María de Lourdes Fuentes and María Gonzáles de Cossío (poster)

Conventional flow charts are questioned: a proposal to aid management success

Following instructions or procedures has been a major issue within organizations. Resources are spent into providing employees with tools to work more efficiently, such as training and courses, setting procedures, offering manuals, etc. Some large organizations are developing their procedures by using software such as ‘Visio’ which is specialized in specifying the roles of each person in the chain of tasks that have to be accomplished.

A large corporation with educational and charitable directions and with offices in 18 different countries is organizing its procedures. Their aim is that employees throughout the world follow the same steps and organization style as the main offices in Mexico City.

As information designers we developed a system that embraced sixty procedures and organized them into different categories that could be consulted electronically or through a printed manual. The system enabled employees to understand the processes, to access needed information as to perform their task, to know their responsibilities, and to follow the appropriate steps for a successful completion of the job. The project involves interaction between the users and the system through verbal graphic, and oral language.

Maria de Lourdes Fuentes is a graphic and information designer, also a lecturer at Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla, a student of philosophy, and a consultant at the Centre for Advanced Studies in Design, Mexico

Maria González de Cossío, PhD, is a lecturer and researcher at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Cuajimalpa, and a consultant at the Centre for Advanced Studies in Design, Mexico