Ola Skarpmoen Eriksen

Business process management and success factors –
Which success factors are the basis for a successful

implementation phase of a BPM project”
A qualitative case study about the success factors present in the

implementation phase of a single point of contact project at the
University of Agder
OLA SKARPMOEN ERIKSEN & JOHN JENSEN
SUPERVISOR
Dag Håkon Olsen
University of Agder, 2020

Faculty of Social Science
Department of Information Systems
II
Preface
This master thesis is written as the final project at the master course in Information systems at
the University of Agder. The thesis is a part of the IS-501-1 “Master thesis in Information
systems” course and is written in the time period between January 2020 and June 2020.
This course gives the opportunity to work in-depth with a specific subject and conduct a project
in either the public or private sector. After writing this thesis we will have gained an
understanding of applying theoretical knowledge and scientific methods to a specific problem.
The purpose of this thesis is to answer what success factors are the basis for a successful
implementation phase in a BPM project at a Norwegian university.
We want to thank our supervisor, Professor Dag Håkon Olsen at the institute of Information
systems at the University of Agder for his guidance and expertise in this field. We are thankful
for the guidance, constructive feedback, and continued assistance that we have received
throughout this thesis
At last we want to thank interviewees at the University of Agder for their participation and
honesty in our research. A special thanks to the UiA help project leader for allowing us to use
their project as a part of our thesis.
Kristiansand, 3. June 2020
III
IV
Abstract
The following master thesis looks into the topic of business process management and the
success factors present in the implementation phase. From prior research, it was discovered that
there is a research gap in prior conducted research about success factors within different phases
of a BPM project. The purpose of this thesis is to add to this perceived research gap by
discovering the success factors in the implementation phase of a BPM project undertaken at the
University of Agder.
A literature review was first conducted to identify already existing success factors, resulting in
127 factors found. A pre-existing framework of critical success factors was re-specified and
used in mapping the identified success factors. This led to two new categories being discovered,
these being organizational change and processes. The framework was used as a basis in
creating our interview guide and consisted of 11 critical success factors, leadership,
methodology, people, performance measurement, project management, strategic alignment,
organizational change, and processes.
Data gathering consisted of a single explanatory case-study and a qualitative process. A total
of nine individuals were interviewed through a semi-structured interview process. The chosen
case study was a BPM project conducted at a large public sector organization, the University
of Agder.
The individuals interviewed were all people with a certain authority of the project during the
implementation phase. The data collected from the interviews were transcribed and analysed in
a data analysis system to determine what success factors respondents meant were critical.
Findings were validated by cross-checking transcriptions of the interviews.
In our findings, we discover that not all of the 11 critical success factors were critical for the
implementation phase. We argue that culture, communication, people, and processes are the
critical success factors of the implementation phase. Information technology, leadership,
project management and organizational change are considered as important for this phase, but
not critical. Methodology, performance measurement and strategic alignment are considered as
not important for this phase.
V
VI
Table of Contents
1. Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1
1.1 Motivation ......................................................................................................................... 1
1.2 Contribution ...................................................................................................................... 2
1.3 Case description ................................................................................................................ 2
1.4 Structure of the thesis ........................................................................................................ 4
Chapter 1: Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 4
Chapter 2: Related research ........................................................................................................................... 4
Chapter 3: Research approach ....................................................................................................................... 4
Chapter 4: Results of findings ....................................................................................................................... 5
Chapter 5: Discussion .................................................................................................................................... 5
Chapter 6: Limitations ................................................................................................................................... 5
Chapter 7: Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 5
2. Related research ........................................................................................................ 6

2.1 Literature search approach ............................................................................................... 6
2.1.1 Search criteria ....................................................................................................................................... 7
2.1.2 Five-phase approach ............................................................................................................................. 8
2.2 Conducting the literature searches .................................................................................... 8
2.3 Reviewed articles ............................................................................................................. 12
2.4 Business process management ......................................................................................... 16
2.5 Business process management lifecycles .......................................................................... 17
2.6 Success factors ................................................................................................................. 18
2.7 Single point of contact ..................................................................................................... 18
2.8 Public sector versus private sector in BPM ...................................................................... 18
2.9 What have others done in this field .................................................................................. 19
2.9.1 Holistic framework ............................................................................................................................. 20
2.9.2 Identified success factors from prior research .................................................................................... 21
2.10 Revised holistic framework and Critical Success Factor analysis ................................... 24
2.10.1 Success factor analysis of the new proposed framework .................................................................. 25
2.10.2 Proposed holistic framework ............................................................................................................ 28
3. Research approach .................................................................................................. 30

