Visio Helps Me Bill More Days! But is this Good Value for My Clients?

I was asked to do some simple process mapping recently. I asked what tool they wanted me to use and surprise surprise "VISIO 2003" came back as an answer.

I arrived on site and ran some 121 interviews and began to draw.

Several days later on schedule I delivered the results and was then asked to do some customer experience (value chain) work with the process drawings. The re-drawing with all those fiddly links that get messed up on changing things took several days with much angst and frustration; as everyone who has used this generic drawing tool will tell you.

Why do you use Visio? I asked during the assignment wash up meeting.

- Well, its on the standard build and its cheap" was the reply.-

- "We don't want to spend money on more software and anyhow it is too hard getting the purchase request approved by I.T." !

My conclusion was - had they recommended a professional mapping tool I could have done the work in 40% of the time or produced more in the time allocated.

So is saving money on a cheap tool really a saving when a freelancer, charging several hundred pounds a day takes, a week to do what he could do in two days with a professional process tool like IGrafx flowcharter? http://www.igxsolutions.co.uk/

False economy I thinks!!

The addition factor is that Visio drawings are drawings not models and very 2d not being suitable for further use ; but that is another discussion for another day.