SynapticSci · Louisville, Kentucky · www.synapticsci.com

Our Science · How we work · Before the first meeting

The questions we ask first. Map a laboratory workflow

Our software runs in production for clients including UW Veterinary Care, Maine DOT, and NIEHS. Your first step is to bring this worksheet to a thirty-minute conversation with an expert.

Print this worksheet, answer what you can, and bring it to your first conversation with us. It holds the questions we ask in the first hour of the Understand phase, our on-site analysis of your workflow, in six groups. Each question says why we ask it, and your answers become the agenda for that first hour.

Download the questions (PDF) Talk with an expert →

THEN · THE WORKFLOW IS NOT YET DRAWN A woman in a white coat leans in to check a bench of interconnected flasks, condensers and tubing on ring stands.
Digitally rendered from the archive photograph: Same bench and glassware wall; a rotary evaporator, a fume-hood sash and a benchtop balance replace the hand-built distillation train. NOW · WORKFLOW QUESTIONS MAP THE WORKNOW · DIGITALLY RENDERED
Fig. 1 A chemist checks a distillation train, undated archive photograph. A workflow is this bench, drawn.
THEN · undated · Wikimedia Commons · NOW · digitally rendered THEN · undated · Wikimedia Commons · public domain NOW · digitally rendered from the archive photograph above (Gemini 3 Pro Image, 2026-09-15): the room geometry, the camera and the people's positions are the photograph; everything else is generated. Not a photograph.

01How to use it

Print it, answer what you can, and bring it.

We ask these questions in the first hour of the Understand phase. Answer what you can, and leave the rest for the conversation.

Download the questions as a PDF and bring your answers to your first conversation with us.

Understand is the first of our four phases, followed by Build, Adopt, and Sustain. It is an on-site analysis of how your laboratory works, and it ends in a needs summary, user stories, and plans that you hold before any fixed price is set. How we work describes all four phases.

The conversation starts where your answers stop, and we ask the questions you leave blank at your bench.

The questions in six groups, walking one sample from intake to the report A single line runs from intake on the left to an end point on the right, the report. Six points sit along it, each carrying its group name and the questions it holds. Questions one to five are Lab and regulatory context, six to eight Sample and test scale, nine to twelve Users and access, thirteen to fifteen Instruments and integrations, sixteen to twenty Workflow, validation and risk, and twenty-one to twenty-two Data migration. A badge by the end point reads informational only. The spark brandmark sits with the words six groups of questions, and answer what you can, and bring it. An impulse travels the path. It is omitted when reduced motion is preferred. 01–05 Lab and regulatory context 06–08 Sample and test scale 09–12 Users and access 13–15 Instruments and integrations 16–20 Workflow, validation and risk 21–22 Data migration intake the report INFORMATIONAL ONLY 01–05 Lab and regulatory context 06–08 Sample and test scale 09–12 Users and access 13–15 Instruments and integrations 16–20 Workflow, validation and risk 21–22 Data migration SIX GROUPS OF QUESTIONS answer what you can, and bring it
Fig. 2 The questions in their six groups, drawn as one line that follows a sample from intake to the report. Each point carries a group and its questions.

Each answer becomes part of the needs summary, and each need becomes a user story with a place in your priority order. Every story carries an estimate you can see. We plan against a probabilistic baseline instead of a best case, and we show you the confidence level we planned to.

The questionnaire sizes the work, and pricing comes later. Pricing explains how we price, with the Understand phase under project services. Evidence shows the work we have delivered, and Trust sets out the data and migration terms.

Download the questions (PDF) How the four phases work →

What we will ask

Six groups of questions

  • Lab and regulatory context. What is driving the timeline, such as an assessment, a retirement, a contract, or plain frustration?
  • Sample and test scale. How many samples arrive on a normal day, and on the worst day of your year?
  • Users and access. Who receives your reports, and do they arrive by portal, PDF, fax, or mail?
  • Instruments and integrations. Which instruments produce results that someone types in by hand?
  • Workflow, validation and risk. Which paper forms arrive with samples, and which does the bench fill in by hand?
  • Data migration. If you moved, would you bring no history, the active year, or everything?

The PDF has every question, each with the reason we ask it.

08How to send it

Bring it to the conversation, or send it ahead.

Download the questions as a PDF and bring your answers to the conversation.

Print or save the questions as a PDF and bring them to the conversation. To book a conversation, talk with an expert for thirty minutes on your calendar.

You can also email your answers to info@synsci.com, and we will read them before we meet.

This questionnaire is informational only. Answering it creates no obligation and is not a quote.

SynapticSci · Map a laboratory workflow · www.synapticsci.com/how-we-work/map-a-workflow/ · informational only · not a quote

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