Visio® 2007 Bible

Chapter 16. Documenting Processes, Workflows, and Data Flows

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Creating data flow diagrams

• Showing departmental interaction with cross-functional flowcharts

• Following the flow of data

• Analyzing and documenting workflow

• Identifying causes and effects

• Value stream mapping

• Managing IT services with ITIL diagrams

• Planning business process improvement with TQM diagrams

• Document processes with Audit diagrams

• Analyzing failures that lead to defects

• Modeling activities and decisions with IDEF0 diagrams

• Communicating system processes with SDL diagrams

• Evaluating transfer of control with EPC diagrams

Higher quality, increased customer satisfaction, lower costs, faster time to market, higher profits, competitive edge. Today, most organizations have to juggle so many conflicting demands that they have no choice but to look for ways to improve.

Business process improvement methodologies, such as Total Quality Management and Six Sigma, help streamline operations and reduce defects. These business methodologies model processes in different ways to highlight potential problems or opportunities for improvement. Other specialized diagrams focus on specific problems. For example, Cause and Effect diagrams help identify problem areas and their root causes. Sometimes, simply getting business processes onto a piece of paper—or a Visio diagram—makes potential improvements so obvious you say, "Well, duh!"

Whether you're documenting and analyzing current processes or engineering process improvements, this ...