Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Opinions expressed in this episode are personal. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this streaming platform.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Good day, everyone, and welcome to another edition of let's Be Diverse. I am your host, Andrew Stout. This episode is dedicated to all my loved ones who supported me through this journey. Those who have left us will always be in our hearts and will never be forgotten. Today our topic is a very interesting one, process mapping.
Today I have a guest on who is going to help us navigate through this and somebody who I know works and understands this a little bit more than I do. A little than I do, probably. Her name is Carly Bassian. Welcome to the show, Carly. I am super honored and I appreciate you taking the time to chat with us today.
[00:00:47] Speaker A: Thank you so much, Andrew. I'm very excited to be here today.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: I'm excited to have you on here today. How are things with you? What's going on in your world? What's new? Give us the tea, the deets, Give us it all.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: You know, oftentimes when people ask that, I think people expect to hear, you know, things are great, things are good. I'm gonna be honest. Things have not been great in my life lately.
We're going through a tremendous amount of transition.
We unexpectedly have to move, so we weren't expecting that. And for anyone who has moved before, you know how stressful it is to have to pack up your whole life and find a new place to. So that's been eating away at me. Plus, it's a really busy time at work and I was incredibly ill last week. So, you know, unfortunately not the best season. But I think that it's important to. To acknowledge that we're not always, you know, having the best time. But I look forward to finding a new home and just experiencing this new chapter. It's just hard when you're in it.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: Oh, for sure. Listen, I love your vulnerability. I agree with you 100% when we ask that question. The mindset that everyone's going to say, what's is good, everything is rosy and, you know, it's real, and we understand that it's not going to go all well all the time, and it's not going to be easygoing and it's not going to be fun. And so I get it. But I love your comfort and your vulnerability on that.
And tr. You know, when you talk about transition, transition is always hard, whether it's personal, career wise.
I know you from the great conversations that we've had so far and getting to know you, and I know you're going to get through it, you're gonna figure it out. You are strong, human, and so I'm confident that you're gonna get through it. No problem. So thank you.
[00:02:33] Speaker A: And you know, also, as you know, I know you're a nature leader and as a people leader myself, just really quickly wanted to add that I think it's also humbling to remember that, you know, everyone has a story and when you're working with people, just remembering that, you know, people go through things and just to have that compassion and to give people that space to, to bring themselves, you know, fully and authentically. So I appreciate you creating the space for me to do that.
[00:02:58] Speaker B: You're absolutely, you're no problem there. And as we get into the conversation, it's kind of a little bit off topic here, but I love how this is going. A lot of times, especially as a leader, we ask people that question where we could be walking to a meeting or we can go and be going, walking by them, going to our office, how are things? How are you doing? But we're continuously walking. And I, and I've said to so many people, once you ask that question, don't just ask it to ask it, be prepared to ask it. Like you be prepared that you're asking it, but be prepared for the answer and be prepared for how the sit. The conversation is going to go. So I always call it as a leader, we're listening to, for to give feedback and I always say listen with pause, where basically you're listening and letting the person talk and you're not telling them anything. You're not giving them any feedback. You're just listening and they might talk and pause for a few seconds, but you're sitting back and listening and letting them because maybe they just need to get something off their chest. So I love that again, I love that you said what you said and I am touched that you had the vulnerability to, to, to come out and say that. It's, it's, it's really nice. So thank you very much for that.
[00:04:21] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: You're very, very welcome. Before we begin, I always have a fun, thought provoking question to ask my guests to get things going. Are you ready for yours today, Carly?
[00:04:33] Speaker A: Ready as I think I'll ever.
[00:04:35] Speaker B: So I know what you just said, but, but I think you will come up with a great answer here. What is something that always makes you laugh?
[00:04:44] Speaker A: That always makes me laugh, right? Oh, that's a good question.
Something that always makes me laugh.
My, I have a toddler and he's into climbing our couch and Leaping from one end to another. And I don't know why it's so funny. It almost looks like he's like a little superhero without a cape and just dives from one end to the other. And it always leaves my whole family, you know, in tears. It's just the cut, cutest, most ridiculous thing. And it's just so characteristic of who he is like so opposite to me and my husband, which I love seeing because my husband and I are much more preserved. We aren't huge risk takers. We're not so adventurous. And just to see our offspring, our offspring being the complete and total opposite of us, I think is just the most endearing and hilarious thing.
So I would say that's what makes, that's currently what's making me laugh a lot these days.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: I love that. And I'm guessing that probably the way that he's doing it and jumping is because, you know, at the age this, a lot of them, they. They make it look like they' putting so much effort into it. But yes, they. Yet they don't. Like, for example, if they're running, they make it look like they're running so fast, but they're really not going anywhere. But they.
