What are the mechanics of a given social or institutional system? How do resources flow with the commercial sector through government ministries to benefit citizens? How does information flow within an organization? How do resources or people flow between places? How do refugees or migrant workers flow between places? What are the obstacles along the way?
Sankey diagrams, chord diagrams, flow charts, flow maps, connection maps, and network diagrams are some tools used to depict flow.
After diagramming a set of movements or flow, additional layers can be added to show other kinds of interactions—for instance, what kinds of laws affect different parts of the flow; what different types of corruption found at points along the flow might be; or what parts of the flow are cut off or slowed.”