See your business clearly before you build anything.
A shared, honest picture of how your organisation actually works, not how it’s supposed to on paper, but how it really operates day to day.
What it is
A two-layer visual tool. The Base Layer maps your operation: people (by role, not name), systems, customers, suppliers; it’s not an org chart but a picture of the relationships and dependencies that make the business run. The Process Overlays trace your key processes across that base map, one at a time, from trigger to outcome. Together they give you something most businesses have never had: a clear, shared picture of how the whole thing fits together.
What you’ll find
Concentration risk (processes that depend on one person), system gaps (manual steps that shouldn’t be), handoff friction, hidden knowledge that lives only in heads, and decision bottlenecks. These become the starting inventory for every capability decision that follows.
How to use it
Two or three people who genuinely understand how the business runs, including someone close to day-to-day operations. 60 to 90 minutes for the Base Layer, 30 to 45 per overlay; four to six overlays usually reveals enough to start. A whiteboard or Miro/FigJam and sticky notes. The conversation while you build it is often as valuable as the map.
What comes next
The foundation for every other tool: the Hidden IP Audit, Three Horizons Mapper, Entry Point Prioritiser and Proof of Value Designer all build on it. You don’t need a perfect map, just enough to build from reality rather than assumption.
Work through it with Redgum
The map works best built together in a working session with the people who run your operation. We do the drawing; you bring the knowledge. You walk away with one picture your leadership team agrees on, every step where time and money leak out, your single points of failure named, and the before picture every later improvement is measured against. Book a mapping session → Start with the free online tools
An example for a fictional business.
“The conversation that happens while you’re building the map is often as valuable as the map itself.”
Building Capability, Ch 2