So I think, yeah, so I think I'm just picturing, just picturing little one trying to jump off the couch onto the other one but giving like so much like if they're like a long jumper or something, but they're going like maybe two steps or something like that.
[00:06:10] Speaker A: So. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly right.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: I love that story. Thank you for so much for, for sharing that with me. I really appreciate that. That actually put a laugh and made me laugh as well. So that's pretty cool.
Why don't we start off with you telling us a little about you yourself and of course your why.
[00:06:28] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. So who am I? I guess professionally I am on paper a higher education administrator. I have worked in the education field more broadly, but predominantly in higher education for almost nine years now. It's my anniversary next month. And most recently I was actually put into a brand new role that was created as the manager of continuous improvement for the registrar's office at my institution. And I was effectively an internal consultant to help people with process improvement, continuous improvement and change management initiatives.
My division that I support is 150 employees and was in the role for. I was, you know, had Matt leave in between. So I think give or take about a couple of years.
And most recently as of this past spring, there was a big retirement in our division. The Manager was retiring after 20 years in the, in the role. And they were looking for someone to come in to just kind of help the team with some process improvement and put some procedures in place, formal procedures in place, help document processes that weren't documented.
And after a whole series of events that I won't get into right now, I ended up actually accepting the role permanently.
So I am now responsible for scheduling every single lecture, lab, tutorial, and exam for all of our courses across the institution. And that's about, you know, 8,000 or so individual sections. So that is what I do full time. On the side, though, I'm actually a very passionate leadership expert.
I find organizational development very interesting. I find process improvement very interesting. I'm actually doing my project management certificate right now as well. And so I do some consulting on the side. I help private, public, nonprofit, different organizations with various things. Whether it's helping with reorg, helping create job descriptions and recruitment processes, whether it's looking at the way that they do their work, helping do management training. I basically help people find their maximum potential in the, in the space of leadership and process improvement.
[00:08:47] Speaker B: So much I want to pack in there. So first off, again, going by our conversations that we had prior to this, everything that you just told me fits to a T exactly what you, you know, it goes hand in hand with what, what you, what you, how, how the conversations went and what you do. So, you know, being passionate about leadership, I'll go with that. I am so passionate about that. I told, we talked earlier, before we started. I could talk about stuff like that till the cows come home, hours and hours of it. Some people will probably get sick of talking about it. I might be nerdy on that, but I just love everything and anything to do with that. And I just love how you can kind of form leadership in many different ways and facets and things that you may not even think about, like values or trust and respect or, you know, they go hand in hand with that. But, you know, sometimes people don't even, don't look at it that way and then don't think the same as that. So I love that and I love the fact that you are building yourself in your career and you're, you're, you're adapting, you're adoptable, which is, which is what I love and I admire. There's not a lot of people who are adaptable, and I love that you have adapted yourself through your career and through your personal life.
It's, it's, it's very admirable. So I just Love that.
[00:10:16] Speaker A: Thank you. And just. Just to add to that, you know, I think that we're in this point in, in our society and in our world where you have to embrace change. And I'm so glad we're talking about what we're talking about today, because with AI and the rate of industries changing, if you do not lean into change, you will just.
And that's what I. One of my mottos, you know, with work and my professional career is just saying yes to opportunities, even if they scare the crap out of you, because that's how you're going to learn and grow. And if you don't hop on that change bandwagon, you're going to miss out on some big opportunities. So you got to lean. Lean into the unknown, lean into the scary, lean into the change.
[00:10:56] Speaker B: What you just said just filled my cup. I just love it because you were. You have to take advantage of opportunities. But I also was just talking to somebody earlier today and I was telling them, they asked me, what's one thing that you. That you. You. That you pride yourself on? And I pride myself on not being afraid to ask because I'm afraid to hear the word no. And I pride myself on that because I'm not afraid to hear it. I know that I'm going to hear it, but I'm not afraid to ask because there's going to be yeses and I'm not afraid to hear the word no. So I'll ask whenever I have an opportunity to ask something. And I don't think you can be afraid of that because if you are, then how can you move forward? How can you progress? How can you adapt?
[00:11:45] Speaker A: As you were saying, you miss 100 of the shots you don't take.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: Absolutely. Absolutely. So. So let's get into the meat and bones of this conversation here. I'm super excited now how this is going, and I really want to get the meat bones of this year. What is the process of process mapping.
