Design Dimensions for Business Process Architecture

Enterprises employ an array of business processes (BPs) for their operational, supporting, and managerial activities. When BPs are designed to work together to achieve organizational objectives, we refer to them and the relationships among them as the business process architecture (BPA). While substantial efforts have been devoted to designing and analyzing individual BPs, there is little focus on BPAs. As organizations are undergoing changes at many levels, at different times, and at different rates, the BP architect needs to consider how to manage the relationships among multiple BPs. We propose a modeling framework for designing BPAs with a focus on representing and analyzing architectural choices along several design dimensions aimed at achieving various design objectives, such as flexibility, cost, and efficiency.