How does a swim lane diagram work?

A swimlane diagram is a type of flowchart that delineates who does what in a process. Using the metaphor of lanes in a pool, a swimlane diagram provides clarity and accountability by placing process steps within the horizontal or vertical “swimlanes” of a particular employee, work group or department.

How do you draw a swimlane diagram?

How to create a swimlane diagram in Word

1. Prepare a new document. First, open a new Word document.
2. Create swimlanes. Next, create your swimlanes by going to Insert > Shapes and selecting the Rectangle shape.
3. Label swimlanes. Label your swimlanes by creating a text box from the Insert tab.
4. Build a flowchart.
5. Format shapes.

What is a swimlane workflow diagram?

A swimlane or swimlane diagram is a type of flowchart that shows who is responsible for each part of a process. The name references the lanes you’d see in a swimming pool, with each lane acting as a space for a business role or department.

What is the difference between flowchart and swimlane diagrams?

The difference between a normal flow chart and the swim lane diagram, is that the latter shows exactly who needs to do what in a process. A swim lane or flow represents the activities that have to be carried out by a specific department or entity. Swim lane diagrams are part of Business Process Mapping (BPM).

What is the purpose of swim lane diagram?

Swim lane diagrams are flowcharts that show both a process from start to finish and who is responsible for each step in the process. Much like a swimming pool with established lanes for each swimmer, the diagram has horizontal or vertical lanes belonging to each actor in the process.

Why is it called a swim lane diagram?

Origin. Swimlane diagrams first appeared in the 1940s as a variation of the flow process chart called multi-column charts. They were called Swim Lane diagrams by Geary Rummler and Alan Brache in their book Improving Performance (1990).

What is swim lane process?

A swimlane diagram is a type of flowchart that outlines who does what in a given process. Based on the analogy of lanes in a pool, a swimlane diagram places process steps within the horizontal or vertical “swimlanes” of a particular department, work group or employee, thus ensuring clarity and accountability.

How do you describe an activity diagram?

An activity diagram visually presents a series of actions or flow of control in a system similar to a flowchart or a data flow diagram. They can also describe the steps in a use case diagram. Activities modeled can be sequential and concurrent.

How are swimming lanes decided?

Swimmers are assigned their lanes based on the qualifying times from the previous heat, with the fastest earning that center lane. This means the gold medal favorite is in lane four, with lane three and five being their closest competition.

What is the purpose of swim lane?

A swimlane (as in swimlane diagram) is used in process flow diagrams, or flowcharts, that visually distinguishes job sharing and responsibilities for sub-processes of a business process. Swimlanes may be arranged either horizontally or vertically.

What is a diagram example?

The definition of a diagram is a graph, chart, drawing or plan that explains something by showing how the parts relate to each other. An example of diagram is a chart showing how all the departments within an organization are related.

How to create a swim-lane diagram?

you need to select a process to start with.

How do you create swim lanes?

Here’s how we can create a swimlane: Drag a Swimlane element from the sidebar to the canvas. Enter a name for the swimlane in the Name field. Select the service you want the users to authenticate themselves with from the drop-down Which Service will users authenticate with? menu.

What is a swimlane diagram?

A swim lane (also known as swimlane) diagram is a type of flowchart. Like a flowchart, it diagrams a process from start to finish, but it also divides these steps into categories to help distinguish which departments or employees are responsible for each set of actions.

Why use swim lanes?

Swim lanes are used to group sub-processes or tasks according to obligations of certain resources, roles or departments. It’s very convenient when algorithm of the process execution is divided into lanes each of which contains actions made by one of the employees.