A Start Point is used to represent the action that triggers or initiates a process. Generally a Start Point should represent an action, not simply a condition or state. For a Process Map documenting a customer support process flow, a Start Point may be “Customer Emails Support” or “Customer Phone Call Received.” It is a good idea to start your flow by thinking about what triggers your process, and add that as a Start Point to the upper left of your map.
You should try to start all of the pathways through your process with a Start Point. If your Process Map represents a step in a larger process, then you may start your flow using the parent or preceding step Process Map Element instead of a Start Point.
Like End Points, you should try to keep the number of Start Points on an individual Process Map as low as possible. One Start Point and one End Point is ideal but very often not possible. In our example customer support process above, the process is triggered by email and by telephone. When the start points are closely related and enter close to the same point in the overall process, that is fine. If you have multiple Start Points that are not closely related, you might want to think about breaking up your Process Map into multiple smaller maps focused on narrower parts of the overall process.
