How Universal Process Notation (UPN) supports a human-centric BPM approach – with UPN co-inventor Walter Bril
#035 Let’s discuss the advantages of UPN and how it can support the human-centric BPM approach.
In this episode, I’m talking to Walter Bril about the main aspects of Universal Process Notation (UPN) and how it supports the human-centric BPM approach. We discuss the five questions that need to be answered and compare it to other notations such as BPMN 2.0. What is the advantage of UPN? Do you really not need swim lanes to model processes in a lean way? Let’s find out..
Today’s Guest:
Walter Bril
Walter is the co-inventor of UPN. He developed UPN in the early 2000s alongside several colleagues at Nimbus, a company later acquired by TIBCO.
Before joining Nimbus, Walter worked as a Process Consultant for various companies in the Netherlands. Today, he holds the position of Customer Success Manager at Elements.cloud, a platform that can also be utilized for mapping processes in UPN.
Walter lives in Nuth, located in the southern Netherlands, close to the German border and not far from Aachen.
You’ll learn:
- What the core principles behind the lean and clear approach of UPN are
- What UPN looks like
- What the five essential questions of UPN are
- How to adopt UPN’s human-centric approach as an alternative to traditional BPMN 2.0 methods
- How to start using UPN
Resources
- Walters LinkedIn Profile
- Elements.cloud
- Book recommendation: Beyond Reengineering
- five questions
- Book: System Thinking
Get notified about new episodes:
Transcript
Please note that the transcript was generated automatically and only slightly adjusted. It does not claim to be a perfect transcription.
Mirko
Yeah, welcome to episode 35 of the New Process Podcast. I’m back from a super relaxing vacation in Austria and Italy and I already worked on some cool things which I’m going to reveal in the course of this episode. I hope you also enjoyed your summer break, so that we can now start with new energy to rethink processes. Today, I’m finally going to learn what UPN the Universal Process Notation is all about and how it supports a human-centric BPM approach. Therefore, I have invited UPN’s co-inventor, Walter Bril, to the podcast.
Walter developed UPN back in the beginnings of the 2000s with a number of co-workers at Nimbus, which was later acquired by Tipco. Before joining Nimbus, Walter worked as process consultant for several companies in the Netherlands. Today, he is customer success manager at elements.cloud, which can also be used to map processes in UPN. Walter lives in Newt, located in the southern Netherlands, which is quite close to the German border and not far away from Aachen. On LinkedIn, he titled himself as a “process knowledge nerd”, so I think he’s perfect to discuss the topic of notations here today. So enjoy the interview with Walter Bril. Yeah, welcome to the new Process Podcast, Walter. I’m super curious to finally learn more about UPN. So welcome Walter.
Walter
Well, thank you for having me, Mirko, this is great to be in your podcast. Yeah, it was just a matter of time, I suppose, but then you know we’re all very busy and, yeah, I’m so happy to be here.
Mirko
Yeah, you’re my first guest after the summer break, and this is driving me even more motivated to learn more about UPN. So, just coming back from a relaxed vacation in Italy and now UPN today. Yeah Cool, let’s check right into our flight today. What do you prefer in an aircraft?
Walter
I’ll our window seat, okay long haul, always window seat, because then I can put my hat you know more to the window. But short flights always I’ll.
Mirko
Yeah, I do it the same way. That’s that’s a very good approach, I think. And what is your favorite airport?
Walter
To be honest, that has been Frankfurt for a long time.
And no yeah, yeah, and I will tell you why because I was working for SAP for a long time and I had to fly every single week to Frankfurt and then sort of drive to Waldorf every week and as people started to know me because you know, it happens that you were every week there so the the Hertz guys Mr Brail, welcome and so white and so white, and they knew me, so that was really cool and then they sometimes gave me a really cool car, which is really awesome. But then also the launch, the launch, the launch, the launch guys knew me as well. So I had because I fly a lot, you have lounge access and that was just so relaxing. So the most relaxing experience was actually in Frankfurt.
Now, from a, shall we say, normal airport experience, as in like not being in a lounge, that would be probably a different airport. But fine, I mean, that would maybe scribble airport because it has so much shopping and stuff like that and there’s so much things to do. But yeah, but from Frankfurt for more like relaxing. You know a situation I like that. Yeah, it was always very calm. You know there’s not many people like, oh, I love that, okay.
Mirko
That’s an interesting perspective because I was flying to Frankfurt for years Sometimes I shouldn’t tell that twice a week and the security is just not very lean and that was always a little bit exciting to get to the aircraft on time especially.
Walter
That’s why I prefer to skip a little bit more because I’m also a preview member. So, basically around security, but especially for cross-boarding. You know, I just had to go, don’t have to stand in rows, so you had always priority, which is always nice. I have a little I don’t know if it fits in the podcast, but I have a little anecdote there. So I have this little card, you know, the premium card, and I traveled about years ago.
I traveled first, well, first of all, business class or something, from states to Amsterdam, and there was a whole group of, shall we say, pretty spoiled people. They didn’t want to really walk from the gate to, you know, so they ordered a car, you know, so they didn’t have to walk. I don’t know if they had any, I think they didn’t have anything on that, no, any disabilities or something, but they were just sort of lazy, but very no portion. Well, you know, then I went, yeah, whatever, and so I went walking, and then of course it was a seven for seven, so it was a huge, huge show. And then this magic thing happened me in my sort of jeans, you know, and then sort of waisted clothes. I’m sorry, apology, sorry, passing through, passing through. And then, you know, bye, it was out of the airport and it sort of gave me a like hmm, I didn’t have a car, but you know I’m quicker to the conveyor belt than you are. This doesn’t make any difference in the end from a process perspective, but okay.
