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Title: Basic Flowcharting
Subject: 
Publisher: 
Description: This is a webpage that gives you enough information to do basic flowcharting.
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Effective_date: 2004-03-05 14:26:51
Expiration_date: None
Type: Document
Format: text/plain
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SafetyBelt: 1078521184.25

Introduction

 I have been doing flowcharts, both incorrectly and (I hope) correctly, for a few years now and I have been charged to pull together a tutorial on flowcharting.

 Please understand that I am not "the" expert in this and that this document is really only concerned with creating very simple flowcharts.  There are many sources for more detailed explanations on the Internet.

For this tutorial, we will be looking at an establishment that sells hamburgers, fries, and drinks.  We will be calling the place "Mudfries Restaurant" because I figure no one would call a food place that and I want to avoid trademark infringment.

The Situation

 Mudfries Restaurant traditionally hires workers who seem to forget things.  When working with customers at the front counter, these workers commonly did not ask customers if they wanted burgers and drinks with their Mudfries.  The owner, Mrs. Mudfrey, has done everything she can think of to remind the workers to up-sell, but to no avail.

 Mrs. Mudfrey attended a seminar and found out that flowcharting is a wonderful way to map out the front counter process and find out what goes wrong with her workers.  You can see for yourself what she found out:

 "process":img:flowchart_process.gif

 On the left was the old process used at Mudfries, where her workers were not asking customers if they wanted burgers and drinks.  On the right is the solution that Mrs. Mudfrey came up with to handle the problem.

 Now, workers at Mudfries Restaurant only ask what "combo meal" each customer wants.  This saves a lot of time for the counter workers (which means the workers can serve more customers in the same amount of time) and Mrs. Mudfrey makes more money by selling high-priced burgers and drinks that are already grouped with her famous Mudfries.  Everyone is happy and training was kept to a minimum.

The Elements of Simple Flowcharting

 Please remember that this is *very* basic flowcharting where we only really use a few symbols to describe a system.  Most systems are basically made up of actions and decisions.  A flowchart lets you put this system of actions and decisions on paper.  We will only be using five basic symbols:

 "action":img:action_shape.gif This is the Action symbol -- Actions are events in your system.  It is basically something that does not involve a decision:  it is just something that happens.

 "decision":img:decision_shape.gif This is the Decision symbol -- A Decision is where people who use the system have a choice to make (fries?  drinks?).  

 "startstop":img:start_shape.gif This is the Start and Stop symbol -- Most systems we look at have a beginning and an end, at least to the part of a system you are worried about.

 "flow":img:flow_shape.gif This is the Flow symbol -- These arrows connects all the other symbols together.  These show what actions follow a particular decision.  It is pretty natural to draw lines with arrows to show how things flow.

 You see that our Mudfries example contains each of these basic symbols.  The flowchart becomes a very easy-to-understand way to see a system, which can be used to find faults in the system.  Our work is to try to improve our health system by "fixing" system faults just like Mudfries.

 Mrs. Mudfrey knew from experts that problems often occur in systems.  When there are excessive decisions being made (sometimes by the wrong people) and when there are a lot of "pass-offs" to other systems (that might not get the information correct), a system will break down.  By eliminating two decisions in her process, Mrs. Mudfrey made a simpler system that her workers could work through easier.

Conclusion

 Flowcharting is a very effective tool that draws a picture of a system, making it easier to study.  When done properly, even a simple flowchart can expose problems in a system and simple corrections can be made to improve the system.
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