Flowcharts for Technical Communication: Taking it Further with Quality Tools

When starting a new project, we gather as much information as we can about the users and products. Getting that information and organizing it in a way that helps with the design of technical communication products can be challenging. Flowcharts are a common tool for technical communicators. They are useful to help map out the steps people take to accomplish tasks and can be a way to start to organize information. We take the time to create a flowchart and do learn from the exercise, but then it’s shelved. Is there more we can do with a flowchart? Yes! Manufacturing and quality engineers also use flowcharts for production. They analyze flowcharts to optimize and prioritize tasks, and they use them with others for alignment of ideas and to learn about the process for continuous improvement. The same techniques used to maximize production in industry can be used for technical communication: to better understand the user’s process to optimize, prioritize, and for alignment. Knowing more about a user’s process will affect how you design products used for technical communication. Attend of this session to learn how to: • Use flowcharts to get alignment with others about a user’s process. • Evaluate flowcharts to identify what is critical to quality. • Analyze flowcharts to identify what is value-added. • Use deployment flowcharts to understand multiple user’s roles in completing tasks. Can’t make the live event? Register, and we’ll send you a link to watch a recording when convenient. Dianna Deeney is founder of Quality during Design. She promotes early cross-functional teamwork for new product development, and she coaches product development engineers and leaders on the use of quality and reliability methods during the design process for this purpose. Her vision is a world of products that are easy to use, dependable, and safe – possible by strategically using Quality during Design engineering and new product development.