According to the ISO 9000, a process is a set of interrelated or interacting activities that transform inputs (materials, manpower, equipment, information, etc) into outputs (products and services). A process includes all activities and decisions to produce a semi-finished product/service. The primary processes together produce the end products and services for the costumers. These primary processes need support processes, like administration that facilitate the effectiveness and efficiency. It also need control process, like management, supervision and auditing.

The first step of describing the processes is recognising them. Basically each process ends with a completed end or semi-finished product or service. Thus the complete production process in the organisation is broken down into semi-finished products and services.
The next step is to identify the start of the process. This is usually where the previous process ended.

Step three is the identification of all the activities and decision moments and their sequence. Sometimes there are too many activities to include in the description. Often these activities can be grouped into a main activity, which perhaps produces a semi-finished product or service in itself. On basis of certain decisions (often control decisions), certain activities may have to be done again. For example a plan is rejected and needs to be revised. An important question is how often a plan is revised prior a final decision about its approval is taken.

Step four is the identification of the responsible actors, the actors implementing the activity or taking the decision.

Step five is the identification of all the inputs and outputs of the activities. In service-orientated organisations, information is the most crucial input and output.

Step 6 is to estimate for each activity:
" Volume of work [v]
" Duration of activity [d] preferably noted down as (average; minimum; maximum)
" Amount of Time spent on an activity [t] preferably noted down as (average; minimum; maximum)
" Duration of Storing inputs [s]

Step 7 is only necessary for revision of earlier activities and estimates the chance that a proposal needs to be revised (rc) and the maximum of revisions prior a final decision is taken (rm).

The process analysts can obtain information by observing or interviewing the staff involved in the process.

After the processes are described and presented in a flow chart the management of the organisation has to identify possible bottlenecks. It searches for opportunities to save time and costs and still produce the same quality of products and services.
Is it for example possible to improve the sequence of activities and decision moments, or leave some activities out of the process all together? Is it possible to reduce the chance that a proposal will be rejected or has to be revised by earlier provision of and better information?
Is it possible to reduce the time for an activity? Is it for example possible to delegate activities to lower echelons in the organisation or is it possible to outsource activities when a certain officer is overloaded with work? Is it possible to simplify an activity by providing better information, better equipment, materials, improved guidelines and simpler forms? Could the time inputs for the process be reduced by combining activities and decision moments?

A flow chart can be presented using the following symbols:

There are alternative methods to develop flow charts, thus it is necessary to provide a legend. For information about alternative methods, check the following websites:
http://home.att.net/~dexter.a.hansen/flowchart/flowchart.htm
http://www.williamson-labs.com/design.htm
http://www.ex.ac.uk/cimt/mepres/book8/bk8i1/bk8_1i2.htm

The presented picture shows a flow chart for the production of village development plans.