Business Process
Overview

PLANNING & ORGANIZATION TOOLS

Map the full arc of your business process from design through delivery
to find where clarity breaks down.

Where This Tool Helps

Most leaders can describe their business process in broad strokes. Product gets designed, customers find it, orders come in, work gets done, payment arrives. The trouble is rarely the sequence - it is everything that lives between the steps. Handoffs that depend on one person being available. Delays no one tracks because they have always been there. Steps that run on institutional memory rather than documented procedure.

This tool walks you through six stages, from the initial shape of your product or service through to final delivery and payment. At each stage, structured sub-prompts push past the surface description into the operational detail that matters: who owns the step, how long it actually takes, and what breaks when conditions change.

The result is not a process chart for a boardroom presentation. It is a working map that shows you where your process is solid and where it is held together by habit, goodwill, or a single person’s knowledge.

How to Use This Worksheet

  1. Start with one product or service line. Mapping “everything we do” produces a document too broad to act on. Pick the offering that generates the most revenue or causes the most friction.
  2. Describe each step as it actually works, not as it should work. The gap between designed process and real process is where most of the useful information lives.
  3. Answer the sub-prompts honestly. “What could go wrong?” is the one people skip. It is also the one that surfaces single points of failure before they fail.
  4. Time estimates matter. “A few days” and “three business days” sound similar but lead to different decisions. Be specific enough to add the steps up.
  5. Mark where documentation exists and where it does not. Any step that only one person can explain is a vulnerability, regardless of how reliable that person is.
1

Business Process Overview

1 Step
Product / Service Design
What happens at this stage?
Who is responsible?
How long does this take?
What could go wrong?
2 Step
Marketing & Customer Acquisition
What happens at this stage?
Who is responsible?
How long does this take?
What could go wrong?
3 Step
Sales / Order Processing
What happens at this stage?
Who is responsible?
How long does this take?
What could go wrong?
2

Business Process Overview (continued)

4 Step
Production / Service Delivery
What happens at this stage?
Who is responsible?
How long does this take?
What could go wrong?
5 Step
Quality Assurance & Fulfillment
What happens at this stage?
Who is responsible?
How long does this take?
What could go wrong?
6 Step
Payment & Post-Delivery
What happens at this stage?
Who is responsible?
How long does this take?
What could go wrong?
3

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