BPM tool selection: The case of the Queensland court of justice

Abstract

This chapter reports on the experiences of an Australian government department in selecting a BPM tool to support its process modeling, analysis, and design activities. With the growing number of tools in the market that claim to support BPM, the variance in actual functionality supported by these tools, and the potentially significant cost of such a purchase, BPM tool selection has become an arduous task. While there is some independent guidance available on how various tools support different aspects of BPM initiatives, organizations still need to determine what their specific needs are and be able to establish how information gathered on tool functionality can be evaluated against these needs. The chapter presents the evaluation criteria that the Queensland Courts derived and used for their needs; the process followed to find and short-list candidate tools to evaluate; and a discussion on findings against the established criteria. While the requirements and evaluation criteria will differ for each organizational context, this chapter provides guidance for business managers on how they may structure and conduct a BPM tool evaluation from a business user perspective. In particular, it provides a score sheet tailored for a business process redesign initiative, which other organizations can use as a starting point and further refine to their specific needs. In addition, it provides suggestions on methods for identifying candidate tools for evaluation (i.e., via market research, on-site visits, gathering recommendations from experiences of others, etc.) from the multitude of BPM solutions currently available. The chapter also highlights the need for BPM tool vendors to invest more in understanding the varying needs of organizations across the BPM spectrum so as to provide accurate information to the right market in a way that potential business users/customers can understand.