Business process modeling

Abstract

At least since business process reengineering was introduced by Michael Hammer in the early 1990s, business process modeling has become a “standard” tool. Although business process modeling is important, there is hardly any real standard. There is no agreement as to what business process modeling exactly is, as to what it is good for, or even whether it is useful at all. The point of this chapter is to provide some clarification. Business process modeling is very useful — and even far beyond the information technology world. It will have its application in almost all of the following chapters, and I will especially stress its usefulness outside of IT.