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PurposeIn the last decade, bureaucratic organizational hierarchies have been increasingly replaced with flatter organizational forms, bringing together people from different disciplines to form project teams within and between organizations. Distributed project teams often are self‐configuring networks of mobile and "fixed" people, devices, and applications. They are the natural next step in the evolution of distributed computing, after client‐server, web‐based, and peer‐to‐peer computing. Seeks to show that a newly emerging requirement is to facilitate not just mobility of content (i.e. to support a multitude of devices and connectivity modes) to project members, but also mobility of context (i.e. to provide traceable and continuous support of dynamic relationships between people, artifacts, and business processes).Design/methodology/approachThe contribution of this paper is to present the design goals, the architecture, and implementation of a system aiming at supporting internet‐enabled workflow and groupware for project teams, enabling traceable and continuous support of associations (relationships) between people, artifacts, and business processes.FindingsThe findings indicate that building internet‐enabled workflow and groupware systems is valuable for virtual teamwork, since they provide a foundation for context‐aware and process‐aware information systems.Originality/valueThis article outlines some foundations of process‐aware collaborative work. Provides an analysis of current workflow and groupware shortcomings in respect of virtual teamwork, outlines the design goals, architecture and an implementation of a system aiming at supporting virtual teams on the internet.

Process models expressed in BPMN typically rely on a small subset of all available symbols. In our 2008 study, we examined the composition of these subsets, and found that the distribution of BPMN symbols in practice closely resembles the frequency distribution of words in natural language. We offered some suggestions based on our findings, how to make the use of BPMN more manageable and also outlined ideas for further development of BPMN. Since this paper was published it has provoked spirited debate in the BPM practitioner community, prompted the definition of a modeling standard in US government, and helped shape the next generation of the BPMN standard.

PurposeThis paper seeks to establish a design for cross‐organizational workflow based on logical channels of communication. A set of scenarios is established which can be used to test the effectiveness of future architectures.Design/methodology/approachStarting with scenarios based on cross‐organizational business transactions, designs a set of sequence diagrams, analyzes these diagrams, and then deduces the need for certain system capabilities.FindingsCurrent approaches to web services focus on just one channel – that of invocation. In order to handle the full gamut of cross‐organizational workflow, channels devoted to flow, monitoring, negotiation, and interpersonal interaction are also necessary.Research limitations/implicationsExtensions to this research might include designs for integrating these multiple channels. Such designs can be tested against the scenarios discussed in the paper. In particular, research related to the semantic web might extend the ideas raised here.Practical implicationsCompanies implementing web services may want to augment the current technology with enhancement of their own in order to avoid inadvertently reducing their channels of communication with trading partners. A properly constructed monitoring channel has the potential to change the nature of complex workflow.Originality/valueThose designing and implementing web service technology may find value in the articulation of a set of complex scenarios which can be used to test alternative designs and implementations. The discussion of cross‐organizational monitoring is new, and has broad implications for business.

PurposeAims to show that workflow management needs to rethink its basis of discussion in order to meet today's challenges and to provide adequate IT support for heterogeneous workflow networks.Design/methodology/approachFirst, the need for flexibility in relating resources in workflow management is examined in more detail. Second, some approaches to managing workflows in heterogeneous networks are inspected and it is found that all of these improve flexibility on the basis of contracting services. Third, it is elaborated how processing by contract supports decentralized resource management through dynamically interrelating social and technical services driven by a cycle ("wheel") of execution and monitoring, evaluation and demand, as well as selecting and contracting.FindingsConclusions are drawn for systems architecture and implementation to guide the design of internet‐enabled workflow support.Research limitations/implicationsImportant questions for the research agenda are: how can one enrich application‐oriented workflow modelling languages in order to describe processes as consisting of heterogeneous services? How should one design and implement workflow engines which enable the turning of the "wheel" with the support of integrating human activities and technical agency as workflow process services?Practical implicationsThe idea of processing by contract may lead to new workflow concepts and technology to meet the challenges of an internet economy based on the "pay as you go" principle.Originality/valueWhereas the workflow paradigm of the past may be phrased as processing by definition, i.e. process execution according to predefined process patterns and resource relations, the idea of processing by contract is suggested, i.e. a mode of process execution driven by recurrent process evaluation and service contracting.

PurposeThe design and execution of business processes are important drivers of organizational performance. Organizations design their operations around cross-functional processes adopting business process management (BPM) methods, tools and systems. This often involves assigning BPM accountability to senior executives such as the chief operating officer (COO), chief information officer (CIO), or chief technology officer (CTO). Some organizations appoint a chief process officer (CPO), a phenomenon raising important questions about the skills and responsibilities of this position within the top management team. The purpose of this paper is to conduct an empirical study to explore the skills and responsibilities of CPOs and differences to other executives.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted an exploratory content analysis of job resumes from LinkedIn.com to investigate the skills and careers of individuals appointed as COO, CIO, CTO and CPO in organizations from different industries and sizes. The content analysis was complemented with expert interviews of CPOs to obtain rich insights into their perception of the responsibilities of this position.FindingsCPOs possess a unique skill set to serve as change agents. Their skills enable them to serve as integrators and influencers across managerial ranks and corporate functions. COOs, CIOs and CTOs possess more specialized skills related to their corporate function, whereas CPOs are more generalists who facilitate process-oriented strategy and execution, driving cultural change throughout the organization. These findings are consistent across industry and size.Originality/valueThis is the first paper to examine the CPO position in relation to other senior executive positions. Hence, it addresses an important gap in the BPM literature which can help organizations to make informed decisions whether they need a CPO position or have it become a part-time role of one of their existing C-level positions.

PurposeCollaborative processes are relatively complex and are therefore difficult to handle. Representing the joint processes and capturing the interactions among stakeholders in a structured way are critical to improve the collaboration productivity. This paper aims to present a generic collaborative process model that improves on current approaches by explicitly representing the perspectives of stakeholders and their evolution traversing a work process.Design/methodology/approachThis approach provides a mechanism to identify the interdependencies among tasks and stakeholders, and realizes collaboration through process management. A web‐based information system using the model to support collaborative process management is also described.FindingsThe research work provides collaboration management systems with the ability to analyze and control the processes through sharing perspectives.Originality/valueThe models and methods described in this paper are an important part of a pervasive, resilient and predictable means for business process management over the internet.