What is a Swimlane Flowchart?

A swimlane flowchart is a type of flowchart that organizes the steps of a process into "lanes" which represent different people, groups, or parts of an organization. These lanes are usually drawn as horizontal or vertical rectangles that span the length or width of the chart. Each lane contains the process steps that the person or group in that lane is responsible for.

Imagine you and your friends are cleaning up a park. One friend is responsible for picking up trash, another for raking leaves, and you're responsible for sweeping the paths. A swimlane flowchart of this process would have three lanes - one for each of you - and each lane would have the steps that the person is responsible for. So your lane might have "Get broom", "Start at one end of path", "Sweep path", "Move to next path", and so on.

Swimlane flowcharts are handy for showing complex processes involving multiple people or groups, and their responsibilities must be clearly understood. They help make sure everyone knows what they should be doing at each step of the process.

By organizing the steps of a process into separate lanes, swimlane flowcharts also make it easier to see how the different parts of a process work together and where there might be bottlenecks or delays that could be improved.