Develop a step-by-step visual guide to different processes.
About the Flowchart template
What is a flowchart?
A flowchart is a graphical or symbolic representation of a given process. You use symbols to depict each step of the process. Many flowcharts contain brief descriptions of each step. Most people use arrows to link various steps together and to indicate the direction of process flow.
There are a few commonly accepted flowchart shapes. For example, ovals generally represent the beginning or end of a process, rectangles represent a process, diamonds represent a decision, and arrows indicate the order in which steps should occur.
When to use flowcharts
When you’re trying to wrap your head around a process, it can be useful to have a visual representation of each step. Your team can create flowcharts for new projects, or to refine and improve how existing processes work.
Here are 4 types of charts:
The process flowchart is probably the most commonly used example. Just as the name implies, it depicts a process step-by-step. Your team can use a process flowchart to map out roles and responsibilities within an organization, draw up a proposal for a process, or illustrate a complex workflow.
The workflow chart helps you understand how your business functions—specifically, how data and documents flow throughout your organization. You can use workflow charts to bring new employees up to speed, discover bottlenecks and inefficiencies, and clarify business operations.
The swimlane flowchart depicts multiple flows of information side by side. Most people use these types of flowcharts to illustrate processes that intersect or interact with different parts of an organization, or to illustrate collaborative processes.
Data flowcharts are designed to show how data is processed. There are a variety of applications: engineers use data flowcharts to design or analyze systems, while marketers use data flowcharts to understand consumer behavior.
Benefits of using a flowchart
By creating a visual representation of your business processes, your team can quickly see how various process components relate to one another. Flowcharts also can reveal process flaws and bottlenecks, which ultimately helps your team solve problems and improve your products.
Create your own flowchart
Start by selecting Miro’s fully customizable, premade Flowchart template. This simple whiteboard tool allows you to invite teammates to join the board and collaborate. Here’s how to get started:
Decide on the process your team wants to document or illustrate.
List the steps to complete in order to execute the process.
Designate symbols for the various steps in the process.
Draw your symbols and label them according to the steps they represent.
Draw arrows to link the steps.
Review your flowchart with stakeholders and iterate as necessary.
You can use sticky notes or icons to make your flowchart clearer and more visually engaging. If you need input from a team member, you can @mention them or start a video chat.
A website flowchart, also known as a sitemap, maps out the structure and complexity of any current or future website. The flowchart can also help your team identify knowledge gaps for future content. When you’re building a website, you want to ensure that each piece of content gives users accurate research results based on keywords associated with your web content. Product, UX, and content teams can use flowcharts or sitemaps to understand everything contained in a website, and plan to add or restructure content to improve a website’s user experience.
A timeline is a visual tool that chronologically plots out projects step by step. It’s an ideal tool for your team to tell stories (such as an overview of events in your organization) and visualize your projects or processes. The Timeline Workflow template is perfect for any project that relies on visual content. You may find it beneficial to use with your team and also to share with other stakeholders or clients to keep them in the loop on your progress.
Have an overwhelming list of to-dos? Prioritize them based on two key factors: urgency and importance. It worked for American president Dwight D. Eisenhower, and it can work for you—this decision-making framework will help you know where to start and how to plan your day. With our template, you can easily build an Eisenhower Matrix with a quadrant of key areas (Do, Schedule, Delegate, and Don’t Do) and revisit it throughout the day as your priorities change.
Features are what make a product or service fun, but adding new ones is no walk in the park. It takes many steps—ideating, designing, refining, building, testing, launching, and promoting—and just as many stakeholders. Feature Planning lets you put a smooth, sturdy process in place, so you can add a feature successfully, and spend less time and resources doing it. That makes our Feature Planning Template a smart starting point for anyone looking to add new product features, especially members of product, engineering, marketing, and sales teams.
How do your individual or team goals relate to an organization’s overall strategy? A Strategy Map is a stylized picture of your organization’s strategy and objectives. It’s powerful because it provides a clear visual guide to how these various elements work together. Strategy Maps can help align various different team goals with the overall strategy and mission. With the Strategy Map in place, teams can create set actionable, relevant KPIs. Strategy mapping is often considered part of the balanced scorecard (BSC) methodology, which is a strategic planning tool for setting overall team goals.
Originally used as a modeling language in software engineering, UML has become a popular approach to application structures and documenting software. UML stands for Unified Modeling Language, and you can use it to model business processes and workflows. Like flowcharts, UML diagrams can provide your organization with a standardized method of mapping out step-by-step processes. They allow your team to easily view the relationships between systems and tasks. UML diagrams are an effective tool that can help you bring new employees up to speed, create documentation, organize your workplace and team, and streamline your projects.