[00:12:05] Speaker A: Before even getting into the nitty gritty of what process mapping is, One of the biggest mistakes people run into is not actually asking the first question, which is what is the core problem I'm trying to solve? A lot of the time we're so quick to jump into solutions and okay, this process ends up working. We need to fix it because it's broken. But is it actually the process that's broken? Like, what about the process is broken? What about the process isn't working for you right now?
I'm dealing with an issue right now, actually, with my team where we're working collaboratively with another department and we need to move some classrooms around based on their requests. And I keep getting complaints from my team about, oh, it's, you know, this process isn't working, this isn't working, this isn't working. But ultimately what actually isn't working is how we're communicating.
So first, understanding what the core problem is, that is really your first step when it comes to process mapping.
So once you've figured out like what the core problem actually is, your next step before getting into actually mapping out your process is the scope. Because that's another issue. Scope creep, very, very common when you're trying to focus on fixing one particular process. It's so easy to say, oh, but this process actually also impacts process B and process C and process D. So let's fix it all. And sometimes, yes, making changes to process A will have an impact on the other processes. But it's really important to be very clear about the start point and the end point of your process. So whenever I do process mapping activities with any of my colleagues at work or any of my clients with my consulting, first step is core problem. Second step is where does this process start and where does the process end? Knowing that we can absolutely add on to it later, but we just need to start somewhere that's confined and has very clear, distinct boundaries. Then your next step is actually mapping out your process based on current state. So there's, and I'm sure we'll get into this later in terms of how you actually process map, you can do it in person. There's also lots of great tools online. I like to use Miro, but you can even do this in a Google sheet, truthfully, or an Excel sheet. And you basically with your team because it's better to have other people part of the conversation. Because if you're very familiar with the process, it's really easy to missteps. You're just going to start mapping out in order, what are the steps of the process that you're writing? You know, step one, person A gets a form request. Step two, person, you know, checks to make sure that every field is completed, and so on and so forth. So you actually write out the process based on the current state.
Then what I like to do is let's create the process based on future state. So knowing that there's pain points, there are process steps that don't really make sense. They're redundant. They don't add any value to whoever your client or customer is in the situation. What would this process look like in a perfect world. So then you do the activity all over again, but imagining what the process could be.
And in order to do that, it's also helpful to look at the current state to identify with your team, like, are there any steps that are repeat steps where there's rework happening? I remember I did an activity once where we mapped out a process at work. And it turns, it was based on the student application for a specific bursary program. And it turns out that the application that the students submitted was printed four separate times.
But because so many different people were involved in the process, no one knew that other people were printing it. And then here you have this like 20 page document printed four times.
So you know, working through your team, with your team working through the steps to figure out what steps can we eliminate, what steps aren't necessary, Are there any steps that are happening in the wrong order?
And then creating the future state map. And then at the end of that exercise, you have the opportunity to look at current state, future state, and then having a brainstorm conversation with your team about what steps need to be taken to move from current state to future state, and then coming up with some sort of plan to actually execute on the changes needed to make changes to your process. So that's the various, the sort of like process mapping for dummies. High level, quick and dirty Coles notes version. But happy to get into more details as needed.
[00:16:04] Speaker B: Oh for sure. I love that. So first off, I love when you, you talk about what's the core of the problem? Because like you said, and anything it could be, you know, like you said, your staff was looking at stuff and they're like, oh, it's not working, it's not working. Well, maybe it just, you know, instead of we need to change everything what it, you know, maybe there's certain areas of it that maybe needs a little bit of a minor tweak so that it would, you know, continue to work. So I love that the core problem. The other thing is I love when you, which I smiled when you said it. Communicating. Because anybody that knows me, anyone that's listening to my podcast, they've probably heard me say it a gazillion times, but I'm not afraid to continue saying it. And that's communicating. You can never over communicate. There's so many people that have problem communicating and communication is the key to anything. And if you're not communicating, if you're not talking to people and telling them what you, you want or what your expectations are, then how are they supposed to know what to do. And as a manager like you are, you have to know like what to communicate and how to communicate it because there's obviously things that, certain things that you cannot communicate with your staff due to confidentiality, stuff with upper management. But there is always a way to communicate that information saying here's what I can tell you, here's what I can't due to things. So there's always a way to do that. And you know, you, you figure out the pain points of the situation exactly like you said and you're making people happy because if you're not communicating, if you're hiding stuff or if you, there's a lot of closed doors meetings and staff sees that, you know, it can make anybody have anxiety seeing that and wondering what the hell is going on. I, you know, there's always these closed doors meetings, why are they happening? But you know, if you're telling them certain things, you're not going to hear from them because they'll understand. Here's what I can tell you, here's what I can.
