A lot of time and energy has been focused lately on business process optimization. Thinking about individual business processes is a good thing and can lead to improvements that pay real dividends. Reducing every aspect of a business to a process diagram misses the fact that organizations are organic. Looking at the overall business goal will bring orders of magnitude larger improvements when it is consistently applied at all levels.
An organic organization grows, adapts, and learns how to make things better. When a major process optimization effort is implemented it is unusual that it is readily adopted by the humans it is designed to help. This is because within a domain of expertise informal methods are better at adapting and overcoming obstacles.
Examples of processes that really can't be statically diagramed are product design/development, innovation, marketing, motivational programs, customer service, and others. These processes critically affect customer satisfaction and profitability. What needs to be done is to work from a business model rather than from a collection of processes. The business model approach adds the "Why". Without keeping "Why" in mind you are just manufacturing a product to fill a warehouse.
A model of how this works is to consider how a real estate developer brings a development to completion. A team of financiers, architects, engineers, contractors, geologists, property managers, and more are assembled to scrutinize the project from every angle. The developer articulates the vision of what is to happen and the team brings it to fruition.
An article from last year's Optimize Magazine ("Process Optimization That Measures Up") talks about how this approach can be applied to Information Technology initiatives and was a starting point for my thoughts.