A Method for Facilitating Process Exploration

Business process management (BPM) is an approach used by many organizations to analyze and continuously improve their business processes. BPM is regarded as a discipline that primarily uses exploitative process innovation to provide considerable benefits to a company. However, while such exploitation addresses the needs of existing company customers, designing and introducing products and services for new markets and customer sets requires explorative process innovation. This type of process innovation typically entails departure from existing processes such that new processes could be introduced that will support the novel products and services. Therefore, for BPM to be responsive not only to existing customers, but to new customer segments, beyond exploitative process innovation, a novel method is necessary that will facilitate explorative process innovation in organizations and can be integrated with existing BPM methods and techniques. In this project, we address the research problem of explorative process innovation in organizations. The key questions we aim to answer are: 1) What are the factors that enable explorative process innovation in organizations? 2) Based upon which principles can an appropriate method for process exploration in organizations be introduced? 3) How can explorative process innovation be integrated with existing BPM methods? We apply a variety of research methods to address the research questions. First, since there is a vast amount of research done on innovation, we conduct a systematic literature review on product and service innovation, and capitalize from this prior research to advance explorative process innovation. As a result, we identify factors that facilitate and routines that hinder innovation in organizations, and measures for assessing process exploration in organizations. Next, we conduct a survey to investigate the role of organizational routines on process exploration in organizations. In order to truly understand how established organizations enable explorative process innovation, we complement the data we have collected via the survey with empirical data we gather by means of case studies. As a result, we will develop a theory that explains why, how, and when is process exploration done in organizations. Last, we use the factors that facilitate and routines that hinder innovation, and the theory on process exploration to refine and advance the existing BPM methods such that they will facilitate process exploration, beyond process exploitation. The outcome of this research will position process innovation as a contender to service and product innovation. In particular, the project will identify the necessity of defining a new process that underlies the innovative products and services being introduced in organizations to address emerging markets. We provide a novel method that will enable organizations to engage in process exploration.

The project made significant advancements in the field of Business Process Management (BPM). It developed new methods for process improvement and innovation and emphasized the importance of tailoring these methods to specific organizational needs and highlights the role of effective process diagrams to enable process change. These contributions have implications for how organizations innovate and improve their processes, potentially influencing various aspects of economic and technological development. The project resulted in a framework that could enable both process improvement and innovation, going beyond traditional process improvement techniques. This framework can be used by organizations as a roadmap for both process improvement and innovation. In addition, the framework could be used by researchers as foundation for further advancing the research on both process improvement and innovation. To develop the framework, we analyzed 90 different process change methods, categorized them and provide guidance on how they could be used in different organizational contexts. We introduced a novel technique called "method mining", that could be used to identify similarities and differences between a large amount of method activities, which helps in customizing methods for specific organizational contexts. We also emphasize the importance of method customization and highlight that one-size-fits-all approaches are less effective in practice. During the project we also explored the cognitive aspects of understanding diagrams used in BPM. We introduced a theoretical cognitive framework called CogniDia that integrates various cognitive theories. The framework illustrates the different cognitive processing steps involved when people read and understand a diagram, and how people solve tasks on basis of a diagram. This framework assists in visualizing and communicating process diagrams effectively, and as a result it facilitates the improving and innovating of a process. The project results have important practical and research implications. In terms of practical implications, the project findings could guide practitioners in creating user-friendly diagrams that would lead to effective task solving. Additionally, the findings could be used by practitioners as guidance to customize process change methods, moving away from a one-size-fits-all approach to one that is more nuanced and fitting to their specific organizational context. The project findings opened new research avenues in BPM, particularly in how process change methods are studied and implemented, making them more effective and efficient.