74. Financial Transformation Live - Getting started with mapping out your finance processes

74. Financial Transformation Live - Getting started with mapping out your finance processes

Hannah Munro:  

Welcome and Introduction 0:49 

Hello everybody and welcome to today's Financial Transformation Live session. I hope you're all excited. So today we're going to talk about getting started with process mapping. Okay, so... let's get started.  

Why Should We Process Map? 1:05 

So the first question is, why should we process maps? So when I speak to people, the common piece is not, it's kind of, I know I should process map, but I don't quite, I can't quite get up the motivation. So I think one of the first questions that you need to talk through with your team, with your, you know, either if you're a financial control or your CFO to talk about why you're doing this, but also if you're a CFO looking to drive this through your team, there's a couple of things that you need to just reiterate about what is the purpose of this doing these process maps so basically it's transparency so one of the most interesting things for me is when you start to process map people start to understand the process and get visibility of it and it starts to open a lot of good questions about why do we do that you know what is the purpose of that part of the process right so you know initially it's about transparency like do we have visibility of what are the processes that we as a team are going through um and order to deliver on this outcome. The second piece is reducing risk, because very often in order to put controls in place, you need to understand the processes. So identifying where there could be issues and challenges, identifying where data is being transferred for GDPR purposes. There are lots of different areas that this will help you to reduce risk and enable you to identify the areas that you should have controls in place. And fundamentally, if you think about the challenges that we're having at the moment around recruitment in our industry and in our areas, actually having visibility and documentation around processes reduces risk. If somebody leaves, you know, and you don't have somebody to replace them in house or to cover their job, it's like, what is their process? What would you do that? So reducing risk is a big piece. I think a lot of people think about that. Improving productivity. So the first part before you actually start redesigning your processes, you need to understand the current state of play, right? So A lot of the work we do is around how do we improve productivity? How do we automate? How do we minimize the amount of transactional processing? But you need a process and a base to start with. So even if it's a very top level overview the process, you need something to work from. Compliance. Very often, if you are ISO accredited, you need to have your processes documented. Very often, if you are in financial services, there's an extra burden around compliance as well. So there's, you know, and also as part of this, you can identify areas of risk, you know, go back to reducing risk. Clients, they're all intertwined. Clarity. So clarity. Very interesting. We talked about transparency, so visibility, but clarity over the steps involved and also the systems involved. Are you processing through different spreadsheets? Where are you putting data? Are you putting it into multiple places? All of that starts to come out when you start to process math. Consistency. if you've got multiple individuals doing the same process, it's always quite interesting to find out whether they're actually doing it in the same way. Are you entering data in the same way? Are you updating a following process in the same way? There's lots of things that start to open up when you start to process math. Understanding complexity. So complexity is the arch enemy of automation. And also, the arch enemy of productivity, right? So one of the things we need to understand is what are the scenarios? Where are the complexities in this process? Because we can just redesign that process and make it super slick. But if we haven't understood the complexities around it and the scenarios we might hit, we have an issue. And last but not least, and I guess this falls into the productivity piece, but understanding and identifying bottlenecks. So where, and we'll talk very much from later financial transformation lives about how do you identify what part of the process is is a bottleneck and how do you map it out? So you can quickly, easy see and validate your processes once you have it documented. So today is all about documentation. We are going to be covering, just for anyone that's interested, we're not going to be covering re-engineering, which is redesigning processes because we've got enough to cover with just documenting, but that will be the topic for the next Financial Transformation Live. So again, we'll put those links in the comments and you guys can... to follow that. So, Soph and crew, if you're listening in, if you could pop the links into the next Financial Transformation Live. For those that are more interested in the re-engineering side, that's going to be our next session. Okay. 

Process Mapping Is a Journey, Not a Destination 5:57 

So, for me, process mapping is a journey, not a destination. So, if you think you are going to spend, you know, three months mapping it and then you're just not going to touch them, then you've not really understood the power and the reason for process mapping. Okay, so process mapping in itself is a mechanism to enable the ongoing review of processes, to enable the training of new individuals to learn those processes. It should not be an end goal. It is a tool that you use in your journey, your financial transformation journey. So I think that's really key. And so That's when you start to think of it like that, it becomes less of a big deal. Because when, again, we'll talk about some of the challenges, and I think we might move straight on to that. 