[00:18:17] Speaker A: And there's a. You read so many great points there, Andrew. And I actually want to touch base on a couple of them that completely relate to process mapping and continuous improvement more broadly. So one is in terms of the closed door conversations or management withholding information, 100% time and place because of confidentiality. There are things that I just can't tell my team as a manager I can't. Having said that, there are so many times where I see managers, leaders withholding information for no good reason other than a power trip and it's actually such a disservice for the team. Sometimes I ask my team, do you understand why we do this this way? And I'm so surprised at how many times they say no because the previous manager never took the time to explain why we do certain processes. So how can someone possibly make improvements to their team without understanding the why? And I also think as a manager of the team I'm here to facilitate process mapping. But the people on your team, they're the subject matter experts. If you don't have them at the table, they don't have a seat at the table to make things better. Your processes will never be as good as they can be because they have so many great ideas. So you absolutely need to provide as much transparency and clarity behind the why so that you can actually make really big improvements. So that's one piece about communication I wanted to add. The second is in terms of effective communication I'd Be the first to say, I hate meetings. Meetings are so often not needed. A giant waste of time and one of the biggest money socks for any organization. There's so much research to support that. Having said that, I also find it so surprising how many times now that we're all working hybrid, so many of us are working remotely. The number of chat conversations, email exchanges, I can, you know, so many email chains I have with 20, 30, 40 emails that could have been avoided if you just picked up the phone. So I think that there is a time in place for emails and chat communications. I'm all for that, especially as a hybrid working manager for sure. But we need to also remember sometimes we're going to save ourselves 20, 30, 40 email exchanges if we just pick up the phone. So that's another thing with communication. Just knowing the appropriate platform to make progress with the project, make progress with the process.
[00:20:20] Speaker B: Absolutely. And I'm going to piggyback on what you said there. We talked about trust earlier.
What is a great way if you're trying to build trust with your team, trust and respect with your team. What is a good way? We talked about vulnerability earlier.
To come out and say, here's what you know, I'm going to talk to you about what's going on. There are certain things I can tell you, but there's certain things I can't. And just being honest, honest and vulnerable with them, you're gonna get a gazillion more respect times respect from that employee or from those employees by you being honest and truthful with them rather than, like you said, being the manager that's withholding information because they're gonna be like, wow, why are they being so sneaky? Why are they not telling us stuff? And you know, I see this happening where this process was implemented. Nobody told us what's going on. Like, just be honest and vulnerable and they're going to see that and they're like, they're gonna run through a brick wall for you if you know when they have that trust and respect factor for you. So.
[00:21:29] Speaker A: And also being honest when you don't know the answer to something, if someone asks like, why is this done this way? Or you know, this isn't working, how do I fix that? I'm in a brand new role with absolutely no background knowledge in my, in my new area and I can, you know, if I would be a millionaire if I had a dollar for every time I say I don't know the answer to this or I'm not sure why this is done this way. But let me find out.
[00:21:49] Speaker B: Right?
[00:21:50] Speaker A: Don't, don't try to be a hero. If you don't know the answer, it's okay to say you don't know.
[00:21:53] Speaker B: Absolutely. But yes, I agree with you 100%. If we don't know the answer, you know we're going to get it. But we have to make sure, and I know you do it through our conversations, if you don't know the answer, you're gonna go get it. But make sure that you don't, that you get it. And when you get it, you tell them. And if you haven't heard in a few days, just tell them. Listen, I'm still waiting to find out about that information for you. I haven't forgotten you. And when I do find out, thing again, it's the communication factor. That's all people want to hear is they just want to know what's going on. That's it. So.
[00:22:25] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:22:26] Speaker B: So we might have talked about a little bit. But I want to dig into. You said it before. I love when you said it. Dig in more. So I want to kind of dig into this a little bit more.
What are the key points of process mapping?
[00:22:39] Speaker A: The key points, I mean, it's kind of reiterating what I said before. So identifying what the core problem is, what problem are you actually trying to solve, and keeping that at the forefront of when you're doing your process mapping, because that will help you make sure that you're not getting out of scope and letting that scope creep creep in.
[00:22:55] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:22:56] Speaker A: Another one that I haven't yet said, and I should have said this earlier, one of the most important points with process mapping is identifying who are your stakeholders, who's using this process, who benefits from this process, who doesn't benefit from this process, who are you going to need in order to implement changes, and who are going to be your bottlenecks or your blockers. Because there's a lot of people in many industries, if not all industries, that basically like status quo. Because let's be honest, keeping things the way they are makes life a lot easier. It is a very exhausting job to be a process improvement expert. And that's how I describe myself. I'm a change leader and a process improvement expert. And I end up taking on these jobs where there's a lot of cleanup and a lot of uphill battles trying to get people who may have been doing their jobs for 5, 10, 15, 20, even 30 years. I used to have on my old team, someone was in the role for longer than I've been alive and it's really hard to get people to change. So being very clear about who are the people impacted, whether they're working the process or are benefiting from it or are an end product of the process. So identifying stakeholders is really, really key.
