Effectively and Efficiently Implementing Complex Business Processes: A Case Study

Abstract

The implementation of business processes has been neglected for many years in research. It seemed to be that only hard coding was the appropriate solution for business process implementations. As a consequence in classical literature about business process management (BPM), the focus was mainly on the management aspects of BPM, less on aspects regarding an effective and efficient implementation methodology. This has changed significantly since the advent of BPMN 2.0 (Business Process Model and Notation) in early 2011. BPMN is a graphical notation for modeling business processes in an easy to understand manner. Because the BPMN standard had the process execution in mind when it was designed, it allows for a new way of implementing business processes, on which the process-driven approach (PDA) is based. This approach has been applied in a huge project at SAP SE since 2015 comprising more than 200 business-critical processes. In order to get an impression about the power of the process-driven approach for really complex business process implementation scenarios, this chapter explains the basics about the process-driven approach and shares experiences made during the execution of the project.