If you want to grow your business, you will likely have to get out there and travel around. While most community bankers can usually see customers by driving around town in a car, banking conferences (such as our annual event in San Francisco on April 7-10) require you to travel a bit further away. When you do, you might find it interesting that a recent study by Travel Leaders finds the top five ways business travelers choose their hotel are: a location near the meeting (83%); rewards programs (54%); free Wi-Fi (31%); a location near the airport (18%) or a free breakfast (13%). Meanwhile, other studies find about 50% of business travelers take items to the hotel that remind them of home (photos, letters, children's art) and the travel items you are most likely to leave behind and forget when you check out are chargers; power cords; toothbrushes; pajamas, socks or stockings.
When traveling, it makes sense to be prepared, as it does in banking when building a Business Continuity Plan (BCP). We combine some of those components with details on how to drive your bank to a high quality and cost effective environment through a concept known as Critical Business Processes (CBP).
Mentioned not only in BCP literature, but also in the quality strategy Six Sigma, CBP's are processes that your bank cannot live without. One option to determine whether a process is essential for your business is to draft a worst case scenario. Suppose that several simultaneous externalities shut down your capacity to continue operating. What processes should be reinstated without delay to keep your bank running? Defining and measuring the CBP's are crucial for any organization.
The easiest approach for locating CBP's is to use flowcharting. The benefits of a flowchart "leap to the eye," as mappings are easy to see and to communicate top others. They also follow a logical path and most employees are probably already familiar with flowcharts in some way or another, so buy-in increases.
Begin with the big picture and document the process as it is. Interview business owners, make notes and then translate these onto the chart. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) suggests a set of symbols to use that have been incorporated by most companies when mapping. Each of the symbols represents a step in the path and the shapes are important, as they embody the propositions and logical operators within the process.
One secret known to those familiar with quality strategies is that we can only map what we understand. Because of the logical steps that need to be fulfilled, gaps of information will drive to disconnects and breakdowns. This is the main reason why mapping is such a powerful tool and can aid management.
The flowchart is also meant to be alive, as processes change continuously. Your current version may become outdated over time, failing to provide the expected ROI. Flowcharts also feed into documentation and may be used as a replacement for lengthy process narratives. This aids in employee training for both current and new staff.
On the other hand, there are some risks in mapping. Preparers may fail to depict the process as-is, by designing the steps that they wish to see. In addition, the famous saying "garbage in, garbage out" is latent, especially if mapping techniques are not understood or if standards are used interchangeably. These flaws can result in a chart that cannot be read without the aid of the preparer, defeating the original aim for building it.
Ultimately, what we have just covered can be applied in countless initiatives. As an example, you can launch a quality improvement project by reviewing your flowchart in search of bottlenecks, "weak links," repetitive or unnecessary tasks. You can use this same tool not only for BCP, but also for cost-improvement, business intelligence, quality improvement and business plan designs. Traveling to something new in banking can be a scary proposition, but doing so with a map in hand like a flowchart can make sure you don't get lost along the way.