And then the other key point with process mapping, this is a work in progress for me. So I'm sure it's a work in progress for anyone who identifies as a change leader, but understanding that change doesn't happen overnight.
So the person who introduced me to the concept of continuous improvement and process improvement, she was my first manager who hired me, hired me as a manager. She always said 1%, just aim to be 1% better every day. And that compounds over time. So when I'm doing process improvement work and process mapping work, it gets overwhelming sometimes to look at a process. I've worked on process maps that in person physically took up a whole wall and to see, wow, there's so many broken steps here, so many decision points that shouldn't be. Decision points should be automated. And it can feel very defeating. So just reminding yourself that it doesn't need to be fixed overnight, not everything's going to be fixed right away. And just asking yourself, you know, how can I break down these changes into chunks that make sense, into phases that make sense. I've dealt with people in the past who say, if I can't fix everything all at once, I don't want to make any changes. But you know what, you're just shooting yourself in the foot because sometimes you need to have a multi, 2, 3, 4, 5 stage approach to make changes.
[00:25:20] Speaker B: Right?
[00:25:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:22] Speaker B: I love, I love everything you said there. I love when you said. He came out and said that change doesn't happen overnight and that some people don't like change. Absolutely. I mean, people don't even. I was had a, a guest on, at a. On a previous episode which will come out later, and we were talking about, you know, people moving from one desk to another where the manager says, you know, I'm going to move you to this desk. And they don't like it. I'm gonna admit I've been in situations where I didn't like it because I, I liked where I was sitting when I'm working. I like it to be, I like a certain amount of. I don't need it to be like a pin drop, but I need to be able to concentrate in order to concentrate. I can't have people walking around talking.
[00:26:08] Speaker A: Standing in front of my desk, same way.
[00:26:10] Speaker B: I can't. I can't I can't do that.
[00:26:12] Speaker A: I need concepts. Office spaces do not jive well with me.
[00:26:16] Speaker B: They just, they just, I just can't, I just can't do it. I mean, I can have music on in the background, but when someone is kind of jibber jabbering about stuff that has nothing to do with what I'm doing or, or work or whatever, it's, it's, it's distracting for me. So, so, so people don't like that. They don't like change. And it's not easy to, to, to, to get people to change or to look at stuff. So what I've kind of been looking at a lot lately and I've done an episode on this is diversity of thought. And what's helped me look at a lot of stuff differently and it's helped me discover my mindset is a lot different now. So when things are happening or when things are being looked at, I kind of look at the scope of different sides. So if we're in a meeting and people are one side or one person saying one thing, I can, I'm in my head, I'm thinking, okay, I can see their point. And then I listen to the other person, I'm like, okay, I could see their point.
Nobody, they're not wrong. That's just their side. I may not have to agree with it, but I can definitely see where they're coming from and understand their pain points. Now, my job, and just like your job, it sounds like when you're doing that stuff is to try to, when you're doing process mapping and you're figuring stuff out is to figure out those pain points and say, okay, I've had five people say this about this process, so I need to look at it. And I, you know, I was kind of hemming and hawing at it, but now I kind of understand what their thoughts are or what their pain points are on that. So how can I adjust it or how can I fix it, you know, to help them? But as long as we're, we're talking, talked about communication earlier. As long as we're being good listeners or willing to listen to people's ideas or processes. I've met a lot of leaders who don't want to listen to whatever anybody has to say. They just want to do what they think because they feel that they know best. And it's not always the case. You don't always know best. Sometimes you are wrong and sometimes you have to make some changes. So, you know, maybe you were doing some process mapping on something and five people come to you and say, hey, you know, I don't, you know, I'm not expecting you to change everything, but here's what we notice and then you're okay, well let me look, I'll have a look at it. I'm not gonna make any promises, but I'll have a look at it. And then maybe you make some adjustments and then you, you go to speak to them, you know, the five of them, and say, hey listen, I had a look at what you were saying. I agree with what you were saying. I understand your pain points. I've made this minor adjustment. Let me know what your thoughts are on what I've done.
That's going to open up a lot of doors. Because they're saying, because you've listened to them and they respect you've listened to them. So they're gonna, they're gonna be open to making it doesn't mean that they're gonna come with 8 and if 8, 9, 10 different other options, it just means that, you know, you are open to hearing their suggestions. You may not be able to do anything on any everything and anything that they come with, but if you can fix certain things, that's going to make people so much more happier.
