Product Manager Business Flowchart Drawing process Sharing

Product Manager Business Flowchart Drawing process Sharing

• 2012/06/28
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Figure 1: Simple flowchart with instant stickers and whiteboard

Foreword: Recently, busy to tidy up the business flow chart, during the process of drawing on the flowchart and the tools and internal team and outside to do the exchange of experience, just, personal life is also involved in the purchase of houses, weddings, hukou migration and other processes. Unconsciously, with the practice and reflection, the personal knowledge of the system tends to complete, the weather is very good today, sitting in the corner of the floating window, listening to the occasional sound of birdsong singing, occasionally glanced out of the window of the shade, really feel is a write something about the day. So it's really nice to just sort it out and if it happens to help you.

The actual process involves the company's unpublished plans, not public, so in this article will use a simple case substitution (this case, that is, plan to write 30 minutes before the article thought, if the consideration, please forgive me), but only to convey the concept and methods, but also enough. Well, Shing, let's get started.

This article will contain several pieces of content:

1. What is a flowchart? What is the difference between a flowchart and other diagrams (such as wireframes, concept maps, frame compositions, use case diagrams)?

2. Why do I need a flowchart?

3. What is the classification of the flowchart?

4. How do I draw a flowchart?

5. Flowchart Drawing Tool

Depending on the length of the situation, will be slightly divided into series in the text, please pay attention to and exchange.

the first part: What is a flowchart?

1. Definition

To understand a thing, I used to start with its definition. As for why, please refer to my previous blog post: http://heidixie.blog.sohu.com/161709085.html

Because we hate ten years of education and hate to recite all kinds of theorems and definitions, I find that many people in life and work hate to define a thing and refer to it. So you will find a lot of people are fighting together, carefully to listen to, the original is're same page, not on a channel at all. For a description of a thing, there is no common language, no so-called terminology. There are definitions well done, and you together cite a definition that finds the definition problematic, OK, to complement this definition, and expand to more people. of course, anything is too much to be done, let's remind each other.

So what is a flowchart? Speaking text is a good way to understand the definition. Flowchart = Process + diagram, e.g.:

Figure 2: Flowchart definition

Process: Flow refers to a series of operational processes in which a particular subject has a specific logical relationship in order to satisfy a particular need, and the process is naturally present. But it can be irregular, can not be fixed, can be filled with problems. So it will cause seemingly no flow. Not long ago, everyone in the team went to a business team to investigate the process, and there were some deficiencies in the flow of feedback to me. When asked, the person in charge gave me the answer: "This piece of business they have no process." In fact, strictly speaking, the business has been carried out, it is impossible to have no process, just said there is no fixed process or your research objects are not clear.

Figure: Chart or Diagram, is the basic solidification has a certain regularity of the process of dominance and writing, which facilitates the dissemination and precipitation, process reengineering reference.

From the definition can be seen, as long as there are things and tasks, the process will have, but not all the process is appropriate to use a flowchart to express, suitable for the flow chart to express the process is fixed to a certain degree of regularity can be followed, the key link in the process will not be flop.

2. Flowchart compared to other charts

We also use or hear many other types of graphs at work, such as the wireframe (wireframes) That interaction designers often say, information architecture diagrams or site maps, which are often used by development engineers (use cases) or e-r diagrams. What are the differences in what these different charts are supposed to say? Simply make a comparison,

Figure 3: Flowchart vs Other Common charts

If you want to string to a project, it can be understood as:

Use case diagram:

Shows a role in the system to complete the activities of what, such as the user this role and the ATM machine interaction process, the user needs to complete the activities of saving money, to withdraw funds, inquiries and so on. And save this activity can be further subdivided into card, enter password, input amount, ATM spit money, user collection, return card and other activities. The use case diagram can not consider the sequence of user actions, but only extracts some key verb phrases, mapping out the function points that the system should meet. Common use case diagrams are product managers and development engineers.

Flow chart is the user's order of each activity, such as the user must first insert a bank card, to be able to enter the password, and the flowchart must directly show a variety of abnormal judgments, such as when the password error, what prompted, password input errors more than how many times, what prompted and action. The people who use flowcharts are product managers, designers, or anyone who needs to tell how the business works.

Information architecture diagram, sitemap (site map):

Performance in order to make a system, the function and content of the presentation level is what, such as the user once inside, welcome page navigation How to design, whether directly appear withdrawals, deposits, inquiries, or other navigation? The Common information architecture diagram is the designer. But the common organization chart is HR.

