Adding swimlanes

Swimlanes, also known as functional bands, multi-column charts, or Rummler-Brache diagrams, illustrate how processes that are performed by multiple people or organizations progress through their various chronological stages. In a swimlane diagram, processes are split into distinct channels (or lanes in a swimming pool) according to whose responsibility they are. This allows each person (or group of people, such as a business department) to quickly and easily see what they’re required to accomplish. Because the lanes are arranged side-by-side, you can organize events in the process in sequence and connect them with arrows so that multiple processes come together to form a whole.

Most often, multi-department organizations use swimlane diagrams to illustrate cooperative business processes. For example, the diagram below is organized in four horizontal lanes.

You can add horizontal or vertical swimlanes that contain up to 13 lanes.

1. In your diagram, from the Swimlanes shape library, drag and drop the appropriate swimlane shape to your diagram.

   

   If you do not see this shape library, you can instead search for swimlanes or add the library (see Viewing more shape libraries).

2. Resize the swimlanes as desired to fit the objects they will contain. Any new lanes you add match the size of the last lane.

3. To add more swimlanes, click the swimlane shape and click the Edit custom properties button. Then, click the Number of Swimlanes button and choose a number from the list.

4. To remove lanes, repeat the above step and select less lanes.

5. Format the swimlane shape and text, as desired. For more information, see Formatting shapes and Formatting text.

6. Add or arrange objects into each lane to illustrate your process.