A Methodological Framework with Lessons Learned for Introducing Business Process Management

Abstract

Business process management (BPM) is becoming more and more important for organizations of different sizes. However, the introduction of BPM is a non-trivial task, requiring a lot of experience and helpful guidance in order to be successful. As existing BPM approaches are usually limited to descriptions on a high level of abstraction, they are typically not sufficient to support practitioners in this regard. This paper therefore presents a framework for the introduction of BPM that aims at providing systematic guidance through all the steps of a BPM adoption project. Among other aspects, it especially tackles the areas of a systematic method- and tool selection, which often cause difficulties in practice. In addition, and more importantly, the paper introduces several lessons learned derived from real-world experience made while using this framework. As evidence for the value of these lessons can be presented, they are considered a helpful contribution for industry and academia to make BPM introduction projects more successful.