How do I flowchart multiple decision factors?

October 25, 2016 9:48 AM

I have a small amount of flowcharting experience. I'm creating a formal flowchart to identify which authority receives a report about an incident. If any of nine conditions is applicable, then X authority should be notified. How do I chart all 9 decisions?

The start of the flowchart is an Incident. I can chart the initial decision point (Did A occur?) no problem: if yes, do This; if no, do That. But the second decision point includes nine other conditions: Did any one of B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J occur? If yes, Report to Location X; if no, Report to Location Y. The further complication is that conditions B-J are fairly complex: each includes a class identifier, a category identifier, and a quantity limit.

My solution so far is to arrange the nine conditions into a 9 row x 3 column table, put the bottom point of the decision diamond into the table like this. What should I be doing instead?

posted by angiep to Grab Bag (2 answers total)

I'd black-box the conditions by having "Did any X-category conditions occur?" in the diamond and then define X-category on the side of the chart (using a brief term that was more explanatory than X-category).
posted by cardboard at 12:34 PM on October 25, 2016

Response by poster: Thanks, carboard! I wound up doing almost exactly as you suggested.
posted by angiep at 8:13 PM on October 25, 2016