I learnt this from the Master Business Consultant - Manish Agrawal (Managing Partner Takshashila Consulting, and former Associate Partner Mckinsey & Company. Visit www.tkc.firm.in for further details

An ace strategist for Telecom, Banking and Manufacturing sectors who has  steered  15 Billion Dollar plus rollouts has yet another  distinction which has got the highest impact for the business consulting sector in India. He has trained and mentored  in the field 125 young business consultants who are now with Takshashila Consulting and other top consulting firms of the world like McKinsey and Company, BCG, Bain, Accenture etc

So here is the summary of takeaway , direct from a TKC business consultant mentoring workshop

• Structure the Problem
•  Effective Communication is important to understand the problem
• Organize raw data to gain insights
• Approach the issues

Flow charting is an old process modelling / process visualization / business analysis technique. This technique gained prominence in the world of Information technology with the advent of programming languages where a program will follow a path with a start, an end and one or more intermediate , process steps , decisions etc. 
This old warhorse is given a steep competition by its new rivals from the UML and BPMN staple namely UML Actitivies and BPMN maps, descriptions and models. The new rivals - UML activities and BPMN models  have a rich notation, extensive documentation and have become de-facto and de-jure industry  standards. BPMN even promises what we call as CASE or Computer Aided Software Engineering by generating source code from a BPMN model.
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Those willing to get into greater details of flowcharting notations (Please note notation is a better word then symbols) and associated with flowcharting technique visit this page on Smartdraw website :

                                                              Visit Smartdraw website for details on flowcharting notations

So friends just has vanilla ice cream  has not lost its charm in this era of Sundays, Baskins etc Flowcharting is here to stay alongside UML Activites and BPMN models.

If you are not aware what BPMN is   Click here
If your are not aware what UML is    Click here