Where does my bot fit?

Process mapping

Process mapping reveals bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and gaps that may not actually add value. Your bot should be solving a problem, not adding extra steps to a process.

At this stage, it also helps you contextualise the full process that exists around your bot, and what exactly you are automating with your bot. Understanding what happens before and after your bot will help you make decisions about how you plan and build it, and ensure it achieves its intended goal within the broader process.  

Create your own process map

In Module 1, we talked about creating a process map as a way to identify automation opportunities. In this Session, we are asking you to create a process map that includes your bot in order to understand where your bot fits. We encourage you to actually draw it out, whether it’s on a mapping tool, or a quick sketch on a piece of paper.

Exactly where and how does your bot fit in? When you begin to automate, you must ask yourself five questions:

1. Where does this process start?
2. Who is involved? (reference to section II)
3. What systems are involved?
4. What part(s) is the bot automating?
5. What is the bot output?

Bot output is a critical part of the process. What is your bot actually delivering? Possible outputs include: guidance/advice, intake/interview of client, document, email notification.

Also consider what happens after the output. If a bot automates a document, does the user get it right away or does it get sent to the lawyer to review first?

An example

Let’s revisit our example from the previous Session: a corporate legal team wants to automate a tedious, frequently requested and repetitive legal document.

Before they start mapping this process, they imagine that the bot will simply automate the collection of information and automate the document. But when they draw out the process they notice something — there’s another step they can automate!

By mapping out the process surrounding and including the bot, the team is able to identify a way they could improve the bot and make the process more efficient.

Here are the answers to the 5 questions we asked above to help you understand this example.

Q: Where does this process start?
A: The document is requested by a department employee.

Q: Who is involved? (reference to section II)
A: Department employees, department heads, in house lawyers, Head of Legal

Q: What systems are involved?
A: Email, document management system

Q: What part(s) is the bot automating?
A: The request for the document by employees, collection of information from employees, automation of the document and sending the document to be reviewed.

Q: What is the bot output?
A: A completed document, an email providing the document to legal for review

Now that you know all about how to map the process that sits around your bot, try creating one yourself! Then, head to the next Session to learn how to start planning your bot.