Wireframe (Wireframe):

The content layout and weights of each interface are expressed, and the design of the interactive details is shown, such as how to prompt the next action after the password is wrong. The people who use wireframes are designers.

Entity Relationship Diagram (E-r diagram):

It is the work of the database schema that represents the relationship between the entity time in a business system or scene, such as the relationship between a depositor and a bank card, which is attributed to 1-to-many, which is associated with an open card event. Generally speaking, the entity is represented by a rectangle, and the ellipse identifies the attribute of the entity, such as the property of the depositor: surname, name, cell phone number, address, etc. And the properties of the bank card are: Bank, account name, card number and so on.

These charts each have a field of experts, I do not swim here.

So the flowchart should reflect his definition of difference, what are the elements? Summed up the flowchart of the 6 major elements, I hope you can remember that these 6 elements can be reviewed in future articles, you can also take to determine whether you see the flowchart is professional.

Figure 4: Flowchart 6 major elements

• Participant : Who is in this process? Can be a system, it can be a printer, more of what role--generally there are some types of people. For example, the customer service also has small A and small B two people, but if their work is exactly the same, then in the flowchart only need to write a customer service role on it.
• activities : What to do, such as ordering food, checkout and other activities.
• Order: What is the order in which these events occur, and which task is the precondition for other tasks? For example, if the guest does not checkout, it will not produce the promotion card.
• input : Each activity starts with what kind of input or data, such as cooking when the chef begins to cook, need to get a specific point menu.
• output : At the end of each activity, what kind of documents or data will be input to the next party, such as after the chef Cook, how to let the person in charge of the dishes know that the dishes have been done?
• standardize : Use a standardized set of symbols to communicate your flowchart so that your audience can understand it faster.

The standardization of the flowchart is not mandatory, in fact, we have seen a lot of kinds of flowcharts, as long as the ability to pass the understanding of the task and order is actually categorized in the flowchart. As shown in the following figure:

But if you have a lot of people in your flow chart in a company environment, taking a standardized symbol will bring many benefits of communication, in short you understand.

Part II: The Classification of the flowchart?

A common flowchart is a business flowchart (Transaction Flow), a page flow diagram.
At work, as a ued, you may find that PD often talks about business processes, and as an interaction designer, we are more likely to produce page flowcharts. What is the relationship between a page flowchart and a business flowchart? Who is there first, and then who else?

First tell a story: If your dream is to open a high-end national chain restaurant, then the first thing you think about is not how to go to the site, but why to open a chain restaurant this thing, as well as your positioning, core competitiveness to think clearly. is fast food, or order meal, is the chain or joins? Positioning in the community or bustling shopping district? Is it Sichuan or Zhejiang seafood? Is it for the elderly or the young? Is it a family theme or an anime theme? Who's the competitor? What kind of investment is needed? What are the possible risks? These are all clear, the question has the answer, the so-called strategic layer to clear it. Then assume that you now analysis to analyze, and the main investors decided a direction: fashion animation for young people restaurant, chain, but first started in Hangzhou, the location of young people dating, sweep the streets of the region, such as scenic area, famous shopping district, cinema next .... Wait, wait, what's next?

The next step is to find a way to make these come true? So what does it take to do? Location? Pull investment? The decoration? Choose a dining menu? Hire employees? How to do every step, what is the point of time? And so on the task of dismantling and planning, you need to go to the tactical level.

The execution of these things, always need to invite people? First, the core team to deploy various construction tasks, when the restaurant opened up, need to organize a stable operations team, such as service, health, kitchen, procurement, personnel, etc., the kitchen also have to division of labor, capture, hot dishes, cold dish, etc.? Does each department need to set up management and reporting relationships? So the structure of your organization is born.

How does each role work together to achieve daily stability and unexpected tasks? For example, when customers come to the door, who to guide the guests to sit, who to order, how to order the message quickly passed to the kitchen, and distributed to the wine room, cold, hot dishes between? and to ensure that guests can eat the dishes as soon as possible? You have to consider the collaborative process of the various people and optimize the efficiency, so the business process emerges.

