DD23003 eFlow

 DD23003     eFlow

eFlow originally evolved from a product I called eTube which used the graphic styling of the London Underground Map as a way of illustrating the business processes within an organisation. It was a simple substitute for the likes of Microsoft Vision or Tibco Nimbus business processing mapping tools. To business users it was a very familiar interface being based upon the graphical design of the London Underground Map but it also avoided any use of symbology. Being a “transport map” it immediately conveyed the concept of moving from start to finish an aspect often overlooked when examining business processes, Unfortunately, London Transport threatened legal action for using their intellectual property (IP) style and although I thought their case groundless I could not afford or risk any legal action. So I renamed it eFlow. In fact with hindsight it does seem a better brand name since it captures the essence og “flow” akin to workflows.

eTube was focussed on large wall sized maps of business processes showing the whole organisations business processes in a single viewing. It was intended to illustrate in fact how complex and large were an organisations business processes. It also provided an excellent medium to look at rationalisation. Importantly it also allowed everyone to view all the organisations business processes not just those familiar to the themselves.

It soon became obvious that this type of visualisation paradigm could be applied to any type of data or information or knowledge communication. It was a graphical stylistic repository that triggered a user into thinking in terms of looking for a flow. Importantly users automatically upon seeing the “underground map” looked for a “start”, the “routes” possible and the “finish”. Being focussed upon their “route” whilst aware of the complexity of all the other “routes” available supported holistic thinking in terms of the scope of the subject matter. 

 

Let us look at an eFlow example to illustrate these points.

 

 https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Vd-3UVqAu7TyBfO-bva26KTJMFigD9oqYB30u_KhW8s/edit?usp=sharing