3.1 Research design ............................................................................................................... 30
3.2 Research process ............................................................................................................. 31
3.3 Conceptual framework .................................................................................................... 31
3.3.1 Strategy – Case Study ......................................................................................................................... 31
3.3.2 Data generation method and data analysis .......................................................................................... 32
3.4 Limitations of research design and potential challenges related to data collection ........... 34
3.5 Data processing ............................................................................................................... 35
3.6 Interview guide ................................................................................................................ 35
3.7 Potential ethical issues related to the project ................................................................... 35
3.8 Gathering the data ........................................................................................................... 36
VII
3.9 Validation ........................................................................................................................ 37
4. Result of findings .................................................................................................... 39
4.1 Culture ............................................................................................................................ 39
4.2 Communication ............................................................................................................... 39
4.3 Information Technology .................................................................................................. 40
4.4 Leadership ....................................................................................................................... 41
4.5 Methodology .................................................................................................................... 42
4.6 People .............................................................................................................................. 42
4.7 Performance Measurement.............................................................................................. 43
4.8 Project Management........................................................................................................ 43
4.9 Strategic Alignment ......................................................................................................... 44
4.10 Organizational Change .................................................................................................. 45
4.11 Processes ........................................................................................................................ 45
4.12 Maturity ........................................................................................................................ 46
4.13 Summary of findings...................................................................................................... 47
5. Discussion............................................................................................................... 49
5.1 Culture ............................................................................................................................ 49
5.2 Communication ............................................................................................................... 49
5.3 Information Technology .................................................................................................. 49
5.4 Leadership ....................................................................................................................... 50
5.5 Methodology .................................................................................................................... 50
5.6 People .............................................................................................................................. 51
5.7 Performance Measurement.............................................................................................. 51
5.8 Project Management........................................................................................................ 51
5.9 Strategic Alignment ......................................................................................................... 52
5.10 Organizational Change .................................................................................................. 52
5.11 Processes ........................................................................................................................ 52
5.12 Maturity ........................................................................................................................ 53
5.13 Identifying the critical success factors in the implementation phase .............................. 54
5.14 Summary of discussion .................................................................................................. 58
6. Limitations .............................................................................................................. 60
6.1 Reliability and validity .......................................................................................................................... 60
7. Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 61
7.1 Implications ..................................................................................................................... 62
7.2 Future research ............................................................................................................... 62
References ...................................................................................................................... 63
VIII
Appendix ........................................................................................................................ 65
Appendix A - Articles used in proposed holistic framework .................................................. 65
Appendix B - Interview Guide............................................................................................... 66
Tables
Table 1: Reasons for UiA starting the project ............................................................................ 3
Table 2: Literature search criteria .............................................................................................. 7
Table 3: Search strings used for each version of our article searches ........................................ 9
Table 4: Results from Version 1 of article search .................................................................... 11
Table 8: Reviewed articles ....................................................................................................... 12
Table 9: Difference between the public and private sectors .................................................... 19
Table 10: Discovered success factors ....................................................................................... 21
Table 11: Problems and pitfalls in qualitative research ........................................................... 33
Table 12: Overview of conducted interviews........................................................................... 36
Table 13: Summary of amount of references for each node .................................................... 37
Table 14: Summary of findings table ....................................................................................... 47
Table 15: Summary of which factors were critical, important, and not important for the
implementation phase ............................................................................................................... 59
Figures
Figure 1: Organization of service desks before the project ........................................................ 2
Figure 2: Organization chart....................................................................................................... 3
Figure 3: Single point of contact for each service help desk...................................................... 4
Figure 4: Five-phase approach to conducting a literature search ............................................... 8
Figure 6: Business process management lifecycle framework ................................................ 17
