What is the business progress? How to draw a business progress diagram?​

What is a business process?

Business progress is a chain or set of interrelated tasks and actions carried out by specialized staff or departments to achieve a company's common goal. Here are some examples of current business progress diagrams in use:

• Organizational management process diagram: This diagram sets long-term goals to provide employees with a common direction. Based on this diagram, managers can compare and contrast the content of the plan with the actual application in the organization to provide timely solutions.
• Human resource management process diagram: This diagram contains the processes and policies of the company. It helps the HR department recruit the right person, at the right time, for the right job, while also helping employees participate in learning and self-development.
• Customer care process diagram: The process of supporting customers, resolving issues, and addressing customer concerns.
• Sales process: Process diagrams to support sales, find potential customers and build relationships with customers.

See Also: What is Business Management? 14 principles in business management

The importance of business progress

The importance of business progress for a company lies in its ability to provide a clear roadmap for achieving the organization's goals. A well-designed business process contributes significantly to a company's success by helping to

• Identify the necessary tasks that individuals/teams must perform to maintain operations and achieve goals.
• Predict and prevent errors/delays to improve operational efficiency, reduce repair costs, and maximize customer satisfaction.
• Automate the company's business processes using the latest technological solutions.
• Accurately predict the necessary resources for each business activity through system-wide synchronization.
• Measure the performance of individual steps to identify errors and minimize inefficiencies, providing a foundation for continuous improvement.
• Help employees reduce the need for personalized steps or alternative solutions that can slow down or disrupt operations and increase error rates.

See Also: What are the 4 administrative functions? The roles of these functions

The essential requirements of business progress

Here are the criteria necessary to establish an effective business process:

• Transparency: The steps in the business progress must be easily traceable, monitored, and evaluated. A standardized process allows managers to observe all data to compare actual performance and achieve success for the common goal.
• Repeatability: This is the most important characteristic of any process. If a process is not repeatable, it is just an action plan.
• Updatability: A process is not a regular group of tasks; it must be able to adapt to changes in reality. If there are changes, the process content must be updated in a timely manner.

How to build a business progress diagram

In the following part, Viindoo will discuss the best practices for building a standardized production and business progress flowchart. 

Common symbols are used to convey the meaning of each step in the flowchart. Businesses should use popular shapes that everyone can understand, such as

• Diamonds: Representing decisions.
• Arrow: Representing the connection and link between steps.
• Rounded rectangle: Representing the beginning and end of the process.
• Rectangle: Representing a step, activity, or task that is responsible for a specific individual.

See Also: What is Business Model Canvas? Example and Guide to draw a Business Model Canvas

Select the type of diagram and collect information

Here is some information that businesses should consider when choosing the type of process diagram:

• The time frame required to complete each step/component in the process
• Tasks and responsibilities of each employee in the process
• Refer to the critical points in the business operation process that the company is aiming for.

See Also: What is the 5M Model? Importance of the 5M model

Stay consistent with the size and shape of designs

An improperly designed diagram will make it difficult for employees to use and track. Therefore, businesses should establish a clearer diagram through

• Evenly positioning the gaps
• Arranging the decision flows neatly
• Designing the steps in the process with appropriate sizes and aligning them with each other
• Aligning the starting/ending positions of the process arrows for each step
• Limiting too many small branches in a single arrow path.

Use icons and colors to emphasize important information

Every day, businesses have many tasks to pay attention to. Therefore, with the use of special colors and images to highlight important tasks, employees will find it easier to understand and remember prioritized tasks.

In addition, opposite steps/processes should also be emphasized with contrasting colors, with vivid symbols added to the main steps. This makes the diagram more attractive.

Use borders, and timelines to increase information density

In a business progress diagram, borders and shapes can be used to highlight and clarify the tasks of different departments. Additionally, timelines also help increase the usefulness of the diagram and limit errors when sharing personal documents.

Use labels and annotations

Businesses can flexibly refer to and use stickers or annotations if they find that the symbols in their business process are relatively difficult to understand. These elements will make the organization's diagram easier to identify, use, and grasp information.