Information flow diagram

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Information

The underlying objective of an information flow diagram is to show how information flows from a Source to a Receiver (e.g. A→ C), through some medium. The medium acts as a bridge, a means of transmitting the information (Word of mouth, radio, email...). The concept of IFD was initially used in radio transmission. The System also includes an element of feedback, a reply or response to the signal that was given out. The return paths can be 2-way, information can flow back and forth and it can also be bi-directional. Although it is most common that information will be passed on. Information flow diagram (IFD) is used to illustrate the information flow throughout an organisation. An IFD shows the relationship between external and internal information flows between an organisation. It also shows the relationship between the internal departments and sub-systems.

An Information Flow Diagram is information about a system laid out in diagramatic form. An IFD usually uses "blobs" to decompose the system and sub-systems into elemental parts. Lines then indicate how the information travels from one system to another. IFDs are used in businesses, government agencies, television and cinematic processes. Information Flow Diagrams are often confused with Data Flow Diagrams. Information Flow Diagrams show information as sources, destination and flows. Whereas Data flow Diagrams show processes where inputs are transformed into outputs, Databases are also present in Data Flow Diagrams to show where data is held within the systems. Further, in Data flow diagrams, information destinations are re-termed as ‘sinks’.

Purpose

Peter Checkland, a British management scientist, described information flows between the different elements that compose various systems. He also defined a system as a 'community situated within an environment'.

The main purpose of an Information Flow Diagram is so that sources that send and receive information can be displayed neatly and analysed. This allows viewers to see the forwarding of information and the analysis of different situations. The creation of an Information Flow Diagram is, in most cases, the first step to Information Analysis. Information Flow Diagrams are behaviour diagrams that show the exchange of data between systems. They are also used to describe the circulation of information within systems. Information Flow Diagrams clearly display how data moves within a system, user interaction points and authorisation boundaries. Information that moves along the diagram is represented as either information items or by concrete classifiers. Information Flow diagrams are used for the following cases:

• When determination is needed of the main flows within an organisation
• When you want to map items to build a fact-finding process, accurate and efficient method of documenting findings.
• Develop high level overview of the flow of information in an organisation. Highlight detailed flows in an individual task.
• Describe the flow of information inside and around organisations and between departments.
• Map the dependencies applications, their information objects, interfaces and the functional information flow between (sub-) applications.
• Understand business process bottlenecks in sequential, deferred, real-time, parallel, wheel, one to-many,many-to-many and many-to-one-to-many information flows.

Features and Construction of IFD

Construction of Information Flow Diagram requires the knowledge of different information and the connections between them. The Sources and Targets of information flow are one of the following, actor, use case, node, artefact, class , component, port, property, interface, package , activity node, activity partition, and instance specification.

A dashed line with an open arrow pointing away from the source to the target is used to represent information flow. The keyword ‘flow’ is written above or below the dashed line. Information items represent the abstraction of data and act as information flow connectors, representing the flow of transfer of information from source to target. Information items do not provide any detail of the information they transfer as they are featureless.

Tools and Software's can be used to create Information Flow diagrams, Popular software's include,

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Annotated Information Flow Diagram

• Microsoft Visio – May be licensed under the Microsoft Select Plus agreement
• OmniGraffle – available only for Mac OSX
• Microsoft Powerpoint
• Draw.io – free online tool. (Since system diagrams may contain information related to security controls, please choose either Browser or Device to save your drawing, do not save to a cloud provider.)

Successful Information Flow diagrams should highlight gaps that need improvement, display inefficiencies in information, uncover and highlight risks to information such as data confidentiality and Insecure systems, display unsuitable mediums which are being used and they should also provide clarity about who should receive which information when, where and how.

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Example - Customer posts an order.

Example situation

A customer needs to make an order. Customer first posts the order to the sales department, customers order details are then entered into a centralised database which can only be accessed by the warehouse (to makeup the order). The goods are handed to the dispatch department with a delivery note attached to them for delivery. On delivery, the customer receives the goods and the delivery note (which are handed by a member of the dispatch department). Sales department creates an invoice which is posted to the customer. The accounts departments then assesses a copy of the invoice from the centralised database. Customer is then required to post the payment to the accounts department.

Limitations

Limitations of Information Flow Diagrams are as such,

• The nature of information that is used in the Information Flow Diagram and the mechanisms by which it is conveyed, exchanged and the control conditions are not specified.
• The Signal given out and the signal received are in many cases different. This also applies to feedback messages, due to distortions.
• The intentions of messages sometimes not understood when receiving a signal and message.
• Don't know to what level the medium is distorting the message. Information items do not provide details about the information they transfer as they dont have features, generalisations or associations.
• Detail of timing and what happens when is not given.

See also

• Information systems
• Systems thinking

External links

• Information flow diagram of the transportation chain including the inland navigation in the EU from the European Union programm Intrasea.
• Information flow diagramm of a transportation chain from a mill in Finland to a customer in EU-area .