lane is a wait.

Draw the lanes first (requester, manager, finance, director), then place each step in the lane of whoever does it. The map now shows the handoffs without a single word of explanation.

Two clocks

• Work time: hands on the step. About one day in total.
• Wait time: ten of the eleven days. Fix this first.

The approval, two clocks

Map the steps, then write both clocks next to every arrow. The map is done when the waits are on it.

Eleven days end to end. Making the budget check twice as fast saves two hours. Clearing the queue in front of it saves five days.

Where the numbers come from: the timestamps on the ticket or the mail thread give the wait; a few people telling you how long the step takes when they get to it gives the work. Three or four real examples are enough for a first map.

The trap: the map that fixes the wrong thing

Three ways a process map looks finished and changes nothing.

• Mapping the work only. People speed up the 4-hour budget check. The 5-day queue in front of it stays.
• The happy path only. The diamond has a "no" branch. Rejections loop back to the requester: ask how often, and add that wait.
• Drawn from the desk. The official process and the real one differ. Walk it with one person from each lane.

The fix for a wait is rarely a faster person. It is a smaller batch (finance checks budgets daily instead of in a Friday pile), a clearer handoff (the request arrives complete, so it is not sent back), or one lane fewer (the director delegates sign-off under a threshold).

What to bring to the meeting

One page: the swimlane map with both clocks on it, the total of each clock, and one sentence per wait saying why the queue forms. That is the whole document. The business case (sheet 076) comes after, once the team has agreed which wait to attack.

The full page is a free print-ready A4 PDF: five symbols, swimlanes, two clocks.