How to use FlowVisual: from a process in your head to a number that survives the steering committee
This guide walks the whole way once: which numbers you need up front, how to model the process in seven steps, how to read the stress test — and which five mistakes make the result worthless. No BPMN, no statistics, no measurement campaign required.
First run: 45 minutes. Every one after that: 15.
What FlowVisual is built for — and what it isn't
FlowVisual is a decision instrument, not a documentation tool. It answers exactly one question: where does the process actually jam, and what would it be worth to intervene right there? Anything that doesn't answer that question is missing on purpose.
Use it for
- Checking, before you invest, whether software, a new hire or automation pays off at that particular point.
- Quantifying the bottleneck instead of guessing it — including whether a person or a system sets the limit.
- Building a business case that survives a review by finance: ranges, assumptions, before-and-after.
- Playing through four situations — normal load, demand spike, supply shortage, staff out sick — and watching the bottleneck move.
Don't use it for
- Process maps for an audit or a quality manual. For that, take BPMN and a suite that manages versions.
- Running the process. FlowVisual calculates; it starts no workflows and writes to no system.
- Process mining. It reads no log files from your ERP — you enter volumes and times yourself.
- False precision. If you expect a single number with a decimal place, you'll get a range and a probability instead.
Typical users
- Owners and division heads in mid-sized companies facing an investment decision.
- Process owners who have a suspicion and need evidence.
- Consultants and internal project leads who have to present a before-and-after.
What you need before you start
Five figures, no more. Estimates are fine — FlowVisual works in ranges, not point values. Waiting for a clean measurement campaign means never starting.
| Figure | Example | Where from |
|---|---|---|
| Volume per month | 180 quotes | CRM, invoicing software, or the person who does it every day. |
| Handling time per step | 10 to 40 minutes | Ask for the fastest and the worst case, not for the average. |
| Waiting time between steps | 0.5 to 3 days | Timestamps in the inbox or ticket system. Usually the larger half of cycle time. |
| Capacity per role | 1.5 people, 6 hrs/day on the process | Count net: subtract holidays, meetings and interruptions. |
| Cost rate per role | 55 euros per hour, fully loaded | Payroll including overheads divided by productive hours. |
Don't have all five? Start anyway. A range of 10 to 60 minutes is an honest input and produces a usable result — an invented 7.5 does not.
Seven steps to a result
The order is not arbitrary. The bottleneck appears in step 6, in the stress test. Fix it beforehand and shape the model around it, and you get your own assumption handed back — neatly formatted and worthless.
- Step 1 · Find
Create the area and the process
What you do- Create the area, name the process — the way it is actually called internally.
- Set start and end: where does a case begin, when is it done?
- Enter the monthly volume. It scales every euro figure later on.
In the sidebar, create the area — sales, order handling, service — and inside it the one process that costs you the most money. Not three. One.
- What you see
- An empty canvas with start and end nodes, and the process name in the sidebar.
- Common mistake
- Drawing the boundaries too wide. “From first contact to payment received” is four processes. Model the one you have a suspicion about.
- Step 2 · Lay bare
Click the flow, don't describe it
What you do- Place steps, decisions, sub-processes and drop-offs with a click.
- Draw the rework loops: every correction is a path, not a footnote.
- Consolidate beyond 15 steps — granularity is not a quality mark.
Place the steps in the order a case actually runs — not the order it is supposed to run in. Decisions, rework loops and drop-offs are building blocks of their own.
- What you see
- The flow as a chain of building blocks, with the live preview beside it.
- Common mistake
- Modelling the target process. If every third order really comes back, that path belongs in the model — otherwise you're simulating a company that doesn't exist.
Fig. 2Click the flow, don't describe it - Step 3 · Lay bare
Enter times as ranges
What you do- Enter handling time from–to, not the average.
- Capture waiting time separately — the time nobody is working.
- Attach error and rework rates to the decisions.
Every step gets a handling time as a range and, where there is one, a waiting time in front of it. Two numbers instead of one: fastest case, worst case.
- What you see
- Building blocks carrying time ranges; the preview shows a first cycle time.
- Common mistake
- Forgetting waiting time. In most office processes a case sits idle longer than anyone works on it. Enter handling time only and you optimise the wrong half.
