Swim lane is a process modeling methodology used in the industry. Swim lane is nothing but a flow chart which can be used represent the process flow. What swim lane represents and flow chart doesn't do is showing the responsibilities of the various departments involved. In other words we can say that swim diagram is a cross functional diagram. Based on the length of the process and convenience the swim lane diagram can be drawn vertically or horizontally. The swim lane diagram helps each department to understand the role and their dependency in proceeding to next step in an activity. Accountability and clarity can be said as major take away from swim lane diagrams.
Advantages of swim lane diagrams:
- Dependency on a particular department can be clearly understood. For example, in an embedded development, if we consider firmware and hardware as two departments, the firmware team has to depend on prototype availability to test their developed program (not all things can be tested by evaluation board).
- Increases efficiency by clearly defining the roles and most of the times help to plan in advance
- Reduces redundancy and helps save costs
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