Figure 5: Business process management implementation framework ................................... 17
Figure 7: BPM Success Factors framework ............................................................................. 20
Figure 8: Proposed holistic framework .................................................................................... 29
Figure 9: Research design with steps undertaken for this thesis .............................................. 30
Figure 10: Research process model .......................................................................................... 31
Figure 11: Guidelines for qualitative research interviews........................................................ 34
Figure 12: CSFs that were impacted by maturity ..................................................................... 54
Figure 13: Factors directly impacted by People in the implementation phase ......................... 55
Figure 14: Factors directly impacted by Culture in the implementation phase........................ 56
Figure 15: Factors directly impacted by Communication in the implementation phase .......... 56
Figure 16: Factors directly impacted by Processes in the implementation phase .................... 57
Figure 17: Summary of relations between CSFs and success factors ...................................... 58
IX
X
1. Introduction
Business Process Management (BPM) is an important topic for today’s organizations. It is a
topic that has been around for many years and has been popular amongst organizations that
wish to achieve better performance of their processes (Malinova, Hribar, & Mendling, 2014).
BPM provides several benefits within an organization, as it has the potential to improve the
performance of their processes, be more efficient in their productivity and be more
competitive while reducing the resources needed (Bai & Sarkis, 2013).
The conceptual roots for BPM come from multiple highly researched management concepts
of the twentieth century. With the definition of BPM still mostly inconsistent, it is difficult to
say when and how BPM started. The first use of the term BPM is under dispute, and some
believe that the term dates back to 1911 in the times of Scientific Management, while others
even quote sources back to the eighth century (Klun & Trkman, 2018). BPM has evolved
from instructions on applications to a management practice where the organization's processes
are focused on clients, objectives, people, and technology that are integrated with operational
and strategic activities. The goal of BPM is to better align the organization with customer
needs and it does so by combining the IT and the organization's business perspectives
(Bernardo, Galina, & Pádua, 2017).
Much of the prior research discusses how BPM should be used and implemented in
organizations (Trkman, 2010). However, there have been reports that organizations are not
achieving the expected benefits and results of BPM (Malinova et al., 2014). This has sparked
researchers to focus on discovering what critical success factors (CSFs) there are for BPM to
be successfully implemented and adopted. CSFs are the key areas that must be focused and
committed on by organizations that wish to achieve success in BPM. Most of the prior
research conducted about CSFs focus on the whole lifecycle of a BPM project, and there is a
perceived research gap about which CSFs are present for the specific phases of the lifecycle
(Buh, Kovačič, & Indihar Štemberger, 2015).
Our thesis focuses on this research gap and is also the basis of our research question. The
research question we answer in this thesis is as follows: “Which success factors are the basis
for a successful implementation phase of a BPM project?”.
In answering our research question, we have first conducted a literature review where we
identify success factors from prior research and map these using a holistic framework. In an
attempt to discover which CSFs are present in a specific phase, a single-case study about the
implementation phase of a BPM project at the University of Agder (UiA) using a qualitative
data gathering method was conducted.
1.1 Motivation
There were multiple contributors that motivated us in conducting this research about both our
chosen topic and chosen case. BPM was a term that was introduced to us in one of our master
studies courses, and we have been genuinely interested in this topic since. It was fascinating
to see how BPM helps businesses evolve and be more customer-oriented. We believe that
customer satisfaction is immensely valuable, and BPM allows organizations to get this focus
1
back. Since we have only looked at theoretical examples, we wanted to study this topic with
an actual real-world example rather than just theoretical.
The case of UiA Help presented itself as a perfect opportunity to study this topic. Throughout
our master years at UiA, we have both worked at the IT Department at the university. Since
we were employees, the project of UiA Help has had an even more substantial personal
interest for us as we were first-hand witnesses of how such an organizational change project-
affected its employees. Our involvement in the public sector has also motivated us to study
more into how the public sector conducts such projects, as much of our prior research
undertaken about BPM has solely focused on the private sector.
1.2 Contribution
BPM success is a very complicated matter and projects have different characteristics that
require different success factors for different project lifecycles (Bandara, Alibabaei, &
Aghdasi, 2009). After conducting our literature review and looking at existing prior research,
it is apparent that there is a need to evaluate and re-evaluate the already defined success
factors of BPM (Trkman, 2010). BPM has been a widely researched topic throughout the
years, and there exist many discovered success factors (Klun & Trkman, 2018). Our thesis
first contributes to the mapping of previously identified success factors and gathers existing
success factors into one holistic framework.
Our contribution lies in the gap of research that looks into success factors within specific
phases of a BPM project. The article “Critical success factors for different stages of business
process management adoption–a case study” (Buh et al., 2015) stated that there had been a
lot of research done already about the success factors of an entire BPM project, but not about
the different stages. We argue that there is a research gap as only a few out of our 32 reviewed
articles have solely focused on the specific success factors in the different stages of BPM
projects. We therefore believe that our thesis contributes to research by looking at a specific
stage of a BPM project, the implementation phase, and discover the success factors present
within that stage.
1.3 Case description
Our chosen case for this thesis has been a BPM project at the University of Agder. This
university has 1440 employees, 550 in administration, and 890 in the academics. UiA has two
campus locations in Kristiansand and Grimstad, with a total of 12 995 students (Agder, 2019).
The administration at UiA started a project where the goal was to establish a single point of
contact (SPOC) service desk. The purpose of this project was to decrease the number of
service desks at UiA from four to one single contact service desk.
IT Service Operations
Library
department department department
Library Operations
IT helpdesk Helpdesk
desk desk
Figure 1: Organization of service desks before the project
2
UiA has had rapid growth in complexity, students, and employees. In such a large
organization, this makes it difficult for students and employees to navigate themselves to the
information that they need. There were too many desks, contact points, and spread of
information about the different portals to contact them, as shown in Figure 1. The layout of
service desks they had, placed the responsibility on the users to find information about the
services provided by the university. Different cultures in the departments gave users different
levels of service. The reason is that the departments developed services that they offer
different to one another, and this gave the departments little room for co-creation and synergy
(Agder, 2016, 2017).
UiA described their needs in the document that proposed the grounds for the project. The
needs presented in the document is displayed in Table 1 below.
Table 1: Reasons for UiA starting the project (Agder, 2016)
Reasons for UiA starting the project

