The disintegrated enterprise: how shared values may provide a remedy

Summary form only given. The top-level business process architecture should be derived from the business strategy. The detail of the processes within a top-level process architecture cannot be founded on logic alone, there is a need to utilise the collective knowledge of the workforce to derive the business processes and for the workforce to learn more about their business in the experience. In engaging employees in the process definition, shared values as to the new processes are more likely to emerge. Indeed, a commonly reported failure of BPR initiatives (business process reengineering) is the failure to achieve buy-in from employees regarding the changes that need to be made to day-to-day operations. What better method to employ than soft systems methodology (SSM) (Checkland, 1981). This paper illustrates how a soft systems approach can be used to define integrated business processes, resulting in a notation that clearly shows how each function/department contributes to the process objective