Stage 2: Plan
Understand Your Processes
Every department runs on processes unique to your business. Before you can improve them with AI, you need to actually understand them. That's harder than it sounds.
Why This Is Hard
Most companies think they know their processes. They have documentation. They have training materials. They have flowcharts from five years ago that nobody updates.
But there's a gap between the official process and what actually happens. Your best people have developed workarounds. Your systems have quirks that everyone just works around. Your handoffs between teams have informal agreements that aren't written down.
If you try to automate the documented process instead of the real one, you'll build something nobody uses.
Common Challenges
The "That's How We've Always Done It" Problem
Every organisation has processes that exist because they've always existed. Nobody remembers why. Nobody questions them. When you start mapping workflows, you'll find steps that made sense in 2015 but are now just friction.
How to handle it:
Don't just document what people do. Ask why. "What happens if you skip this step?" often reveals more than "Walk me through your process."
Tribal Knowledge
Your best people have figured out shortcuts, workarounds, and tricks that aren't written down anywhere. They're in their heads. If they leave, that knowledge walks out the door with them.
How to handle it:
Shadow your top performers. Watch them work. The gap between how they do things and how new hires are trained is where the real value hides.
Process Theatre
When you announce you're mapping processes, people perform. They do things "by the book" instead of how they actually work day-to-day. You end up documenting the official process, not the real one.
How to handle it:
Don't announce. Observe quietly. Or ask: "When things get busy and you need to cut corners, which steps do you skip?" That's closer to reality.
Cross-Department Blindspots
Sales knows their process. Ops knows theirs. But the handoffs between them? That's where things fall through cracks. Nobody owns the gaps.
How to handle it:
Map end-to-end, not department-by-department. Follow a customer order from first touch to delivery. The pain points cluster at the boundaries.
Questions That Surface the Truth
Skip "describe your process" and ask these instead:
What takes longer than it should?
Where do things get stuck waiting for someone else?
What do you wish you didn't have to do manually?
When was the last time this process was reviewed?
What would break if you weren't here?
What do new starters find confusing?
Need Help Mapping Your Processes?
I've done this across sales teams, ops teams, and everything in between. Let's talk about what's really going on in your organisation.
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