Rummler-Brache Swim Lane

Process Swim Lanes were first described in Geary Rummler and Alan Brache’s publication Improving Performance. Their impact in the process world is difficult to overstate. Their work has focused on helping companies improve their overall business process es, and thereby become more competitive and profitable. Process Swim Lanes have become the most ubiquitous term and method associated with their names.

It is a highly effective way to display the relationship between processes and organizations/departments. Swim Lanes are essentially flow charts which include horizontal or vertical bands to include customers, departments and technology.

Swim Lanes rely on rectangles for activities/tasks, decision diamonds, and arrows to represent flow. Central to the method is separating organizations with horizontal rows.

Each activity is placed in the row (Swim Lane) which represents the organization responsible for completing the task. See Figure A.3.

Figure A.3 Rummler-Brache Swim Lane example

Swim Lanes are strong tools for communicating with business managers. Many managers are essentially organizational thinkers. They see the world in organizational terms. In the absence of those structures they will sometimes struggle. Swim Lanes describe a process from a viewpoint which is familiar and accessible.

The weakness of Swim Lanes stems from the fact that it is more of an approach than a standard. Managing complexity is generally done by including symbols from other standards within a Swim Lane diagram.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-02