Flow Charting Trends

What's going on with flow charts?

Written by Bill Patton Sr.

What are some new flowcharting capabilities and applications (general trends)?

Nothing really ever gets "new" in flowcharting.  It's one of the very old management aids only used by persistent, perceptive, and deeply engrossed managers.  These people will communicate a process to you by god! And these people will solve the most sneakiest of process problems by god!

If you had to say something new it could only be computerized flowcharting software where you can do object alignment and chart linking.  We used to sit up into the wee hours finalizing a 2-page flowchart and then finding that we had omitted a process!  At 2:00 a.m. we started over with fresh paper.

What are some new flowcharting capabilities and applications (specific trends)? 

The new trends are having lawyers use flowcharting for crime solving, evidence traceability (I think it's thanks to OJ), estate ownership and traceability.  We still don't have marketing organizations understanding flowcharts but now we have a lot of financially trained people that are learning and using flowcharts. 

Remember, in the olden days it was engineering only.  They have just about quit and it shows! They passed the torch to Auditors and especially Public Auditors. The engineers have just about consulted their dominance and prominence out of existence.

Now it seems that new people are learning to construct, interpret and use flowcharts.  Short story:  I was audited by IRS and it was turned over to my CPA to answer or defend my corporation. The CPA already had a copy of my software and he drew 10 flowcharts and presented them to the IRS in a special meeting.  The CPA told me that the IRS was awed with the flowcharts and even though impressed didn't change their charges.  He then gave me a copy of his presentation!  The charts were the work of a 9-year old. I was appalled!  I couldn't even tell the CPA how ludicrous they were. I was equally appalled that IRS couldn't understand that these were not flowcharts; were not business diagrams; and did not depict any sort of a process or story. The reason for this particular story is my glee in seeing lawyers and financial people starting to use flowcharts.

How can these capabilities help our readers (QC professionals) do their jobs more efficiently?

I think that Quality is now spreading into all areas of a corporation into finance, marketing, budgeting, and definitely upper management. Now the professional QC inspector is allowed to inspect in these areas rather than blindly take the directions of someone who doesn't even know the processes. I once caught a bunch of blue-suitors clamoring around a bread cart in the middle of a production floor taking notes. When I asked, I found out they had arbitrarily decided that this bread cart contained scrap and they were adding it to their scrap report. I quickly gave them a flowchart that showed scrap paths for the floor so that they could better report on the health of the organization.

Other than providing a graphical representation of steps within a process, what else can flowcharts offer?

Flowcharts are so much more than graphical representations... They are the only devices that communicate an intricate process between different levels of knowledge, training, and abilities. The engineer can wave his hands all day but can't explain technical specifications to an assembler. The owner can wave and rant but can't get someone to assemble, test, and build the newest mouse trap for him. Flowcharts answer both of these delicate situations. An engineer can use a flowchart to sue the owner for different equipment or more floor space or more people. An owner can use flowcharts to hire and train engineers on what it is he is trying to conceive.

How can flowcharts be used to train employees?

For many years I gave interviewees a flowchart of the process where they would be working. I even let the person keep the chart if they weren't hired. When I trained the new hire I trained with many flowcharts when I took an employee to task for substandard performance I used their flowcharts to illustrate their deficiencies and made sure that they left with a flowchart. And lastly, when I terminated people I gave them flowcharts in the exit interviews and related their end to their specific process failures.

Is simplicity the goal when designing flowcharts for people to follow easily? If so, how is this accomplished? Take me through the steps.

I may spend too much paper here! A short story for clarification: A CEO is in the bowels of the manufacturing plant (and this could be standing in the personnel department, finance department, etc.) and sees and employee. He asks, "What do you do here?" The employee drags out a 30-page flowchart and starts telling the CEO about the flowchart. The CEO's eyes cloud over and he dismisses himself.

Same story new employee: The employee shows the CEO a one-page flowchart that has 5 process shapes that depicts material coming in to the corporation, being inspected, being positioned for the manufacturing line, being processed, and then shipped. Entranced that the employee does know what he is doing the CEO asks how the material gets inspected. The employee goes to a book of flowcharts and from the index he selects chart #6 and shows the CEO a flowchart with 6 process shapes that depicts the receipt of goods the storage of goods the inspection process the return to vendor process and finally the acceptance process.

The CEO walks away from the area duly impressed that his corporation his in good hands!

