W o r k in p r o c e s s BYMICHAELBURNS
USING TEGHNOLOGY TO IMPROVE THE WAY YOU DO BUSINESS
A better way to flowchart
R emember drawing flowcharts? As account-
ing students, it's something we all had to
learn — and it was usually a struggle. The charts
took forever to draw, and then were left to gather
dust as soon as they were finished. But if you think flow-
charts are passe, think again. Business process improve-
ment is the new mantra of business, and process maps are a
key component. Fortunately, we now have a flowchart tech-
nique called swimlane that is easy to understand and apply
Swimlane flowcharts are drawn so the activities per-
formed by each business function, department, location
or person are in different horizontal or vertical rectangles,
or lanes. A swimlane shows what is done, by whom and
in what sequence. By keeping each role in one lane, it's
easy for the person responsible for the role to see whether
the flowchart properly represents their business process.
A swimlane should not he complicated. Symbols can be
used for decision points, reports, loops and so on, hut keep
the numher to a maximum of four or five. (For examples,
visit www.CAmagazine.com/swimlane.) It's also impor-
tant to avoid cryptic labels or descriptions.
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16 CAmagazine | [une/fuly 2007
The most difficult part in drawing swimlanes is pick-
ing the right level of detail. If the objective is to iden-
tify controls or control weaknesses, you can keep the
drawings at a fairly high level. You can get into more
detail about the actual control or weakness using a control
matrix, which we will describe in the August issue.
There is no such thing as a perfect swimlane. If you
described a business process to ioo people all trained in
swimlane, you would get ioo different flowcharts. You're
only looking for a reasonable approximation that accom-
plishes the objective.
Drawing a swimlane diagram is an iterative process.
You will need to go back to the source of your informa-
tion and show your results. You can bet they will think
of something else that was not discussed the first time.
But limit the number of iterations to no more than three
and preferably two or you will be wasting your time on
minor matters.
There are many tools available to draw swimlanes.
Some are highly sophisticated and are included in tech-
nologies referred to as business process management.
But you will probably find Microsoft Visio is more than
sufficient and it's relatively easy to use. Choose the cross-
functional flowchart template for a swim
lane flowchart. One limitation with Visio
is that there is a maximum of five rows
or columns. You could get around that
limitation by creating multiple pages that
Swimlane flowcharts have become the
recommended method for documenting
business process. If you have had trouble
with flowcharting in the past and you
have the need, it's time to sink or swim.
Michael Burns, MBA, CA, is president
of 180 Systems (www.180systems.com),
which provides independent consulting
services, including business process
review, system selection and IT audit.
Michael can be reached at 416-485-2200
or mburns@180systems.com