Many people consider Business Process Management (BPM) to be the “next
step” after the workflow wave of the nineties. Therefore, we use workflow terminology
to define BPM. The Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) defines
workflow as: “The automation of a business process, in whole or part, during
which documents, information or tasks are passed from one participant to
another for action, according to a set of procedural rules.” [22]. A Workflow
Management System (WFMS) is defined as: “A system that defines, creates and
manages the execution of workflows through the use of software, running on
one or more workflow engines, which is able to interpret the process definition,
interact with workflow participants and, where required, invoke the use of IT
tools and applications.” [22]. Note that both definitions emphasize the focus on
enactment, i.e., the use of software to support the execution of operational processes.
In the last couple of years, many researchers and practitioners started to
realize that the traditional focus on enactment is too restrictive. As a result new
terms like BPM have been coined. There exist many definitions of BPM but in
most cases it clearly includes Workflow Management (WFM). We define BPM as
follows: Supporting business processes using methods, techniques, and software
to design, enact, control, and analyze operational processes involving humans,
organizations, applications, documents and other sources of information. Note
that this definition restricts BPM to operational processes, i.e., processes at the