A Framework for Reflective Business Process Management

Current literature in the area of Business Process Management (BPM) holds a very "mechanistic" view, focusing on top-down specified business processes and the resources needed for their execution. However, such a perspective neglects the contribution of individual employees, whose skills, experiences and knowledge influence the value added through a business process significantly. In today's knowledge-intensive business world however, organizations need employees who have the experience and knowledge to cope with fast-changing environments and requirements while performing their work productively. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a framework to combine reflection processes with BPM. This framework provides a conceptual baseline for the development of information systems enabling organizations and their employees to improve their learning processes. Reflection and reflective learning are seen as the key concepts to generate the knowledge and expertise needed in this context.