Human flesh has been running for a while, and without any ordering system, you can find it. When the guests order, the waiter wrote down the guest's request, because there is copy paper, so the waiter can send a copy into the kitchen, while writing down the table number. The kitchen is small, the staff responsible for assigning tasks look at the menu, the blackboard on the cold dish to write down the need for them to deal with, and run to the hot pass been on the blackboard to write down the dishes to be processed, as well as to the wine room to quote the name can be. But with the expansion of business, the above-mentioned human flesh way there are a lot of problems, first, the efficiency is too low, the customer frequently change vegetables, response too late, copied errors, resulting in frequent error dishes. The kitchen was very chaotic, and had to recruit a few more people dedicated to running the hall. And once the customer to add vegetables, the withdrawal of food is more troublesome, need to find out what they ordered at that time, and then manually annotated and modified, at the same time to modify the kitchen back end of the various blackboard ...

So you want to develop an intelligent system to replace a lot of people's meat work, you ask the system development team, they are evaluated, judging from the start of the order, until the dish can be used to solve the system. Handheld terminal, able to quickly transfer customer order to the printer, the printing system can be based on the type of customer order to automatically split the printing, so hot dishes to see their hot menu, cold dish to see their cold menu, while the wine room to see the hotel menu. When they are ready to send out, the food can be used according to the name of the dish and printed documents to carry out the dishes and according to the customer's order small ticket to check. The system must also be equipped with a clearing system, the final confirmation of the menu and consumer prices passed to the checkout front desk, cashier can quickly operate.

The system ultimately needs to be presented, so how is the interface of the handheld terminal designed? Can a waiter finish a meal with fewer clicks? How is the interface of the billing center designed?

Through the above story, is not more clear from the strategy, tactics, business flow chart to the relationship between the page flowchart? Summary below:

• First there is a business need and business objectives, that is, what is our vision? Strategy
• And then it was born. What kind of tasks do we need to break down and how do we execute tactics? Tactical
• Then the birth of the need to structure what department, post to the Division of cooperation? (Organizational structure)
• And then you have a business process in which different departments collaborate to complete a task? (Business process)
• After the basic stability of business processes, often consider the optimization of efficiency, so will be born to support the process, reduce human links, promote data acquisition (System vision)
• In order to design this system, PD needs to think about what functions can replace the human work of a certain link (functional requirements, system processes)
• Regardless of how the function will eventually be presented as an interface, designers will focus on the user's task flow in the system, the behavior path, so that users can complete the task more efficient and enjoyable. (page flow)

Of course, in addition to business processes, system processes, page flow, and data flow is a concern.
We usually work, but also often hear people talk about Swimlane map Ah, Task flow chart Ah and so on concept, is God horse relationship?

Figure 5: Classification of flowchart

This article focuses on the "business flowchart" in the process above--and shares how to draw the Swimlane map--which is the most used by the PD, the most referenced by the technology, and the flowchart that ued most see.

Originally in the fourth chapter of the Swimlane map diagram and drawing methods, principles to do more detailed explanation, but look at the current length of the situation, is expected to put in the next, so let's briefly explain here.

In the work, we often can see two business flow chart, from the form of expression, a very good distinction, commonly known as the "Swimlane map" of it, in the appearance is also really like a lane, you can have a horizontal lane, there will be a longitudinal lane. Swimlane maps are referred to in some documents as "flow charts in the activity", and floating in the lanes are all activities.

Another type is the flow chart of departments and posts, in which the circle represents a department or a post. The rectangle represents the activity. This flowchart focuses on the logic of how things are done, but is weaker in reflecting the responsibilities of each department. It's hard to see the responsibilities and tasks of your department at a glance, like a swimlane map, if it's someone from a position. So now use less.

To go back to the Swimlane diagram, there are several key points in the Swimlane map: Two dimensions, activity flow, process elements. We will explain in the future.

Part III: Why do I need a business flowchart?

The flowchart provides a simple and concise "Thumbnail view" that helps viewers quickly understand how the business works. It contains a few key words: Who, when, under what conditions, what to do, what to enter, what to output, output to who ...

Unlike system processes, business processes are more focused on how the business itself works, and it is about business stories, including business rules. The system flow is to satisfy the business process, realize the informationization and systematization of some process or all process.

Therefore, the business process is the precondition of all the links-- The software requirement analysis, the information system construction will also first the business process carding.

The following shows how the business flowchart works in three main scenarios:

1. Employee Training

Figure 6: One of the application scenarios for the flowchart: training

In this scenario: The flowchart provides a quick view of how the business works, and through the business flowchart, the new employee can quickly understand what the ultimate goal of the business is, what roles are involved and what their responsibilities are, and how they are connected to each other.

In addition to training new employees, in the staff rotation, transfer scene, the staff also need business flowchart reference, understand the new work content how to carry out, as well as their location, their upstream is who, downstream who, oneself need to deliver the work content is what.