The need for more effective processes and resource usage.
Measure resource use and service delivery for continuous improvements.
Facilitate interaction between the different departments.
Digitize and automate services.
Disengage resources to handle the increased assignments and developments of new
services.
Ensure a robust service delivery with the possibility to control the resource usage between
the different departments if needed.
Figure 2 shows where the UiA help sub-department is located at in the organization chart.
University
director
IT Service Operations
Library
department department dpartment
Uia Help
Figure 2: Organization chart
3
The goal of the project is to have a single point of contact that students and employees can
contact. Figure 3 displays how UiA help combines the contact point of each service desk into
one entity.
Figure 3: Single point of contact for each service help desk
1.4 Structure of the thesis
Our thesis consists of 7 chapters with multiple subchapters that follows a standard layout for a
qualitative research paper. This thesis includes a description of the case, related research, key
concepts, articles reviewed, holistic framework, research approach, results, discussion, and
conclusion.
Chapter 1: Introduction
An introduction is given to the master thesis by providing a brief overview of BPM, the focus
of the thesis, and a presentation of the research question. Motivation, contribution, and case
description are discussed in this chapter.
Chapter 2: Related research

Chapter 2 presents the literature that has had a significance for this research and explains the
literature search processes used. Definitions of the key concepts that were significant and
what others have done prior to our chosen field are included. Previously discovered success
factors are mapped, and a new proposed framework is discussed in this chapter.
Chapter 3: Research approach

This chapter explains the research process, strategy, and methodical approach. A presentation
of the data generation method, data analysis, and data processing is presented. Different
4
problems, pitfalls, and limitations for our design are discussed, and the chapter concludes with
an overview of the data gathering process and validation.
Chapter 4: Results of findings

Results from the data gathering process are presented in this chapter. There is first a general
impression of the project from our respondents, following with a presentation of the results of
each factor discussed in the proposed CSF framework.
Chapter 5: Discussion
The chapter discusses the findings from the qualitative research, along with the prior research
for each factor presented in the proposed framework. A discussion of our results in total, and
a summary concludes this chapter.
Chapter 6: Limitations
The limitations, reliability, and validity of our research are presented in this chapter.
Chapter 7: Conclusion
A conclusion with a summary of the thesis and answering the research question is presented.
The ending is a discussion on the implications and potential future research to be conducted.
5
2. Related research
The following section consists of the steps undertaken for finding related research for this
master thesis. A total of four literature searches split into two parts, following a five-phase
layout approach was conducted. A total of 32 articles that met the criteria were used. 20
articles were used as a part of the literature review, and 12 articles used for discovering what
others have done in this field.
The literature review was used as a basis to both get a theoretical understanding of the topic
and finding previously associated success factors. This section is also a continuation of our
previous work in both our IS-404 “Research Methods in Information Systems” and IS-420
“Current Topics and Research areas in Information Systems” subjects. The two courses were
used as a pre-phase for this master thesis and the literature search process, key concepts,
results, and holistic framework are used from both our IS-404 “Business process management
and success factors – Which success factors are the basis for a successful implementation
phase of an ongoing BPM project” (Jensen & Eriksen, 2019a) and IS-420 “Success factors
and barriers in business process management projects – A literature review” (Jensen &
Eriksen, 2019b) reports. The literature review was the theoretical basis of specifically
identifying success factors associated with BPM projects and summarizes them using a
holistic framework.
2.1 Literature search approach
The literature used for this thesis was found by following a structured approach, as presented
in the article by Jane Webster and Richard T (2002). This article explains several important
ways of how to undertake in conducting a structured approach to begin discovering relevant
literature for a thesis. Two presented techniques from the article were used to go about
conducting the literature search these being; “go backward approach” and “go forward
approach”. By reviewing articles in a backward manner, the go backward approach consists
of us looking at what kind of sources that relevant articles have used in their research. Sources
that we deemed interesting and appropriate for this thesis were reviewed to see if they applied
for this research. The go-forward approach consists of searching for sources and articles
ourselves in a database by following the set criteria. A concept matrix was also incorporated
and used for related research and is a key point to go from an author-centric approach to a
concept-centric (Webster & Watson, 2002).
6
2.1.1 Search criteria
Before conducting the literature search, several criteria were set to help create the search
strings. This was used to help narrow down relevant material found in the databases. The
requirements are shown in Table 2 and consisted of the following points:
Table 2: Literature search criteria
Keywords • Success factors

