Chapter 2 of 8 · Your process
Your process is the product
A process is states, rules, people and a record. Capture those faithfully, in your words, and the software almost designs itself. Try one below: change the inputs and watch the rule apply.
In your words
“Every request goes to the requester's manager. Over $10k Finance signs off as well, and over $50k the Director too. Nobody approves their own request.”
Try it
Applied by the platform on every change, not left to memory.
- 1Manager approves (every request)Required
- 2Finance approves (over $10,000)Required
- Director approves (over $50,000)Skipped
- The database refuses a decision from the requester themselves, whatever screen or integration it comes from.
Examples are illustrative. People and figures are fictional, from the showroom's demo company.
What we capture
Four things, for every process
Discovery doesn't start with screens. It starts with these four, because screens, reports and integrations all follow from them.
States
Where a piece of work can be, and the moves between them. Nothing sits in a status nobody agreed.
Rules
What must be true before a move: thresholds, required details, the order things happen in.
People
Who can see, change and decide, by role, enforced by the database so every screen agrees.
The record
Every create, change and decision with who and when. Reporting and audit draw on it directly.
The exceptions are the process
The happy path takes an afternoon. The exceptions are where the value is.
Off-the-shelf tools handle the common case and leave the exceptions to email and memory. We spend discovery on questions like these, because that's where your people lose their time.
- What happens when the approver is on leave?
- Can a rejected request be resubmitted, and does it start again?
- Who can see salary details, and who only sees the name?
- What if a customer cancels after the project has started?
See a rule enforced in a working system
In the showroom, a $27,600 contractor request is waiting for your decision. Decide it, then find the decision in the audit log.