Testimonials

Purao and Strange’s text on business processing management (BPM) is a departure from the norm for teaching students about this critical topic. Instead of having students just read about how BPE works, students ENACT their learning through a drama. The dramatic scenes move one through the typical stages of introducing BPM in a real world company.

 The term-long play begins, appropriately enough, with introductions of the “actors” (or “dramatic personae”). These range from vice presidents of different divisions and functions to professionals in the focal company, Royal Energy. Variations in personalities reflect the diversity of people who would typically play out roles in a reengineering effort. As the scenes develop, participants hone in on important distinctions, such as how processes differ from functions and departments. As the knowledge base grows, the play illuminates how processes can be modelled (intellectually and technically) and how genuine cooperation can lead to more efficient and understandable processes.

What students gain from this experience is learning through enactment, or perhaps more precisely stated, simulated participation in real world scenarios. Through the immediacy of role-playing, they see how processes can be better modelled and how a redesign of an organization’s operations can lead to immense organizational value. This book represents a vitally new pedagogy for conveying intricate material to students and I urge faculty to consider the value of this form of enactment of learning in their classes.

-- Dr. Detmar Straub, Temple University

This book is a great addition to BPM education. I love the way it is written as a play and how creatively it can be used. Not only is this new format refreshingly different and engaging, it also fulfils a most valuable didactic purpose: As BPM is not a routine task, textbook knowledge falls short on providing the important comprehensive BPM skillset. BPM requires skills to navigate complexity, to creatively find innovative solutions to real-world problems and to communicate and discuss ideas and results. To this end, the book offers a whole new realm of experience: students deal with a complex context in a playful (and narrative) way and are guided to understand these from the process perspective and - above all - to develop and discuss creative solutions to problems. I have already had the privilege of trying out this book in an early state and it was amazing to see how it works. I will for sure continue to use it as an important component of my BPM education portfolio in the future. Congratulations to Sandeep, who has brilliantly combined his passion for both process and design science in this piece.

--  Dr. Jan vom Brocke, University of Münster and Director of European Research Center for IS

This book takes students on a novel and fun journey through the human side of business process management and technology implementation. It helps build student intuition from the bottom-up by exposing them to the messy social situations through which work is transformed in real life settings. Along the way, students develop familiarity with techniques for building and analyzing process models, and tackling organizational problems for deploying processes in organizations.   

-- Dr. M. Lynne Markus, Bentley University

This is certainly not just another BPM book - this unique and engaging screenplay style introduction to Business Process Management is the perfect companion for flipping your classroom and making BPM learning fun and interactive. Follow the main characters as they grapple with identifying, prioritising, and improving processes, assign your students to characters to enable them to appreciate different perspectives, or simply use the scenes in the play together with the included reflection questions to facilitate active class discussion. Say goodbye to asking your BPM class a question only to be met with silence in response!

-- Dr. Marta Indulska, University of Queensland