Why Teams Avoid Process Mapping 6:44 

But why do teams avoid process mapping? So firstly, it's a lack of time. And to be really honest, it's a lack of priority put on process mapping. So if you genuinely are looking to streamline, improve productivity within your finance team, you need to give this some priority, you need to make sure that you and the team have under the processes and you have a base from which to improve on. Because obviously a lot of what we do is technology, but actually technology works in partnership with good processes. And I love working with clients where they've got a base, they send me a base process. I won the other day, fabulous client, really excited about working with them. They sent me their top level processes and it doesn't have to be in the design that we talked about. To be honest, I'm quite happy with just, I'd go with a photograph of posts that's on the wall to be really honest. But actually having a basis of your core processes and prioritizing this mapping is really, really important. The second piece is that it can seem like a big job, right? And that's why I think that conversation about it being a journey is really, really important. So you almost need to step back and go, right, what are the processes we need to look at, okay? And which ones are we going to focus on? Or what ones are the biggest issue that we need to start with, okay? So again, we'll talk about prioritization, but you can take a few different approaches to how you process, Matt. And again, we'll talk those through. The third thing is they don't see the need. And this is always I find really interesting. So if we go back to that first slide, thinking about all of the reasons you need to process that, all of the benefits and shifts that you're going to happen, it is the core to any process. financial transformation project really is getting hold of what your processes look like and what they're going to look like in the future. So if that is the case, if you're sensing a reluctance, you need to understand that reluctance from your team and drive it forwards and give it some momentum and some priority. And the fourth and the most common, which is kind of why I did this session in particular, is people don't know where to start. It seems like a huge issue or a huge job that they think that's going to be given to one person to do it all. So actually, that's why I like to think of it differently. I don't see it as a project as such. I see it as an ongoing piece. Okay. So how do we address all those concerns? How we get the team engaged and ready to process maps? 

Where to Begin: Prioritising Key Processes 9:15 

So the first thing is focus on the areas that matter, right? So you will have certain processes that you need to prioritize. So if you don't know what they are, then I would really, really suggest you go back to The two sessions we've done previously on financial transformation lives. So one of them was obviously running an Excel audit. It's quite interesting. Well, that shows you up in terms of where you're using Excel and you could focus on those processes where Excel is being involved a lot to understand that shift. The second and probably the more important one is your month end timeline. So if you haven't got a month end timeline documented, I'd really, really, really suggest you go to our previous financial Transformation Live, which is all about streamlining your month end. And we go through the process of mapping out your month end and then shifting that down. And that will give you a clear indication as to where to focus your process mapping efforts if you don't have an idea in your head. You may be sitting there going, absolutely, I know these three processes we need to focus on. Brilliant, right? You have a goal already. But if you're slightly unsure or you want to qualify your thoughts and your instinct as to where to focus, then those two things you really should look at. We do try to do things in order, so hopefully those of you that attended the previous one will have this already and will know exactly which processes to focus on. 

Splitting the Load Across the Team 10:45 

So second piece is split the load. So there is a tendency to go, oh, this one individual in my team is going to do all of the process mapping. And I have no issue with you there's no other way to do it having one person doing it is is great but I want you to think about the the impact of that so it might be one person is the facilitator and the formal documenter right but then you need to give ownership to certain process owners to document and make sure that their processes are documented in the in the way so one of the pushback I get on that was well what if they all documented differently so that's where you need to have a standardized way of mapping out documents. And actually, that gives me an idea. I might follow this session up with a bit of a a standardization PDF that people can print out and use in the mapping. But on this session, I go through the basics. I go through the types of images, the tools, et cetera. So you just need to agree as a team in advance how you are going to document and then work together to run things like process workshops, which we'll talk, which actually leads me on to my next point, which is scheduling regular time for process workshops. 

