A
Process Cartography Studies
A process cartography study begins with the work itself, not with the software. We sit with the
people who perform a task, watch the task happen, and record every handover, every queue and every
informal workaround that the written procedure forgot to mention. The output is a set of process
maps drawn in one consistent line language, so that a finance route and a warehouse route can be
laid side by side and compared honestly.
This is usually the first survey a client commissions, because it exposes things nobody expects: two
departments quietly solving the same problem in opposite ways, a manual step that exists only because
a system cannot accept a certain field, a decision that is nominally owned by a manager but in
practice made by whoever is on shift. Drawn plainly, these issues become discussable.
Process Cartography Studies →
C
Network Topology Surveys
A topology survey is the physical and logical ground plan of the estate. We catalogue circuits and
their providers, switches and their firmware, wireless coverage and its dead zones, on-premise
servers and their age, and the cloud regions the business depends upon. We draw the boundaries
between public and private space and mark every point where traffic leaves the organisation.
The drawing answers questions that surface at the worst possible moment: which office loses
connectivity if this circuit fails, which systems still rely on a device that left warranty two
years ago, and where a single overloaded link is quietly throttling the whole business. Because the
drawing is dated and versioned, it also becomes the baseline against which any future change is
measured.
Network Topology Surveys →
F
Integration Roadmapping
Integration roadmapping is the discipline of deciding sequence. When six systems all need to talk to
one another, the naive answer is to connect everything at once; the expensive answer is to discover
an incompatibility in the middle of the work. We instead draw each proposed connection, assess its
difficulty and its value, and place it in a phased order that keeps the business live throughout.
Each phase on the roadmap carries a defined entry condition, a defined exit condition and a rollback
point. Clients use the roadmap to schedule work against their own calendar and budget, and to explain
to stakeholders why a later connection is deliberately deferred. The roadmap is a living document and
we revise it as each phase is completed.
Integration Roadmapping →
H
Data Flow Charting
A data flow chart follows information rather than machinery. For each significant category of record
we document where it is created, which system holds the master copy, where copies are made, how each
copy is transformed, and where it is eventually archived or destroyed. The chart distinguishes
clearly between personal and operational data, and marks every crossing of an organisational
boundary.
This is the survey that makes a privacy review tractable. Instead of answering questionnaires from
memory, a client can point at a drawing and say exactly which records travel where. The same chart
underpins retention policy, backup strategy and incident planning, because all three depend on
knowing the true shape of the flow rather than a hopeful summary of it.
Data Flow Charting →
K
System Inventory Mapping
The system inventory is the register behind every other drawing. We list each application, service,
licence, device and subscription, and against each line we record an owner, an annual cost, a
criticality rating and a renewal date. Duplicate and orphaned services are flagged, because they are
the quietest line items in any technology budget.
Once the register exists, it becomes a management instrument rather than a spreadsheet. Renewals can
be planned, unused licences retired, and single points of failure identified before they fail. We
maintain the inventory as a structured document so that it can be filtered, sorted and handed to an
accountant, an auditor or a successor without translation.
System Inventory Mapping →
M
Migration Route Planning
Migration route planning applies everything above to a single objective: moving the estate from its
current state to a target state without losing data, money or goodwill. We draw the departure point
from the existing surveys, draw the destination, and then lay out the stages between them, each one
chosen so that the business is never balanced on a half-finished move.
Every stage carries a pre-flight check, a migration window, a verification step and an explicit
rollback route. We plan the communication as carefully as the technology, because the people
affected by a change deserve to know what is happening and when. The final deliverable is a
sequence a competent team can execute with confidence.
Migration Route Planning →