Lets talk about Flowcharts

Hi folks 

Flowcharts are used in designing and documenting simple processes or programs. Like other types of diagrams, they help visualize what is going on and thereby help understand a process, and perhaps also find less-obvious features within the process, like flaws and bottlenecks. There are different types of flowcharts: each type has its own set of boxes and notations. The two most common types of boxes in a flowchart are:

• a processing step, usually called activity, and denoted as a rectangular box.
• a decision, usually denoted as a diamond.

A flowchart is described as "cross-functional" when the chart is divided into different vertical or horizontal parts, to describe the control of different organizational units. A symbol appearing in a particular part is within the control of that organizational unit. A cross-functional flowchart allows the author to correctly locate the responsibility for performing an action or making a decision, and to show the responsibility of each organizational unit for different parts of a single process.

Flowcharts depict certain aspects of processes and are usually complemented by other types of diagram. For instance, Kaoru Ishikawa defined the flowchart as one of the seven basic tools of quality control, next to the histogram, Pareto chart, check sheet, control chart, cause-and-effect diagram, and the scatter diagram. Similarly, in UML, a standard concept-modeling notation used in software development, the activity diagram, which is a type of flowchart, is just one of many different diagram types.

Nassi-Shneiderman diagrams and Drakon-charts are an alternative notation for process flow.

Common alternative names include: flow chart, process flowchart, functional flowchart, process map, process chart, functional process chart, business process model, process model, process flow diagram, work flow diagram, business flow diagram. The terms "flowchart" and "flow chart" are used interchangeably.

The underlying graph structure of a flowchart is a flow graph, which abstracts away node types, their contents and other ancillary information.

I use flowcharts to help with fault finding on all sorts of things from pcbs to why a car won't start and so on I find them it very helpful as it helps me look at the problem in a smaller way instead of a whole.

at first it may seem like a complicated way to fault find but once you start using them you soon find it easy to do I often find myself making notes next to my flowcharts which help when  I start putting things back together .

I have been using draw.io make my flow charts its simple and easy to use and does everything I need 

Dobby.