So these are the fun, fun parts of flying.
Mirko
Yeah, exactly Nice anecdote. But that leads us to the next question. So what was the best process you have ever experienced?
Walter
Well, actually, the best part is not not, not very flying or traveling. It’s actually a company called Cool Blue in the Netherlands. They, they, that’s. That’s actually a sort of small Amazon, you know, kind of retail, and these guys I don’t know how to do it it’s up top, you know, 100% fantastic. This is the best ever logistic experience I have ever came across. I’ll tell you a story.
So you ordered the refrigerator or a freezer, you know, for a new house. Fine, okay, derived. We were there and these guys were already waiting outside. Okay, hi, and so where does this thing go? Does it need to go into the garage? No, no, it has to go to the cellar. Oh, okay, no problem. And then there was the door and there was the fridge and I went like no way, there was no way this thing could go through. And I went like, oh, no, no, no, no shit, I mean how to send it back. These guys like, okay, there’s no problem. The process is very simple. You know, we just take it back. You know, you go straight on as we speak, you go order a new one which is a little bit smaller, you know, online, and then we’ll bring you the next one.
So my customer experience was like out of this world. I mean, like what? And do I need to sign, you know, as any formalities? No, no, no, no, no, you just go ahead. How do you know? Yeah, that’s so fine, but they are, they have their act together. So, from a logistics perspective, I that’s also why people stick with companies like that. Of course, that’s what I like, these, these guys. You know, as soon as you have your process stuff, whatever process stuff, it is so lean that it is like for a customer, you just go like what happened? I don’t even have to struggle. The other way is also true. So we had a couple of weeks ago we ordered something and it’s a nightmare Sending the thing back and you get questions don’t you want 10% discount? No, I just want to get rid of this thing. So that’s sort of the two worlds. But yeah, that’s my best experience.
But then, of course, like you just mentioned, lean as in going through security. You see, as a process guy I don’t know you have a nose for that you go like, oh my God, and this is so inefficient. You know this is so I do some calculations like okay, when there’s been, I had to change planes, we had to go again I think this was in London through security and there are very nervous people because we won’t make the flight because there’s such a long queue. And then I looked at a guy with a very red backpack and I calculated the rows right and I’m like okay, so what, how long does it take from there to there? It’s about a minute. Okay, one, two, three, four, five, six minutes, dish, no, no, we will make it. And he’s coming. How do you know that? I calculated it and you made it of course.
Mirko
Yeah, I did the same in Frankfurt. That’s super cool, it works it works yeah. So I think I don’t have to ask this question anymore, but how would you describe your relationship to processes?
Walter
Well, you do. I don’t have the wallpaper there, but the thing is, the thing is well, that’s, that’s that’s how I look at stuff, and sometimes I drive people crazy. I know it’s. It’s like you know, do you really need to go through everything? No, no, no, it’s just it’s, but it really helps. That’s that’s my relationship with processes. I do, actually, and I think this is my background as well, because I do have a slightly technical background. I was in my early years, you know, when I just started working. I was a UNIX administrator at one of the biggest research institutes in the Netherlands. It’s called TNO, and I was responsible for getting all these things. You know, keep keeping the stuff working, supercomputing stuff like that and then you also learn. You know what to do, what not to do. You know you need, you learn sequences, as in you know dependencies, like oh, do this first done that. You know. So it’s sort of game, I don’t know. I think I grew up with that. I think that’s how it worked.
Mirko
Okay cool, that’s super interesting. Yeah, and let’s deep dive into UPn. For those of our listeners who have never heard about UPn before what is it and how does it look like?
Walter
It is just a notation, of course. It stands for universal process notation, which is just a label. The easiest way to, and, from this whole podcast, to remember what it does and what it is is actually answering five questions, and these five questions are I will just name them, you can always rewind and listen to them back or write them down or whatever. I do have a PDF so I can send them. But these questions is very simple. So the first thing, you ask what happens, what happens? And then I don’t know. I look, I take care of this or I classify incidents or whatever. Okay, why do you do that? So this is the second question why? Oh, because I like it? Yeah, right, so when do you do it? It’s the third question. When does it happen? When do you start to do that? Okay, so this is the third question. And then the fourth question is so who’s responsible? That’s the resource, the rule, who’s taking care of it? And of course, you can sort of add more things, but I come to this later. And then we have this. The fifth question is how do you do it? And then you drive it. So, basically, it is what happens? Why do you do it? When does it happen, who’s responsible, accountable, et cetera, and how do you do it? So?
Answering these five questions very, very strictly on every single activity you create. That’s the base of UBN, if you have to. That’s the basic building block. And if you stick to those five questions, you already are in a good shape to build really cool process diagrams. Of course there’s more to it, but this is basically the base of everything. And then there’s the rules. Like you don’t exaggerate. Don’t exaggerate with the boxes on the canvas, don’t throw like hundreds of boxes there. But that’s just a matter of I would almost say it’s almost a skill, it’s almost an art, like you know people don’t like it.
