A little history: The development of Southbeach Notation began in 2005, inspired by the quirky diagrams that its creators, Howard Smith and Mark Burnett, drew in the sand on South Beach, Miami, Florida. Three years later, in 2008, BPTrends.com published a comprehensive specification of the notation version 0.8. Since then, experience with Southbeach Modeller, and after numerous projects in business and engineering contexts, the notation has been updated to version 0.9. Once again, BPTrends have kindly published the new specification. 

Packed with examples, the paper is both a useful reference for advanced users, and a learning tool for those coming to Southbeach for the first time. 

We recommend it for all users.

Quoting from the BPTrends Advisor June 2011: 

"Green is useful; red is harmful. A dashed line is insufficient; a dotted line is potentially. These and many other visual idioms are defined by Southbeach Notation, a unique and visual approach to innovation, improvement, problem solving and other analytical tasks. This month, the authors of Southbeach, Howard Smith and Mark Burnett, release a new specification that incorporates their experience with TRIZ and TRIZ-like methods over the last few years."

"Southbeach Notation is a new visual notation that helps with creative or analytical tasks such as innovation, improvement, problem solving, root cause analysis and change management. It appeals to consultants, enterprise architects, risk managers, futurologists, engineers and scientists.

The  approach  fosters  joined up thinking - systems or situations that can only  be  fully  understood  by embracing multiple perspectives. Southbeach helps  to clarify a situation or problem, untangling conflicting causes and effects so as to suggest solution directions.

Southbeach  introduced  the  idea of 'situational improvement'. In the same way  that  a  process  modeling  tool  can be used to model and analyze any business  process,  Southbeach  can  be  used  to  model  and  analyze  any 'situation'.  A  'situation'  is  something  to be improved, e.g. an ailing business  strategy,  a  weak  idea,  a  dysfunctional  design, a suboptimal system, an under-performing process, a loophole in a legal system, etc. ..."

Sincerely,
--The Team at Southbeach