Collaborative practice-oriented business processes Creating a new case for business process management and CSCW synergy

Abstract

In very recent times, organisations have started to shift their focus from highly standardised operational business processes (BPs) to other types of processes that cannot be easily replicated due to the knowledge, skills and creativity of people involved. Consequently the field of business process management (BPM) has gradually evolved to include four different, but equally important components: strategy, people, processes and technology. The renewed interest in process-related knowledge and collaboration has opened a new case for possible synergy of BPM and CSCW (computer supported cooperative work) fields. The paper argues that the key to this synergy is in the field of knowledge management. The paper introduces the knowledge dimension of BPs and uses it to determine how collaborative processes, in particular practice-oriented creative BPs, differ from other types of organizational processes. The paper argues that in the case of these BPs, process support needs to co-evolve with process execution itself, and therefore could be also considered as an ever evolving, ldquoorganicrdquo system, creating a new set of interesting research and practical challenges in the future.