• Key factors
• Critical success factors
• Business process management
project
lifecycle
phases
• Business process management stages
• Barriers
• Pitfalls
• Challenges
Language • English
• Norwegian
Timeframe • 2008 – 2020
Databases • Web of Science
• Google Scholar
Subject area • All identified
Other • Articles are to be peer reviewed

• Articles must have an author and not
be anonymous
7
2.1.2 Five-phase approach
After the criteria were decided, we adapted a five-phase approach to narrow down the large
number of articles that were found from the various databases. The following procedure of the
phases was followed for narrowing down our articles during our go forward and afterward
adapting the go backward approach when relevant articles were discovered (Danielsen, 2019).
The phases undertook consist of the following steps:
Phase 1: Searching for articles in various databases with

set criteria. Export discoverd aticles into a spreadsheet.
Phase 2: Find and remove duplicate articles and articles

that do not meet set criteria
Phase 3: Check the titles and review them to see if they

are relevant and or interesting for the thesis.
Phase 4: Read the abstracts of the articles to further

establish whether they relate to the research and if they
are of interest.
Phase 5: Read chosen articles and highlight any

important points that are relevant and interesting.
Figure 4: Five-phase approach to conducting a literature search (Danielsen, 2019)
2.2 Conducting the literature searches
Four different literature searches to find the articles used in the thesis were conducted. We
have used four different search strings for each version of the five-phase approach, which are
shown in Table 3. The search strings were derived from the criteria we previously set and
were changed slightly throughout each iteration of the five-phase approach.
8
Table 3: Search strings used for each version of our article searches
Versions of Search string used

Article Search
Version 1 TITLE-ABS-KEY ("BPM” OR "business process
management" ) AND ( "critical success
factor" ) AND ( "pitfall" OR "barriers" ) AND PUBYEAR > 2009
Version 2 TITLE-ABS-KEY ("BPM" OR "business process management") AND

("success factor" OR "key factors") AND ("barriers" OR "challenges")
AND NOT ("business process reengineering") AND PUBYEAR >
2008
Version 3 TITLE-ABS-KEY ('business process management' OR 'business

process orientation') AND ('success factors' OR 'factors') AND NOT
('Business process modeling')
Version 4 TITLE-ABS-KEY ('business process management' OR 'BPM') AND

('life cycle' OR 'phase' OR 'stages') AND ('factors' OR 'success
factors') AND NOT ('business process modeling' AND 'business
process orientation') AND PUBYEAR > 2008
Phase 1 of our conducted literature search
In Phase 1 of the literature search, the search string from Version 1 was used, and a total of 76
articles were discovered. A spreadsheet was created, and the discovered articles were
exported. The spreadsheet created included the Authors, Title, Year, Source Title, Cited by,
DOI, Abstract, Authors keywords, Index keywords, and Language. The same was done
throughout the other iterations of our five-step approach.
After changing up our search string for Version 2, which consisted of us now including
“success factors” as opposed to just “critical success factors,” we got a total of 220 results.
For version 3, we have decided to also include business process orientation in our search
string, and a total of 333 articles were discovered. For Version 4, we made a more drastic
change in our search string by including all articles that have had “factors” associated with
them in our search string, which resulted in us obtaining a much larger result of 2378 articles.
During this phase and through each iteration, we had searched for articles in another database,
Google Scholar, where we had used the same criteria as noted before and included any
relevant articles in our Phase 1 spreadsheet.
Phase 2 of the literature search consisted of us removing duplicates and articles that did not
meet the set criteria. Results for each version of phase 2 are displayed in tables 3 through 6.
9
In phase 3, we looked through the titles of the articles and determined whether they were of
relevance for this thesis. During this phase, the majority of the articles discovered were not
seen as relevant.
For phase 4, a ranking system was created to help determine the relevance and importance of
the chosen articles. The system had a range from 0 to 3, where rank 0 was considered as
irrelevant, rank 1 as maybe, rank 2 as include, and rank 3 as must include. During this phase,
the abstract was read and given a rank. The ranking was first done individually, and later on
discussed as to why a particular rank was given. This was done so assure the quality of the
articles. Articles that had received rank 1 were further addressed to see if they were important
enough to move onto the next phase.
Phase 5 consisted of two separate approaches to the use of the reviewed articles. The articles
that were discovered from version 1 and 2 of our literature searches were read and success
factors, if present, were identified. The articles reviewed under versions 3 and 4 of our article
searches were used to research previous work that was done and help us get a better
understanding of the topic as well.
During this phase, we have also incorporated the go backward approach. We have looked at
the sources used from the 32 articles that were reviewed in order to see if any other sources
that were used met our initial criteria. Not many were discovered with this technique as the
most relevant sources used by previous authors were already discovered from our initial
article searches. Results of the article search and each version was undertaken are summarized
in Table 4 to Table 7 below. The searches yielded good results, though, during version 4 of
our article search, we had gathered a lot of articles from the search string that was used. This
was due to us, including new keywords that were present in many other research fields,
though, towards the end, not many were relevant for our thesis as displayed in phase 5 of
Table 7.
10
Table 4: Results from Version 1 of article search
Phases in Version 1 of article search Results

