h a l f b a k e r yQuis custodiet the custard?
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Animated Flowcharts
Run 'What-if' Scenarios in flowcharts to see how well you've though things through | |
Businesses use flowcharts to help their organization. They are there to help plan for every contingency, and make sure that someone is responsible for handling everything.
But, flowcharts have two problems:
1. They have a weird symbol system that takes a while to learn.
2. They are static.
I
propose a computer program where you make flowcharts that have actual people, documents, etc. instead of weird symbols. Of course, you need some symbols to represent abstract things like email, but even simple icons are better than symbols like triangles and parallelograms.
Then, when you think you have your plan pretty well down pat, run a couple of what if scenarios. What if the secretary never sends out the invoice? What if the shipping manager is 15 days late sending out a package? Do these issues get silently dropped, or does someone become aware of them and take action?
Then when you see problems arise, you can add more to your flowchart to help organize yourselves.
ProcessModel
http://www.pcworld....e/0,aid,9848,00.asp Animated Flowcharts and what-if situations. Expensive, though. [Cedar Park, Oct 04 2004]
[link]
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Sounds a bit like an idea, "Video modeling of business logic," posted on here not too long ago by . . . [lawpoop], of all people. |
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Yeah. No one really got it, so this is like version 2. I hope I've made myself clearer. |
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Can the processes have little three-fingered white-gloved hands? |
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I do that all the time in MS Excel for throughput optimization of machines. |
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Maybe the UML Activity Diagram is what you seek. |
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[jutta] You have to strike the right balance between specifity and generity. I think my system does that. |
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I'll I'm proposing is replacing geometic shapes, which are meaningless and totally unintuitive to the uninitiated, with symbols or icons that are more intuitive. Like instead of an obtuse parallelogram (quick -- what it is?), a little document icon with words on it, meaning "computer data". |
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Without knowing You might guess that it's some kind of information, and you're pretty darn close. |
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Of course you don't want a specific movie of Dan Karlson receiving shipment #1002323 from Debra the UPS person on Oct 12th 2001 9:43 pm, but I think "Shipping manager receieves package |
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