How to Develop Data Flow Diagrams
Data flow diagrams are a high-level overview of a company or business unit's day-to-day functions. They outline how data is passed from one person or system to another. These diagrams are useful for a number of reasons. The diagram allows all employees to operate from the same set of guidelines. The diagram also allows you to communicate business function to a contractor, investor, supplier or any third-party vendor who needs to quickly understand your business model. Use multiple data flow diagrams for a large organization with multiple systems or just a couple for a smaller company.
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Instructions
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Consider a scenario that closely meets a typical data flow in your organization. Create a list of all the steps, in order, that take place in a process or business function.
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Next to each step, indicate whether the step is a process, a document, a decision, a pre-defined process or a piece of data. Your pre-defined process should have its own data-flow diagram.
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Create a new flow chart in your software application. Visio, Powerpoint and Word all provide capability for generating a data-flow diagram.
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Drag and drop an oval-shaped box in your data flow. The oval shape indicates the beginning of the data flow. The oval shape will be the first piece of data that begins the process. For example, receiving a purchase order would begin the order fulfillment process. Label the shape with a brief description of the data.
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Insert a second step of the data flow. Identify a process with a square shape, decisions with diamond and briefly label each step. A complete list of shapes is provided in the Resources section of this article.
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Insert a shape for each step of the data flow. The steps should be complete and thorough without over-simplifying. For example, include a step for "data is entered into the system." Do not outline every keystroke that an employee must hit to enter the data.
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Connect the data flow with connectors. The connectors show how the data flows from the beginning to the end of the document. Indicate decisions, or diamond shapes, with multiple connectors to indicate multiple outcomes.
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Adjust your data-flow diagram so it fits on one page if possible. If your diagram is too large for one page, look for areas that can be moved to another page and replaced with a "pre-defined process" shape.
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Tips & Warnings
Colors and formatting can improve the readability of your data-flow diagram.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit process flow image by Christopher Hall from Fotolia.com