So much Be clear. You know you will see very soon that it’s worth missing as in like. Did you really think about that thing? So, for example, you see many times activities like receive package, like yeah.
Or a very, very, very awful one Manage finance. What the hell? What do you mean with manage finance? In my trainings I actually use the word manage in a very, shall we say. I don’t even know if this is loud nowadays, but I will do it anyway. Do you manage your food or do you cook your food? And then a lot of male guys go like, oh, I manage my food because I’m married, but anyways, you see what I’m coming from, managing is controlling, is steering, is sort of putting the ropes and see what’s going on. That’s actually managing. We try to avoid these kind of words. It is very practical. That’s another aspect of UPN. So answering those five questions be very practical. Just tell me what happens.
I had this another anecdote that actually sort of really illustrates what can go wrong. I was on an assignment in South Africa for a big pipeline organization transporting all these fuels and whatever through pipes and I was training. I think this was middle management or something. But anyway, some executives and I said listen, let’s do a game. I will divide the class in two parts. I will ask the question can you please describe what you think your company is doing? Sure, easy Said okay, now five minutes. And then one group came back we satisfy our shareholders, okay. The other group came back with we transport fuel from A to B.
Walter
Said okay, you won, you lose. And then the group with satisfying shareholders, they’re no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It’s that, you know, we just so well. The thing is, if you transport your fuel from A to B in the most efficient way, cost-effective, what have you then? You automatically satisfy your shareholders, right. So what is your core? Oh, okay, so that’s actually also a nice illustration how to do that and how to look at things. So basically, don’t try to be, you know, on the highest levels, even on very high level. You know to be too abstract. You know, Just say what you do. Well, I fly planes around. You know I carry people from A to B. You know, using a plane, because people seem to have this, you know, sort of intention to get from A to B. So fine, oh, we want to make money as well. Ah, yeah, okay, fine.
Mirko
Yeah, okay, and how does UPN look like when you map it? I know it’s a challenge to do that on a podcast, but maybe you can try to explain it.
Walter
I will do my best. So, basically, imagine drawing a rectangle. Yeah, it is your activity, so it’s just one box. There’s no other symbols. We don’t have decision symbols. So for the audience who don’t know notations, but you know, in the process world you have loads of symbols in all kinds of cryptic thingies. We don’t have that.
So basically, upn has this only symbol, which is a rectangle, and that rectangle always, no exception, always depicts an activity, and activities always no exceptions start with a verb and a noun. So it’s always classify incident and not I classify incident, or you know, the help desk employee classifies incident, or, even worse, incident management, mm-hmm, or that’s just a container. So you always have to start with a verb. So you have a rectangle. So envision yourself a rectangle classify incident, verb noun. Then you answer it in why would you do that? Well, because we do this for like 10 years. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You know what? Let’s not do that anymore. No, no, because I need to understand as to you know why these things need to be classified. Great, that’s your answer. So that’s your why. So we have to answer the business why?
Mirko
Now here’s a very so where do you put the why? Where is it written, or that’s?
Walter
the outcome. Yeah, okay, right, so that’s the outcome. That’s always a thing with the end in mind. Say so basically. Why do you spend time and money on classifying incidents? Also, that I know the next steps or whatever. You know, whatever your answer is, but it is always a business answer, it’s not a system status. So many times you see things like validate customer. Then you get a validated customer. Yes, great, that’s the status, it’s just good, it’s okay, it’s not wrong. But why do you do that from a business perspective? Well, so I know I have no, you know I’ve, maybe to mitigate the risks. Oh, yeah, risks mitigated. Okay, cool, fine, that sounds like a business answer, but then we have only answered two questions. So basically a rectangle with the activity. Then we have the why, which I think is very important.
Mirko
And that’s an attribute. If you map that in a tool or just, is it also?
Walter
Yeah, you could see it as an attribute. Yeah, it is actually. I will come to this later with also with respect to AI, because that’s really interesting thing, and then user stories and stuff like that, but that will come. I don’t want to make things too complex right now. Basically, you have that activity, that box, right With. What are you doing? Well, pass you by incidents, why do you do that? So that I know the next steps? Okay, cool, that’s your business answer. When do you do that? But when there’s a customer call, maybe when there’s a request, okay, so that’s your when, right.
So we have now already a box with a narrow going in depicting the when we have an outcome, which is depicting the why, but then we still have an answer who’s responsible for that? Who’s doing that actually? Is that the system, is that the human? Are that multiple persons? So that would be the role or resources, and you stuff these resources under the activity box. So, basically, you have an activity box answering the why, when and who’s responsible, then you already are pretty complete because you have your context.
If you then want to answer, how do you classify? How does that work? Well, let me show you, and then you drill down, literally drill down to a next layer. So it’s an hierarchical system. I didn’t actually mention that before, but it is hierarchical. That’s just basically to avoid complexity.
So, basically, you can see a couple of boxes. That’s an interesting one. I don’t understand. How does it work? Well, let me show you the drill down and then you can see more details and you can do this, you can repeat this. There’s no, shall we say, academic or slash mathematical methods there which says but on the first three levels, you should only see this. It depends on the complexity of the process, which doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t or are not allowed to do that. For fine, you can do that, but as long as you stick to those five questions, you are fine, you are safe. But yeah, I mean that status slash business thing is.
