The processes should be clearly defined in order to adopt the process management concept in an organization. The processes are generally categorized under these three headings:

Operational processes

Managerial processes

Quality processes

The design of process maps includes identification of:

Process owners

Parent processes

Sub-processes

Process flow and steps

Roles, conditions, and rights related to steps

The essential information and other relevant input for a seamless process flow

Process outputs

By performing a Process Prioritization Analysis, the processes which add the most value to the company are identified. Corporate strategic goals, processes' appropriateness for optimization, compliance with the technical conditions, human factors, importance of the process as a matter of business goals and the potential yield through optimization play important roles in the process prioritization processes.

Determining the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is the most strategic part of the process optimization studies. Performance criteria must be measurable and comparable. Performance criteria are closely related with an organization's strategy and objectives. These criteria can be in the form of operational goals (to add speed, to reduce costs, to increase quality, etc.) or related to strategic goals like creating a competitive difference with the company services or value proposition.

At this step, we focus on the following problems :

Deficiencies

Problems

Time losses

Recurrences

Bottlenecks

The following questions are sought to be answered;

Which activities inside the process add more value to the final result?

Are there any steps within the process which seems to be unnecessary and waste of time and money?

Are there any recurrencies and overlaps?

Are there any insufficient or missing inputs?

Are there any recurring activities or transactions?

Can the number of approvals and control steps be reduced?

Is the result satisfactory when compared with the process goal?

At this step, the proper evaluation of the process activities play a very important role. Therefore, the process activities can be classified into three categories:

Core activities

Critical but non-core activities

Core but non-critical activites

A new process map is established after this step.

This step involves the implementation of the flow, transaction and approval changes for the prescribed process optimization.