Decision Support for Building Permit Application Preparation

Digital transformation has profoundly impacted public administration, redefining organizational structures and technological landscapes to enhance the delivery of digital public services. This evolution aligns with Sustainable Development Goal 11, striving for inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable cities by ensuring access to adequate housing and basic services. Within this context, building permit processes serve as a crucial facet of governance, yet persist with inherent challenges, including paper-based systems and communication gaps among stakeholders. Addressing these challenges, this article proposes a collaborative building permit application preparation model with decision support functionality. By integrating business and technology perspectives, the research aims to delineate requirements, design abstract software models, and evaluate their implementation for digitally transformed, collaborative application preparation. The study poses two primary research questions focusing on business requirements mapping and software model design. Methodologically, the design science research methodology guides the research, emphasizing iterative design, development, and evaluation phases. The proposed model envisions a digital real-time collaboration and decision support during application preparation. Unified Modeling Language and Goal/Question/Metric methodology are employed for software design and evaluation, respectively. Implementation of the model demonstrates tangible progress, with widespread adoption across German federal states. Evaluation metrics encompass usability, reliability, scalability and maintainability with the so-called process room. Overall, the study contributes to streamlining building permit processes, fostering efficiency, transparency, and stakeholder engagement in public administration.