This story tells the difference between a simple flowchart that relates to other charts (which can be read and understood) and a very long overly complex flowchart that usually confuses anyone that isn't the author and causes waste and missed shipping dates.

The simplicity comes from the idea that first I have to know what it is you want me to do and only then can you tell me how you want it done. Five blocks to keep it simple each of the 5 blocks can relate to another chart that is equally as simple. A cute phrase that I always use is in the words within a flowcharting block - keep it simple! Don't use this opportunity to write a letter home to mom! Many ineffective flow charters can't seem to get the words down to terse (should I have said succinct) statements. In a decision block, is it okay to say Passed QC - Y/N? Wouldn't it be quicker to replace the y/n outputs with definitive routes that move you on to the next block?

Should certain design rules be followed to developing flowcharts? If so, what are they?

I certainly think so. I suppose they would be along the lines of Keep it Simple; and make sure that you cover all routes for all decisions. I believe you must interview the process; interview the process workers; construct and publish the 1st edition; do more extensive interviews; edit and publish the 2nd edition; more interviews, etc. A lot of people are now talking of the paperless office that will kill flowcharting! You have to publish a flowchart feel it, argue over it, mark it up. I try to explain to people that when you have a long document and flip the screen down the previous screen is only a dim memory gone for all arguments sake; gone for helping solve the current problem. You simply have to print the flowcharts out and handle them.

Is it easy to make modifications to the latest flowcharts? How is it done?

Now you are in the Mayor's office! This was exactly why I started Patton & Patton Software. I did draw flowcharts. I did do 2:00 a.m. changes. I watched computers come in and change word processing and financial spreadsheets. No help for flow charters! I told my computer-wise son that if he could make a computer flowchart then we would start a business. He did and we did! The whole point was to cause the construction, editing and publishing of flowcharts as simple as writing letters. I think that we accomplished this admirably. Flow Charting 6 will let you complete a 1-page flowchart in somewhere around ten minutes. Then you take the newly created and professionally published flowchart to the instigators or doers and let them hack it up to their heart's delight. You take the hackings back to your computer and ten minutes later you give them their 2nd edition, complete with edits. The first time that I did this I had to beg the engineers to hack the 1st edition, they had never seen such a professional chart, they said that they would rather not destroy such a document.

Can flowcharts identify opportunities for process improvement?

Once you get into flowcharting; you really have a feel for the process and you usually solve any process hangs or run-arounds. One of the great truisms of my world; if you can't flowchart it , it won't work. The actual truth is if you can't flowchart it, you probably don't know the process. Although I did do a flowchart that produced a loop at the end with no output. The manager said this chart shows the process going in a circle! I proved to him that his process did exactly that! I called his shipments "escapees".

Can flowcharts serve as a programming interface to business?

I still don't know the exact best answer for programmers. First of all, I, of all people, want documentation. My son, while he was our chief programmer, spent over $100,000 buying software and trying to prove to me that this "new" stuff was a lot better than a flowchart. It never was! When he left the corporation after 10 years the source code was not documented at all! But flowcharting for a programmer is very unwieldy but I still believe it is necessary. 

A businessman owns a business. It is not owned by the programmers and engineers that he hires to help him bring his idea to fruition. They have no right to program him out of the loop by acts of aggression or by acts of omission. I watched two huge industries go bottoms up because they lost their "secrets". Verbatim Corporation lost their sputtering formula because the engineering group failed to document the process in a manner that the CEO could see it, read it, and taste it. They called it job security. This is akin to a golf pro paying back personal favors by letting his friends onto my Country Club Course.

Memorex Corporation lost their chemical process for making recording heads by the same means.

Flowcharts are very good documentation. It is the most simple and the most readable and teachable. Until something else comes along, I vote that flowcharts are an interface to business.

How will flowcharting software evolve in the future?

Everyone wants flowcharting software to become automatic they just want to hit an escape sequence on their computer and the computer will get up from the desk and go out and sniff out all of their processes and draw a chart to this effect and publish it with the manager's name in neon lights. Its kind of like Quality - if you assign it to someone lesser, it does in fact become lesser. No one seems to understand that Quality is not over there, it's right here, inside me and that's where the ability to flowchart comes from; inside me with my knowledge of the process.

Bill Patton Sr. is a founder of Patton & Patton Software Corp.