Swim lanes are a useful resource when it comes to explaining a process. Swim lane diagrams take you step by step through a process and identify who is making each action. Because of its effective visualization, swim lanes are helpful when clarifying complex processes, pointing out what actors have what jobs, and overall increasing the understanding of the process.
To best understand swim lanes, one must know what each symbol means. A circle represents the start or end of an event in the process, a rectangle respresents an activity, a diamond signifies a decision that is to be made, a cylinder represents stored data, and finally the arrows indicate the flow of the process.
Nice overview of swim lanes. They are excellent tools for understanding, analyzing and improving business processes!