I see this a lot. So I see also all the diagrams I get sent. Many times they have no text at all on the lines. So I’m just wondering so why does this happen? So all the important information is missing actually. So you see all the activities like send email yeah, why, I don’t know. Validate customer? Yeah, sure, let me have validated customer yeah, sure, but why? So I’m really really focusing on or UPN is really focusing on building the right thing, focusing on the right well, activities actually, because activities cost time and money to build the right thing, and I think that’s the, in my opinion, the right starting point before you go build stuff and just spend time on needless you know, add a lot of waste.
Mirko
Yeah, okay, cool, you mentioned you have a PDF describing that. Maybe we can put a link into the show notes where our listeners can.
Walter
Yeah, I can do that. I can actually. Maybe I will find something for you of a link that actually yeah exactly Put that into the show notes, that’s perfect, okay, cool.
Mirko
And how did you come up with the idea of inventing UPN?
Walter
Yeah, well, that goes alone. I mean, a lot of people have only now just sort of heard about it, but it is actually very, very old and very, very old is I’m also very old. I’m almost I’m not 60, but I’m, you know, I’m still in my 50s, but it is. It is very old. So basically, 20 years ago, around 2003, ish, you know around around that it’s really 20 years. It’s a long time ago. Time flies when you’re having fun, right? But the thing is, I was a consultant working for Nimbus Partners, a UK based company.
Their origin is actually more from quality control they, their product at the time was also called control and it already used those boxes and lines. So we also have these boxes and lines kind of approach at that time and there was a certain pattern I discovered. So when I was sitting in one of my hotel rooms for this you know a countless amount of time that I was actually sent abroad I looked at the diagram and I’m like, okay, there must be something similar. I can, I can repeat and be able to sort of, you know, create consistency in these diagrams, because I think it is a very important thing. It doesn’t really matter which, which notation you use, as long as you’re consistent and you know what you’re talking about. That’s that’s really important. So I looked at it and then I’m like, okay, wait a minute, this is actually always answering the why question. Hmm, that’s interesting. Does it work for everything in the end? Yes, actually it does. Oh, cool. So the what, of course, the what we knew because we already started with a verb and noun, that was, that was a given. And then I went like, hmm, the when question. So that’s a very tricky one because the when question can also be a why, outcome of something else. So it’s you know when, why, and then that why would be the next when for the next, you know, activity. That was also a pattern and it sort of worked. I’m like, okay, that really works. This is cool. What about resources and roles? Well, we stuff them under the activity. Hmm, so that’s actually answering who’s doing it or what system you are using. Yeah, that would always work in every time. So we already had the what, the when, the when, the who’s involved kind of question, and then the how was actually because at that time we already had in the tool, we had already in this hierarchical approach that was actually answering always the how question. And so I went like, hmm, that’s interesting. So what, why, when? Yeah, who, how, let’s try this again. Oh, that really works, this is so cool.
And then sort of get back and then this, this whole thing was a sort of a joint invention, as in like, okay, we need to name it, I don’t know how universal presentation. So I think Ian Goss invented it, as in as a label. I’m not, I’m actually not even sure who invented it, there’s just some books he wrote. But the thing was, it was during my Nimbus Partners period that then actually this whole sort of thing see sort of daylight and then from that moment on, we called it UPM, but it never had as much traction as now. So, which is really interesting. So it is actually very, very old.
I have used it like, yeah, 20 years. I’ve always tried to apply it in every single role. I was so also outside Nimbus when I left Nimbus, or typical in that case. It was really helpful to really get to the point. So it’s really to show okay, why are you spending time and money to this, you know, on this process, on this activity? Well, we don’t know. Well, then, don’t do it. And that really helped to actually give context to a lot of initiatives in businesses, because that’s actually the whole thing. We spent a lot of time, of course, automating things. We need to have a workflow for that. Yeah, sure, time out, you know why? Well, because you know customers want to. Okay, cool, so you have a sort of an answer. Don’t we have anything similar already? We don’t know. Yeah, okay, let’s have a look. So let’s add some context.
I think I use not doing this podcast, but I use contextual mapping as well a lot, so I want to see the context. I get a lot of diagrams sent to me. Hey, can you sort of convert this to European? And then, when I have no idea what, you try to sort of communicate to me here what is this thing all about? Well, this is the CPU process. Whoa well, cpu, what do you mean? But why does it exist? That’s like, why does it exist? My mean questions.
When I get into a workshop, one of my main questions would be so where do we start? I said, well, this is your company, right? Yeah, why does your company exist? And if you cannot answer that question, then you do have quite a challenge, I would say. And then, of course, you drill down to ask the same question over and over again. So I’m also a Leeds Sigma guy. So basically those why questions are not totally random. They do have a meaning, they do have a reason. So I try to answer to get as much wise as possible until people start to beat me up.
Mirko
So you started inventing UPN, I think more or less in parallel to BPMN 2.0?.