Phase 1 76
Phase 2 36
Phase 3 36
Phase 4 35
Phase 5 11

Phase 1 220
Phase 2 212
Phase 3 56
Phase 4 27
Phase 5 9

Phase 1 333
Phase 2 333
Phase 3 18
Phase 4 17
Phase 5 6

Phase 1 2378
Phase 2 1706
Phase 3 22
Phase 4 6
Phase 5 6
11
2.3 Reviewed articles
Below are the articles from the literature search that were used as a part of the related research
for this thesis.
Table 8: Reviewed articles (Jensen & Eriksen, 2019b)
Number Title Author Year Publication

1 Critical Success Thilini R. 2008 Information Systems
Factors in Ariyachandra & Mark Management.
business N. Frolick
performance
management –
Striving for
success.
2 Exploring BPM Renata Gabryelczyk 2019
Adoption Factors:
Insights into
Literature and
Experts
Knowledge
3 A FRAMEWORK Monika Malinova, 2014 Association for
FOR Brina Hribar, Jan Information Systems.
ASSESSING Mendling.
BPM SUCCESS
4 Ten Principles of Jan vom Brocke, 2014 Business Process
good business Theresa Schmiedel, Management journal
process Jan Recker, Peter
management Trkman, Willem
Mertens and Stijn
Viaene
5 Business process Renata Gabryelczyk, 2018 Information systems
management Narcyz Roztocki management
success
framework for
transition
economies
6 BPM for change Silvia Ine’s Dallavalle 2013 Business Process
management: Two de Pa ‘dua, Janaina Management Journal
process diagnosis Mascarenhas Hornos
techniques da Costa, Mayara
Segatto and Melchior
Aparecido de Souza
Junior and Charbel
Jose Chiappetta
Jabbour
7 Increasing process Rok Skrinjar, Peter 2013 International Journal
orientation with Trkman of Information
business process Management 33
12
management:
Critical practices
8 Business process Monika Klun, Peter 2018 Business process
management – at Trkman management journal.
the crossroads. 2018
9 Propositions on Mojca Indihar 2017 Business process
the interaction of Štemberger and Brina management journal,
organizational Buh, Ljubica
culture with other Milanović Glavan and
factors in the Jan Mendling
context of BPM
adoption
10 Process Lucia A. Silva 2012 Business process
management tasks Borges, Leda Damian, management journal.
and barriers: Silvia Ines Dallavalle
functional to de Padua.
processes
approach.
11 A qualitative Monika Malinova, 2013 Lecture notes in
research Jan Mending Business information
perspective on processing
BPM adoption
and the Pitfalls of
business process
modelling.
12 An exploration of Renata Gabryelczyk 2018 Proceedings of the
BPM adoption Federated Conference
factors: Initial on Computer Science
steps for model and Information
development. Systems.
13 The critical Peter Trkman 2010 Information Journal
success factors of of Information
business process Management
management
14 Means of Alibabaei, Ahmad, 2009 Mediterranean
achieving Jalal Ale Ahmad, Conference on
business process Bandara, Wasana, Information Systems
management Aghdasi, Mohammad, (MCIS),
success factors Tarbiat Modares
University
15 Critical success Andrej kovacic, 2015 Economic research

