Your anonymous expert had a deep and incisive criticism there on more than just flowchart design. I wonder if it was his original thought or John Boyd's but regardless it is a very important observation.

We all have a tendency to some degree to run on a mental ” autopilot” – whether you want to call this phenomena ” framing”, worldview, paradigms, schemas, ideological constructs, etc. – the precise meaning vary but the effect is to shape our perceptions of the world ( highlighting or omitting data) and to an extent predetermine our responses in a large picture sense. Ideological blinders concentrates our vision but they distort our view of reality.

There are good reasons for this – namely economy of time – to not consciously and sequentially go through each epistemological step of thinking through *all* of the implications of every event. Or even the most probabalistic ones. That would be impossible to do and self-defeating if we tried. We'd effectively be paralyzed. So normally we ” React” rather than ” Decide —> Act”.

A critical skill is to be able to periodically attempt to step outside one's worldview and look at an event from multiple perspectives other than one's own. You have become a strategic thinker when you know *when* to do this as well as *how*.

Again, kudos to your expert.

http://toolbar.google.com/

In flowcharts, a rectangle means a “process.” So “observing,” “orienting,” “deciding,” and “acting,” are all processes.

Likewise, the cylinder I use for world means “direct access storage.” Processes work on data, and the world is a data-storage device that we can access directly.

I drew the chart in OpenOffce.org, but Microsoft PowerPoint uses the same symbols

http://www.ictgcse.com/sub_projects/ictgcse_th_sysflow.htm

A pretty good explanation of flowcharting with the most common symbols is at:

http://www.nos.org/htm/basic2.htm

An EXTREMELY good introduction to visual documentation generally, including the direct access storage symbol, in the form of a 1.1 meg powerpoint, is at

http://www.seattle-sage.org/2004/01/SA_1_TechCharts.ppt

As the sage once spoke, “Those who cannot draw, chart.”