12 May 2026
Why process maps fail after the workshop
The most expensive object in many Digital Transformation Consulting rooms is a wall of sticky notes that everyone photographs and nobody consults. The map is not wrong in the way a misspelled swimlane is wrong. It is wrong because it describes the happy path that the facilitator was allowed to see.
Exceptions do not wait for the laminated version. A supervisor who needs a spare-part code before the end of a shift will open a chat group that includes a vendor engineer, a cousin in IT, and someone who “used to know the old Baan screen.” That path will never appear on the workshop wall because admitting it would embarrass the owner of the official process.
PageFlow Core’s Current-state cartography starts from two live exceptions, timestamped. We ask who actually closed them. If the closer is not on the RACI, the map is a costume. The Decision Rights Map that follows is shorter than the wall: one accountable role, one forum, one time-box. It looks incomplete to people who equate completeness with boxes.
If your last workshop produced a map and the chat groups still carry the load, do not commission a prettier map. Commission a forum that can kill unofficial work — or admit that unofficial work is the operating model and write it down.