factors for Mojca Indihar
different stages of Stemberger
business process
management
adoption – a case
study.
13
16 A grey-based Chunguang Bai, 2013 Int. J. Production
DEMATEL Joseph Sarkis Economics 146
model for
evaluating
business process
management
critical success
factors
17 Stakeholder Jorg Becker, Bjorn 2010 Americas Conference
involvement in Niehaves, Ralf on Information
Business process Plattfaut systems (AMCIS)
management
agenda-setting
and
implementation.
18 Major issues in Bandara, Wasana, 2007 The 15th European
business process Indulska, Marta, Conference on
management: an Chong, Sandy, Sadiq, Information Systems
expert perspective Shazia
19 Identifying Monika Malinova, 2018 Business process
do’s and don’ts Jan Mendling. management journal.
using the
integrated
business process
management
framework.
20 Major Issues in Marta Indulska, 2006 ACIS proceedings
Business Process Sandy Chong,
Management: An Wasana Bandara,
Australian Shazia Sadiq, Michael
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priority factors of Damang, Armayah, M Series: Earth and
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Analytical
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22 Approaching Florian Imgrund, 2018 MKWI 2018 -
digitalization with Marcus Fischer, Multikonferenz
business process Christian Janiesch, Wirtschaftsinformatik
management and Axel
Winkelmann
23 BPM Adoption in• Dragana Stojanović 2019 Lecture Notes in
Serbian • Ivona Jovanović Business Information
Companies • Dragoslav Slović Processing
• Ivan Tomašević
14
• Barbara Simeunović
24 Critical success Boyoung Kim Hyojin 2018 Sustainability

factors of a design Kim and Youngok (Switzerland)
startup business Jeon
25 Propositions on Mojca Indihar 2018 Business Process
the interaction of Štemberger, Brina Management Journal
organizational Buh, Ljubica
culture with other Milanović Glavan,
factors in the Jan Mendling
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26 Unlocking the Greet Bontinck, Öykü 2016 Lecture Notes in
potential of the IsikJoachim Van den Business Information
process Bergh and Stijn Processing
perspective in Viaene
business
transformation
27 A reflection on Aysolmaz B., Gürsul 2018 Lecture Notes in
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2.4 Business process management
Business process management focuses on processes when organizing and managing work
(Dumas, La Rosa, Mendling, & Reijers, 2013). Through different methodologies, techniques,
and tools, an incremental improvement in business processes can be made (Lamghari, Radgui,
Saidi, & Rahmani, 2018). This has the potential to bring many benefits to organizations if
adopted successfully (Buh et al., 2015). Benefits of BPM include speeding up an
organization's processes, reducing needed resources, and improving competitiveness,
productivity, and efficiency (Bai & Sarkis, 2013). It is an effective approach for the
development and alignment of business strategy and deploying performance management
(Ariyachandra & Frolick, 2008). While there are many benefits associated with BPM,
adopting this concept is a complicated and time-consuming process (Buh et al., 2015).
BPM is often defined as a holistic approach to the practice of organizational management, in

