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What is UPN?
4th September 2023
by Craig Willis
What is UPN (Universal Process Notation)? In the world of Process Mapping, UPN is a method of mapping that’s easy to understand for the widest audience. It is designed to work for anyone and not just the technical experts. Read on to discover why UPN could be the solution to stronger collaboration, stakeholder buy-in and engagement in process management for your organisation.
UPN was first documented as a specification at Nimbus Partners which later became part of TIBCO Software. Craig Willis was one of the founders of Liberty Spark, our process improvement solution, and he wrote the early versions of the specification. Today, there are several software products, including Liberty Spark, that support Universal Process Notation.
In this article, we’ll answer the following questions for you:
What is UPN?
What exactly is UPN? Universal Process Notation uses symbols to describe business processes in a universal way. It is the simplest format and is quick to learn and straightforward to read. Business process notations, such as UPN and BPMN, are standardised methods of mapping business processes in a visual form.
We map business processes to understand how any work is done in an organisation. We use diagrams to show how the work and data flows through an organisation. It’s a great way to understand complicated processes because we can look at them visually. UPN saves you time, engages your team and stakeholders and creates a long-lasting legacy that everyone can collaborate on.
Where did UPN come from?
Universal Process Notation is based on IDEF0 system modelling with some simplifications.
How does UPN work?
UPN is a very clear language that really focuses on how people describe and think about work. It uses one shape to represent an activity in a process and natural language to describe the type of activity.
Activities
Let’s look at an example – here, if the activity is to ‘send a notification’ it is described as:
Outputs
Every activity in UPN is followed by an output. The output tells us why the activity is done, or when it’s finished. UPN is designed to be used in a conversational setting, like an interview or workshop.
As such, the output is a powerful tool to help individuals think more deeply about the process. So here we can describe the output very simply as:
Roles and resources
The final key building block of any UPN process is the Role, or Resource, required to do the activity. This is the Who – the person that does the activity, or the system required. We can very easily add this to our activity box. This activity shows a role and a system with RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed).
Sub-processes, details and drill downs
One of the unique aspects of UPN is that it has multiple levels within a single process map. UPN recommends that process diagrams are easy to read and fit on a computer screen. For processes with lots of activities this can be hard, but UPN makes it easy by using this approach. The ‘detail view’ button is on the top left of the ‘what’ box and created with a single click.
Activities are grouped together and then summarised in a single activity with a sub-process, or detailed view, underneath.
There are no limits to the number of levels you create, it’s all about making it easy to read. It’s a bit like Google Maps where you can zoom into the detailed street view for a given town or city.
Attachments
Finally, other important information can be easily associated with steps in a process through attachments. These could be detailed descriptions, additional instructions or links to other places. Ultimately, it’s about making sure that all the information is just one click away from anyone following the process. A variety of attachment types are accessible through the paperclip icon.
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The benefits of UPN
Universal Process Notation can be used in most situations where we require process maps. It is particularly powerful where you need to involve large numbers, or a diverse range of people.
For example, if cross functional teams must collaborate on a process, UPN provides a simple common language for all the teams working together.
Because the approach is so simple, it’s easy enough to use to map processes live into software during a workshop. This saves a huge amount of time for both the analyst and the participants. No one needs to wait for notes to be rewritten and shuffled around, it can be done at the pace of the conversation in the room.
At the end of the workshop, the processes can be shared directly rather than waiting to be transcribed into another software product. Plus, if you have key stakeholders in the room, there’s no reason why you can’t sign off on your process straightaway, no waiting around for weeks for people to come back to you.
“UPN is a very clear language that really focuses on how people describe and think about work. It uses one shape to represent an activity in a process and natural language to describe the type of activity.”
Craig Willis
Head of Client Solutions – Process Improvement, Netcall
In addition, the system-based style of UPN means that everyone in the workshop can structure their thoughts in a more natural way. As a result, we get more analysis taking place in the workshop, rather than after. The participants and stakeholders can quickly develop a better understanding of the problems and solutions in the process. This means they get clarity early on and are more likely to buy-in and engage.
Finally, the simplicity of the notation makes it easy enough to read so you don’t need to train someone to understand it. That means that an organisation isn’t dependant on just one person having the skills to manage process mapping and saves time. The straightforward format means the processes can then be used for many different types of documentation such as standards, training and user manuals.
The most common uses of UPN
With many of the benefits around Universal Process Notation being about simplicity, there are a huge number of uses.
Key things to remember about UPN
At the time of writing this article, Universal Process Notation has been in use in organisations of all sizes for over 20 years. UPN has been used to underpin Business Process Management and Improvement programmes in global organisations in Oil & Gas, Pharmaceutical, Fast Moving Consumer Goods, Retail and Manufacturing.
And it’s not just the largest organisations that benefit from this approach. Thousands of small and medium sized businesses have used UPN to scale up and improve customer experience.
If you’re planning any of the initiatives above, keep these things in mind when deciding whether UPN is the right approach to use:
- Do you have to involve large numbers of people? UPN helps you quickly get buy-in and alignment among large numbers of people due to the simple and easy to learn nature of the approach.
- Do you have to engage different audiences? If you need to work with both technical and non-technical audiences UPN provides a simple common language that makes cross discipline communication easier.
- Are these processes going to be an ongoing asset? UPN is the perfect approach for building easy to use process maps that can be referenced and updated into the future.