Creating a knowledge management architecture for business process change

Abstract

In this paper we seek to elaborate on a recent understanding that successfully inducing business process change is highly dependent upon the knowledge management capabilities of an organization. From this perspective, we believe that the current methodological basis for business process management lacks transparency and, very often, fundamental justification. Most methodological support advanced in the literature is taken too often for granted, and does not seize business process change as a knowledge creation effort. As a consequence, many business process professionals fail to mobilize, exploit and capitalize on the organizational knowledge base, which is needed for inducing business process change. In this paper, we will explain some of these methodological shortcomings, and offer the SPARTA framework for developing a far more inclusive, integrative and adaptive approach to the field of business process knowledge management. The framework reflects our belief that successful business process change highly depends on a degree to which some key dimensions fit together harmoniously. Moreover, the paper will elaborate on how this concept of methodological fit can be applied at various conceptual levels. Illustrations from the Financial Services Industry will accompany our understandings. 1. BUSINESS PROCESS CHANGE Despite a decade of experience with the business process phenomenon, certain fundamental problems still beset its successful application, and cause concern to practitioners. Considering the enormous financial and intellectual investments made in the ‘business process issue’, it is no surprise that the prime conceptual quest for BPR advocates and critics has been focused around this aspect. The result is an ever-growing bibliography of research findings from authors, each with their Permission to make digital or hard copies ofall or part ofthis work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee probided that copies are noL made or distributed for prolit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise. to republish, to post on se~-wrs or to redistribute to lists. requires prior specific permission and:or a fee. SIGCPR ‘99 New Orleans LA USA Copyn’ght ACM 1999 l-581 13-063-5/99/04...$5.00 own list of pitfalls, success factors and avoidance strategies for successfully implementing redesigns [ 1 l][ 16][19][20][26][36] [38][39]. Amongst many others can be cited the difficulties in ensuring top management commitment or the technical problems involved in developing a responsive workflow management system. Although we understand the importance of this stream of research, we are convinced that there is another critical aspect that has been largely ignored in the business process debate so far. Our reasoning is based on the belief that most implementation problems are the result of defective knowledge management or a lack of a supportive methodological architecture that enables organizational learning. Many fail to develop, exploit and capitalize on the organizational knowledge for inducing business process change. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of a vast number of ‘classical’ BPR methodologies has mostly been taken for granted. Overall, we feel that current characterizations of the business process phenomenon and its methodologies are too narrow in focus. They reflect a highly normative, mechanical perspective on business reality whereby IT has been elevated to the role of primary, or even sole change vector. The current rhetoric largely assumes that business processes can be ‘@Iled apart and redesigned like Lego” [32]; an influence partly inherited from Software Engineering approaches [15][17][22][27][32][34]. Despite caveats to the contrary in the early writings of BPR advocates, that warned against ‘throwing computers at problems’, classical BPR can still be found deficient in its own terms. Furthermore, there is the paradox that many guiding concepts of the business process movement retain large ‘Tayloristic’ influences, and many enthusiastic ‘reengineering czars’ mistakenly assume that business processes have been engineered in the first place. All this leads to a contradiction between the practice and recent research [4][8][ 11][32][44]. We believe there is a need to broaden both the context and concept of business process change and to reconsider some of its basic underlying principles. Simply stated, managing business processes involves questioning the validity of existing working practices (cf. the ‘AS-IS’ picture) and justifying potential changes (cf. the ‘TO-BE’ picture). Moreover, the process changes that are conceived and ultimately implemented should add value to the customer. In knowledge management circles, it is commonly