The Five W's of Your Business Processes

Who, what, when, where, why.

Ah, the Five W's. A foundational framework that's been taught in journalism for over 100 years, and one I haven't stopped using, even though I haven't worked in journalism for years. Turns out it's just as useful for documenting business processes as it is for writing a news article.

If you can answer all five of these questions for each of your core processes, and write those answers down somewhere outside the tool that runs them, you own that process. The tool(s) can be replaced and the knowledge doesn't walk out the door with it.

- Who does this process involve, and who does it affect? Who triggers it, who executes it, and who depends on it going right?
- What actually happens? Step by step, what are the actions that take place?
- When does it happen? Is it triggered by a specific event, a recurring schedule, or a manual decision?
- Where does it fit in the larger scope of your operations? Is it early in the client journey, mid-project, or end of engagement?
- Why does it exist? What would break, slow down, or get missed if this process didn't happen?

This came up in this week's Weekly Power Up, in the context of the Airtable acquisition and what it means for small businesses that have built their operations inside tools they don't control.

But honestly, this exercise is worth doing regardless of what's happening in the SaaS world. Knowing your own processes at this level of clarity is just good operational hygiene.

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