Who needs BIM flowcharts?

I have a bit of a phobia of flowcharts. They creep me out.

The ones that are designed to describe BIM processes are the worst, maybe because of their impact on my day-to-day life.

On one side, I support structured approach to BIM, a formalized graphic representation of a logic-sequence should do no harm.

However, as an Intuitive BIM-mer, I tend to focus on results and flow-charts just don’t cut it for me. Even on a very abstract level, they just do not reflect what I see in the real world, where activities get all tangled up in multiple dimensions, blatantly disregard artificial rules and generally fail to behave in a well-charted manner.

Building design stages have stopped being packaged in distinctively separated boxes some time ago (schematic design, developed design, detail design…) – yet are still favoured by those unable to keep up with the changes of scenery that have been hitting the AEC over the last 2 decades.

Similarly, BIM practitioners keep promoting a neatly compartmentalized process that BIM is – or at least should be, using colorful flowcharts.

Is it because they have originated from the programming and process driven manufacturing industries that no one really questions these charts?

Or are they just safety blankets that give comfort to those that run BIM processes, something to burrow one’s head in when the reality hits?