Southbeach Notation
Southbeach Notation provides a rich visual-thinking platform, adept at articulating intricate situations, problems, challenges and opportunities. Unlike freeform diagrams or mind maps, each model maintains a consistent approach and interpretation.
Capture agreement as well as disagreement. Foster communication among team members. Marketing and engineering can speak the same language.
At its core, Southbeach Notation revolves around the concepts of useful and harmful functions, as well as increasing and decreasing influences. While Southbeach is straightforward enough to sketch manually, it possesses the depth to accommodate the most rigorous projects.
Visual Guides
- Notation 1.0 Introduction
- Notation 1.0 Guide
- Notation 1.0 Effects
- Notation 1.0 Effect modifiers
- Notation 1.0 Agent modifiers
- Notation 1.0 Summary
Original specifications
Implementation
Southbeach Modeller from Southbeach Solutions Ltd, is the reference implementation of Southbeach Notation. The originators of the notation, Howard Smith and Mark Burnett, encourage further implementations.
Implementations of Southbeach Notation could include:
- Mobile applications, Southbeach apps;
- Templated shapes and arrows for use within an existing drawing package (desktop or web-based);
- A Southbeach module incorporated within an existing, customizable, modelling tool
- A next generation enterprise innovation management application
Licensing the notation
Southbeach Notation © 2005-2023 by Howard Smith and Mark Burnett is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
The license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, even for commercial purposes. The license requires that reusers give credit to the creator. If others remix, adapt, or build upon the material, they must license the modified material under identical terms.
Why a new notation?
Innovation requires its own notation:
- Allows for the development of standard innovation managment tools able to share visual models, ideation rules and related content (TRIZ).
- Freeform diagrams lead to ambiguity due to their open interpretation.
- Mind maps, though hierarchically structured, cannot represent relationships and influences among elements.
- Concept maps offer flexibility, but at the expense of ambiguity.
- UML and SysML are primarily designed for systems engineering.
- BPMN is exclusively focused on process mapping.
These notations fall short in encapsulating diverse perspectives, contradictions, alignments, and disparities. In contrast, Southbeach adeptly delineates innovation across these realms and more.
Relationship to TRIZ?
Southbeach Modeller is a favored tool among TRIZ practitioners. Before the advent of Southbeach Notation, there wasn't a universally accepted diagrammatic style for TRIZ. We stepped in to fill that gap.
If you're well-versed in TRIZ but feel Southbeach doesn't cater to your needs, write to feedback@southbeachinc.com.
