Flowcharts are visual representations of processes or workflows, often used in various fields such as software development, engineering, business management, and more. They provide a clear and structured way to illustrate the sequence of steps within a system or a procedure.
Symbols
Simple flowcharts have a number of standard symbols and notations, however they are a pragmatic approach to process modelling, and often times incorporate symbols outside their loosely defined standard set of symbols. This pragmatism is as much a benefit as it is drawback, it is very easy to overuse flowcharts; this is because anyone can understand them and often times initial drafts become finalised documents, even though there are other notations that maybe more appropriate for the particular thing being modelled.
I generally look at simple flowcharts as rough sketches, an easy and quick way to discuss a process, but by no means the finished deliverable.
| Symbol | Description |
|---|---|
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The start stop symbol is exactly what it sounds like, it indicates that the process is started or terminating |
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An action or step is something that happens during the process, this is generally where the work is done |
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The input or output, represents a need by the process from a participant to continue, or an output which a participant needs to proceed |
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Decision, a decision symbol is a split in logic, it just means that based on some condition, the process enters an alternative flow |
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Merge, often times during a process there is a split, the process can have multiple flows which run in parallel, the merge represents the coming together of these flows, think of it as parallel actions that eventually must wait for each other to complete |
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An artifact is similar to an output, however the difference is that the artifact will exist after the process is compelete |
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Artifacts simply represents multiple artifacts |
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The annotation is a simple decoration, it provides the viewer of the process some contextual inforamtion that may not be obvioulsy communicated via the diagram itself |
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The process link out symbol indicates that this flow continues somewhere on the page, the content of the symbol is the key to look for in the porcess flow in counterpart |
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The process link in symbol indicates that this flow is the continuation from somewhere on the page, the content of the symbol is the key to look for in the porcess flow out counterpart |
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The off page link simply indicates that this porcess continues on a differnt page, generally the content of this symbol indicates the continuation page |
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The subprocess indicates that this step is actually its own sub process, and generally contains where this process is indicated |
The above are the eleven basic symbols one could use to to model just about any process. These symbols are simple to understand, and though they may not get into the granular details of technical implementations, they are an excellent way to simply depict a process for the purpose of a general discussion.
Grocery store checkout example
keep in mind that the following is a is a simplification, there are a large number of sub processes that are not depicted, things like what if the person client does not have the means to pay, what if they will soon return to pay, what if the item doesn't have a price, there are so many more variations that could exist. however the following does serve the purpose of a simple depiction.
