Since its first edition 15 years ago, Business Process Analysis has become a standard reference work in the library of many business process practitioners. This new edition continues the presentation of a portfolio of analysis techniques essential for any serious business process analysis work - and goes much further.
Since those early days, there has been a rapid expansion of approaches to business process work, and most of these are reflected in the book's subtitle: architecture, engineering, improvement, management, and maturity. All these (and others) are addressed in the book, discussing the strengths and limitations of each.
Whichever way you approach business process work, this book is essential reading for all practitioners because of its breadth and depth of commentary. It is careful to document sources, and has a comprehensive list of relevant material.
The book is also essential reading for all students of business processes at final year undergraduate, and master's levels, as it meets relevant level descriptors.
The book contains several innovative ideas, including:
• information technology is not the only enabling technology for business process improvement: business processes have been improved since time immemorial by the utilization of technology, not only information technology - and this will continue given modern technology convergence;
• the origin of virtually all approaches to systems analysis (including object-oriented analysis, and relational theory), is identified and documented;
• diagrammatic approaches to analyzing business processes are incapable of yielding models that can be checked for completeness and consistency, particularly as the number of processes increases;
• increasingly, the issue is not only business processes within an organization - the issue is business processes that cross organizational boundaries and may involve many enterprises;
• the book calls for a business process epistemology to complement business process ontology.
Whatever your view about approaches to business processes, you will find this book stimulating, challenging, comprehensive, and thought provoking.