Business Process Change: A Study of Methodologies, Techniques, and Tools

Growth in Business Process Reengineering (BPR) consulting services has led to a proliferation of methods for conducting BPR. Sifting through vendor promotional hype and identifying a set of techniques and tools that best meets a particular project’s needs can be a daunting task. This article investigates BPR Methods, Techniques, and Tools (MTTs) and places them within an empirically derived reference framework. A comprehensive picture of BPR emerges that includes MTTs that help in reengineering strategy, people, management, structure, and technology dimensions of business processes. A BPR planning approach for customizing this framework based on unique project characteristics is then offered to assist in selecting those BPR project activities and techniques to be emphasized. This flexible framework and comprehensive survey of commonly used BPR techniques and tools forms a knowledge base to improve business process change practice and provides a basis for future BPR research.