From evidence to intent
Why observed work and the work a business authorises must not be treated as the same thing.
Documents, interviews, process captures and repeated activity can all provide evidence about how work appears to happen. They can reveal gaps, duplication, workarounds or uncertainty. Evidence is valuable, but it is not automatic authority.
A repeated workaround may indicate a problem rather than a practice to preserve. A stale procedure may describe work nobody should still do. An activity may be frequent only because another system is failing.
Three useful distinctions
Discovered work is how work appears to happen now.
Declared work records the business's authorised intent.
Designed work is the structure the business chooses after considering evidence, purpose and constraints.
These states can inform one another, but they should not be collapsed. Software may draft a proposed structure from evidence. It does not get to decide the business's intent. Authorised people confirm consequential changes to the accepted operating model.
Design starts with what matters
A business need not map everything before it can improve anything. It can start with work that matters most, make that work explicit and extend the model as it learns. The point is to create a clearer basis for decisions, not to reproduce every piece of existing complexity.