[00:29:32] Speaker A: And I love that you said that. Just giving the space for people to come to you with problems and just to hear them out. It brings me back to one of my first management jobs. I was managing a team that had a history of management that, you know, very classic old school management style that it was always the manager's decision to make changes. They didn't listen to what their team had to say, they didn't take any of the teams feedback and they felt completely demoralized. Soon after starting with them, they recognized that, oh well, Carly actually wants to hear about what we've observed and ideas that we have for change and ideas we have for process improvement. And when I first started with the team, whenever we'd have team meetings and I'd ask their opinion about how can we make this better. What's challenging about this for you? It'd be crickets. No one would speak up. Within a year I couldn't keep them, I couldn't keep their mouth shut. Like they just had all like non stop all these ideas, just viewing, which was so great, like as a leader, just the fact that they felt so comfortable say, Carly, I have this idea, let's try this out. Carly, this is a problem, here's a solution they have. So when you empower your team to come to you with problems, even if you may not have solutions for them. Just like you said, just giving them the validation that, wow, that sounds so challenging. I'm so sorry you've had to deal with this for so long. Let's see what we can do to fix it. And sometimes even if you can't do anything about it, at least knowing that you tried to make a breaker team.
[00:30:49] Speaker B: Yeah. You're showing that you're care, that you care, which means that you're going to create engagement, which means that they're going to stick around longer. So it's, it's a chain, it's a chain reaction. So I love that.
What are the.
Again, we might have talked about this, but let's dig deeper here. What are the pros and cons of process mapping?
[00:31:10] Speaker A: Let's start with the cons. Let's get the negatives out of the way. The cons is it's very time consuming. There's no way around it. Process mapping is a very time intensive process.
I've done lean training, lean Six Sigma training, which is a very common certification. You get to be a process improvement expert. And I've also supported some other cohorts of colleagues of mine going through the process. And to get certified with at least the green belt, which is sort of intermediate, you have to do a project. And like these projects can take years. Like literally years.
I worked on a project that I was a sponsor for that took about one year. We have people that started last spring, so over a year ago that's still not completed. So just knowing that like what I said earlier doesn't happen overnight. Process improvement does take time. Process mapping, the activity itself also is quite time consuming. But the, it's the follow ups and the execution after the fact that really takes a lot of time.
Also expensive. So if you don't have budget to make changes like right now, there's some issues I'm dealing with that require tech enhancements that we just don't have budget for. So sometimes you're kind of stuck and need to do make do with the resources that you have.
Another con I would say is that it's very political depending on the nature of your work. Like again, I work in higher education, which is very legacy based. A lot of the clients I work for, I work a lot in the legal industry. Also very legacy based. The general education system, very legacy based. So sometimes people are very possessive of the processes that they've created or have been working on for so many years. So to suggest that a process should be Changed that can be a personal attack on someone or, you know, a slight to the ego so that, you know, there is a political component there that you need to be aware of in terms of the con. The positives, like, just endless when you do process improvements as a result of, of process mapping. Cost savings, time savings, improved team morale, improved collaboration with other teams. Because a lot of times our processes do impact other teams and other stakeholders. So it can really help improve relationships.
It's also exciting, like, it's just so exciting to look at a process that may be in place in an organization for many, many years, and you're just giving it a facelift. And you can help, you know, make your clients happier, offer more value to clients, increase the number of clients that you get using your product or your service or whatever it is that you're working on. So lots of benefits to you as a leader, your team, your clients, and your other stakeholders.
[00:33:44] Speaker B: And so when you're talking about the cons, you're saying it was very time consuming.
I could definitely see that because of the stuff you were saying earlier in our conversation here, that there's so many things that you gotta. So many aspects you got to look at in order to fix the issues and come up with solutions for it. We have to look at every avenue. So I could definitely see how time consuming it is. But, you know, do you find that people.
Or have you experienced people taking any. Or trying to take shortcuts from it because of the time consuming? Because that's something that you've seen in the past.
[00:34:25] Speaker A: What do you mean shortcuts in terms of what?
[00:34:27] Speaker B: Like, so, so have they taken any shortcuts?
Like, have they missed some aspects of it? And just to try to say. Or have they left out things or thought things are not important? So because it's not important, I'm just gonna leave that out and then we're gonna. And then I'm done, I'm done, I'm done. I've done the process mapping of it, and here's what I've come up with. And then you've kind of looked at it. You go, okay, well, what about this? What about that?
[00:34:53] Speaker A: What about.