- Step 4 · Lay bare
Assign roles and capacities
What you do- Assign a role per step — name individuals only where a single person is the bottleneck.
- Enter net capacity per role: hours per day on this process.
- Store the cost rate per role so euros come out at the end.
Every step needs a role, every role a real capacity. Not headcount — hours that genuinely land in this process.
- What you see
- The operations view colours utilisation per role in percent.
- Common mistake
- Counting 8 hours a day. Four to six is realistic. Overstated capacity makes every bottleneck disappear — and the simulation sounds the all-clear where there is none.
Fig. 4Assign roles and capacities - Step 5 · Fit
Mark systems and media breaks
What you do- Enter the system per step: ERP, CRM, Excel, inbox, paper.
- Check the transitions: where does the system change? That's the media break.
- Estimate the rework rate at those break points realistically.
Record the system each step runs in. Wherever data is re-typed from one system into the next, you have a media break — and with it time, errors and rework.
- What you see
- The IT view shows load per system, media breaks and automation potential in euros per year.
- Common mistake
- Not counting Excel and the inbox as systems. That's exactly where the most expensive break points sit — not in the ERP.
Fig. 5Mark systems and media breaks - Step 6 · Observe
Run the stress test and read the bottleneck
What you do- Start the Monte-Carlo run and pick the situation: normal load, demand spike, outage.
- Read the bottleneck probability per step: which step is the limit most often?
- Note cycle time as a P10–P90 range and the share of days over capacity.
Now FlowVisual runs the process hundreds of times, each pass drawing different random values from your ranges. Only here does the bottleneck appear — as a probability, not an opinion.
- What you see
- A ranking of bottlenecks, the cycle-time distribution and throughput.
- Common mistake
- Only running normal load. Processes don't break on average, they break at the peak. Run at least one situation with 30 percent more volume.
Fig. 6Run the stress test and read the bottleneck - Step 7 · Weigh & Yield
Simulate the intervention, export before-and-after
What you do- Create a variant and change one intervention only.
- Re-run and read the difference in cycle time, throughput and euros.
- Export as a branded PDF: model, assumptions, before-and-after, ranges.
Change exactly one thing — remove a rework loop, close a media break, add half a role — and run it again. The difference is your business case.
- What you see
- Two runs side by side and a PDF that can be explained without you in the room.
- Common mistake
- Changing three things at once. You end up knowing it got better — but not from what. One change, one run.
Reading the results
Four numbers decide. Each answers a different question — and each has a threshold at which it triggers an action.
| Metric | What it says | What you do with it |
|---|---|---|
| Bottleneck probability | In what share of runs this step limits the whole process. | The top step is the only one where an intervention pays. Anything below it improves something that is waiting anyway. |
| Cycle time P10–P90 | Nine out of ten cases fall inside this range. The distance between P10 and P90 measures unpredictability. | A wide range is a problem in itself: you can't promise a date. Narrowing the range is often worth more than lowering the average. |
| Utilisation per role | What share of available time a role is tied up in the process. | Beyond roughly 85 percent, waiting time rises disproportionately. Roles above it are candidates for redistribution, not automatically for a new hire. |
| Automation potential in euros per year | The time and rework tied to media breaks, extrapolated to a year. | Hold it against the cost of the fix. If it comes out lower, doing nothing is the right result — that is a result too. |
A number without a range is a guess. When a result arrives as a single point value, the information about how certain it is went missing — and that is exactly what decides whether you can put a budget behind it.
Why not Excel, Visio or a BPM suite
The four common categories are not worse — they answer a different question. Pick the wrong category and you get a clean answer to the question you didn't ask.
| Category | Answers | Effort | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drawing tool | What does the flow look like? | Hours | The picture doesn't calculate. A diagram shows sequence, never load. |
| Spreadsheet | What does the process cost on average? | Hours to days | Adds up averages. But queues come from variability — and the spreadsheet systematically cancels it out. |
| BPM suite | How is the process documented and approved? | Weeks, plus notation | Built for governance and execution. The investment question isn't what it centres on. |
| Simulation lab | How does a complex system behave in detail? | Weeks, plus expertise | Powerful and expensive. Oversized for a single mid-market investment decision. |
| FlowVisual | Where is the bottleneck, and what would an intervention there be worth? | 45 minutes | Deliberately narrow: no notation, no execution, no governance. |
The difference isn't feature count, it's the question. A diagram documents, a spreadsheet adds up, a suite administers. FlowVisual calculates variability — and variability is why processes jam.
