Our findings allow practitioners to comprehensively scope their BPM initiatives and provide a general guidance for BPM implementation. Moreover, the principles may also serve to tackle contemporary issues in other management areas. We identify ten principles which represent a set of capabilities essential for mastering contemporary and future challenges in BPM. Their antonyms signify potential roadblocks and bad practices in BPM. We also identify a set of open research questions that can guide future BPM research. This is the first work that distills principles of BPM in the sense of both good and bad practice recommendations. The value of the principles lies in providing normative advice to practitioners as well as in identifying open research areas for academia, thereby extending the reach and richness of BPM beyond its traditional frontiers. The identification and discussion of the principles reflects our viewpoint, which was informed by extant literature and focus groups, including 20 BPM experts from academia and practice.