Capturing knowledge is an important step in the Discovery Process. This starts with capturing information from various sources knowledgeable about a process.
In most projects we use a combination of different methods and tools for accurate and effective capture of required information. The following are useful sources of process knowledge if they exist:
- Existing process maps or process description documents
- Policy manuals
- Procedure manuals and instructions
Unfortunately, written documentation sometimes doesn’t exist and when it does it may be out of date or inaccurate.
In these cases, most process knowledge must be drawn from people’s heads using various techniques that include the following:
- Direct observation, e.g., following someone through her daily routine to see exactly what she does and how.
- Questionnaires and surveys conducted via:
- Online forms
- Telephone
- Paper
- TaskMap Capture for Excel
Material excerpted from Process Capture, Discovery Made Easy seminar
Copyright 2010 Harvard Computing Group, Inc.
