The Business Process Design Space for Exploring Process Redesign Alternatives

Title data

Groß, Steven ; Stelzl, Katharina ; Grisold, Thomas ; Mendling, Jan ; Röglinger, Maximilian ; vom Brocke, Jan:
The Business Process Design Space for Exploring Process Redesign Alternatives.
In: Business Process Management Journal. Vol. 27 (2021) Issue 8 . - pp. 25-56.
ISSN 1463-7154
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/BPMJ-03-2020-0116

Project information

Abstract in another language

Purpose – Process redesign refers to the intentional change of business processes. While process redesign methods provide structure to redesign projects, they provide limited support during the actu-al creation of to-be processes. More specifically, existing approaches hardly develop an ontological perspective on what can be changed from a process design point of view and they provide limited procedural guidance on how to derive possible process design alternatives. Design/methodology/approach – Using design space exploration as a theoretical lens, we develop a conceptual model of the design space for business processes, which facilitates the systematic explo-ration of design alternatives along different dimensions. We utilized an established method for taxon-omy development for constructing our conceptual model. First, we derived design dimensions for business processes and underlying characteristics through a literature review. Second, we conducted semi-structured interviews with professional process experts. Third, we evaluated our artifact through three real-world applications. Findings – We identified 19 business process design dimensions that are grouped into different lay-ers and specified by underlying characteristics. Guiding questions and illustrative real-world exam-ples help to deploy these design dimensions in practice. Taken together, the design dimensions form the “Business Process Design Space” (BPD-Space). Research limitations/implications – Practitioners can use the BPD-Space to explore, question, and rethink business processes in various respects. Originality/value – The BPD-Space complements existing app