Walter
Yeah, I think, because there was a time and you remember that as well, of course is then, okay, we had UML, we had all these initiatives to say, okay, we need to make things more digestible for people, for normal people, as business people. And then, yeah, bpmn came up and I was very interested in BPMN in the beginning as well. Okay, this is at least a standard, because everybody was sort of longing for a standard, right, and UPC, you know, the ARIS, same thing. But the thing was they all seem to have this sort of more technical background as in like, yeah, we need to in the end, we need to automate something. So therefore, we need to be very rigorous, there need to be a lot of rigor in the notation so that you don’t sort of, you know, shoot yourself in the food after maybe a decision point or whatever. And that’s, I think, the big difference if you look at UPN versus BPMN. It’s not a matter of versus. It doesn’t matter of, it’s a contextual versus more technical approach. Now, you can, of course, with BPM, you can do contextual stuff, omitting all the symbols. Fine, I can get to European-ish approach, but it’s a very typical thing our swim lanes. So you see, in BPM, the swim lane constructs with all the activities and handovers and what have you? You don’t see that in European.
Now, I think the main reason not to use swim lanes in UPN is flexibility. The thing is, if you have a swim lane, imagine you have all the roles as a horizontal swim lane, I don’t know you have 15 or so or six roles or resources on the left, and then certainly something changes and then you have to really start to move things around. Sometimes that can be quite painful. As we in UPN put the resources under the activities, you can actually shift them anywhere Because the activity and the role always go together, so they stick together. Of course, sometimes you have to change the roles and the resource, which is fine. That doesn’t mean that we don’t support swim lanes as in UPN. Upn can be done with swim lanes, but it is just more flexible without swim lanes. And that’s pretty much the same of the only reason. Now sometimes people ask me yeah, but then I cannot see the handoffs in UPN Because it’s very tough. Well, you can report on them. It is maybe, from a visual point of view, maybe not the most clear. Because you can.
I tend to look first at the process. I don’t. Well, I was going to say I don’t give a shit about resources. It is not completely clear, but I really don’t care about functions and resources, because functions and resources and structure many times, shall we say, stand in the way of lean process modeling, because we have this sort of yeah, but you need to really include this resource. Why would I do that? That’s very important. No, no, go away with the resources. I just want to see the activities.
In order to cut a tree, what do we need? Well, first I have to think about why. Well, I need wood, for whatever reason. Ok, cool, we are clear about the wood. Now I go to a forest and find a tree. Yes, are you going to cut this thing with your bare hands? Probably not. So you need a tool, resource, whatever an axe or a chainsaw. But if you need chainsaw, then you need maybe also safety measures and risk mitigation and what have you. So there’s a whole bunch of things that sort of come together.
The point is that actually I look only at the process. First, go find the right forest, find the right tree. Does it comply to my whatever? I need oak or birch or whatever. And then you just go on and basically that’s the way I look at things. And then, only then, I look at resources. Ok, what do we need? Oh, now, maybe a carpet. No, not carpet, not yet, but maybe a lumberjack. Oh, yeah, cool Lumberjack, that really works. But that’s the lumberjack needs. Well, maybe an axe. Is the axe sharp enough? I don’t know, does you have to write the axe? But then you are already into, shall we say, the tooling and the resourcing and you are already forgetting about and why are we cutting this tree again?
Or maybe a very favorite of me is I also use this in my trainings every well, not every day, but if I give a training is OK. So you’re doing all these tree cutting and stuff and fantastic, we are really happy working our asses off. Then we climb in tree number I don’t know, 55. And then we look around. Then we look oh shit, wrong forest Damn. And that’s why I like Juppi and so much, because it really gives you the context. So you have to. So every now and then you have to climb the tree as in, go up and look around and go OK, we’re still doing the right thing. Oh, this is cool, we can continue now. And that’s what I really, really love, and it’s a very broad thing. You could do this with other methodologies, I think, as well, but there’s so many times forgot. People are jumping straight into details, and which, of course, is fine. If you are a developer or if you are a business analyst on details, perfect. But you have to understand the context. That’s actually how we see it.
Mirko
OK, yeah, that’s super interesting. And if I now think, oh yeah, I would love to have a closer look and I would love to try it out. How can I start? Is there a tool or documentation? How do we get started?
Walter
There’s a tool, there’s a platform. Now, elementscloud is, of course, the original founders of Elementscloud are also the original founders of Nimbus Partners and therefore UPN, so that’s definitely a fantastic resource. So, by all means, visit Elementscloud. There’s also SCORE, which are also two guys previously working for Nimbus Partners Fantastic tool. So I think Elementscloud and SCORE currently are the best tools if you want to look at tools to work with UPN.
Now you could go like, yeah, I have PowerPoint. Yeah, yeah, sure, you can create boxes and lines in PowerPoint, but it is just a drawing. And then I must actually go a little further and I cannot speak for SCORE, but I can speak for Elementscloud. It’s so much more than just a drawing. It’s a database. There’s relationships I can report, analyze, you can totally knock yourself out Resource reports what have you? You can do so many things Cypher reports, there’s so many things you can do there. But that’s because it’s a database and, of course, when people look at screens, they see the first thing they see is a graph, it’s a diagram. Oh, that’s a cool drawing tool. And I go like, no, no, no, no, no, no, it’s not a drawing tool, a methodology, but it’s so much more than that.
And what you see in practice and that’s really funny to see is also in the Salesforce market, I must say is oh, it’s so easy to configure your CRM stuff. Yes, absolutely, like so many other software tools out there, is so easy to configure. But what about documentation? Have you any architecture? Have you thought it through? Well, no, answer is probably not. And then that really comes in handy to have an overview which sticks around, which is version control governed, which actually can tell you, which can answer the following questions, like if I change anything in my business process, would that impact my technology? Probably yes. The other way around, there’s new technology, ai. Would that impact my business? Yeah, how would you tell? Well, that’s how you tell, because they are linked and that’s actually very important. So, everybody who thinks doing stuff with Visio or PowerPoint, I’m so sorry.
