UPN LO3-8: Best practice 4 – Functions and Processes

Craft is part of the creative process. – Gavin Bryars

 

Mixing up functions and activities or processes happens way quicker than you’d think!

We’re so used to looking at functions and roles:
“Marketing should inform Development & Production about the newest proposition. Then Sales can sell a viable product and clients can rely on Customer Support for help”.
The way to translate this particular sentence into a visual process flow is to:
  • Look at the verbs (inform, sell, rely)
  • Look at the nouns (newest proposition, viable product, help)
  • Look at the roles and/or functions (Marketing, Development & Production, Sales, clients, Customer Support)

 

EXPERT BOX

So, when reading a text, simply start marking all the verbs, and try to understand what the verbs need to accomplish: 
 
“Marketing should inform Development & Production about the newest proposition. Then Sales can sell a viable product and clients can rely on Customer Support for help.”
The important process-related thing here, is to inform about the newest proposition, sell a viable product and rely on help. In principle, I don’t care about the functions or roles in this stage. So map first the process: what happens to what, when and why. Than decide on the roles.