Business Process Documentation in Creative Work Systems A Design Science Study in Television Production Inauguraldissertation zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines Doktors der Wirtschaftswissenschaften durch die Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät der Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster vorgelegt von Milan Karow aus Radebeul Münster, 2011 Dean (Dekan): Prof. Dr. Thomas Apolte First Supervisor (Erstberichterstatter): Prof. Dr. Jörg Becker Second Supervisor (Zweitberichterstatter): Prof. Dr. Ulrich Müller-Funk Defense Date (Tag der mündlichen Prüfung): 17. November 2010 To Nadine Foreword Conceptual modeling as a tool for effective business process management is a core subject in the IS community. The last fifteen years have seen considerable improvements on methods and implementations for model-based process analysis and design. However, the application area of these methods and tools has since been constricted the context of highly predictable and repeatable process structures that are readily accessible to formalization. In these areas, the major goals of modeling endeavors can be found in measurement and optimization of process efficiency, in process restructuring and automation. In businesses, however, where originality and innovation are predominant drivers of the competitive environment, traditional efficiency figures will take a backt sea in the assessment of a company’s success. Accordingly, in such contexts where creativity and knowledge-intensive work are essen- tial to the creation of value, traditional forms of process modeling reach their limits of applicability. Such business processes are characterized by high levels of uncertainty, rely heavily on individual abilities of their actors and demand for a sufficient degree of flexibility to bring creative potentials to their full effect. Traditional process modeling techniques fail to capture these variabilities. Process analysts that find themselves confronted with work structures that are determined by individual creativity and knowledge, will likely deal with the inherent problem in using one of two strategies. The first strategy is to regard creativity-intensive processes as black boxes, since further detailing on a modeling level seems unfeasible due to the inherent variability. The second strategy implies forcing the applied method’s formalism on these processes. While the first way will lead to an unde- sirable lack of detail, the second will alienate the nature of the process and might result in severelyriskingitscreativepotential.Thus,amoreadaptingmodelingmethodisrequired. Milan Karow addresses this challenging topic by posing his research question on how creativity-intensive processes can be purposefully documented in conceptual models. The primary goal of his doctoral thesis is to provide for a modeling method that meets both the requirements of creative organizations on flexibility, as well as resulting in process documen- tations suitable for executives, clients and other stakeholders to identify and comprehend v vi the essential structures in these processes. The domain to which a certain method isto be applied is a crucial influence factor of such an application. Milan Karow adheres to this notion by applying his method to a comprising case study that has been conducted in television production in Germany. His findings are thus not only insightful from a process management and methodology perspective in general, but also display a great knowledge baseforthatparticulardomain. Münster, 2011 Jörg Becker Preface This thesis is the result of my work in the research project “Management of Creativity- intensive Processes” (ManKIP) that has been funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. It was in late summer 2008 when my colleagues Stefan Seidel and Felix Müller-Wienbergen suggested that I should join the project which had already started at the beginning of said year. My research interests at the time had already been revolving around conceptual modeling and its application in organizational contexts for some time. Starting off from the question how real-world models could efficiently be transformed into information system structures, my interests shifted towards the question how such models can be put to use beyond merely technical considerations. The predominant idea of this notion was to investigate in models as means of knowledge sharing between human recipients and modeling as an endeavor to structuring rather than formalization. The ManKIP project then offered the opportunity to project my method knowledge to an area largely untouched by process modeling. The creative environment of television production that we investigated in our study proved to be an exciting domain for this