The Why and How of a Good Production Process Map

By Paul Eldrenkamp

HELM’s mission is to revolutionize the construction industry - centering people, planet, and prosperity in our work. We work with mission-aligned construction and design firms and help improve their businesses – looking at strategy, finances, community, organization, and, of course, production. These are all significant topics, but often the first place to dig in is production—everything related to the construction process itself, like sales, pre-construction, design, construction, and project close-out. One of the tools we use with our clients is a Production Process Map - a tool that lists all the steps in a project, starting with a lead or sales call and ending with the project close-out. The map identifies who is responsible for each step, and the inputs, resources, and outputs for each action.

Sample Process Map (screenshot from Smartsheets)

Since we work with companies at different stages of their development, it's a challenge to create one tool to fit all. As a result, we end up customizing the map with each client and working with them to develop good habits.

The goal is not to put together a production process map per se, the goal is really to have a production process that yields as few surprises as possible. Putting together a production process map certainly supports having a good production process, but plenty of companies that have documented processes still end up with project-killing surprises. That’s because their process maps have not been internalized – they have not become deeply ingrained habits either at the individual or the organizational level. 

The best indicator that a company has a good process in place is that, after the second or third meeting with a prospective client, no one is caught by surprise again. That’s the gold standard. I’m not saying it’s always achievable, just that with a good process in place it’s never out of reach.

Often, it’s the business owner’s habits that are hardest and slowest to change. We work to develop good processes with regular checkpoints where other members of the team can provide organizational support for the new habits the owner wants to acquire, and hold each other accountable.

I qualify the “no surprise” standard above by saying no one is caught by surprise after the second or third meeting. Frequently, early meetings with a new prospective client are full of surprises, such as “It will take a year to design and permit, and 15 months to build – so you will be able to move in in the spring, but it will be spring of 2025” or “Typical range for what you’re talking about is $600-$750 a square foot” or “You’re at most 50 feet from those wetlands and that could be a deal-breaker for the location on the lot you have your heart set on.” It’s really useful to get these surprises out of the way as early as possible – before anything is signed. 

The main categories for surprise are:

• Budget

• Schedule

• Scope

• Quality 

Budget and schedule are pretty obvious. The difference between scope and quality is that scope is defined quantitatively (“2000 sf, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms”) and quality is defined (surprise!) qualitatively: “Certified Passive House, custom tile shower, granite countertops, quarter sawn white oak floors.” Surprises around quality frequently pop up only after construction is nearing completion, so call for special consideration during the design phase. 

The people who can get surprised are:

• The clients: “Three months ago you said $1 million; now you’re saying $1.6 million?”

• The architect: “I thought you were taking responsibility for the survey.”

• The contractor: “No one told me that the windows you specified have a 6-month lead time.”

• The crew: “What do you mean these aren’t the right rough opening sizes?”

• The trade partners: “No one told me I couldn’t run my ducts in that bay.”

Everyone who is at risk of being surprised (meaning pretty much everyone involved in the project) needs to have a chance to weigh in on the project at the right time. A good process creates those right times and also the tools that empower them to weigh in effectively. 

Documenting the process map can be hard, but it’s generally not as hard as the next step, which is making the process map a lived reality. The process map almost always represents new habits the company wants to have. It takes time and discipline and lots of practice and support to change habits. The busiest people often have the least time to change habits and, unfortunately, the company owner often is the busiest person. 

Setting aside time to walk through the whole process with key members of the team as a group can be an illuminating, successful exercise. This is particularly true if they do most things well, but have a few places where they chronically underperform. Those places are often the big hand-offs: from sales to design/pre-construction; from design/pre-construction to construction; or from substantial completion to punch list/post-construction. 

A good strategy at the beginning of this process mapping work is to pick a current project and use it as an example. 

Rather than try to fill in all the details of the whole process, instead focus on a few key milestones, ideally those that involve major budget, schedule, and scope updates or communications to the homeowner. These could include:

• Signing a pre-construction agreement 

• On completion of schematic design

• After the first hard quotes have been received from major suppliers and trade partners

• Construction contract signing

It’s not unusual for the company owner to also be the primary salesperson; it’s also not unusual for them to want to move the process along too fast and gloss over potentially difficult conversations. Providing the whole team a chance to review what expectations are being set with the homeowner can help the owner be aware of and avoid these temptations – and to head off the unpleasant surprises that often result from them.  

Once a company is on top of the 3-4 most critical milestones, filling in the details regarding what happens between those milestones is a matter of documenting what’s already happening. 

We know it’s a serious investment of time to map a company’s process (versus just diving in and doing the work). But the goal is to set up all the members of the team by defining what success in their role looks like, and we believe the investment of time is worth the effort.

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