Quality Tools > Flowcharting Flowcharting is a tool for analysing processes. It allows the team to break any process down into individual events or activities showing the logical relationships. Flowcharting is a simple way of creating a visual representation of sequence of activities. Constructing flowcharts promotes better understanding of processes, which is a prerequisite for improvement. Need for a flowchart in an organisation: An organisation consists of many interrelated operations. These are sometimes complicated and seldom modified in response to customer requirements, laws and regulations. Top management often make modifications in the processes without considering the other employees. This is not conducive to the organization. The best alternative would be to categorize the responsibilities into areas of activities and share the needs of the organisation with the other workforce. The next step would be to prepare flowcharts of the stages in each process so that the employees can get a clear picture of the process flow. The flowcharting technique helps one to move in the right direction, gather critical information, and correlate various processes. There are three types of flow charts.  The high level flow chart. Matrix flow chart. Detailed flow chart. High-level flow diagram visually represents the sequence of activities in a process without detailing them. A matrix flow chart consists of relating the activities to unique entities in the organisation. A detailed flow diagram takes into account the plausible problems in the process and the course of action to be followed once there is a problem. Guidelines for preparing a flowchart: Flowcharts are generally represented using standard symbols. Some standard symbols, commonly needed for flowcharting are:

  
Some guidelines for flowcharting:
All required aspects should be arranged in logical order while drawing an appropriate flowchart.

The flowchart should be precise and comprehensible. In a flow chart processes normally flow from left to right or top to bottom.

Only one flow line should generate from a process symbol.

Only one arrow should go into a decision symbol, but more than one arrow, one for each solution can come out of the decision symbol.

               
Only one arrow is used in  symbtion with the terminal  symbol.

                  
The standard symbols should be written concisely. If necessary,the annotation symbol can be utilised to describe the information more accurately.

 
If the flowchart is hard to comprehend, the connector symbols can be used to lessen the number of arrows.

Ensure that the flowchart has a start and finish.

Advantages of Flowcharts:
Flowcharts are effective in communicating the intent of a process to all the people involved.

• A problem can be evaluated in a more efficient manner with the aid of a flowchart.
• Program flowcharts can be considered as the documentation of crucial information in a logical sequence.
• Flowcharts can be referenced while evaluating a process.
• A flowchart simplifies the maintenance of the procedural steps for a process.

Disadvantages of Flowcharts:

• When the program logic is very complex the flow chart may become difficult to comprehend. 
• Any modifications in the process may require the creation of a new flow chart. 
• Generating a flowchart is a tedious procedure, as  flowchart symbols cannot be typed .

The figure below represents a flowchart for the sum of the first twenty-five integers. In this flow chart, the print sum is the out put command. There are two flow lines emerging out of the decision symbol. One proceeds to the next step while the other iterates back to the earlier steps.

Additional Reading:

1. Flowcharting symbols: 
This article highlights the standard flowcharting symbols:
http://www.rcc.ryerson.ca/rta/flowchart/symbols.html

2. Flowcharting help page:
This article details the various types of flowcharts:
http://home.att.net/~dexter.a.hansen/flowchart/flowchart.htm