It’s cool to communicate a great process, but it is not a process-driven kind of approach. It’s nice to start with, but I wouldn’t even start there, because we also have this, at least in elements. We have this free start so you can create a free drawing, exactly drawing, because I think it’s only enabling the drawing part of elements. I’m not using it that much, but there’s anything you can at least learn, but it is. You can also create disasters with elements if you want to, because it doesn’t enforce you to actually stick to the verb noun and answering the wise I actually had. When you start with elements, you have this little thing called Y, the text, y on the lines. So I had one as a customer who came in. So this is an annoying word, y on the lines. Can you just get rid of this? I think I’m like OK, we have a conversation here.
Mirko
Is there also training available?
Walter
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have actually a thing called Academy. So basically, alamos of Cloud has a lot of support and training. It’s also live support. It’s not one of those like oh yeah, fine, just let’s just wait for days before you get an answer. There’s live people behind the chat and that’s not. I mean, even if you don’t have a license a paid license you still get supported. So that’s really cool. But the Academy, I think, is a great way to start because it really teaches you the ins and outs and the basics. I would say that PDF you just mentioned, with answering the five, I would start there. I mean, even if you don’t use elements or even score, it doesn’t really matter If you start to think about those five questions. I think that’s the big difference here.
Mirko
OK, cool To give it a little bit of a second. Yeah, OK, that’s super. And to give another example, what was your favorite UPN-related project?
Walter
Actually, I’m doing it as we speak. I’m actually right in the middle of it and I will tell you a little bit about it. There’s, of course, an NDA. I cannot reveal anything there, but I will tell you a little bit the sort of the thing I’m working on. So imagine there is some standard processes for implementing whatever you know sales sources in the sales-related projects. That’s not a secret.
What you see is that and that’s a very interesting sort of use case you’re familiar with user stories, right? So basically, when you create user stories in order to create a system or solution, these stories you know for the audience, who doesn’t know what a user story is, it’s actually basically a certain format, sa. And then you say your resource. So, as a lumberjack, I want to cut wood, or cut a tree so that I get quality wood or whatever. So basically, you know, as a role, I want to do something so that I that’s basically very short a user story. Now, the fun part of these five questions is that these are actually tiny user stories already, because if I make sure that I have text on the lines and everything, all the details are there, and the project I’m currently working on is and that’s really cool is we call this elements GPT. Obviously, we do stuff with AI as well that is actually able to derive user stories from your UPN diagrams. Now, I would say it’s a prerequisite to have text on the line. So answering the wise, answering the wends that must be in there All the way is AI. It goes like a human. I have no clue what you’re talking about. So what is this all about? So you have to have some flesh and bone, as we say it, and what you then see is that the AI engine can not just generate proper user stories out of your diagrams, which is really helpful for developers, it actually adds more flesh to the bone. So I will give you one example. So we have this very tiny activity called I think it’s called combine line items for an invoice or something. I offer a quote. So basically, you have a lot of products which are similar that need to be combined so that you get. The output is then a more smooth, well, more, shall we say, summarized version of what you are buying. So basically, it’s to make things a little more simple. That whole idea about making things simple is not described anywhere. So when I generated the story, auto-generated, the story AI engine came back with so that the customer has a smoother experience, and I’m like, wow, that’s so cool, because now, finally, you see that AI can really add value. Now you still need an expertise kind of view on it because you need to see okay, does it make sense? Yeah, this actually does make sense.
So our challenge as an elements of cloud is to see the 2080 rule, the 8020 rule. So are the answers. Ai is giving us always good or are sometimes bad, suggestions. Well, that’s something to play with. But that’s the most coolest UPN project I’m currently doing because UPN is required.
So there’s a reason, a real reason now to actually stick to those five rules, to those five questions. I’m already sort of testing and experimenting with, in this case, jetgpt, to see who to even validate if we are talking about real, you know UPN diagram, yes or no, so you can actually give it all the rules and say it isn’t given. You know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is a valid diagram. And then the engine comes back like this is not a valid diagram because you have not started with a verb or whatever. You know stuff like that and that’s really I don’t know.
I’m approaching this. That’s what excites me about this? More things that excites me. But this is so cool. This is like wow, wow, you see, I can see it. You know, if you see it, you just go like, oh my God, this is so cool. And then you will certainly realize that it really, really makes sense to start using this sort of hierarchical approach, contextual approach, to actually build the right thing, because that’s what we constantly see happening and you have seen I’m sure you have seen disasters in your life where you go like, oh my God, you know, why did you create it like that? You know, sometimes you just see things. You go, oh my God, you know. Well small example I recently got this really crazy idea to put Wi-Fi modules in my aircos, aircos systems. But airco suppliers are not. Their origin is not IT, is not Wi-Fi, is not internet. So there’s a big gap between how they perceive home automation. It’s just like you just go like, okay, okay, fine, two different roles, very bad experience.
Mirko
Yeah, cool. So you’re also experimenting with AI.
