The supervisor thought, "Where do we begin? What is the very first thing we have to do?"

Well first, she thought, we need to define our current process so all my team members can share a common understanding of what we do. The tools? Brainstorming and Flow Diagramming.

• Brainstorming is a group technique for generating new, useful ideas. It uses a few simple rules for discussion that increase the chances for originality and innovation.
• Flow diagramming is a method of graphically describing the activities and sequence that we perform to produce some output in a process. Before you try to control a process, you must understand it. Flow diagramming is basic to understanding our work and the way we function as a whole.

So the supervisor gathered the department together, and they began to document all the steps in their work process. Post-it sheets were all over the wall! What started their work? A telephone call from a customer. What ended their process? An accurate property list. They wrote down all the related activities between these two boundaries (input/output) in the order in which they occurred. The department realized that the flow diagramming session was certainly a time of "discovery." Contrary to what they thought, they did not proceed quickly and they did not proceed methodically through their process from beginning to end, capturing every detail the first time through. A lot of discussion took place. Finally, the department reviewed the completed diagram to see if they had missed any activities or decision points and verified the accuracy of the flow diagram. Is this the actual process? Yes, they all agreed. A lot of time was spent on this effort. However, the supervisor was very pleased. "We have an invaluable tool; a map of our process," she stated (Figure B-1). "Now we can start thinking about performance measurements."

Figure B-1

Step 1: Identify Process

Department's process for picking up property