As I speak with others in the community, I hear over and over questions about methodology. “Should I use Six Sigma?” “Should I use Lean?” “Which methodology is best for business process improvement?”
What I have come to realize is that the methodology is not the most important piece of process improvement – rather, it is the definition of the process to be improved. A good definition of the process leads to good improvement; a poor definition, poor improvement. But often times our definition of the process is simply a flowchart of how the process acts – the activities that occur. We miss many of the most important parts of process definition.
To this end, I have created what I term “The Process Innovation Canvas.” It is a picture that helps define the process and contains all the information necessary to define the process well. I am not ashamed to admit that the structure was inspired by Tim Clark’s “Business Model You”, a magnificent book that should be a must read for all professionals.
Over the next several weeks, we will be exploring the Canvas, definitions of the various structures it contains, and how to use the Canvas to help drive business process improvement, no matter the methodology. A vector version of the canvas is available on the resources page of my website, newsalemconsulting.com. So here we go!
Definition: A Business Process is a set of related activities that turn inputs into outputs and provide value to a customer. A Business Process Model is the logic by which Suppliers successfully provide value to process customers.
The Building Blocks
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| A Process Serves its Customer… | by providing Process Value… | taking Inputs… | from Suppliers… | and applying Activities… | performed by Actors… |
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 Feedback |
 Feed Forward |
 Trigger |
| using Resources… | to create Outputs… | delivered through Channels. | Costs are expenses incurred by Actors, Activities and Resources. | Feedback allows Customers to inform Suppliers of their success in meeting Process Value. | Feed Forward allows Suppliers to modify the behavior of Actors. | Triggers start the process. |
Together these thirteen building blocks form the Process Innovation Canvas.
