The Practice of Business Process Modeling – A Story from the Field

This article aims to increase the body of knowledge on the practical use of business process modeling to support process redesign and organizational development. A qualitative case study inspired by Action Research has been performed in an SME. The data was deductively analyzed using an established project phase model aimed to support Enterprise Modeling activities. The main contribution is the detailed descriptions of the usage of business process modeling for process redesign, adding knowledge to the practice of business process modeling. In addition, this work also increases knowledge of aspects that support the Enterprise Modeling project phase model and provides suggestions for further development of the Enterprise Modeling project phase model. Other contributions highlight the critical issues of having a holistic perspective, including the three levels of inquiry, the need to include parts of later phases in the Enterprise Modeling project phase model in a pre-phase activity, and suggestions to extend the “what to avoid” list. The work also revealed that the list could be used for evaluation purposes. Furthermore, some advice to practitioners in the form of lessons learned has been formulated, e.g., the importance of establishing the problem owner and having the future state in focus instead of the current state.