Businessmap 11: A New Era of Work Visualization & AI Automation

It’s been quite the journey!

From simple boards to multiple workflows.

From workspaces and management boards to OKRs and executive dashboards.

From Kanbanize to Businessmap...

Over the last almost 15 years, we’ve experienced many ups and downs, searching for better ways to work. We’ve realized that no matter the organizations we work with, at their core, they’re all looking to improve their processes to achieve higher efficiency and happier customers.

That’s why we started thinking about how to bring the full circle of efficiency together:

• End-to-end visualization 
• Next-level work automation 
• Analysis & reflection 

The result is – Businessmap 11.

1. End-to-end Visualization & Process Mapping with Whiteboards

For those of you familiar with Businessmap (formerly Kanbanize), you know that the work management boards are the essence of our product. They give you the flexibility to manage a process from beginning to end.

However, throughout thousands of conversations we have with organizations every year, people were wondering:

• “What if we don’t have a defined process yet”? 
• “How can we map our value streams before managing them”? 
• “How do we create flowcharts, brainstorm ideas, etc., before putting something to practice”? 

That had us thinking. The conceptualization part of a workflow/process is just as important as managing it.

To answer these demands and bring together conceptualization and implementation in a single environment, we introduce DIGITAL WHITEBOARDS in Businessmap.

 
Think of a whiteboard as the place where you can digitally lay out your ideas with sticky notes, process symbols, and more. Every whiteboard is highly flexible, allowing you to: 

• Visualize process flows 
• Map value streams 
• Create user story maps 
• Brainstorm ideas, product improvements or just record notes on your work visually 
• And many, many more... 

With the Whiteboards, we can now say that we’ve got a full picture of process transparency. From thinking of that great idea or mapping a specific business process... to managing it in reality... Businessmap 11 has it all!

Keep in mind that Whiteboards open a new chapter in our product’s development and we’ve got a lot more improvements coming your way! For more information on how to build your first digital whiteboard, check out our Knowledge Base article.

2. Next-Level Work Automation with AI

There’s one thing that’s been buzzing around the world more than anything else.

Of course, I am talking about AI (Artificial Intelligence).

If we imagine that organizational efficiency is a continuous cycle with visualization on top, then AUTOMATION definitely covers the second part of it. Remember JIDOKA from Lean (automation with a human touch)?

Traditionally, we thought of automation as “If-This-Then-That” rules. But now, with AI, we can literally take this “automation with a human touch” meaning to the next level.

And while we’ve been experimenting with AI use cases in our product for the last year, we didn’t have a complete thing... UP TO NOW.

Businessmap 11 brings a full picture of AI capabilities, allowing you to automate different parts of your daily work management. Whether that’s:

1. Responding to comments or emails 
2. Creating subtasks to manage daily activities 
3. Analyzing different parts of your process (workflows, lanes, work stages, etc.) 
4. Getting instant answers to your questions 
5. OR teaching the system your unique BUSINESS CONTEXT to make 1 and 2 EVEN FASTER (with AI PROMPTS)

... artificial intelligence is now a full-fledged member of our product.

Realistically, it will take me a few more articles to go into detail about our AI use cases, so I will stop here. But make sure you read more about doubling your productivity with AI prompts for comments, emails, and subtasks in our dedicated article.

And keep an eye on our product tutorials, we’ve got a bunch of helpful videos coming your way!

3. Analysis, Reflection, Optimization... for Continuous Improvement

“There is always a better way”! Ironically, I can’t think of a better way to describe Businessmap other than this statement.

To close the full circle of EFFICIENCY... and start it all over again, we need to ANALYZE, REFLECT, AND OPTIMIZE. If there’s a secret to improving your process and work management, then that’s it. Build it, test it, reflect on it, and then make it better STEP BY STEP.

At Businessmap, we’ve always been proud of our advanced Analytics. But just like I started this point, we knew there was a better way, so we made them even better.

And while you won’t see any major UI changes, our Businessmap 11 analytics allow more accurate data tracking for complex cases. Whether that’s moving work back and forth across boards and workflows or presenting data within various places in the platform, you can rest assured that your reporting has never been more razor-sharp!

 
Of course, I am pretty sure you will have questions. Why did we do this?, “What exactly changes”, etc., so make sure you learn more in our updated analytics article.

So, What’s Next?

We always say that the best way to learn is to test things out yourself!

So, go ahead. Play around with the whiteboards, try to bring AI to its limits, build some new reports with your data... and let us know what we need to improve.

As to what’s next with the product... we’re just getting started with Businessmap 11 and our new chapter around process management. Keep an eye on future releases as we’ve got a lot more exciting improvements in the pipeline.

Because there’s always a better way!