SIPOC sounds like a failed science fiction character name.

Although “Star Trek 3: The Search for SIPOC” sounds like a rather uninspired sci-fi knockoff movie, the tool called SIPOC should be much more interesting if you’re trying to get a firm grasp of a process and need a productive way to start. In this post I’ll explain what this tool is, when you should use it, and how you complete it. In the second part I’ll discuss when such a simple little tool will save you!

So what is SIPOC? It’s an acronym for: Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, and Customers. It’s a tool that ensures you think about EVERY aspect of your process and beyond, specifically who’s involved, and what are they putting in or getting out of your process. The actual process steps aren’t as important as what goes in and what comes out. If you’re in the process you may not think too much of that, but if you’re an IT professional building in this space you worry about this quite a bit! So the secret sauce of this tool is in the S, I, O, and C. We don’t typically think of those elements when we think of a process. And because of that, that’s probably where your problems live.

SIPOC Template. Five simple lists of things.

How do you know you have a handle on your process? The best way is to take a look at SIPOC, explain it to your Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), process owner and perhaps some key partners (this won’t take long at all) and if the team can fill in the blanks quickly AND in near-total agreement, then you’ve got a solid understanding of your process.

However, if substantial questions arise, then it’s worth the small amount of time (30-60 minutes) to go through the exercise with your process owners and stakeholders. And trust me: this is NOT a waste of time, it’s actually a time saver!

Completing a SIPOC is pretty straightforward. First, SIPOC is five independent lists of items. Our purpose is to define the process boundaries – where does this beast start and where does it end – and to describe the process at a high level. Fleshing out the “I” and “O” – the Inputs and Outputs does the first bit. Then we need to identify who provides these – the Suppliers and Customers. Suppliers are important because we will need to work with them in the future (e.g. ask for a change to an input). And naturally the process exists solely to serve a customer (likely an internal customer – and just calling them a customer is often a paradigm shift!) so we need to identify them. Naturally, customers will be stakeholders you must have at the process improvement table later. (Promise me you’ll invite them?)

That leaves the middle column – Process. For this, we actually don’t want a lot of detail. Just describe it in about 5-8 high level steps. How do you determine “high level?” Imagine if you were compelled to explain to your future in-laws at Thanksgiving what you do at work, how would you do it so they could understand? (They don’t have to care about it, just understand it!) Simply describe the “what” of your process, and leave the “how” and the insider jargon in your in-law’s guest bathroom. Your SIPOC is complete!

In part 2 (click here) we’ll talk about how you will be “saved” by this SIPOC. Please share your thoughts below – what did I forget? Are there some tips and tricks that I forgot about?

“If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.” – Deming