[00:34:54] Speaker B: Because it's so time consuming.
[00:34:56] Speaker A: I have worked on process mapping exercises where, you know, there was a particular step or group of steps that the group had determined that, oh, it's probably not needed and not necessary, so let's eliminate the steps or let's modify where it lands in the process. And if that process is shared with another unit, there might be a very Good reason why that process exists the way it does. And when you remove those steps, it actually causes major problems for the other team. One of my first major process mapping exercises, I was responsible for facilitating process mapping for our entire enrollment cycle, which actually includes four major departments across the university. And I learned a lot through that process and initially had each individual team meet with me to create their own process map based on their own steps. And because of that, and wanting to make changes after we did the process mapping, because I didn't have all the stakeholders in the room, we miss things that, you know, were avoidable if all the right people were in the right room. So my advice is, if you're doing a process map exercise and it involves multiple teams, yes, it is easier to meet with individual teams. And I think that you should maybe to start. But before you make any changes to the process in terms of what future state looks like and planning what that future state execution would be, make sure you have all the stakeholders in the room at once. Because there may be dependencies and different domino effects as things change.
[00:36:14] Speaker B: And so is it, is it a process where you got all the managers in a room, you're discussing everything, the whole teams?
[00:36:21] Speaker A: Actually, I don't like having managers because often, like, I don't, I don't like, for example, I manage the scheduling team. I don't know how to create a schedule. So you need to have the people doing the work to explain what the process is. Yeah, okay. Yeah.
[00:36:32] Speaker B: So you have everybody that you need in a room to discuss stuff and they give you all the information. Has there been any, or is there any instances where you are, you've gotten all the information, you started to do it, and then maybe five days later someone's come to you from a team saying, oh, we forgot to mention this. So then you have to start from scratch at that point.
[00:36:58] Speaker A: Yes. Which is so annoying. And so I use one of the most popular process mapping tools out there that's actually free. It's called Miro M I R O. And so, yes, I'm thinking about this course and enrollment process map that multi, multi pages of PDFs when you export it. And I remember, like, starting to build the process, we had like a good working draft. And then one of the teams comes back to me and says, oh, can we add these seven additional steps? And it is a lot, it is a lot of work to kind of. You don't rebuild from scratch, but it is a lot of moving shapes and arrows around. So it definitely, definitely happens. It is part of the process though you'll never get a process map. Perfect start to finish on your first draft. That never happens.
[00:37:44] Speaker B: What do you see the future for process mapping?
[00:37:48] Speaker A: Lots of AI.
You know the Amira already has AI integrations in it because right now when you do a process map, even if there are online tools to do it, it is still quite manual.
I'm doing my project management certificate like I mentioned, so I know that like Microsoft has some interesting project management software where you enter the steps. And this is the thing with process mapping, there's so much overlap with project management. Lean, Six Sigma, like all these different credentials you can get, they're all the same, just different language. So there's lots of process mapping involved in project management. So anyway, there are technologies out there where you can just basically dump all of the steps in the right order and then it will just build the process map for you and you can identify this is a decision point and here's your decision treat and here are your options and here are the dependencies for this step and it builds it all for you in the matter of seconds, which saves hours, if not days of work of actually physically building these process maps.
[00:38:48] Speaker B: So it is get. So the future does look great for it.
It sounds like it's going to make it a little bit easier for anybody who does any process mapping is what they're seeing.
[00:39:00] Speaker A: Totally. Yeah.
[00:39:01] Speaker B: Well, that's exciting for sure, because we want to make things better. You know, we all always, we always hope in our. Whatever we do that things are going to get better and things are going to get a little bit easier for us to help us do better jobs in what we do. So I love to hear, I love to hear that for sure.
What are one of the takeaways that you want the audience to get from this episode today?
[00:39:25] Speaker A: You know, it's funny, I was putting some notes together before meeting you and whenever I talk about anything related to management or leadership, I often think of Brene Brown. She's one of my. She was the like the first leadership expert that I was introduced to once I became a manager. And I just think that she's so brilliant and has so many great takeaways.
