Preparing a business process for system redesign

Name the event that starts the work, the result that ends it and the person accountable between those points. A useful boundary may be “approved customer request to confirmed service booking”; “improve customer service” is too broad to design or test.

Walk through one recent example from start to finish, then list what happens when information is missing, an approval is refused or the responsible person is absent. Exceptions reveal the permissions, evidence and escalation rules that software must support.

For every step, record who receives the work, what information they rely on and where completion is stored. This exposes duplicate entry, private spreadsheets and email approvals that would otherwise remain hidden until implementation.

Set observable acceptance measures before choosing a product: required fields, approval history, maximum hand-off time or a reconciliation report. These measures allow a prototype or configured system to be evaluated against the work rather than its appearance.