If you ever take a class that teaches formal flowcharting, they might teach you that all flowcharts start off with a Trigger Event. A Trigger Event is an action that gets the process started. A trigger event for an order processing flowchart could be “Customer places order”. A trigger even for a payment processing flowchart could be “Accounts Payable receives invoice”. And so forth.

Early in my career I had a TQM training instructor who emphasized that all flowcharts should start off with a trigger event like the one in the picture above. However, I learned to flowchart in procedural programming classes (Fortran, Pascal, and BASIC), and we always just started a flowchart with Start. So I never did catch on the the idea of Trigger Events.

Trigger events are a nice formating idea, though, so I’ve created a couple of flowcharts with them. The first time was in a work instruction for machine operators and the second time was in a product hold procedure for product managers and engineers. The reaction both times was the same: “Where’s the flowchart start?”

Flowcharts are used to clearly communicate process flows. A terminator symbol with a simple “Start” label is like a big welcome sign, whereas a trigger event is more like a puzzle for at least have your potential readers. So my advice is to forget about kicking off your flowcharts with a trigger event. Start it with a “Start” terminator and make your “trigger event” the first step after that.