One of her, One of my favorite quotes of hers is actually a leadership quote, but actually ties in so nicely with process improvement and process mapping. And the quote is a leader is anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes and has the courage to develop that potential. And why I wanted to share that in terms of any main takeaways, I think a Lot of times there's an expectation that team leaders, managers, directors, they're the ones in charge of fixing things, and they're the ones who have the power to make change. But I disagree with that narrative. I think that a leader could be anybody on a team, whether you're an admin assistant, whether you're a middle manager, whether you're a coordinator, whether you're a CEO. And if you see an issue that's driving you bonkers or driving your team bonkers, or driving your clients bonkers, you ultimately have the leadership potential within you to make a change. And you shouldn't wait for your boss to say, hey, this process isn't working, or, hey, this process is a big waste of time. Let's do something about it. I hope that anyone listening here who maybe doesn't manage a team of people, let this be your permission to be vulnerable, to go to your boss and say, hey, this is something I've observed. This is a process that isn't working. Would you be open to revisiting what this could potentially look like? And I think that you'll be so surprised to see where you end up. And I think that, you know, it's funny that you said at the beginning of the podcast that you're not afraid of asking questions, you're not afraid of trying things. I attribute my success. I was, you know, still am, one of the youngest managers in my division, in my institution. I've had a lot of amazing opportunities that I don't think a lot of people do this early on in their career. And I think it's because I leaned into having that courage of daring to ask challenging questions, not being afraid to put myself out there and try and experiment with new things. And I think that really does connect so beautifully with process improvement and process mapping. You just have to have the courage to raise your hand and say, hey, are you open to trying things differently and taking the initiative to leading that change? So that's my, That's, I hope, a takeaway that, you know, if one person walks away with that and gets that courage from this little spiel, I am.
[00:42:00] Speaker B: I am all on board with what you said there. I, I am a firm believer that leaders come in different ways, shapes or forms, and there's different types of leaders. So it doesn't have to be the leader of. You don't have to be someone who sits on the 18th floor of a high scrape, skyscraping building. You could be coaches or leaders, teachers or leaders. The person that you step aside at work could Be your leader. You as a parent are a leader. You are just your definition of what Brene Brown said, that just tells me that anybody can be a leader. You just have to, to have that initiative. And you know, and I love the word vulnerability. You gotta, you know how you have to be vulnerable and you have to be willing to, to put yourself out there and have some care and compassion for people and be willing to, to want to help them. So that for me is a leader in a nutshell. There's many other asset aspects of it, but that is key for me and somebody. Most amazing leaders that I've had the opportunity to work with had those, had those facets of their inner repertoire and that is what made them leaders. And I again, I talked about going through a wall. I would go through a wall for any, any of them because they were just, they're just amazing individuals. And you know, you, I admire them. So I love that you had said that. It's, it's, it hits home to me for sure.
[00:43:41] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:43:42] Speaker B: Any final thoughts today?
[00:43:45] Speaker A: I think that really summarizes it. I think that was a really robust conversation.
Yeah. So again, if you want to experiment with process mapping, there's lots of great YouTube tutorials and again, as I mentioned, miro.comm I R O. It's a free tool. If you happen to be an educator. If you have, there's any other University, college or K to 12 educators or employees that are listening to this, you can actually get a free account with your education email and then there's basic free accounts as well. So I highly encourage you to play around with it and just think like if there is a process that you work with that's driving you crazy and you feel like it's quite wasteful or could be done in a much shorter period of time, experiment, try process mapping it. You'd be very surprised to see what you can come to realize through that process.
[00:44:35] Speaker B: This conversation has been, it's been amazing.
My call to action today would be to let anybody that's listening, I talked about communication. So I would say when you are not just process mapping, but if you are leading a team, just communicate. Find out what the pain points are in the individuals or people on your team and just have the patience to listen and understand exactly what they're going through or what struggles they're having. And I definitely will tell you that if you do that, you're going to have a noticeable improvement in every single one of them because they're going to see you in a different light and they're going to admire you. Their eyes are gonna open and they're, they're gonna put a smile on their face and it's everything. There's just so many things that are gonna open up when there's, when you do that. So that would be my call to action. I want to take the time, Carly, to thank you for coming on today.
This has been, it's been a tremendous conversation. I really, truly enjoy it. I mentioned earlier that you and I have had a couple conversations over the phone.
This has been more than what I expected as far as the conversation goes. And I want to tell you that you are a superb, admirable and amazing, compassionate and vulnerable individual. And I admire you. And I am so lucky and fortunate to not only have you on here today, but also to have you as part of my connection in my community. And I look forward to further discussions like this and us growing not only as contributors, but also as friends as well. So thank you so much for your time today.
[00:46:35] Speaker A: Thank you for those lovely words. It's a Friday afternoon currently and what a lovely way to end the week. So thank you so much, Andrew. That's really.
[00:46:43] Speaker B: You're very welcome. On behalf of myself and my guest Carly, I would like to thank you all for listening today. And until next time, be safe. And remember, everybody, that if we all work together, we can accomplish anything you.
[00:47:00] Speaker A: Have been listening to. Let's be diverse with Andrew Stout to stay up to date with future content. Hit Subscribe.
