IT Enabled Process Improvement (Spring 2025)

Abstract

The students will learn theoretical foundations of IT-enabled process improvement and apply these to a real life practical context by working with an organisation.

Description

Continuously improving and innovating organisational processes is considered essential for organisational survival. Accordingly, many frameworks and theoretical perspectives exist for approaching such improvement initiatives. While business processes may be improved through redesign or through automation, this course focuses on the redesign of processes that involve human work.

After the course, the students should be able to: 

• Use the methods taught in the course to analyse and improve business processes that involve human work 
• Analyse business process improvement initiatives using theories taught in the course 
• Reflect on similarities and differences between different methods and theoretical perspectives on process improvement and on the effects that these differences may have when conducting process improvement in an organisational context
• Explain how different types of information technology can enable or inhibit process improvement 

In addition, the students have to demonstrate (as part of the project work) that they can: 

• Develop an appropriate research design for an improvement project in a specific organisational context reflecting upon different options and qualifying their decisions 
• Define a relevant and adequate problem definition for an improvement initiative in a specific organisational context involving relevant stakeholders 
• Facilitate/conduct an ample analysis of the current situation in a specific organisational context as a basis for suggesting actual improvements
• Develop and justify a plan/solution for an improvement initiative in a specific organisational context involving relevant stakeholders 
  
• Perform an executive presentation of the result of their project work 
  
• Reflect upon the project work; research design, process, result, learning etc. 
  

Formal prerequisites

Students should be able to:
- Formulate a research question
- Search for and cite literature
- Conduct a minor field study using interviews and observation
- Create business processes models using BPMN*

*You can acquire this skill by attending Business Process Modelling & Automation in the same semester

Intended learning outcomes

After the course, the student should be able to:

• Use the methods taught in the course to analyse and improve business processes that involve human work
• Analyse business process improvement initiatives using theories taught in the course
• Reflect on similarities and differences between different methods and theoretical perspectives on process improvement and on the effects that these differences may have when conducting process improvement in an organisational context
• Explain how different types of information technology can enable or inhibit process improvement
• Develop an appropriate research design for an improvement project in a specific organisational context reflecting upon different options and qualifying their decisions
• Define a relevant and adequate problem definition for an improvement initiative in a specific organisational context involving relevant stakeholders
• Facilitate/conduct an ample analysis of the current situation in a specific organisational context as a basis for suggesting actual improvements
• Develop and justify a plan/solution for an improvement initiative in a specific organisational context involving relevant stakeholders
• Perform an executive presentation of the result of their project work
• Reflect upon the project work; research design, process, result, learning etc.

Ordinary exam

Exam type:
D: Submission of written work with following oral, External (7-point scale)
Exam variation:
D2G: Submission for groups with following oral exam supplemented by the submission. Shared responsibility for the report.