Process - SIPOC Scope.

Best for: Agreeing scope at a process-improvement kickoff, the Define-stage deliverable in DMAIC, fixing process boundaries before any detailed map is drawn, identifying upstream suppliers and downstream customers, a scope-creep agreement on the record

Use: When a process-improvement effort is opening and the first thing to agree is where the process starts and where it ends. This is the picture Lean Six Sigma draws in the Define stage before any detailed map, and the one that blocks scope creep by putting the boundary on the record at kickoff. Fill it from the middle out: fix four or fewer high-level steps first, then the outputs they produce and the customers who receive them, then work backwards to the inputs required and the suppliers who feed them. Write every cell as a short noun phrase rather than a sentence, since the columns have to stay narrow enough for all five to fit one screen. Always fill the start and end of the boundary strip, because that declaration is the reason this picture exists, and use the closing line to name what was pushed out of scope so it cannot be argued later.

Avoid: Use process-swim-lane to split the steps inside a process across roles (its horizontal axis is elapsed time, leaving no room for actors outside the process), process-raci-matrix to assign R/A/C/I responsibility per task (it carries neither input/output cells nor a start/end declaration), process-stage-gate when the exit criteria between stages are the subject (it has no columns naming upstream suppliers or downstream customers), process-relay-handoff for baton passes between teams (every handoff sits inside the organization, so all four legs belong inside the Process column rather than at the S and C ends), flow-stages-4 or process-timeline-steps to merely list the steps (neither has slots for what each step consumes or produces), diagram-flow-architecture for data links between system components (the actors are systems, not organizations), diagram-customer-journey-map for stage-by-stage experience from the customer side (the supply side is missing entirely, so both boundaries cannot be set at once), and outline-scope-boundary to set what a talk or project will and will not cover (that is agenda scope, not a supply-to-demand chain, and it has no center process column). Skip it for a procedure manual that needs many detailed steps, since the cells will not hold them.