Flowcharts, swimlanes, and more - Visio Tutorial

- [Instructor] Flowcharts have been around since the early 1900s. Decades of experimentation and free form use resulted in an enormous variety of flowchart symbols and styles. Then in the 1960s, both the American National Standards Institute and the International Standards Organization approved a standard set of flowchart shapes. As a result, one key advantage of flowcharts today is that they use widely recognized symbols, which means that the resulting diagrams can be easy to read. However, easy to read is not a given. While there are standard symbols, there isn't universal agreement on how diagrams using those shapes should be constructed. Should they be built from top to bottom, from left to right to left, or something else? Unfortunately, it's too easy to create a really convoluted flowchart like this when a diagram that's readable and understandable is much more appropriate. Another disadvantage of flowcharts is that they typically contain little more than texts on boxes, and don't provide important information about who's involved in the process, what tools they require, how long each step should take, or where to go for additional information. For example, in this diagram, who performs this step? Where do I find this requirements document? Who can help me do the work of this task? Swimlane diagrams, also called cross-functional flowcharts, are a popular alternative to ordinary flowcharts because they provide more information about who's involved in the process. The diagram is divided into horizontal or vertical lanes, each of which represents the tasks done by one role, function, or department. As a result, swimlanes make it easier for the reader to know who does what. A disadvantage of swimlane diagrams is that they often require more real estate, especially when most of the work is done by just one or two roles. The example on the screen is a swimlane version of the same process you saw just a moment ago, but instead of the flowchart fitting on two pages, the swimlane version requires four. Also, because swimlane diagrams use the same shapes as flowcharts, they're typically missing the same important process information as flowcharts. Business Process Model and Notation, BPMN, is a process mapping standard from the Object Management Group that was designed to enhance communication between business stakeholders and the IT people who provide systems to support them, especially for processes that can be automated. On the plus side, BPMN employs flowchart like symbols for familiarity. However, BPMN shapes can include numerous visual adornments that can make diagrams complex and hard to read. Like both flowcharts and cross-functional flowcharts, BPMN diagrams are visually helpful, but may not provide sufficient detail about the who, what, where and how of a process. Value stream maps are used in organizations that have adopted lean techniques to improve their processes by finding and eliminating waste. With our focus on time and efficiency, value stream maps typically display data about delivery times, processing times, delay times, and other key process measurements. When employed in manufacturing or for other physical processes, value stream maps depict the flow of materials and goods, but the specialized appearance of value stream maps means that they are not necessarily suitable for all processes. Additional mapping methods exist that attempt to preserve the benefits but solve some of the challenges presented by flowcharts, swimlanes, and BPMN diagrams. TaskMap, for example, from the Harvard Computing Group, employs only six symbols and leverages the data handling capabilities of Visio to build content-rich process maps. TaskMap includes predefined data fields and specific data visualization techniques to display role names, task and frequency timing, documents and instructions, and tools, supplies, and materials. The goal for TaskMap is to provide data-driven easy to read process maps. There are other mapping styles beyond the few listed here, but we won't be discussing any of them in this course. In fact, for the remainder of the course, we'll focus almost exclusively on the two most common types of process maps; flowcharts and swimlane diagrams.