Strategic. Simple. Universal. UPN

The debate around the value of BPMN continues. Clearly it is the critical modeling notation for those in the business of “process execution” i.e. workflow automation. But its huge range of symbols often makes it impenetrable by end users who need a view of the end to end process for training, support or compliance reasons; the operations manual. Also it does not lend itself to strategic operational design for executives.

Enter UPN (Universal Process Notation). It was created back in 2008 when Nimbus as a non-proprietary notation. A number of tools can be used to draw UPN diagrams; Visio, Powerpoint, Skore, Lucidchart, TIBCO Nimbus and of course Q9 Elements.  The standard has been updated and now that Nimbus is part of TIBCO and it is available here.

But a picture is worth a thousand words, so here goes.