Mapping the way forward: Process mapping at Caerphilly Council

Earlier this year, the Digital Office for Scottish Local Government launched a centralised repository of all its processes through a collaboration with Engage Process to improve these processes, provide better services for the public, and save time, resources, and money. 

As part of their work within the Mobilising Team Caerphilly project, Caerphilly County Borough Council (CCBC) has taken on a similar task, also using the Engage Process, and recruited staff from every service area across the council to assist in mapping out all their processes. I recently helped to create and facilitate a series of workshops centred around process mapping for these people—a total of 78 attendees across three sessions. 

Upon starting this project, we quickly spotted a number of problems around the approach to process mapping across the organisation. We agreed to help everyone get on the same page and help ensure all processes are mapped out end-to-end and efficiently across the council, which is important for such a large organisation. This was not a session about the technical aspects of this method, nor the Engage Process software, but rather an approach and way of thinking around process mapping. 

 One of the inconsistencies we noticed was that some people involved were keen to start solving issues, so we mapped out the ‘to-be’ before taking the time to flesh out the current state of processes. While jumping into solution mode is tempting, mapping out the ‘as-is’ helps improve our understanding of processes in their current state and how they work. In turn, this helps to identify any current inefficiencies, bottlenecks and potential areas for improvement. Any issues identified during this step will help inform effective decision-making and provide supporting evidence for these decisions. 

Another issue we anticipated was that it might need to be clarified how to effectively map a process end-to-end, making sure steps are noted and everything is considered from various points of view. For people actively involved in these processes, it can be challenging to take a step back and view them holistically, considering the perspective of other people and the customer. As someone involved in a process, it can be easy to oversimplify the steps before and after your role. 

 To help put this into perspective for the attendees, we discussed frontstage and backstage actions and their key differences. Frontstage actions are anything the user can see or interact with, such as filling in a form on a website or speaking with an agent on the phone. Backstage actions are anything beyond what the customer can see or interact with, such as internal communication between different departments or any technologies used, such as billing systems. Following on from this, we also covered the importance of keeping the user in mind when process mapping. We did this by using a couple of real-world analogies. One of these was the model most ‘fast-food’ restaurants use to operate. When visiting one of these establishments, there are multiple entry points for a customer: drive-through, mobile app, touchscreen kiosk or good old face-to-face. This immediately gives you an idea of the importance of considering the user’s perspective when mapping out a process. 

It’s important to remember that process mapping is not just a singular task; it is ongoing. This is only the beginning of implementing a new way of working into CCBC’s workflow that will contribute to continuous improvement. The next step in this project is to conduct a piece of work around prioritisation, deciding which processes and service areas need attention first. We will also be forming a team of people responsible for governance and signing off these process maps as well as tying in with the various other projects within the Mobilising Team Caerphilly project ensuring we are well-aligned in working towards our goal of providing better services to the residents of CCBC.