The problem
Why process capture goes wrong
The knowledge is there. It sits with the claims handler, the buyer, the team lead who has run the process for years. What goes wrong is the distance between the moment they explain it and the moment it becomes a model.
Captured twice the usual way
- Workshop: flip chart, sticky notes, a recording nobody listens to again
- Days later: an analyst rebuilds it in a modelling tool, from memory and notes
- Review by email: the process owners see a model they do not recognise
Captured once, in the room with patchley
- The diagram forms while people talk, visible to everyone
- Wrong lane, missing decision, forgotten exception: corrected on the spot
- Open questions are asked in the room, not a week later
The gap between the workshop and the model
A workshop is rich: people interrupt each other, correct a sequence, mention the case that always goes wrong. Almost none of that survives the trip to the modelling tool. What survives is the happy path, because that is what fits on the flip chart, and the model is reviewed by people who were not in the room.
Knowledge that lives in people, not in documents
The handbook describes the process as it was designed. The people describe the process as it runs: which system is really used, whom you call when the file is incomplete, why step four is skipped on Fridays. Capture has to start with them, and it has to give them something to correct while they still remember.
Four sources
Four ways a process gets into patchley
A process rarely exists in one place. patchley takes it from wherever it is: a conversation, a meeting, a document or a file. All four end in the same editable BPMN 2.0 diagram.
One person, one process, your questions
You sit with the person who runs the process and ask. Live audio or typed text goes in; the diagram builds up while you talk, so the interviewee sees the lanes and steps and corrects them before you move on.
The diagram on the wall while the group talks
Put the canvas on the screen. The group argues about the order of two steps, agrees, and the diagram shows the agreement. The workshop ends with a draft everyone has seen, not with a promise to model it later.
patchley joins your virtual meeting
Paste the meeting link. patchley joins the call as a visible participant and records only between Start and Stop. What was said lands as notes, and one step turns them into a draft of the map. Useful when the people who know the process are spread across locations and a meeting is the only room you have.
One PDF or DOCX, an audio file, a BPMN file
Upload one PDF or DOCX of up to 50 MB; an optional focus names the process to read for, so a long handbook yields one clean diagram. Recorded interviews come in as MP3 or WAV. An existing BPMN file opens as an editable diagram.
The questions
The questions that surface exceptions and workarounds
The first description of a process is always the happy path. The exceptions, the workarounds and the real decision rules only come out when you ask. This sequence works in an interview and in a workshop; with responses switched on, patchley asks the same kind of follow-up questions while you describe.
What starts it, and what ends it?
A process has a trigger and a result. "A claim is reported" and "the customer has the money or a reasoned decline" are the start and end events. Everything in between has to connect the two.
Walk me through the last case you handled.
Not "how does it work", but "what did you do yesterday". A concrete case brings out the real sequence, the system that is actually opened and the colleague who is actually asked.
Where do you decide, and on what?
Every "it depends" is a gateway. Ask for the rule behind it: covered or not, above or below the limit, complete or incomplete. If the rule lives in someone's head, write it next to the gateway.
What happens when it does not go to plan?
Missing documents, a system that is down, a customer who does not answer. The exception paths are where time is lost and where the handbook is silent.
What do you do that is not in the handbook?
The spreadsheet next to the system, the phone call that replaces a form, the approval that is given verbally. Workarounds are not mistakes to hide; they are the most honest description of where the designed process does not fit.
Who checks, and what proves it?
A four-eyes approval, a plausibility check, a sign-off. These are the control steps. Ask what the check looks at and what evidence it leaves, because an auditor will ask the same.
What a conversation becomes
From the words to the lanes
Lanes are roles, rounded boxes are steps, the diamond is a decision, the blue box is a control step. The BPMN guide explains every symbol; the examples show more processes in the same notation.
The figure shows what a short conversation about a motor claim turns into. The three roles that were mentioned become lanes. "We register it in the claims system" becomes a step with a system attached. "Then the underwriter checks whether it is covered" becomes a control step and a gateway with two outcomes. The customer's two possible endings sit at the end of the customer lane.
Nothing in the figure was drawn by hand. The people in the conversation named the roles, the steps and the decision; the diagram is the notation for what they said. That is also why the example is fictional: it exists to show the shape, not a real organisation.
From draft to sign-off
From the first draft to a diagram you can sign off
The first draft is the beginning of a conversation, not its end. Ask patchley what is unclear or missing and it points it out; it proposes changes instead of making them, and keeps every version, so that the people who own the process can sign off a diagram they have actually read.
EVERY CHANGE IS SHOWN BEFORE IT IS APPLIED · YOU DECIDE · EVERY VERSION STAYS
Capture ends with sign-off by the people who run the process, not with a file an analyst produced on their behalf.
What you get
What you have at the end
Capture produces one source, the diagram, and everything else hangs off it. The analyses per step are written from the diagram and the conversation, and the deck is filled from both. Change the diagram and the rest follows; what you wrote by hand stays.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
The questions people ask before their first interview with patchley.
Does patchley record the whole meeting?
patchley joins the call as a visible participant, so everyone in the meeting can see it is there, and records only between Start and Stop. What was said lands as notes, and one step turns them into a draft of the map. What happens to the audio and where it is processed is described on the security and data page.
Do the interviewees need to know BPMN?
No. They describe their work in their own words; the notation is patchley's job. What they need to be able to do is read the diagram well enough to say "that is wrong", and the lanes-and-boxes form is readable after a few minutes.
Can I start from an existing handbook?
Yes. Upload one PDF or DOCX of up to 50 MB with a focus on the process you want, take the draft into the interview and ask the people who run the process where the handbook is wrong. The differences are usually the most useful part.
Where is the data processed?
patchley is EU-hosted: the application runs in a data centre in Germany, and the AI models come from a European provider, hosted in the EU. Details on the security and data page.