The key to effective collaboration is creating processes that bring clarity, accountability, and simplicity. Here’s how to build them right from the start:
1. Engage Stakeholders and Assign a Process Owner
Every successful process starts with someone taking the lead – the process owner – who keeps the workflow running smoothly and ensures it evolves as needed. Their responsibilities typically include:
- Keeping the process up-to-date
- Communicating changes to the team
- Regularly checking if the process is still useful
In a B2B SaaS environment, processes often span multiple teams – such as sales, implementation, product, support, or external partners – each with different KPIs and tools. This makes it challenging to assign a single owner since no one team may want to be fully accountable for cross-functional workflows they only partly control. Multiple co-owners often emerge by necessity, which can slow decision-making.
However, having a clear process owner does not exclude others from contributing or co-owning. Instead, the role provides a central coordinator to unify efforts, clarify responsibilities, and maintain consistency across teams.
Involve all key stakeholders when mapping the process to ensure everyone understands how their role contributes to the broader goal. Offering a view of the overall workflow fosters alignment, reduces misunderstandings, and helps identify inefficiencies. Striking the right balance between transparency and focus is crucial for effective cross-team collaboration.
2. Document the process team
Successful collaboration involves the right people at the right time, but it’s helpful to define both team-level responsibilities and individual roles. Mapping work down to specific individuals not only clarifies dependencies but also allows team leads to see when someone might be overloaded.
A useful framework to create structure in cross-team activities is the RACI model. For both the planning phase and the process itself, map the following:
- Responsible: The individuals or teams responsible for performing specific tasks
- Accountable: The decision-maker who ensures tasks are completed successfully. This is often the process owner
- Consulted: Those whose input or expertise is needed to complete tasks effectively
- Informed: Stakeholders who need updates but aren’t directly involved in execution
Document everyone’s names and roles to ensure clarity and avoid confusion. By detailing responsibilities at both the team and individual levels, it becomes easier to detect bottlenecks, manage workloads, and align tasks across the organization effectively.
3. Document the high-level steps & detailed sub-tasks of processes
Start by listing tasks in a clear, logical order, then break them down into smaller, more manageable subtasks. It’s important to do this mapping collaboratively, ensuring buy-in from the people who will be carrying out the work:
- Break down tasks into smaller, manageable subtasks
- Identify optional tasks or parallel activities that can run simultaneously
- Assign someone to take responsibility for each step
For instance, in a customer onboarding process, “Contract Signing” might be a high-level step, while “Draft Contract,” “Internal Legal Review,” and “Obtain Signatures” would be its subtasks. These subtasks may be executed by different people and teams, so outlining them at a more detailed level helps assign clearer roles and avoid confusion.
4. Document the tools used in the process
Streamlined workflows rely on having the best tools in place. For each step, consider:
- What tool or environment is the information stored in before the task begins
- What tool or environment is used to track and complete the task during work
- What tool or environment is used to store the activity after it is completed
During process mapping, if you see that email or chat is being used for key steps such as information handoffs, task tracking, or approvals, this is an ideal point to optimize the workflow. Transitioning these steps to purpose-built tools can greatly improve clarity and efficiency.
Email and chat scatter critical information across threads, making it difficult to track progress or retrieve important context. They lack built-in task assignment or tracking features, leading to unclear ownership and missed deadlines.
5. Define inputs and outputs
For every task, clarify what’s needed to begin and what the task will produce:
- Describe information requirements: Teams should clearly explain what information they need to complete their tasks and what format it should be in (e.g., a spreadsheet, Jira ticket etc.).
- Look at the whole process: When this is done for every step, it becomes clear what information needs to be gathered during the entire process, from start to finish
- Plan for later steps: If something is needed in a later step, figure out who in the earlier steps will collect that information and during which task.
6. Add benchmark durations to activities
Timing is critical to ensuring a smooth and predictable process. For each task, teams should assess how long it should take to complete under normal conditions, when all required information and resources are provided.
By understanding the typical time needed for each activity, teams can establish realistic benchmarks that support planning and help identify delays when they occur. While external factors like contractual deadlines and partner schedules can disrupt these benchmarks, a well-defined process cushions these disruptions.
With ProcessPlot, teams can also place projects “on hold” for specific reasons – like waiting on a partner’s legal review or a customer’s internal sign-off – and track how often delivery depends on internal and external factors. This visibility ensures that even when external demands arise, teams can adjust effectively without losing sight of the overall workflow.
7. Include documentation requirements
When mapping out a process, it’s essential to define if documentation is needed at the end, what it should include, and where it should be stored. Clear documentation ensures necessary information is captured, reducing confusion and enabling smooth transitions.
For instance, in a customer onboarding process, the final step might include an Account Management Handover Document outlining the customer’s needs, achieved goals, unresolved issues, and key milestones. This document ensures the account management team has all the context needed to maintain the relationship.
The format, whether a detailed report or a simple checklist, and the storage location, such as a CRM or shared drive, should be clearly defined. Including these requirements in the process helps preserve critical information, prevent miscommunication, and support accountability and improvement.
Summary #
ProcessPlot makes it simple to implement all the process best practices outlined above. By providing a structured approach, it ensures that even users with strong domain knowledge but limited experience in process creation can effectively map out every crucial element of a workflow. This structure guarantees that nothing is overlooked, creating a reliable and comprehensive process map.
Unlike traditional tools, ProcessPlot transforms static process maps into live, dynamic documents. These documents are directly linked to the actual work being done, eliminating the need to track progress in separate environments. This integration ensures that processes remain relevant and actionable, seamlessly connecting planning to execution.
For project managers handling cross-team initiatives, ProcessPlot centralizes time measurements, handover documentation, and project status into a single platform. This comprehensive view provides clarity and ensures smoother collaboration across teams.
Additionally, when multiple projects are based on a single process mapping, ProcessPlot enables teams to measure how the process performs across different contexts. This data-driven insight highlights areas for improvement, fostering continuous refinement and optimization of workflows. With ProcessPlot, organizations can achieve greater efficiency and accountability, driving long-term success.
