Business process mapping details the steps that a business takes to complete a process, such as hiring an employee or ordering and shipping a product. They show "who", "what", "when", "where" and "how" for these steps, and help to analyze the "why". These maps are also called business process diagrams and business flow charts. Like other types of diagrams, these maps use symbols such as circles, rectangles, diamonds and arrows to depict the business activities.

Business processes mapping can be used to document a current process and to model a new one. Its purpose is to gain a detailed understanding of the process, people, inputs, controls and outputs, and then potentially to simplify it all, make it more efficient and/ or improve the process results. It requires time and discipline to conduct this mapping, but the payoff can be significantly overtime. Mapping has become common in the business world to standardize procedures, become more efficient, meet audit requirements and gain competitive advantage.

Business process mapping is better for some types of processes than others. For example, it usually does not lend itself to diagramming decision-making processes. High level, open-ended decision making often has too many intangibles and wild cards to effectively map.

business process is better for other two types of processes: transformational and transactional, both of which have more clearly defined activities.