Shadow process
A shadow process is the unofficial way work actually gets done alongside, or instead of, the documented process: a spreadsheet, a phone call, a personal checklist or a workaround that people rely on but that no system or procedure records. Shadow processes usually exist for good reasons, and often depend on one person.
What is a shadow process?
They grow where systems or procedures do not fit the work: a missing field, a rule nobody configured, a customer who needs something different. The workaround solves the problem and becomes habit.
The risk is not the workaround itself but its invisibility. It is not backed up, not reviewed, and it breaks when its owner leaves or when the system around it changes.
Not to be confused with shadow IT, the use of software without approval; the two overlap, but a shadow process can be entirely manual. It also differs from an exception path, which is a legitimate route for special cases.
Why it matters for SMEs
For example: the planner of a production company keeps a whiteboard with the real speed and constraints of each machine, and corrects the plan from the planning system every morning with it. The official process says the system plans. The real process runs on the whiteboard — and on the planner.
For SMEs, shadow processes are often where the most valuable knowledge lives. Banning them rarely works; capturing them does.
Shadow process in the MentX approach
MentX captures how your company really works: the knowledge of your key people and the processes they run. We offer both a hands-on service approach — mapping your processes and capturing the knowledge behind them, from meetings, workshops and a guided intake — and our own personality-aware knowledge base, with full source attribution, in your own Knowledge Space. We build on the tools you already use and add best-practice solutions where they fit.
Process discovery in the approach looks for shadow processes explicitly. They are captured with their reasons, and the owner decides which become part of the official process. See process mapping mistakes that lose knowledge.