Scheduling and Running Process Workshops 12:02 

So you may have designated one person who is going to be responsible for documenting the processes as in the final piece but they will obviously be in the room with the people that are doing the process try not um if you can avoid um if you can to try to get the people that are actually doing the process involved in mapping it out um because obviously um that they'll have a lot more insight into the piece and it's quite interesting again you'll start to hear the scenarios and the the questions about when they vary from the standard process, why is that? Understanding that is really, really important. And they're the ones that know it. 

Process Mapping as a Change Tool 12:41 

The fourth point is about using process mapping as a tool to drive change. Like I said, process mapping is not an end goal, right? It is a tool. So use these maps. So don't wait to document all of your processes before you start rethinking and brainstorming improvements, because then the team are not understanding the power of that process map. So just make sure that you've got an agile approach to process mapping and process improvement. Now, you may say that process Absolutely. so that you've got visibility and you can actually start moving things forward because you don't want to spend a year just documenting your processes before you start improving. It's that, you know, you need to give the team some quick wins to get the motivation up to continue the process effort. 

Documenting As You Go 13:41 

And last but not least, I'm a massive believer in documenting as you go. Now, When I say documenting as you go, I don't mean it needs to be the perfect end result, but I very often will sit in a process workshop and we'll actually be putting the process together. We'll add in quick notes, like post-it notes on the digital board to duck in areas we need to run through. But you want to get it so that you can be in that room and see that. Now, what was really interesting, we used to do this with post-it notes. So we used to have a piece where we posted notes out different processes decision points etc and and it's great in a way of you know especially you know if you're on site and you um and we were in person it was brilliant but the challenge with that is then what would happen is we take pictures of this and say to them right document your processes get this down and it just never happened these massive sheets of paper and these pictures would just sit on somebody's desk and never move forward so actually That's why I'm a massive proponent of using digital tools and doing it as you go. And the great thing about that is it works in hybrid environment. You can just share it on Teams as the screen. It works in live. You just put it up on a big TV and somebody takes responsibility for documenting as you go. And it gets people seeing the output of these discussions rather than it just being a session and then you forget about it. You're actually starting the process of moving things forwards. OK, so if you are going to say one of the things you need to think about is actually running process workshops. 

Running a Process Mapping Workshop 15:16 

So what do I mean by a process workshop? So for me, it's we're going to pick a process. Right. And we're going to work this through in a session. Right. You might decide or want to try and cover a couple. That's fine. But you need to think about how you structure the session and you need to realize that actually sometimes process mapping can open as many questions as it starts to answer. OK, so my top tips, if you're going to do this within your team. So dedicate time. The thing I like about workshops is it gives people dedicate time rather than telling them to go away and do it and then bring it. it gives you a chance to get the team engaged, especially if there's multiple people doing a process. So first thing is nominate a facilitator. It doesn't have to be the CFO or the head of finance that is doing it. It's just somebody that can say, right, we're going off track here. Let's pull it back. Okay. So again, it could be your person that is doing the documenting, but just think about who is in charge of running and making sure this process workshop moves forwards, right? Before you start mapping out a process, make sure you clear really identify the start and the end points, right? Now, as you go through a process, a classic example is invoicing, right? As we go through an invoicing process, we will say, well, what if the customer doesn't exist, right? And then we We create another, we will say, oh, that's a sub process or a separate process. Don't start mapping out your new customer process at that point, right? You need to be really clear as to what is your start and end points for your process that you're mapping and try not to get distracted because you will. It's really, really hard not to. But if you, that's again, the importance of a facilitator. The third thing is try to go straight through in the first round, right? As you go through, there will be scenarios. So what if it's this type of invoice or this type of product? And my tip for this, right, is to just, especially with digital tools, or even if you're using a whiteboard and you're drawing it out, just put a post-it up with the scenarios. Just document all the scenarios, right, and come back to it. So don't try and map out everything. Pick one and go through. Because what you want to do is get all the way through to the end as quickly as you can and then go back and expand, right? So two seconds. I'm just going to check to make sure my sound is okay. Brill. Okay. So as I said, try to go straight through the process. Like I say, don't stop at go. Keep going. Get all the way through from start to end and make sure that that you, as you go, anything you need to go back with, that's the joy of either virtual or physical post-it notes, right? Just put a little note, come back to it as you go through. And so that kind of leads me on to my fourth one, is make sure you go back and deal with your variables, any complexities, any scenarios, okay? So again, that's the importance of the facilitator, right? is actually making sure that you're documenting all those variables, those complexities. Now, it may be you need more information to go away. Just make a note of it. Like, don't try and get as much down. It's almost like a brain dump, I think, of these process workshops, of everything to do with this process. It could be documenting just sub-processes, or we need to go map that out. It could be documenting, oh, we need to speak to sales to talk to them about how they're doing this. So just think about, you know, just... almost using it as a way of highlighting This is as much as we know. These are all of the scenarios that we think about. These are all the things that we need to go away and find out more about. That's what you want to get down in these process workshops. And then you can come back with all of the information and re-talk it through. So talk about documenting as you go. And it's really, really important. If you have the option to have somebody sitting there and putting it together, it doesn't have to be somebody that knows the process. Sometimes you just have somebody in your team that's really naturally technical and quick at doing this kind of stuff. And They're a great person to volunteer for documenting. And if somebody is the process leader and is really involved in that process, sometimes they aren't actually the best person to document because you want to be talking to them about the process as you go through. And this is really, really important. Get it down before you try to fix it, right? 

