A computer scientist's introductory guide to business process management (BPM)

Abstract

Computers play an integral part in designing, modelling, optimising and managing business processes within and across companies. While Business Process Management (BPM), Workflow Management (WfM) and Business Process Reengineering (BPR) have been IT-related disciplines with a history of about three decades, there is still a lack of publications clarifying definitions and scope of basic BPM terminologies like business process, BPM versus WfM, workflow, BPR, etc. Such a myriad of similar-sounding terminologies can be overwhelming for computer scientists and computer science students who may wish to venture into this area of research. This guide aims to address this gap by providing a high level overview of the key concepts, rationale, features and the developments of BPM.