Best practices in business process redesign: validation of a redesign framework

A fundamental challenge in any Business Process Redesign (BPR) project is to come up with a new process design that is in one or more ways superior to the existing plan. Based on earlier research, a framework to help the designer in selecting the proper best practice(s) for this purpose is presented and validated in this paper. It is described how the framework is used in generating improved process designs for two Dutch organisations. Furthermore, the results from a survey are presented, which has been carried out among BPR practitioners in the UK and the Netherlands to test the framework. The overall conclusion is that the framework is indeed helpful in supporting process redesign and that its core elements are recognised and put in practice by the BPR practitioner community. The framework, therefore, may be of direct interest to both academics and practitioners active in the process improvement field.