Business Process Modeling with URN

This article demonstrates how the User Requirements Notation (URN) can be used to model business processes. URN combines goals and scenarios in order to help capture and reason about user requirements prior to detailed design. In terms of application areas, this emerging standard targets reactive systems in general, with a particular focus on telecommunications systems and services. This article argues that the URN also can be applied to business process modeling. To this end, it illustrates the notation, its use, and its benefits with a supply chain management case study. It then briefly compares this approach to related modeling approaches; namely, use case-driven design, service-oriented architecture analysis, and conceptual value modeling. The authors hope that a URN-based approach will provide usable and useful tools to assist researchers and practitioners with the modeling, analysis, integration, and evolution of existing and emerging business processes.