kind of application. Especially the various informal conversations I had with different domain experts besides therecordedinterviewsgaveagreatsensefortheimportanceofdomainlanguageand thevalueofamodelasmeansofsupport.Itwasoneofmyobjectivestoincorporatethat domain sense into this thesis. Formakingthisworkpossible,Iamindebtedtoagreatlotofpeople.First,Iwanttothank my supervisor Prof. Dr. Jörg Becker for creating the open-minded working atmosphere at the European Research Center for Information Systems (ERCIS) that provides such an inspiring setting for individual research interests. This environment enabled me to pursue different interesting strands of investigation that finally resulted in this thesis. My thanks also go to Prof. Dr. Ulrich Müller-Funk for his support as second supervisor. Moreover, I want to thank all of my friends and colleagues for an excellent time at the ERCIS. The time I focused on method-related topics in modeling I collaborated with the “RefMod crew” and collected a great variety of insights and ideas on conceptual modeling. vii viii For this, I owe many thanks especially to Patrick Delfman, Armin Stein, Lukasz Lis and SebastianHerwig.SpecialthanksalsogotomyfellowSaxonDanielPfeiffer,withoutwhom I never may have seized the opportunity to apply for the job as a research assistant and with whom I had fascinating discussions about the philosophy and the semiotic foundations of conceptual modeling. Of course a very special thank-you is due to the “creative bunch”, first and foremost to Stefan and Felix for making this project possible, for encouraging me to dive into this new topic and for the invaluable input they provided with their work. Furthermore, I want to thank Katrin Bergener and Matthias Voigt for their dedication withintheprojectandforbeinggreatsparringpartnerswhoneverhesitatedtogivehonest and constructive feedback. The greatest thanks, however, I owe to my fiancée Nadine, who has been an indispensible source of encouragement and love throughout almost the entirety of my academic career. She valiantly weathered through times of petulance and disregard while never losing her patience and appreciation. This work is dedicated to her. Münster, 2011 Milan Karow Contents List of Figures xiii List of Tables xvii Index of Abbreviations xix 1 Exposition and Introduction 1 1.1 MotivationandResearchContext......................... 1 1.2 ResearchQuestions................................. 3 1.3 ThesisStructure................................... 4 2 Literature Review and Related Work 7 2.1 ScopeandStrategyofRetrieval.......................... 7 2.2 BusinessProcessManagementandModeling.................. 8 2.2.1 Business Process Reengineering and Management . ....... 9 2.2.2 Alternative Approaches to Business Process Formalization ..... 12 2.2.3 Socio-technical Approaches to BPM .................. 14 2.2.4 Workflow Management and Process Data Interchange . ....... 16 2.2.5 Knowledge Representation and Documentation ........... 18 2.2.6 Organizational Creativity . ...................... 19 2.3 ConceptualModelingandLanguageConstruction.............. 20 2.3.1 Language Conceptualizations ...................... 22 2.3.2 Method Engineering ........................... 24 2.4 PositioningofthisResearch............................ 25 3 Research Design 29 3.1 ResearchMethodology............................... 29 3.2 Design Science and Design Theory . ...................... 30 3.2.1 IT Artifacts in Design Science ...................... 31 3.2.2 Theory in Design Science ......................... 32 3.3 PhilosophicalAssumptions............................ 33 3.3.1 Ontological Position ............................ 33 3.3.2 Epistemological Position . ...................... 35 3.3.3 Concepts of Truth and Value . ...................... 35 3.4 MultilingualQualitativeResearch........................ 36 ix x Contents 3.5 ResearchProcess.................................. 37 4 Process Documentation for Creative Work Systems 41 4.1 CreativityinBusinessProcesses.......................... 41 4.1.1 Properties of Creativity-intensive Processes .............. 41 4.1.2 Subcategories of Creativity Intensive Processes ............ 44 4.1.3 Conceptualization of Creativity in Processes: the Pocket of Creativity 48 4.2 ProcessModelingLanguageAnalysis...................... 50 4.2.1 Requirements for Process Modeling in Creative Contexts ...... 51 4.2.2 Language Analysis: Sampling Strategy ................. 56 4.2.3 Detailed Analysis ............................. 56 4.2.4 Analysis Summary and Verdict ..................... 70 4.3 DevelopmentoftheAbstractSyntaxandSemanticalFoundation...... 71 4.3.1 Derivation of Language Constructs ................... 72 4.3.2 Product View ................................ 75 4.3.3 Organizational View ...........................