1. The Theoretical Core and Protective
Belt of BPM:
ReflectionsonBPMResearchandsome
IdeasfortheNextWave
Jan Recker
Information Systems School, Queensland University of Technology

2. Background to this Talk
▪ Over recent years, I spent some time researching and
reflecting on what the “BPM discipline” is, what
research it conducts and what outcomes it produces.
▪ Two main essays:
– Recker, J. "Suggestions for the Next Wave of BPM Research:
Strengthening the Theoretical Core and Exploring the
Protective Belt," Journal of Information Technology Theory
and Application (15:2) 2014, pp 5‐20.
– Recker, J., Mendling J. “The State‐of‐the‐Art of Business
Process Management Research as Published in the BPM
conference: Recommendations for Progressing the Field,”
journal article currently under review
▪ “Empirical Evidence” for this talk:
– Analysis of all BPM conference papers published
– Large‐scale literature reviews on BPM research in general
– Insights into submissions and reviews from BPM2015 in
particular

3. My Three Main Theses Today
1. The BPM research fields needs to
review and challenge its core
assumptions, strengthen them and
move to explore a more diverse
protective belt.
2. Research on BPM needs to become more
mature, and the fields needs to be
proactive not reactive.
3. The community that labels itself
“the BPM discipline” needs to become
more open and inclusive to avoid
starvation.

4. What is BPM research?
▪ […] methods, techniques, and software to design,
enact, control, and analyse operational processes
involving humans, organizations, applications,
documents and other sources of information.
▪ Research on processes in businesses, and their
management.
Any process
Any business
Any form of management
van der Aalst, ter Hofstede and Weske (2003): “Business
Process Management: A Survey,” in: BPM2003, p.4

8. BPM research has attained
paradigm status
Bharadwaj, Anandhi S.: INTEGRATING POSITIVIST AND INTERPRETIVE APPROACHES
TO INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESEARCH: A LAKATOSIAN MODEL , Foundations of
Information Systems: Toward a Philosophy of Information, Volume 12, No. 9 (2000)

9. What is our hard core and
protective belt?
Type of
assumption
Description of assumption
Example of BPM research addressing the
assumption
Hard core
assumptions
All work is process work.
How can we describe organizations using process
models (e.g., Mendling, Reijers, & Cardoso, 2007)?
Any process is better than no
process.
How can processes be (re-) designed (e.g., Hammer,
1990; Davenport, 1993)?
Even a good process must be
performed effectively.
How can systems be designed to execute processes
automatically (e.g., Dadam & Reichert, 2009)?
Protective-belt
assumptions
A good process is better than a
bad process.
Which heuristics for redesign make a process better
(e.g., Reijers & Mansar, 2005)?
One process version is better
than many.
How can we support and execute process
standardization (e.g., Schäfermeyer, Rosenkranz, &
Holten, 2012)?
Even a good process can be
made better.
How can we mine process data to learn about and
from running process instances (e.g., Conforti et al.,
2013)?
Every good process eventually
becomes a bad process.
How do BPM capabilities evolve over time (e.g.,
Niehaves et al., 2014)?
Recker (2014): “Suggestions for the Next Wave of BPM
Research,” JITTA (15:2), p. 10.

10. BPM as an established field
(aka a paradigm)
▪ That’s good.
– Core ideas, core methodologies and core
questions are well‐known and accepted.

11. BPM as an established field
(aka a paradigm)
▪ That’s bad.
– Paradigms are stable: phenomena, concepts
and procedures remain largely unchanged.
– Paradigms are predetermined: puzzle‐
solving, pre‐conceived outcomes in favour
of the paradigm.
– Paradigms are divided: usually two camps:
strong proponents that don’t consider
fringe issues, and strong opponents that
mainly debate or criticize.
▪ I believe these problems manifest in the BPM
discipline (defined by those that are in it).

12. Paradigm signs: Stable research
questions
van der Aalst (2012): “A Decade of BPM Conferences”, BPM 2012, p. 9

13. Paradigm signs: Stable research
procedures
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Formal Proof
Field Experiment
Lab Experiment
Survey
Case Study
Interviews
Action Research
Design Science/Engineering
Simulation
Illustration
Other
Recker and Mendling (under review): “The State of the Art in BPM Research,” unpublished
article in development.
Zone of No Identity

14. Paradigm signs: Stable
research output
Recker and Mendling (under review): “The State of the Art in BPM Research,” unpublished
article in development.

15. Paradigms signs: Division of
camps?
▪ The “BPM discipline” has many
proponents but only few critics.
▪ Much of the research is self‐
reassuring: We pick problems suited to
a particular class of solutions that
we like and then demonstrate that
indeed the solution works.
▪ There is virtually no research on
where BPM fails.

16. How do we move forward?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtkUO8NpI84

17. Known Knowns & Unknown Unknowns
“There are known knowns; there are things we
know we know. We also know there are known
unknowns; that is to say we know there are
some things we do not know. But there are also
unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know
we don’t know.”
Donald Rumsfeld, U. S. Secretary of Defense, Statement to the
Press on February 12, 2002.

18. Known Knowns & Unknown Unknowns
Moving from reactive to
proactive research
Moving from reactive to
proactive researchMovingfrom
confirmationto
exploration
Movingfrom
confirmationto
exploration

19. Selected Known & Unknowns

20. Selected Known & Unknowns
• How can we create
process models that are
understandable?
• How can we generate
software code from
(some) process
models?

21. Selected Known & Unknowns
• How can we create
process models that are
understandable?
• How can we generate
software code from
(some) process
models?
• How do we improve
processes?
• What is process
innovation?
• What is the return on
investment for
modeling?

22. Selected Known & Unknowns
• How can we create
process models that are
understandable?
• How can we generate
software code from
(some) process
models?
• How do we improve
processes?
• What is process
innovation?
• What is the return on
investment for
modeling?
• When does BPM lead to
business value?
• When does BPM fail?
• Which processes should
not be modeled or
managed?

23. Selected Known & Unknowns
• How can we create
process models that are
understandable?
• How can we generate
software code from
(some) process
models?
Research of the Past
TIME OF RESEARCH
Research of the Future
• How do we improve
processes?
• What is process
innovation?
• What is the return on
investment for
modeling?
• When does BPM lead to
business value?
• When does BPM fail?
• Which processes should
not be modeled or
managed?
• What is Big Process
Data?
• Will BPM disappear for
a new management
wave?

24. To Conclude…
▪ … maybe we need to revisit and relax some of our assumptions,
such as
– Processes have to be in/about business.
– Process models have to be diagrams.
– Processes should be formalized.
– Processes need improvement.
▪ We need to do more research on how and why, not on what and
that.
▪ We should become more proactive and explore new ideas,
instead of adopting and applying ideas from other fields.
▪ We need to make sure that our research is always to the best
standard (formal: okay; empirical: not so much)
▪ In a broader sense, we need to acknowledge the wealth of
research on processes and their management that has already
been done, even if under other labels.

25. Prof. Jan Recker, PhD
Information Systems School
Science and Engineering Faculty
Queensland University of Technology
email j.recker@qut.edu.au
web www.janrecker.com
twitter janrecker