Get It Down, Then Fix It 19:41 

So you might be sitting in these process workshops as a CFO or finance leader and going, oh my gosh, I cannot believe that this is actually the process. And that is fine, right? And actually, that has just proved the worth of the process mapping exercise. But, right? please do not go through and start digging into why do you do that? What's driving that, right? We're not in fixed mode, we're in document mode, okay? So that's where a lot of process workshops get distracted. So you need to dig a little bit, but you need to get everything down first, and then you can start picking it apart and figuring out the why's behind the process. So always get it down first and then you can fix it and brainstorm it later. Because it's quite, sometimes quite interesting as you go through, you'll see more and you go, oh, that's why, right? So get it down and fix later. Fix is part two of your process engineering workshops, which we'll cover in the next Financial Transformation Live session. 

Validate with Real-Life Observation 20:43 

So, and always validate. So what is fascinating is people's perception, sometimes it's to do with people's perception of their own process. So they'll go, oh, I create, you know, somebody sends in a PO request, I put it on the system, and that's the process. Whereas actually when you watch them do it and actually see them do it, what they're doing is they'll receive the request from the individual, they'll then save that PO request into a file, they'll add a a line onto a spreadsheet with PO request received and then they'll create the PO. So it's really, really important that somebody validates, that somebody actually watches the person doing the process and make sure that there's no extra steps that you may not have known or heard of. So sometimes it can genuinely be, I just, they just don't think about it because they do it so automatically. They've done it for years. Sometimes it's a And they know that that's not a good process to have. And I think, again, that's one of the things you need to make really clear when you're running these process workshops that it's an open forum, right? You want to get all of the bad stuff out now. You want to have the oh my gosh moment now so that when you cut, you can actually change and improve things and find different ways to do stuff. Okay. So again, you know, please, if you have any questions or any challenges, any issues that you want to talk about, maybe some scenarios that you have hit, please do remember to pop things in the chat. Because again, even if I can't cover it as we go through, I'll either cover it at the end or I'll come back to you individually or we'll do a follow-up session. So I really do want this to be as interactive as possible. I love questions. Makes it so much more interesting to run these sessions. 