Walter
I shall say in a very strict and rigorous way, because I don’t want to get into the trap of where AI sort of suggests things and people go like, yeah, but you know, ai said it, so it must be true, it must be the right thing to do, because sometimes it suggests things where you go like, no, that’s not how it works, so we need to. The prompting is the most important right. So generating those prompts that’s actually we have a whole team working on that to actually think about what’s the best way. You know what’s the contextual way. So, as elementscloud is a Salesforce-related sort of solution, now you can use it also without Salesforce, of course, if you just want to stick to UPN mapping. But the thing is we know about your configuration in Salesforce because we analyze that and that information, combined with the shall we say, the diagramming, that really makes the whole solution quite interesting.
Mirko
Yeah, that’s a super cool use case and I’m currently thinking about ing another episode on AI how to use Chatchity to rethink processes and how to prompt and so on, just independent from a tool, but also thinking about how to import, Import process models into Chatchity to get really process specific answers there.
Walter
Yeah, I think we are very close to that. I mean, that’s another aspect of it wasn’t there before. Because people are asking so why the hell with the UPN? Because you know well, I guess we are going to an era where actually, we only have to think about the why, so only about building the right stuff, which I think is a great thing, so we don’t are stuck in details and that you can’t do this because we can’t automate this or because of the automation is like this. You just have to work like that. No, I just want to look at it from a business perspective, and I think AI is going to really help there. That’s really makes a difference. Yeah, yeah, doing all that nitty gritty, details, stuff right as in, like this is how you would create a flow.
Mirko
Yeah, Okay, cool, before we arrive at our final destination, let’s take a step back and just to apply all your overall experience to rethink processes. What would you or three top recommendations to our listeners be? To rethink process, to get to more human centric approach, maybe by using UPN as well.
Walter
But I would not start with well, definitely recommend you piano because I’m heavily biased. But the thing is I started when I sort of sounds like almost like dramatic when I saw the light. I had a book a long, long time ago, a book called beyond reengineering, michael Hammer. So beyond reengineering and I don’t know if the audience knows Michael Hammer, but the versus this reengineering concept in the I think it was in the 70s, 80s or something. I’m forgetting this. Yeah, he and chan P, so another came up with this, this reengineering a business, and this was then sort of abuse to lay off a lot of people, because people looked at it like okay, we need to, these processes need to be far more efficient, and that was a pretty rigorous sort of approach, or at least it was used that way. And then he wrote a second book, beyond reengineering, and that book sort of got me. I would definitely recommend to look it up. So beyond reengineering from Michael Hammer he doesn’t live anymore, he’s a couple of years ago, yeah. But the thing is that book really inspired me to suddenly think about orbit. No, it’s not about automation, it’s not about doing fancy things with flows, it’s about value. It’s about creating value for the customer, and the customer can be an internal and an external customer of it, right? So basically that’s what it is all about, and he really depicts it very nicely in that book. So that’s would be my first recommendation Go and look up that book, because I think it’s a really cool thing. Now there’s a zillion other books I could recommend, but this is the book I think is really cool.
And then there’s this second thing, and that’s practicality. Be practical, don’t be too, don’t stick around in a specialism. I totally get that. So both my daughter is a doctor and my son is doing surgeon operation, assistant studies, something like that. There’s a very, very focused jealousy, skills and things. I think, as a process guy, you need to be pretty broad, you need to be holistic. So basically you need to step out, step back a little bit, climb the tree and look around and see what this is all about. So building the right thing is, I think, a very, very important thing. That’s at least what I have learned all those years. I was also in the early days, when I was still very young. I was really focusing on all this oh this is so cool, this is so cool, yeah, but nobody’s going to use it. Oh okay, that would be my second thing.
And the third thing is just do it Just. Just, just, you know whatever tool it is. But rethink those questions, definitely with UPN, but just try it out when you get stuck with how this is really related to BPMEN, because I’m such a BPMEN guy or I’m such an EPC guy, which is totally fine, or I’m such a swim lane guy, which is sort of fun you can always you know, you can always embed those notations inside UPN. So basically, you can totally imagine where you have an activity called I don’t know, classified incident and you might have a BPMEN diet that actually totally lays it out. Great, then just use that. You can do that. Yes, you can. Is it allowed? Yeah, why not? As long as it is in the right context, as long as you’re building the right thing, and then, of course, later on build the thing right that’s another thing. Yeah, it will be more efficient. But that would be my three recommendations.
Mirko
Yes, yeah, cool. Thank you, that’s super interesting. And where can our listeners learn more about your activities? How can they contact you?
Walter
Well, I’m definitely on LinkedIn. So if they want to really sort of get a sort of one-to-one, more than happy to do so. So definitely look me up on LinkedIn. I think that’s the quickest. Obviously, you can go to Elements of Cloud, where I work. So Elements of Cloud is a company based in well, the headquarters in San Francisco, but the majority sits in the UK and we have our development team actually in Ukraine, in Lviv, and we are pretty sped out, so it’s a pretty virtual company. Obviously, we do have an office, as you can see on my back.
I’m 100% dedicated to Elements of Cloud because I just love to work with the guys and, of course, it’s UPN, but it is very exciting stuff. But I’m much broader than that. I’m also very concerned about climate change, all these things, so I’m definitely a little bit more than that. The thing is, you have to have a passion in your life and in my case, that’s Elements of Cloud. So Elements of Cloud is definitely a website that would definitely look up, even if you’re not sales-related. Go there and have a look. I think it will be surprising what you can do with it. And if you have any ideas, please do share, because that really helps.
