A business process modeling‐based approach to investigate complex processes : Software development case study

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a new approach to investigate complex processes, such as software development processes, using business process modeling. Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents an investigation into the use of role activity diagramming (RAD) to model complex processes in the software industry sector, with reference to the process of TestWarehouse as a case study. Findings – Systematic extension and quantitative analysis to RAD models led to the discovery of process bottlenecks, identification of cross functional boundary problems, and focused discussion about automation of processes. Research limitations/implications – Further work is required to validate and evaluate the proposed approach using several cases with different application domains and thus generalize the adopted approach. Practical implications – A new approach has been used successfully to understand and analyze business processes. The tools and techniques that are used to perform the approach are not complicated and do not need much specialist expertise, so the approach is not only oriented toward specialists but also toward organizations' managers and staff. Originality/value – New techniques have been developed by using process modelling to deepen the understanding and analyzing of complex organizational processes. This research implements a practical investigation which uses a case study to validate the new techniques.