Choosing a Process Mapping Tool 22:37 

Okay. So choosing a process mapping tool. Now, this is not the... the only list the only process mapping tools out there there are loads right these are the most common ones that we work with and I'll talk and have worked with in the past but there are quite a few so don't feel like if it's not on if it's not one of these three you can't use it of course you can um but I'll just talk to you about some of the pros and cons of each why we like to work with certain ones and then it's up to you to decide you might decide to make your your looking list a bigger um and of course there are there's loads of new some premium ones that are available as well. So it's always worth a gander, but these are the ones we like to work with. So, well, I say like with, but these are the options that we very often come across. The first thing is PowerPoint. So one of the things that if you... don't want to invest at this stage in a process mapping tool like Visio or Lucid, then very often I'll see process maps in Word. Now, I generally find Word quite a challenging one to process map because it's not designed for a creative canvas. It's quite generally, and obviously you can flip it landscape, but people tend to not do that. And then they have portrait, which doesn't give you the space. Most processes are long rather than down. And it doesn't give you all of the graphical tools that you would normally have. And actually, it's quite finicky to do, right? So if you are going to process map and you don't want to invest in the proper process mapping tool, then actually, I would suggest you use PowerPoint because it's more designed for graphical interface. And then when you put it up on a screen, you can talk it through. You can add notes into the section, into the presentation notes. So it's a compromise, right? It's not my recommended approach. And I'll talk to you about why I prefer the other ones. it's a compromise. The downside to PowerPoint, I guess, is just firstly, it's not designed for process mapping. So you have to get the lines moved up. You have to think a bit more about formatting. It takes a bit longer to format everything than other tools. And it's just a bit more manual, right? So, but it's better than nothing. It's better than doing it as post-its on the wall, if you can get comfortable with it. And it's better than doing it in something like Word. Now, and obviously it comes free with most Office packages. So Most people have got Excel. Let's just be honest, we're in finance. Of course, we've got Excel on our machines. So you're likely to have access to PowerPoint, which is why I put it up there as an option. Now, if you are more of a Google crowd, just so you know, there is a documenting option, I believe, in Google Docs. Again, you have to go and add a canvas, very similar to Word. So it's not as nice, but it's an option, right? So again, I... I personally believe that if you're going to do this in finance, like the cost of just getting, even if it's just a one user project, a one-user license to a proper process mapping tool, it just makes it so much easier. If we think about the barriers that we came across, I genuinely recommend that people invest in a tool. And again, it will save you time in terms of productivity. It minimizes the barriers and the pushback you'll get from the team because it's so much easier to use. And it's designed for that purpose. So the next option that we used to use, funnily enough, was Visio. So the reason we used to use it is obviously it integrates in 365 you can just add on a license you can store it's easy to store stuff in sharepoint but what i have found certainly in the last couple of releases is it's not as slick as some of the tools it's not had as much done to it um on especially on the cloud version there is actually an on-prem version of physio still i believe um but i just didn't find it was slick and Because I'm looking to document as I go, I want it to be really streamlined, right? I want it to be super easy for somebody to pick up and just start doing. And I want it to be quick. So I don't want to have to go and drag stuff. And I really liked... when we started working with Lucidchart how easy it was to do it on the go okay so Visio is a good next step right so if I think about these in order of preference right um Lucidchart is definitely my number one and it's the one we use internally and we've got our entire organization starting to use it for process mapping now so it's it's really starting to be embedded um and you know And it's easy for people to just pick up and use. It doesn't take a lot of training. Visio is similar in that at least it's a tool designed for process mapping. So it's easier for people to pick it up. And it tends to be a lot quicker than maybe doing it through something like PowerPoint. But again, you know, you've got to pay for the Visio licenses. And like I said, so Lucidchart. So a couple of reasons I like it is I like the way it shares. I like how easy it is and intuitive it is. I like how it does automatic lines. It's quick and easy to color things, to do switch. lanes, it's drag and drop. I just generally find it very, very intuitive. And for me, getting people to do this and to get them used to doing this on an on-go basis, it needs to be easy. So that's why I recommend you start. We will put the links as well if you want to give it a go. I believe they've got, and it's been a while since we bought it, so we've had it in place for quite a while now, but there was a freemium version that we actually tried to see if it lived up to the hype. So if you want that, then again, we'll pop those links in there. Again, Soap and Team, if you wouldn't mind popping the Lucid link in the piece, if you want to go on there and have a look and see it, it's a good piece of kit. So enough on tools, you know, and, you know, It's like anything, isn't it? You can have different degrees, but if you can make life easy for people, then people tend to more likely to do things. The whole nudge theory piece of change. 

