The Process Mapping Starter Guide

Steal the template right now

The 8-field process map.

Copy this into a Google Doc and fill it in for one process you do weekly. 45 minutes from blank doc to working map. The full guide has 4 worked examples (sales follow-up, content repurposing, complaint handling, weekly task handoff) so you can see what good looks like.

# Process: [Name]
Owner: [Person] · Frequency: [Daily/Weekly/etc.] · Last updated: [Date]

## Purpose
One sentence. Why this exists.

## Steps
| # | Trigger | Owner | Action | Tool | Output / Handoff |
|---|---------|-------|--------|------|------------------|
| 1 |         |       |        |      |                  |
| 2 |         |       |        |      |                  |
| 3 |         |       |        |      |                  |

## Decision points
- IF [condition] THEN [path A] ELSE [path B]

## Exceptions
- What to do when [edge case]

## Success criteria
- How we know this worked: [specific signal]

The template looks simple because it is. The hard part is filling it in honestly. The book walks through how to handle vague ownership, missing handoffs, and the 'we do it differently every time' problem that kills most mapping attempts.

What's inside

Six sections. One template. Four worked examples.

Section 1

Why mapping comes before AI

→ If the underlying process is a 2, AI makes it a 4. If it's an 8, AI makes it a 16.
→ Why tool-first rollouts fail (and how to spot you're doing one)
→ The 'map first, tool second' rule and when to break it
→ Real before/after of a sales follow-up team that did it wrong then right

Section 2

How to pick your first process

→ The 5-question filter: pain × volume × visibility × clarity × time spent
→ Why your first map should be a 5/10 process, not your hardest one
→ Common traps: mapping the dream process vs the actual process
→ A worked example of the filter scoring 4 candidate processes

Section 3

The mapping template

→ The 8 fields every step in your map needs (trigger, owner, action, tool, output, handoff, exit, exception)
→ Granularity rule: each step is one verb the same person can finish in one sitting
→ How to handle decision points and parallel paths without a flowchart tool
→ Copy-paste Google Doc template included in the PDF

Section 4

4 worked examples (full maps)

→ Sales lead follow-up: 7 steps, where leads fall through, where AI fits
→ Content repurposing SOP: 6 steps, the human-vs-AI split per step
→ Customer complaint handling: 5 steps, escalation criteria, response templates
→ Weekly team task handoff: 4 steps, the Monday-summary AI insertion point

Section 5

Where AI actually fits

→ The pattern: AI handles drafting, reminding, and categorizing. Humans handle judgment and decisions.
→ How to test whether a step is AI-ready before you build anything
→ Common failure mode: AI on a step that should be eliminated, not automated
→ The 'documented line' that separates AI work from human work in every example

Section 6

Your next step

→ A 45-minute action plan: copy template, pick one process, fill in, share, identify AI step, install one automation
→ What done looks like for your first map (specific output criteria)
→ How to roll this out to a team without making it a corporate exercise
→ Two upgrade paths: do the next one yourself, or get a 60-min Process Audit Call

10 questions, real answers

The questions operators ask me about mapping.

The honest sticking points from people trying to map their first process: where to start, how granular, what about volatile work, and where AI actually fits.

Why map before adding AI? Can't AI just figure it out?+

Because AI on a broken process is a faster broken process. If your sales follow-up has 4 handoff failures and no documented owner, AI drafting the follow-up emails just generates more emails that fall through the same cracks. Mapping forces you to fix the structure first. The book opens with the formula: if your process is a 2, AI makes it a 4. If it's an 8, AI makes it a 16. The work is moving from 2 to 8 first.

Which process should I map first?+

Not your hardest one. Not your dream-state one. Pick a 5-out-of-10 process: medium volume, medium pain, clear owner, you understand it. Common good picks: weekly reporting, lead follow-up, onboarding new hires, content repurposing. Avoid: anything political, anything cross-departmental that involves 4+ people, anything you've been promising to fix for 2 years. The book's 5-question filter does this scoring for you.

What if my 'process' is just stuff I do in my head?+

That's most processes for most operators, and it's exactly why mapping is high-leverage. You'll write down 8 steps that felt like 3 in your head. You'll discover 2 of them are actually decisions, not steps. You'll find that 'I handle that' translates into 'I do these 6 things every Tuesday.' The map exists to make the implicit explicit. The 4 worked examples in the book started as 'stuff in someone's head' too.

How granular should each step be?+

One verb the same person can finish in one sitting. 'Follow up with leads' is too coarse (it's 5 steps). 'Draft personalized email' is right. 'Type the first letter of the email' is too granular. Rule of thumb: if you can't say what the step's output is, it's too vague. If it has 3 verbs in it, it's actually 3 steps.

What about ad-hoc work that doesn't really have a process?+

If it happens more than twice a month, it has a process whether you've named it or not. Map it. The act of mapping reveals whether it's actually ad-hoc (truly different every time) or repeated-but-undocumented. Most 'ad-hoc' work is the second. If it's truly unique every time (one-off strategic projects, fire drills), don't map it. Spend mapping time on the repeated stuff.

Do I need software for this? (Lucidchart, Miro, Visio, etc.)+

No. The book deliberately uses Google Docs and Sheets for the template because those are the tools every team already pays for. Flowchart tools look pretty but they slow you down and the maps end up in a folder no one opens. A text-table map in a shared doc gets read, edited, and used.

How do I get my team to actually follow a documented process?+

Three things, in order. (1) Co-create it — pull one person from the team into the mapping. They own it after, not you. (2) Make the documented version faster than the undocumented one. If the doc adds friction, no one uses it. (3) Tie it to a metric they care about. 'Following the SOP cut handoff errors 40%' beats 'please follow the SOP.' The book has a 1-page rollout playbook.

What if the process changes constantly?+

Map the current version. Date it. Revisit monthly. The map is a living doc, not a contract. Two patterns. (1) If the changes are mostly in one step ('how we score leads' keeps shifting), that step gets its own mini-map and the master map just references it. (2) If the whole process is genuinely volatile, you're probably in early-stage territory where process work is premature. Wait until the volume justifies it.

Where exactly do I put AI in the map?+

Look for steps where you do these verbs: draft, summarize, classify, extract, reformat, remind, route, prioritize. Those are AI-ready. Look for steps where you do these verbs: decide, approve, negotiate, build relationships, make exceptions. Those stay human. The 4 worked examples in the book show this split for sales follow-up, content repurposing, complaint handling, and team task handoff.

How is this different from BPMN, Lean, Six Sigma, or other formal process modeling?+

It's the 80/20 version. BPMN and Six Sigma are powerful but they take weeks of training and the output is a chart non-experts can't read. This guide is designed for operators who don't have time for that — get a working map in 45 minutes, install AI on it next week, iterate from there. If you later want formal modeling, you'll have real maps to start from. If you don't, you still got the value.