What FlowVisual cannot do
Four limits worth knowing before the first run. A tool that hides its limits produces numbers that fall apart in the first critical conversation.
It doesn't measure for you
FlowVisual reads no data from your systems. The inputs come from you. The result is only as good as the ranges you enter — which is why honest ranges beat precise wishful numbers.
It executes nothing
No workflow start, no interface, no writing into ERP or CRM. FlowVisual ends at the decision; implementation happens elsewhere.
It doesn't replace the conversation
The rework loops that make a process genuinely expensive are known by the people who run it daily. Model with them, not over their heads.
It gives no certainty
A simulation yields probabilities, not promises. P90 means nine out of ten cases below it — not all of them.
The five most common mistakes
None of these makes the result merely less precise. Each makes it wrong, and in a predictable direction.
- 01
Deciding the bottleneck up front
ProblemIf you already know where it jams, you model towards it without noticing. The run then confirms the assumption — a circular argument.
BetterWrite the suspicion down, turn it face down, model with an open mind. Compare afterwards. Where the two differ is exactly where the insight is.
- 02
Entering averages instead of ranges
ProblemAverages produce a process without queues. The very variability that causes the jam is cancelled out.
BetterAlways from–to. If you only know one value: minus 40 percent, plus 80 percent — closer to reality than the point value.
- 03
Modelling too finely
ProblemForty steps cost two hours of modelling and don't improve the result. The bottleneck rarely sits in the fine print.
BetterTen to fifteen steps. Consolidate first, refine later — and only where the stress test points.
- 04
Ignoring waiting time
ProblemCapturing handling time only halves cycle time on paper and moves the bottleneck to the wrong place.
BetterCapture the waits between steps too, even roughly. One day of waiting outweighs ten minutes of handling.
- 05
Converting savings into full-time posts
ProblemFour hours saved per week is not half a post. It is four hours spent differently — the cost stays.
BetterReport savings in time and throughput, and decide separately whether they ever turn into a cost reduction.
Work through the guide on your own process
Version 1.0, free for 14 days. Everything on this page fits inside the trial — including the PDF export.
After the guide
The guide ends with a result. These three pages show what becomes of it.
- 01
Read the sample analyses
Every analysis in the archive was produced with this instrument — model, measurement, finding, and the limits of the analysis.
Open - 02
The method behind it
Eight steps, two halves: FLOW measures, REFY refines. This guide is the part the software takes over.
Open - 03
Free calculators
Process costs, bottleneck, maturity and automation — for a first approximation in the browser, no install.
Open
Frequently asked questions about using it
Budget 45 minutes for the first process: roughly 30 minutes modelling, the rest stress test and evaluation. Every process after that takes about 15 minutes, because roles, cost rates and systems are already stored.
No. FlowVisual works in ranges. An honest estimate of 10 to 40 minutes gives a more defensible result than a precise-looking average of 22.5 minutes, because the range carries the variability that causes the jam.
The process is calculated hundreds of times, and on each pass a random time is drawn from your range for every step — so at the end you see not one result but the distribution of all plausible results.
Because processes don't fail on average, they fail at the peak. P10 is the good day, P90 the bad one. The distance between them tells you whether you can promise a customer a date — the average never does.
No, deliberately not. You click steps, decisions, drop-offs and sub-processes together. FlowVisual serves measurement, not standards-compliant documentation — there are BPMN tools for that.
Yes. The app runs locally on macOS and Windows, with no account and no cloud. Your process files stay on your own drive — which matters once volumes, cost rates and staffing sit in the model.
Version 1.0 is free to try for 14 days, after which it runs as an early-access subscription for teams (B2B, net). This entire guide can be worked through inside the trial.
Yes. The PDF export contains the model, the assumptions, before-and-after, and the ranges. One thing matters for the paper: keep the assumptions visible. A number without its assumption falls apart at the first critical question.
Rather walk through it together?
In 20 minutes we'll capture your most expensive process and run the stress test with you — live, on your numbers.
No sales pitch. No slides. Just straight talk.