Business process management template

Businesses are constantly growing and evolving, and the processes that support them need to keep pace. When workflows become outdated or inefficient, they can slow your team down and create unnecessary friction. That's where business process management comes in.

A business process management template helps you organize, track, and improve your processes without having to start from scratch. Below, we'll cover what BPM is, the three types of process management, what to include in your template, and how to put it to work

What is business process management?

Business process management (BPM) is the practice of analyzing, improving, and optimizing business processes to increase organizational efficiency. As companies grow, their processes often become outdated or inefficient, and BPM ensures they remain up to date and effective.

You can think of it as a kitchen renovation. After a decade of use, your appliances might still technically work, but they're likely inefficient and make hosting dinner parties a pain. BPM does the same for organizations, replacing outdated processes with more efficient ones.

What is a business process management template?

A business process management template is a reusable, structured approach to reviewing and improving your business processes. It lays the groundwork for process improvements by outlining the five stages of BPM:

• Analyze: Identify inefficiencies in your current process

• Model: Design the improved process

• Implement: Roll out the changes

• Monitor: Track performance against your goals

• Optimize: Make continuous improvements based on what you learn

By outlining these stages upfront, the template removes the organizational overhead of starting a BPM plan from scratch.

Best of all, since business process management templates are reusable, they standardize the BPM planning process for your team. No matter what business process you want to improve, from updating the hiring and onboarding processes to adding new tools or streamlining a review procedure, you can kick off your process improvement plan with a business process management template.

Benefits of a business process management template

While it's possible to create a document-based business process management template in Excel or Word, there are drawbacks to using these programs. Namely, they require manual check-ins to see the project's progress, and can make cross-functional collaboration difficult.

On the other hand, business process management templates created in a project management tool have the functionality you need to standardize and streamline your BPM process across all departments.

Here are a few perks of using a digital business process management template:

• Standardize process improvement steps across your team or organization

• Quickly jump into process updates following your business process analysis

• See upcoming tasks and project phases in real time

• Visualize project progress with dashboards

• View start dates, assignees, and task status

• Easily customize to meet the needs of each specific project goal

• Collaborate with cross-functional team members

• Attach relevant files and documents to each project phase or task

Types of business process management

Not all business processes are the same, and the way you manage them can vary depending on the type of work involved. Understanding the three main types of BPM helps you choose the right approach for each process you want to improve.

• Human-centric templates help teams manage people-driven tasks and decisions. They work well for onboarding, performance reviews, and support escalations. These templates should make ownership, approval stages, and stakeholder insight easy to track.

• Document-centric templates help teams manage files through review and approval. They work well for contract reviews, policy updates, and compliance audits. These templates should track versions, review cycles, and sign-off milestones.

• Integration-centric templates help teams manage connected systems and automated data handoffs. They work well for CRM-to-project-tool syncs and other software connections. These templates should map systems, data flow, and automation rules.

Human-centric BPM

Human-centric BPM focuses on processes primarily performed by people, such as employee onboarding, customer support workflows, and performance reviews. These processes often require approvals, handoffs, and a high degree of collaboration. A BPM template for human-centric processes should include clear task ownership, approval stages, and visibility into who is responsible for each step.

Document-centric BPM

Document-centric BPM applies to processes built around documents, like contract reviews, policy updates, or compliance audits. In these workflows, the document itself moves through stages of review, revision, and approval. Your BPM template should account for version tracking, review cycles, and sign-off milestones to keep documents moving smoothly.

Integration-centric BPM

Integration-centric BPM addresses processes that rely on connections between multiple software systems, such as syncing data between your CRM and project management tools. For these processes, your BPM template should map out each system involved, the data that flows between them, and the automation rules that keep everything connected.

What to include in your business process management template

Since you'll use your business process management template as the starting point for improving a variety of business processes, it's ideal to keep the template generic so you can duplicate it for different process improvements.

Start by building out the template to align with the five phases of BPM: analyze, model, implement, monitor, and optimize. Then, include the key information your team will need for each task:

• Task owner: Who is responsible for completing the work

• Start and end dates: When the task begins and when it's due

• Status: Whether the task has not been started, is in progress, or is complete

• Phase: Which BPM stage the task belongs to

• Priority: How urgent the task is relative to others

How to use a business process management template

Once you've built out your business process management template, you can use it to track the status of your process improvement projects. To use the template:

1. Determine what business process you need to improve by reviewing your business processes through business process analysis.

2. Duplicate the business process management template and update it so it aligns with the process you're looking to improve (for example, "Onboarding process improvement project").

3. Customize the template to align with your goals for the process improvement project. You can create tasks for the actions you need to take in each phase of the process and assign them owners, due dates, and statuses.

4. Carry out your process improvement plan and monitor results, using your BPM project to take you through the project's lifecycle.

Business process management examples

BPM templates are flexible enough to improve processes across every part of your organization. Here are a few common use cases to help you see how a BPM template works in practice.

• Sales process management: Standardize your lead-to-close workflow by mapping out each stage of your sales pipeline, from initial outreach to contract signing. A BPM template helps your sales team identify bottlenecks and keep deals moving forward.

• HR and onboarding: Improve how new hires are brought into your organization by creating a repeatable onboarding process. Use a BPM template to track each step, from offer acceptance to first-week check-ins, so nothing slips through the cracks.

• Finance and budgeting: Streamline your budget approval cycles or invoice processing by mapping out review stages, approval chains, and sign-off requirements. A BPM template provides your finance team with visibility into the status of each request.

• IT service requests: Organize how your IT team handles incoming support tickets, software provisioning, or system access requests. A BPM template ensures consistent handling and faster resolution times.

Integrated features

• Automation. Automate manual work so your team spends less time on busywork and more time on the tasks you hired them for. Rules in Asana function on a basis of triggers and actions, essentially "when X happens, do Y." Use Rules to automatically assign work, adjust due dates, set custom fields, notify stakeholders, and more.

• Status updates. Project status updates in Asana are directly connected to the work your team does, making it easy to access your project plan, goals, milestones, deliverables, and more. Ultimately, status reports reduce manual work, centralize information, and keep everyone up to date.

• Dependencies. Mark a task as waiting on another task with task dependencies. Know when your work is blocking someone else's work, so you can prioritize accordingly. When the first task is completed, the assignee will be notified that they can begin their dependent task.

• Custom fields. Custom fields are the best way to tag, sort, and filter work. Create custom fields for any information you need to track, from priority and status to email addresses and phone numbers. Plus, share custom fields across tasks and projects to ensure consistency across your organization.

Recommended apps

• Microsoft Teams. With the Microsoft Teams + Asana integration, you can search for and share the information you need without leaving Teams. Easily connect your Teams conversations to actionable items in Asana.

• Google Workplace. Attach files directly to tasks in Asana using the Google Workspace file picker, built into the Asana task pane. Easily attach any My Drive file with just a few clicks.

• Slack. Turn ideas, work requests, and action items from Slack into Asana tasks and comments. Go from quick questions and action items to tasks with assignees and due dates.

• Zoom. Asana and Zoom are partnering to help teams have more purposeful, focused meetings. The Zoom + Asana integration makes it easy to prepare for meetings, have actionable conversations, and access information after the call.

Streamline your process improvements with Asana

Improving your business processes shouldn't feel like a project in itself. With a free business process management template in Asana, you can standardize process improvements across your organization, track progress in real time, and keep your team aligned from start to finish. Whether you're improving onboarding workflows, streamlining approvals, or managing IT requests, get started with Asana today and bring clarity to your business processes.

FAQs about business process management templates