Documenting Standards and Shapes 28:28 

Okay, so the basics of documenting processes. So remember I talked about earlier about it's important to have good standards. So how, almost have a consistency in how you're documenting. Okay, I'm not a perfectionist. Like I'm just quite happy, very honest when I'm implementing to see a process map in the first place. But if you're going to make this an ethos within the team and you genuinely want to make it a skill that you as a team have, then it's worth just going through what are the different shapes that you would use in a process. So circle is normally a start. This is where we start the process. And obviously, a rounded rectangle is normally the stop. So you can clearly identify. And before you start, remember I said you have to identify the start and stop what is the output and what is the starting point you're going to map from um the other thing just to bear in mind with that i should have said that earlier is that your start and your stop doesn't have to be the beginning of the process for instance it could just be the beginning of the process that you receive it in finance or um part of um you know a part of a process that you're going to map so you can chunk it down so again don't feel like you have to um you know do the entire process from the point the customer walks in the door to when you actually deliver the service you can chunk it down you'll make it much more achievable and you'll start to pick off the processes a lot quicker um the this is the one that most people forget to do and i and this is one that i do like to see is decisions because with the points of the triangle, you can go off. And normally, so say you go off in one direction, on that line, you would put yes, no, or the option, right? And I like this because I can have multiple I can have three options rather than if you just have you know and having to figure out where stuff is going it makes it a lot cleaner and it also means you can go up and down with processes so that you can get some good spacing so I do you know if you do nothing but start stop decision and um sub-process, then we'll do that. Now, actually, I've just noticed an issue with my PowerPoint. So the sub-process normally has two lines on either side of the square. So I might just have to change that. For anyone that's watching it on demand, this will already have been fixed. But for those watching live, there's just two lines that we put either side of the sub-process. So a classic example of a sub-process is the new example I was talking about earlier. So when I'm doing an invoice, part of you know, as we go through the process, we may have a different decision tree if the customer is an existing customer. Yeah. So rather than go away and actually map out the new customer process, I would normally just stick in a sub process and go new customer and then pick that up as another process later. All right. So those top ones are, in my opinion, the minimum you should really be using, but you can get more complex. And there are some massive, some great PDFs there about all of the different shapes. Yeah. So I just talked about some of the ones that I put in there. So other ones, manual input. So if you're typing something in, this is always quite interesting because it allows you to quickly identify where you've got manual inputs. When you're producing documents, that's always quite interesting. Um, and whether you produce multiples as well, um, and then delays. So if you wait so many days before doing something, um, or you're, you're waiting for something before you move something forwards, that's where you put that in there. So this is kind of what I would say sort of the minimum, you know, if you want to go real minimum, it's the top line. But, um, if you would just have this as the basis and you could just print this. So we'll share the PowerPoint after the session, just literally print this off, talk your team through it. Um, And then that will give them a guide for actually documenting their processes. So I do think it's important to give this people, others will spend hours trying to make these perfect processes without actually thinking about it. 

Using Swimlanes and Colour Coding 32:35 

So... The next key piece is something that most people have heard. They might have heard the term swim lanes or seen it, but I really like them, right? So for me, swim lanes are a brilliant way, particularly in finance, to identify flows across different areas. So it could be across teams. It could be across software platforms. It could be whether it's internal versus external. Whatever is the concept that you're trying to show Swim lanes are a brilliant piece, right? So I often use it across platforms. So you'll see here, I've got sort of Salesforce, Sage Intact, Yepe, you know, and we're flowing all the way through and we'll go back down. And it just allows you to see when it shifts into different areas. So for me, this works really, really well. I've seen it work brilliantly when you're looking at the flow between sales, finance and operations, for example, and how that shifts across. And then again, it gives you a good talking point when you review it. And it's a lot better than just having everything in a straight line. Yeah, because then you can chunk it down and focus on different areas. The other thing as well, say what, you know, you might ask me, well, what if I want to do both teams and software platforms? Well, you can then use colors. So you might have three lanes, which could be your platforms, and then color it depending on team or vice versa. So actually I'll probably go, most of the time I go vice versa. So I'll have team on the side and then I'll color because like, for instance, say you might associate green, Salesforce, blue, yellow. Yep. And it'll allow you to quickly identify where something sits. And you might have red for Excel, for example, because you're trying to identify those points and remove it. So that's always a good way to document is to use, you know, if you need to identify multiple areas, you can think about it in those different ways and use colors as well as swim lanes. And again, swim lanes are really nice and lucid charts. If you get a chance to play with it, you can drag them in and stretch them out and do all sorts of things. It's very, very nice. 

