Process Flow Mistakes: Part II

Structural issues

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In this article, I continue to tackle process flow issues, focusing on suboptimal diagram structure. *Refer to Part I* for the first five process flow mistakes and how to address them:

1. Missing process name
2. Missing start/end point
3. Sloppy notation
4. Straying too far from the standards
5. Notation inconsistency from diagram to diagram

Now, let’s talk about the diagram structure issues (I will continue the numbering).

The main goal of the process flow diagram is to depict the sequence of activities to achieve the process goal. A diagram is missing the point if the sequence is unclear.

6. Compactness at the expense of clarity

When a diagram has a lot of steps and does not fit on a page or slide horizontally, analysts try to employ tricks to “make it fit”. Unfortunately, many of these tricks end up muddling the diagram.

Multiple changes of direction (aka a spaghetti diagram) will make your flow unreadable and unusable. It’s better to make the process flow longer, with a clearer flow, then cram it onto one page where your audience will lose all sense of direction and flow.

Don’t sacrifice the flow to compactness.

So, what can you do if the process seems to have a large number of steps? Allowing the flow to “wrap around” (return to the left) may work when the steps (and control) cascade from one swimlane to another.

In the “waterfall” process shown in the next figure, the control moves from one swimlane to another without going back.

Another way to simplify a flow is to indicate subprocesses — in this example, the Order fulfillment subprocess may involve other actors that we will not worry about here. What’s important is that after the subprocess is completed, the control returns to the same swimlane for the next activity (Complete quality check).

To summarize, if your process flow has quite a few activities in each lane, do not try to make it fit. Instead of allowing the flow to “go back” and convoluting the diagram, consider these options:

• Extend the diagram to the right — make it longer. It may work well if you mostly use a digital version of the diagram.
• Add a connector and divide the flow into pages — it works well if there are natural phases to the process, e.g. Initiation and Completion, or Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.
• Collapse activities or use subprocesses.

7. Redundant swimlanes

Let’s go back to the Process e-commerce-to-store order diagram. How can we simplify it?

Consider the Notification platform swimlane — is it necessary? Notification activities are tightly coupled with the main activities in the process. In this case, the BPMN standard offers activity types for sending and receiving messages:

You could use a similar notation in a simplified process flow like this:

What has improved:

• The Notification platform swimlane was eliminated, along with excessive and confusing lines leading to notification activities.
• Once a notation for notifications is introduced, we may realize that more activities require notifications, e.g., Place order. Emphasis on activities with notifications helped to make this diagram more complete.
• As the space cleared up, adding a missing “End” shape was much easier.

Next, consider all the sequential steps in the Retail store swimlane. Is this too much detail? Isn’t it clear that to prepare an order for pick-up, we must find an item and attach a label?

8. Varying granularity

A mix of high- and low-level activities makes it harder to use the diagram, know when to stop breaking something down or agree whether the diagram is complete.

Always consider whether you are aiming for a high-level or detailed flow, and be consistent. In our example, this version makes the level of detail in the Retail store swimlane similar to other swimlanes:

Now that the diagram has improved, one more area of confusion is easier to see — the crisscrossing lines.

9. Avoidable crossing of the lines

Sometimes, line crossing is unavoidable, but you must do your best to avoid it. In this case, we can rectify it by switching the Yes and No branches like this:

10. Vertical compression

Another inelegant way of dealing with the number of process steps I’ve seen is using vertical (portrait) rectangles. Sometimes this is done to fit the diagram into a portrait layout document.

There are several issues here — readability, lack of space for showing flows, and the overall “unexpected” layout that may throw off the audience.

Plus, narrow textboxes often result in longer words broken into lines haphazardly, especially when it comes to diamonds.

What should you do instead?

• Aim to use process flows in the landscape orientation—view them on screen, drop on presentation slides, or create landscape-oriented sections in the documents.
• Use other tips included from this article, such as collapsing activities or using subprocesses.
• Be as concise as possible — name activities, don’t describe them. Descriptions belong in documents and standard operating procedures.

In the next installments, we will also discuss language-related diagram issues.

For process flow and process catalogue templates, and for mastering other business analysis techniques, get my Business Analysis Playbook and check out these courses and the BA Mindset Video Library.

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