Process mapping for successful multiplatform feature innovation

Client background

For 50 years, this client has grown into an international leader in lighting technology. The client manufactures lighting solutions across industries with innovative solutions and products.

The business challenge

The client engaged Baker Tilly’s digital solutions team to guide and support the development of a new customer-facing web portal. This portal aims to reduce call volume in customer support and increase customer satisfaction and effectiveness. When the organization sells theatre equipment to dealers, distributors and sales reps, users at those organizations need to execute complex, often years-long collaborations on designing, installing and supporting their products and equipment across many interconnected platforms. Due to this interconnection, the platforms needed to be carefully connected through APIs and the user’s experience across these platforms must be carefully designed.

Strategy and solution

To ensure no data was missed during API requests, we gathered the necessary information to understand the intricate processes involved. This information was collected through stakeholder interviews and shadowing with detailed notes taken. These notes were then used to create swim lane diagrams of the current business processes, with each lane corresponding to each platform. This approach allowed us to more easily identify the elements that needed to be designed and built within the new web portal. It also helped ensure we had a complete understanding of the processes and data being transferred to design a seamless user experience around the data interchange.

Here is the full step-by-step process:

1. Identify and shadow subject matter experts: Select internal participants who are experts in the business processes that affect the solution you are building. Schedule time to shadow their existing processes and understand the tools they currently rely on. Ask clarifying questions, and if possible, create the process map live as they walk through the process. If not, jot down the steps in bullet points and group them by the platforms used.
2. Create swim lane outline: Use tools like draw.io or Lucidchart to create your swim lane diagram. Start by making swim lanes for each platform, backend and frontend. If you are aware of the platforms involved in the future state, incorporate them. Adding the swim lanes simplifies design creation by allowing you to better visualize which platforms’ specific UI elements are a part of, which can be challenging in multiplatform projects.
3. Translate notes to diagram: Convert your notes into individual process steps within the swim lanes, ensuring all decision points are included. Use arrows across swim lanes to represent data exchanges.
4. Validate with stakeholders: Meet with the stakeholders again to verify that your swim lane diagram accurately represents the current process. Continue to incorporate feedback until there’s consensus on the critical aspects.
5. Identify improvements: To facilitate future gap analysis, create a new process map for your “future state” and use the current state diagram to brainstorm innovative ideas for process improvements, focusing on bottlenecks or tedious tasks. While shadowing and interviewing stakeholders, you likely discovered tools and processes that don’t work well today. Additionally, the value proposition for your solution may have already identified new customer needs not met by the current solution. Incorporate proposed solutions to these problems and new opportunities into the future state diagram.
6. Gather team feedback: Share your ideas with the original group of stakeholders for their input and opinions and incorporate their feedback.

This figure illustrates a simplified swim lane diagram.

This example highlights the necessary UI elements for the website and email, including a “Configure Subscription” button and a pop-up with a “Subscription Administrator” field, along with “Submit” and “Close” buttons. Within the email, there will also be a link that takes the user to the subscription administration website. The process map and designs can be reviewed by stakeholders for approval and then shared with developers to ensure they understand the required functionality for both frontend and backend development, providing big-picture context as they work on isolated pieces of the solution such as new APIs to exchange data.

Creating these swim lane diagrams on a larger scale fosters a collaborative and innovative environment, resulting in solutions that team members at our client can confidently support. It will support your human-centered UI and service design activities. Also, because these diagrams translate technical concepts and API functions to natural language, it will also facilitate early feedback rounds from stakeholders to innovate rapidly.

How we can help

Baker Tilly’s digital solutions team can help bring meaning to chaotic and complex service environments, support your organization in solving real customer problems and innovating in new opportunity spaces. We can conduct assessments and innovation workshops, involving your organization’s stakeholders to make sure everyone is aligned, working toward achieving your desired business goals and improving your customer satisfaction.