Best Practice Tips 34:41 

Okay. So best practice for process mapping generally. So just a couple of key points over and above what we talked about today. So designate owners for processes. So once you've documented a process, your work does not stop there. Somebody needs to keep it up to date. If you make changes to processes, that process map needs to be updated. So I always like to designate an owner. And you should have a list of your processes with a link to where the digital copy is stored and who owns it. You know, and you might say, right, who owns it versus who is accountable for it, et cetera. So it's completely up to you, but you just need to think about documenting out and making sure you've got a record of who's taking responsibility for keeping these process maps up to date. If you think about the concept of a business plan, right, you would have heard this before. You don't stick a business plan in a cupboard and never look at it. Your business plan should be a living, breathing document that changes and you can continuously refer to. It's the same with process maps. If If they're printed out in a booklet, in a folder, sat on somebody's shelf and nobody looks at it, you're not using it to its full potential. Two, digital. We live in a hybrid world of working digitally. Some people may want to print out and laminate or have a folder on their desk if that is how they are so inclined. But the problem with that is that every time you make an update to a process because you're in this transformation journey, you're constantly reviewing your processes, you need to reprint that document and keep it up to date. So the best way to work with processes is to make them digital and access them digitally when you need them. This is the conversation This is a conversation we have about multiple screens. So just rather than having a folder to the side of your normal screen, ask for another screen, have it to the side and work from it in a live environment. And again, have a process, and I should have put this on there as well, have a process for feeding back where processes aren't up to date. So if you notice, oh, I'm doing something differently, there's questions you need to ask is, is it me? Am I not following the process? Or does this process need to be amended? So those are the kind of those flows of feedback need to be discussed and agreed upon. And you need to make sure that that is happening on an ongoing basis. Next thing is add notes and text. You can drag text boxes in, you can add post-it notes with key things to think about, all of that, but just don't make it a massive text. A lot of people will have Word documents for guides working through. And I agree with it in principle, but very often that can almost be overwhelming. So if you're going to have that level of detail in a Word document, make sure you have a top level process map to support it. Yeah. And have keynotes on the process map and then the detail of every, you know, every single thing they need to know in the Word document and tie it together. Have another column in your process list, your list of processes. So it'll be name of process, process owner, you know, Visio map or Lucidchart map link and URL and, you know, online Word SharePoint link as well. Review them regularly. We talked about constant feedback But as a team, you need to be regularly running process workshops. You need to be going back and thinking about those processes that you've reworked. We've made the changes. Are the process map updates? What's next? And continue moving that. And they should be... This should be good enough that a new finance person can look at it and know where things are going. If you're doing other things, other steps in a process that aren't on that process map, then to be honest, you need to make sure that you've gone back through. And normally what I find is if that's happening, it's probably because you haven't validated the process. Remember I said that last step was to actually work it through and watch somebody do the process? Yes. That's really, really important because then it enables, it means that when you look at that process, you know it's correct and it's in enough detail. 