Mirko
Thank you for that offer. And, beyond UPN, what tool method expert would you recommend to me and to our listeners to have a closer look at to get new ideas on how to rethink processes?
Walter
Totally didn’t mention it, but the number one thing I would right now, in this current time, as in all these things are happening please go and learn system thinking. System thinking is so important. I don’t know how this is in the, but actually, miko, you live in Germany, or?
Mirko
are you?
Walter
living in Germany, I should probably know that there’s this polarization going on. In the Netherlands we call it Hulijsulje, which is like they say oh damn, oh damn. If you start to learn about system thinking, you certainly realize oh wait a minute, it is slightly more subtle than you would think, right, and I think system thinking. I do have also a book I’m not sure where I have to go, probably somewhere on the back there Thinking in systems from Donella Meadows. So, donella Meadows, I can send you the link.
That’s, I think, the base to learn it, and I would almost go as far as I would say can we please, on schools, get that system thinking thing in there, Because I think that’s one of the most important things right now. So we get. Not everybody has to become smart or something, but it’s more to avoid all this polarization and all this stuff. I think that’s a really, really interesting topic. Yeah, definitely. So I don’t know who’s in my network the best system thinker, or there’s a couple of people there, but yeah, fine, that’s really that I wouldn’t recommend. Yeah, definitely.
Mirko
Okay, I put that on my waiting list. There is already a long list of topics that we’re going to look at. Yeah, it sounds very interesting. Thank you for that recommendation.
Mirko
I don’t know if you realized we already landed the aircraft and Every small landing. Yeah, exactly. How would you describe your flight experience with just three words?
Walter
A very nice flight, as in a very natural flight flow, which I love, one of the things I do during flights is sit back and relax. The captain is always saying that, but I really do that. I never, ever, take on my laptop in whatever flight, never, ever. I just sit back. For me, this is a kind of Zen moment, especially if you have to go a nice flight to San Francisco or whatever. I do sometimes look at the movie or something, but I’m a reader, so I read a lot. That’s what I do, but it sounds very strange, but I never put any time in work or something. I always have something else. Well, reading a book about system thinking is sort of work related, but I also like it. I think the flight, my experience and especially this flight, is a very smooth flight. I think all the things I’m passionate about definitely pass by. I hope for you too, but the thing is, yeah, that’s what I see Cool.
Mirko
Water. Thank you so much for being my on this flight. It was super interesting to learn more about UPN and way beyond that. I’m already looking forward to meeting you in person at the new process conference, first time that I’m going to mention it here. We started planning having a physical meeting of the people we all know from virtual meetings.
Walter
Yeah, yeah, I’m super excited. I saw your announcement, actually, and I’m really. Whatever happens, I want to be there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’re going to share more.
Mirko
So location is not fixed yet, but maybe when this episode goes online, we already have something more to tell you have you ever said about Aachen Not yet, not yet, but maybe it’s close to Aachen, we’ll see. I feel that it’s also okay. Okay, water. Thank you so much. Have a great day, bye, bye.
Walter
Was a pleasure. Bye, bye.
Mirko
Wow, now I know what UPN is all about. That was super interesting and I really like the lean and clean approach of UPN and I think it’s super easy to start with these five questions to get all the information you need for the activities in your processes. So what happens, why does it happen, when does it happen, how to do it and who is responsible? I think it’s super cool to use these questions to map your processes and then transfer the information into the attribute of the respective activity. I’m a big fan of methodologies like this that work step by step to create a process design, and I also like this definition of the why so the business, why it’s not on the emotional level of a process purpose, but maybe this can also be reflected to explain how an activity contributes to the overall purpose of the process. I’ll think about that.
So I think it’s super interesting that element.cloud integrates with Salesforce, so that’s a cool benefit for all Salesforce users out there to have a direct connection between both tools and get documentation created in elements based on what you have configured in Salesforce, if I understand that right. But, as Walter said, elements of cloud can also be used without Salesforce and there are also other tools out there to map processes in UPN, or you can even do it on paper if you like to, just by following these five questions. So, in my opinion, UPN really supports a human centric BPM approach with its simplicity and clarity, and I would totally recommend to take a look at it as an alternative approach to even simplify BPMN 2.0. Which, as you know, is not really my favorite notation due to the complexity and employees don’t understand full blown BPM and even if you use simplified version. So you’ll find all the links Walter mentioned to learn more about UPN and the show notes and to give you an outlook.
There are a number of interesting expert interviews in the pipeline. I’m planning to explore even more ways to rethink processes, so stay tuned, but for now, thank you very much for listening. Have a great day. Bye, bye, auf Wiedersehen.
Mirko
Before you leave. In the interview, Walter and I already talked about the new process conference, which was one of the topics I was working on during the last weeks. After my vacation, I can feel that there is a strong need to meet people in person again. That’s why we have kicked off the planning for the new process conference, which will be an experience to meet other BPM enthusiasts and to get new ideas to rethink processes. So hopefully we can meet there in person too. To not miss the latest news, just stay tuned. Listen to the upcoming episodes of new process podcast or simply subscribe to my newsletter at newprocesslab.com/update. Thank you much for a great day. Bye, bye.
