“Ask the practice manager” may identify a person without explaining which responsibility you need them to carry out. Are they receiving a request, deciding whether it may proceed or telling colleagues what has happened? When the same person does all three, those distinctions can remain invisible until that person is unavailable.

A small role map separates recurring responsibilities from the people currently carrying them. It shows the result each role should provide, who holds it and what coverage actually exists. Drawing more boxes does not create more staff, and removing the owner's name from a box does not establish that someone else can do the work.

1. Describe the responsibility before adding the name

Choose one bounded administrative process with a clear start and end. Write the responsibilities it needs before deciding how many people should perform them. “Receive a report and make its status visible” describes a responsibility. “Whatever Alex usually handles” leaves its boundaries inside one person's knowledge.

For each role, state its purpose and an observable result. What must be available when that part of the work is done? Who needs the result next? Which decisions belong to this role, and which must go elsewhere? A short description is usually more useful than a new title with a long list of unrelated duties.

Keep three things distinct: the role, the person assigned to it and a particular item of work. The role might be receiving office equipment reports; Alex is the current holder; one printer report is an individual item. Finishing that report does not remove the recurring role. Changing its holder should not erase the status of items already open.

Add names only after the responsibilities are understandable. A small practice may have one person holding several roles. That is not automatically a design fault. Check the work involved, necessary authority, information access and available time. Required clinical responsibilities and supervision remain with appropriately qualified and authorised people; an administrative diagram cannot transfer them.

2. Build a small map around one fictional request

Consider a wholly fictional office-printer example. The printer is used for general staff learning materials, not patient records or clinical work in this exercise. A colleague reports that a staff worksheet did not print correctly. The exercise covers receiving that report, obtaining a management decision about the next step and giving staff an accurate status update. It does not cover carrying out a repair, placing an order or arranging a supplier visit.

The staffing assumptions below are invented, with no actual practice results. In a real setting, the equipment's actual use and any safety concern must be checked through the appropriate existing process before treating the matter as routine.

This map contains three responsibilities and two current holders. A appears twice because intake and communication are different functions, even when one colleague performs both. The owner appears once because a decision remains theirs. B's limited cover is shown beside the particular role it covers, not as a general promise to replace A.

3. Follow the work across roles

With A available, the fictional request can move from intake to the owner and back to A for a status update. At the first step, A records what the colleague reported and identifies the decision needed. At the later step, A communicates the owner's recorded response. Knowing the report exists is not the same as knowing that a decision has been made.

The two roles still need a visible connection when the same person holds them. A note such as “reported to the owner” should not be read as “approved for service”. If no answer has arrived, the communication role can state that accurately. It cannot fill the gap with an expected repair date or a supplier arrangement that has not been confirmed.

Now suppose the owner has asked for one missing detail before deciding. The record should identify that request and who will obtain the detail through the agreed process. “A is handling it” is too broad: it could refer to gathering information, awaiting a decision or preparing an update. Naming the current responsibility makes the unfinished work easier to examine without blaming the person whose name happens to appear most often.

Holding several roles also means that their demands can coincide. A may need to receive a new report while communicating about another. Review the total work attached to A, including their other duties. Repeating a name across the map is a prompt to examine capacity, not a numerical score or a reason to split every function between different employees.

4. Identify which kind of gap the map reveals

Imagine A is unavailable after a report has reached the owner, but before a decision is made. During the agreed afternoon period, B can read the existing status and tell affected staff that the decision remains pending. B does not acquire the owner's authority by being A's cover. If the owner is also unavailable, the absence of an alternative authoriser remains a separate problem for management to resolve.

Change one fact: the new report arrives while A is unavailable and has not yet been recorded or routed. Cover for communication does not provide cover for intake. The map should show that gap. Management needs to decide who can receive the report, with the instruction, access and time required. A colleague may raise the gap through the existing management route without silently taking on every part of A's job.

A handover gap is different again. Suppose A has entered the report but it is unclear whether the decision role received it. Adding another name to intake would not establish receipt. Check the agreed route, the information that should pass and how the next role knows an item needs attention. A chart can show both roles filled while the connection between them is still missing.

Finally, B may be listed as cover but already assigned to another task during the same period. That is a capacity conflict, not proof that B is unwilling. Being trained and having access do not create availability. The owner must arrange coverage, adjust the plan or identify what can appropriately wait. Do not make an off-duty colleague the hidden solution.

Use a specific description for each gap: an uncovered intake role, an unavailable decision maker, an unclear handover or conflicting commitments. “The system failed” does not tell you which arrangement to change. Several gaps can coexist, and correcting one does not automatically resolve the others.

5. Walk through an absence on paper

Review the map with the people involved using an invented request on paper. Read the scenario together and ask who performs the next responsibility, what information they need and what they can actually decide. Then vary one condition: the intake holder is unavailable, the decision is pending or the communication cover is occupied elsewhere. No one needs to leave their post or become unreachable for this exercise.

Keep the stages separate. A report may be recorded without reaching its decision maker. A decision may be recorded without being communicated. An accurate status update may be sent while the underlying equipment problem remains unresolved. Mark the fictional request's actual stage rather than closing it because one role completed its part.

Where the group cannot identify a feasible next step, record the gap and the management decision required. Do not make the walkthrough look complete by inventing a substitute or assuming that a job title grants access. The useful output may be “intake cover has not been arranged” rather than a diagram with every box filled.

A successful reading of the example establishes only that the people involved can explain that scenario. It does not demonstrate repair competence, readiness for every exception or uninterrupted service in a real absence. Necessary training and supervised practice need their own arrangements. Keep urgent equipment and safety concerns on their established routes; they must not wait for a role-mapping session.

6. Keep the map connected to the work it describes

After the exercise, choose a concrete correction. In the example, management might need to arrange intake cover or clarify how a request reaches the decision holder. Decide the required instruction, access and working time before changing the name on the map. If there is no feasible cover yet, retain that fact and the next management action rather than listing someone as cover before that arrangement has been agreed.

Give the map a responsible maintainer and a review point. Record what changed, when the arrangement takes effect and who needs to know. Tell affected colleagues whether an existing open item changes hands; a revised chart should not silently move unfinished requests. Keep one current reference and handle earlier versions through the practice's normal document process.

Review the arrangement when duties, availability, access or the work itself changes. Ask whether the stated result can be produced, whether the next role receives it and whether the promised cover is available. Include preparation, checking and communication in the workload. A role description can explain a responsibility, but it cannot replace judgement, demonstrated ability or adequate staffing.

When applying the same method to patient-facing administration, define a useful result without turning it into a demand for treatment acceptance or immediate booking. Patients may ask about affordability, need time, decline or reschedule. The map should identify who can respond appropriately to those choices and questions.

Start with one process and one page. Write the recurring responsibilities, the people currently holding them, the precise coverage available and the decisions still needed. Then follow one invented item through it. The value is in seeing which work continues, which work waits and who must resolve the gap. That is a clearer basis for improving the practice than counting how many boxes no longer contain the owner's name.