Dealing with the complexity of business systems architecting

F.P.M. Biemans, M.M. Lankhorst, W.B. Teeuw and R.G. van de Wetering

Systems Engineering, 2001, vol. 4, issue 2, 118-133

Abstract: Engineers are trained to design systems such as bridges, computers, and aircraft in a well‐structured manner. However, the design of business processes has not yet matured to this level. We argue that the complexity of business processes is the major cause. In this paper, we investigate the causes of this complexity, and provide heuristics to master this complexity. Business process “architecting,” the high‐level, functional design of business processes, is more an art than a science. Consequently, experience is very important. The heuristics we provide are based on an analysis of the reasons why business process architecting is so complex as well as our experience resulting from the Testbed project, a cooperative project of industry and research organizations. We conclude by discussing some basic requirements for modeling concepts and methods. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Syst Eng 4: 118–133, 2001

Date: 2001
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/sys.1010

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:syseng:v:4:y:2001:i:2:p:118-133

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Systems Engineering from John Wiley & Sons
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().