2: Process optimization and reorganization

Figure 7: Flowchart Application Scenario Two: Process optimization

The existence of BPR (business process reengineering) can be clearly refuted: existence is reasonable. In fact, the existence of business processes is not justified, it is possible that the participation of multiple roles is accustomed to a certain approach, it is possible that the change has not affected the end of the operation, there may be a lack of operational business process problems and strong changes in the drive-because to promote business process change, not a department of things, It requires the cooperation of various departments in the process.

More often, business process optimization is top-down, but bosses are not necessarily aware of the business processes that are actually running, and the business flow chart is a good way to express this "operational model". By looking at the business flowchart, looking for the key node of the person to access, can directly cut into: Why do you want to do so, why not do it? Instead of asking: What do you do now?

Through research, analysis of business flow chart, the introduction of more roles, can analyze the current business process problems: missing, duplication, risk, efficiency and so on. So as to develop the corresponding optimization scheme.

3: The foundation of information
Figure 8: Application Scenario three of Flowchart: Information Base

As is the case with the restaurant dream mentioned above, one of the tasks of the information system is to liberate the hands and feet of employees and replace some repetitive human labor work. After the system, it's not that the business process does not need to be adjusted, and one of the participants becomes a system, or a handheld device, or a printer.

Is it necessary to understand how the current business works in the design of system functions and system processes? Thus better analysis and analysis, better explain the system in what part of the replacement of what type of human work?

So the PRD that we see tend to start with business flowcharts, and when it comes to describing the benefits of a system building, you can also use previous business processes to compare with the business processes that followed the system. According to the analysis, the new business flowchart in the vision needs to be written clearly on the functional points of the system.

Part IV: How do I draw a business flowchart?

Is there a process for drawing the business flowchart itself first? There must be some. in Software engineering, I heard a word called: all things are objects. So in process science, everything is in the process. don't you have a procedure for eating? As for the action of eating, there is the process: take chopsticks------------------chew--swallow.

There are a lot of students in this part of the quick want to ask a question: Heidi, please introduce the tool of drawing flowchart?

Personally, I am a tool-holder, never denying that people 工欲善其事, its prerequisite. The good tool itself is a good teacher, besides the skill, also can teach us some theories and ideas, these ideas are also a very important part of "the device". The second is the specific tool application skills. So I don't recommend jumping directly to the tool app. For beginners, pen and paper is always the best entry tool because you don't have to compete with any unfamiliar software.

So, is there a process that can be followed to draw a business flowchart? I suggest you start with the following 4 steps.

1. Research

How to quickly understand the truth about business operations? Do you have any research skills to broadcast?

2. Grooming and presentation

Can you quickly translate the text and questions from your research into a business flowchart?

What is the standard illustration of a business flowchart?

How to evaluate the good and bad of a business flowchart?

3. Review and confirmation -can you really get business flowcharts to reflect real-world business?

4. Archive Maintenance --The process is constantly changing, how quickly the business process diagram responds?

these will be in the next article " drawing process sharing of business flowchart (II.) "detailed.

Part V: Drawing tools?

This part is easier if you don't have a tool workshop.

Windows: offline Tools The following three are commonly used:

Small flow chart with PPT is enough, after the export of pictures or. Interactive designers because of the common axure draw wireframes, so do not need to learn new tools for flowcharts, you can use the Axure flow control to complete a simple business flow chart production. PD, however, often uses Microsoft's Visio.

In addition, a special recommended software: SmartDraw.

My recent flowchart has been drawn with SmartDraw and you can download a free version of the experience. This tool is not just designed for flowcharts, it's almost all-encompassing: wireframes, flowcharts, E-r, UML, Wayne Maps, even Gantt charts, brain maps ... Not as many people recommend it because he is too big, especially inside the template. Let's experience the following:

Mac computer:

Naturally, we recommend OmniGraffle. Any chart that is drawn does not know why it always feels beautiful ...

Of course, this software can go to www.macx.cn download free version of ...

But regardless of Windows or Mac, in addition to the offline tools, there are more options on the line:

However, it seems that we are generally not very comfortable with the online tools, the server, the speed, and the GFW are not at ease.

1. https://cacoo.com/

This is a tool that the interface does best to look at. I used it to draw a concept map (Concept map). such as is used in the above tools to draw.
2. http://creately.com/

3. www.lucidchart.com

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Product Manager Business Flowchart Drawing process Sharing