Wrapping Up and What’s Next 38:50 

Okay. So big, deep breath. I've been chatting you guys for about 40 minutes now. So I'm really, really hope you're finding this useful. Again, please do ask questions. Even after the session, I'll pop back and keep an eye on the comments or you can DM me directly if you'd like to. But our next session is about re-engineering. Okay. So that means redesigning the processes. We're going to go through tools and techniques for brainstorming solutions and for thinking about that, you know, how to identify And the things you should know in terms of before you actually even start re-engineering and doing that. So that's very much about process redesign. But the first step is the process map. So we did this session. So hopefully you guys can go away. Just pick one process for the month and actually start mapping it out and getting documenting. And then when we come back next time, I'm going to give you the tools and techniques for running re-engineering sessions and things that you can think about in terms of reworking the actual processes. So, okay. And that one is on the 26th of April at 11 a.m. If you'd like to sign up, again, the link will be in the comments. So you can actually literally just click on it and sign up. And as I said before, if you're not following us on LinkedIn, please do. Like you'll get alerts on this and anything else that we're doing. We do lots of different pieces of content. loads of guides that we publish both on stage and also to very top levels so product agnostic so please do um keep an eye on that we also talk about the cfo podcast and you may notice the um the lovely sign behind me. So I also, if you haven't heard it or downloaded it before, the CFO podcast is available on Spotify, on Apple and all the big podcast platforms for you to download. So we do publish these sessions afterwards, you know, on the podcast so people can listen and engage with it in that way. But obviously for those that are maybe listening to the podcast, I really would suggest you guys turn up to the live either on LinkedIn or YouTube. One, because you can ask questions Um, and you can, uh, you know, you could ask me where things are going. Um, and also, um, we can keep, um, uh, we can keep you up to date with, um, the pictures, et cetera. So things like graphics, like the sections aren't as, um, as good on that. Um, the, so, um, okay. So, um, The other thing as well is just to say, if you didn't catch the earlier part of this session, if you want email links, you'll get the workbook. We've got a few workbooks and pieces of content. You can sign up on our website and do that. So next steps. So for those that are interested in exploring other solutions, we are running an Automate Your Finance Processes with Sage Intact webinar. So again, those links will be in the chat. We have Getting Started Guide to Streamlining Your Processes. This is a great pre-read for my next session. So if you're interested in actually not just mapping processes, but actually starting to streamline, there's some great content in there, some food for thought. It's a massive document. So when you load it, don't be worried that it might take a while to load. It's huge. And to be honest, I could add loads more to it. But it's a really good starter for 10. We've got some input from some academics and people that have done Agile. So just proceed. processing that through. We've also got a quick top-level blog on the different tools, which you can download. And again, that's got the links for things like Lucidcharts and pop those in there. And we'll go there. Okay. So before I move on, I'm just going to have a quick look at the questions because I've just seen some coming through. I think my chat is a little bit delayed. So I had a question around for finance systems, what's the best type of process map? So I think it depends on the type of process. I don't have an opinion about the best way. I think it more depends on your organization. I tend to find that just getting a process map together with, I prefer swim lanes because very often finances are interacting with lots of different areas. I would also support that with documenting things like time time spent, volumes, et cetera. And I'll talk about that on my next session. So I don't necessarily believe in being ultra specific to a particular methodology when it comes to process mapping. Because I find that actually, if you make it too hard for people to do, then they don't do it. So I like to use a combination of different methodologies. I am, as you will see, I put in that. So I am a big fan of swim lanes, especially cross platforms and products and teams. So they're a really good way. I also, like I said, I use colors and things to identify. And then we'll talk about how to map out time spent, volumes, et cetera, so you can identify bottlenecks in the next session. So that's all part of the next session. Okay, how to get this presentation. So what we will do is we'll put in the link to the webpage on our website, which has the presentation, which will have the video, the actual video recording. You can actually as well there access all of the previous ones. So we'll put in the link to the top level page as well as all of the existing ones. So Tam, if you wouldn't mind popping that in there as well. And she's doing it. She's put all the guides, et cetera, that you can do that. And if you want to sign up for our next one, in terms of our process mapping one. Again, please do check out the comments or pop that link in there and you can join that live session, which is very much about re-engineering. And if there's anything else you guys are missing in terms of links, maybe you can't find it, just DM, just DM. direct mail me or put another comment on there and we'll pop that in there so you guys have it. So I really hope you have found this useful. It's been lovely to have you guys here. I think this has been our biggest live yet, which has been fabulous. So if you have ideas and thoughts for future topics, either if you could put them in the chat or send me a message direct i'd love to i'd love to hear from you if you then go away and you have a list of questions you're like and you didn't want to maybe put them on the chat you want to talk about them just put either just message me as well because actually if you're thinking oh um these are the questions i have it's likely that somebody else is thinking the same thing i'm never um such a thing as a silly question when it comes to learning so please do um please do reach out and I'm happy to arrange a follow-up which we can send out. 

Final Questions and Sign-Off 45:58 

So thank you so much to everybody for joining us. It's been a great session. It's great to hear your comments, see you interacting with the content. I hope you find it useful. And yeah, stay in touch. And I'm really looking forward to seeing you at our next Financial Transformation Live session in April. So take care, guys. Meet you soon.