How many lanes should a swimlane map have?

As many roles as touch the process, usually three to six. If it needs ten, split the process or group roles that act as one.

Which shapes mean what?

Rounded rectangles are steps, diamonds are decisions, ellipses are the start and the end, and arrows show the order. Lean Studio has all four shapes.

Should the map show how long each step takes?

Add the time where it matters: the waiting at each handoff usually matters more than the work in each step. A sticky with the wait time on each crossing arrow is enough.

Swimlane map or value stream map?

A swimlane map shows who does each step and where work changes hands, which suits office and support processes. A value stream map adds cycle times, inventory and information flow for a product family, which suits the shop floor. Both expose waiting; they measure it differently.

The process owner, usually the manager of the department where the process starts or the one with the most steps. They keep the current state true and own the changes.

How often should it be redrawn?

When the process changes, and otherwise once a year. A map on the wall that no longer matches what people do is worse than no map.

Lean Studio board · Process & flow

Swimlane Process Map board

In one sentence

A swimlane process map is a flowchart drawn across horizontal lanes, one per role or department, so every step sits in the lane of whoever does it and every handoff between roles is visible as an arrow crossing a lane.

A swimlane process map draws a process left to right with one horizontal lane per role or department, so every step sits in the lane of whoever does it. The handoffs between lanes are where processes lose time, and the map makes each one an arrow you can count.

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When to use it

When to use the Swimlane Process Map board

For office and support processes: order entry, purchasing, engineering change, hiring.
When a process crosses three or more departments and the handoffs are the problem.
To write or check a procedure, so the words match what people do.
Before automating a process, to see which steps and handoffs should not survive.

What is on the board

1
Lanes
One per role, team or system, top to bottom.
2
Steps
Rounded rectangles, one per action, in the lane of the person who does it.
3
Decisions
Diamonds with a yes and a no arrow.
4
Handoffs
Arrows that cross a lane boundary; each one is a place to look for waiting.
5
Start and end
Ellipses marking the trigger and the finished result.

Running it

How to run a Swimlane Process Map session

1
Invite one person from every role that touches the process, and nobody's manager if you can help it. Four to eight people, typically two hours for a process of 20 to 40 steps.
2
Agree the trigger and the end before drawing: 'from customer order received to order confirmed'. Draw an ellipse for each.
3
Name a lane per role, top to bottom in the order they first appear. A system (the ERP, the shared inbox) can have a lane if it does work.
4
Walk through one real recent case and draw each step as a rounded rectangle in its lane, decisions as diamonds with a yes and a no arrow. Draw what happens, not what the procedure says.
5
At every arrow that crosses a lane, ask how long the work waits there. Write the wait on a sticky.
6
Count the handoffs and add up the waits. Circle the loops where work goes back a lane; those are rework.
7
Number the steps as you draw them, so the written procedure can refer to 'step 7' and the map can be checked against it later.
8
Good output: a map the people in the room agree is true, a handoff count, a wait total, and three places to change first.

Worked example · sample data

Worked example

The sample map has four lanes for an order: customer, sales, planning and production. The customer sends an order. Sales checks price and stock, then hits a decision: credit OK? On yes, sales confirms the order back to the customer and hands the job to planning. Planning schedules it, and here the team put a pink sticky: the job waits two days for materials before production builds and ships. Four lanes, three handoffs, one decision, one two-day wait. Drawn out, the team saw that the materials wait started only after scheduling, although the parts list was known when sales checked stock. Their first change was to release the materials request from the stock check, before credit clearance, taking the wait off the critical path.

The board shown at the top of this page, read through. Invented data, not a customer.

Common mistakes

Drawing the procedure instead of the process. Map a real recent case, with the people who did it.
Too many lanes. Group roles that act as one; a map with twelve lanes cannot be read.
Ignoring the waits. The steps are usually fine; the arrows between lanes are where the days go.
Missing the loops. Work sent back a lane is rework and often the biggest delay.
Mapping in a meeting room without the people who do the work.
Drawing the happy path only. The credit-refused branch and the rework loop are where the time goes.

How it works in Lean Studio

1
Start from the Swimlane Process Map template: four lanes with a start and an end already drawn.
2
Rename the lanes, then add rounded rectangles for steps, diamonds for decisions and arrows for the flow.
3
Add a sticky on any handoff where work waits, with how long, so the map shows the delays as well as the steps.
4
Save the finished board to My templates so the next team starts from your version.

Lean Studio boards are drawn with stickies, text, shapes (rectangle, rounded rectangle, ellipse, diamond), arrows and charts, and any board can carry the 15 data widgets, from a scorecard to a kanban. See all widgets and boards.

Also in LeanSuite

Where it goes next in LeanSuite

LeanSuite's Vision AI builds a value stream map from a process video.

A handoff or loop chosen for change becomes a Kaizen project with an owner, a due date and tracked savings; engineering, quality, safety and non-manufacturing teams each define their own project types. Kaizen & Projects
Process lead time and on-time confirmation can be KPIs with targets and RAG ranges on the dashboard. KPI Dashboards
For a shop-floor process, Vision AI builds a current-state value stream map from a walk filmed on a phone. AI Video Analysis

See Value Stream Mapping

Open this board in LeanSuite

Swimlane Process Map is one of the 30 ready-made boards in Lean Studio, LeanSuite's whiteboard. Try the interactive demo in your browser with sample data, or pilot LeanSuite on your own lines for 90 days, with the setup done by our team.

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