Process maps, also known as flowcharts, are diagrams that can be created to visualise the processes used at your nonprofit organisation.
Why is it important to create process maps?
Saving Time
Processing mapping is an important step to streamlining and refining the processes at your nonprofit. Being able to visualise these processes will help you identify bottlenecks and ares that need improvement quickly and easily. We recommend creating an ‘as is’ process to see how things are currently done and then a ‘To Be Model’ to document how you want the process to be in the future.
Software Development
Process Diagrams are an important part of the software development lifecycle as consultants need to fully understand an organisation’s processes before developing tools and systems. This reduces the risk of any projects and helps increase user adoption if users are able to see how a system is built according to their workflow.
Software consultancies will often create swim-lane diagrams to document how a process will work according to different systems and users.
GDPR/Data Protection
As part of GDPR and data protection laws it is important that you know exactly how data and information flows through your organisation. Having robust and up to data process diagrams can be an important step to ensure you remain compliant.
Training & onboarding
Process diagrams can be an extremely valuable resource to your team members, who can refer to them when carrying out their duties.
If you have a new member joining the team they can also help with the onboarding process allowing the adoption of good practices in days instead of months.
What free tools are available to create process diagrams?
Microsoft Visio
Although this tool is not free, it might be part of your already existing Microsoft subscription if you have one. We definitely recommend checking this first so that your process diagrams are all hosted in the same place as other documents and tools.
Diagrams.net
Also known as Draw.io, this tool is the most popular free process diagram application available. Not only is it available completely free of charge, it also has no restrictions and can be shared with other team members for easy collaboration. This combined with the fact that it can also be accessed using SSO and can store your diagrams in OneDrive, Gdrive and Dropbox make it the tool of choice for those looking for a free diagramming tool.
Whimsical
Whimsical is a unified workspace for thinking and collaboration. Not only does it have a simple & easy to use flowchart tool, it can also be used to create wireframes, mind maps, sticky notes and documents.
Although the tool is initially free to use, these is a limit of 1000 items per workspace and 10 guests. Despite these restrictions, it is definitely worth checking out due to how easy it is to use and how easy it is to combine flow charts with other workspace tools.