understanding the bigger picture, with critical success factors to improve competitive
positioning, and an approach for culture change, or other organizational goals. The idea of
BPM is to develop an organization that is ready to use processes by eliminating activities that
do not add value and improve the fluency of these processes. BPM is not only analyzing,
designing, developing, and executing processes, but also considers the interaction between
processes, controlling, analyzing and optimizing them. This implies a permanent and
continuous commitment to managing and the improvement of the organization's processes,
which translates into a lifecycle model (de Morais, Kazan, de Pádua, & Costa, 2014).
16
Usage of BPM is to focus on processes when organizing and managing work (Dumas et al.,
2013) The definition for processes that we use for this thesis is: “A process is a specific order
of work activities in time and space, with a beginning, an end and identified inputs and
outputs”, but other definitions like “a horizontal connection of activities needed to achieve a
desired result”, “a process is a set of activities for achieving a goal or solving a specific
problem” (de Morais et al., 2014).
There are many views and definitions for BPM, and the understanding of the concept varies
amongst practitioners and academics. For this master thesis, BPM is interpreted as “A
lifecycle approach to managing and improving processes” (Buh et al., 2015).
2.5 Business process management lifecycles
Business process management lifecycles are models that describe, structure the steps and
activities that should be followed in a BPM effort (de Morais et al., 2014). Lifecycles cover a
set of activities that describes how to manage a business process management project in an
idealized and circular way (Malinova et al., 2014). Lifecycle frameworks provide a robust
foundation for studying a given phenomenon, which has led to numerous different BPM
lifecycle frameworks that were previously proposed. This provides a robust foundation for
studying a given phenomenon (Gabryelczyk & Roztocki, 2018).
For this thesis, two lifecycle frameworks were chosen, which are displayed in Figure 5:
Business process management implementation framework and Figure 6: Business process
management and lifecycle framework. These figures are retrieved from relevant research and
describe each stage of the cycle. The frameworks below were chosen for their simplicity and
easy understanding of the BPM lifecycle.
Figure 6: Business process management implementation Figure 5: Business process management lifecycle framework
framework (Malinova, Hribar, & Mendling, 2014) (Ariyachandra & Frolick, 2008)
17
2.6 Success factors
Business process management is a topic that is difficult to measure. Due to the nature of BPM
projects being case-specific, different factors for different cases are present and what has been
successful for one project, might not be the same for others (Bandara et al., 2009). To help
tackle this issue, there exists common factors that can be associated and applied to many
different types of BPM projects, these are known as common success factors (Ariyachandra &
Frolick, 2008). For this master thesis, we look into success factors as goals that must be met
for the project to succeed, and use the following definition: “BPM is successful if it
continuously meets pre-determined goals, both within a single project scope and over a
longer period of time” (Trkman, 2010).
Some success factors are more detrimental to the overall success of a BPM project, these are
known as critical success factors. These factors must be focused and committed on if the
business process management project is to succeed (Trkman, 2013). These factors must be
taken into consideration from management as they allow an organization to evaluate its
threats, see opportunities, weaknesses, and strengths (Syed, Bandara, French, & Stewart,
2018). Evaluating critical success factors in an organization also helps in seeing if a specific
BPM effort is going to succeed or not (Ohtonen & Lainema, 2011).
2.7 Single point of contact
Single point of contact refers to a single point of contact support, where all IT issues, service
requests, problems, and incidents are directed to the level one service desk. When a user or
customer contacts this level one support, the inquiry is resolved at level one, or a ticket is
created with the inquiry and logged in a ticketing system. This type of service desk is not
expected to solve every inquiry they get, but rather is a facilitator and coordinator of the end-
user support process. This means they have the responsibility of resolving inquiries that can
be solved at level one or dispatch the tickets to the appropriate level of support (Irizarry,
2012).
2.8 Public sector versus private sector in BPM
Since our thesis is based on a BPM project within the public sector, we have decided to look
at some of the differences between the public and private sectors.
There is a difference in bureaucratic norms, culture, and organization structure between the
two sectors. The public sector is often specified by rigid processes, bureaucracies, and often
beset with sudden changes of policies as a result of changes in the government machinery.
Some have referred to BPM as a solution to handle citizen's demand for better services from
the government. The value of BPM as an enabler for performance and customer-centricity has
been the reason public sector organizations across the globe have shown an interest in
adopting BPM principles and practices. The concept of value creation is different in the two
sectors, where it is the core goal for the private sector, and in the public sector they exclude
cost and profitability concerns (Syed et al., 2018). “It is problematic to simply transfer the
private sector BPM experience to the established and ongoing commitment to Government
Process management”(Syed et al., 2018), with the definition of government process
management as the use of BPM principles and practices in the public sector (Tregear &
Jenkins, 2007).
18
There have been reported a 60% failure rate in E-government projects and an 85% overall
failure rate due to the failure of achieving acceptable results (Syed et al., 2018).
Key differences between the public and private sectors displayed in Table 9 below.
Table 9: Difference between the public and private sectors (Syed et al., 2018)
Public Sector Private Sector

Mission and vision Focus on the public interest, Focus on maximizing the
societal objectives and return on investment for the
results that may be difficult shareholders, profitability,
to quantify and stakeholder value.
Aim Realize societal objects, that Realization of key
are difficult to measure and performance indicators
quantify. (KPI), production, and
financial targets.
Customers Groups of diverse and Customer/user that are easily
complex citizen. identifiable.
Culture Often inflexible, driven by Built on the marked and
rules and regulations, influenced by the customers
hierarchical decision and social changes. Flexible
making. These are and reward and performance
influenced by political orientated.
factors. Highly resistance to
change, with little attention
to innovation.
Economy Monopoly, with political Different variety of
legitimization. structures
Rules and regulations Governments create and Organizations are the users
enforce the rules and and are complainant about
regulations. the rules and regulations.
Operations are affected by
the regulations, and
processes are designed to
follow these.
2.9 What have others done in this field
Much of the prior research discovered focuses on identifying success factors of an entire BPM
project, and little was found that focus on factors in different stages. There were some
compelling findings that were of interest to us. The article “Critical success factors for
different stages of business process management adoption – a case study” (Buh et al., 2015)
discuss how critical success factors are not similar for different stages of a BPM project, and
further research is needed for these stages. The case study that was conducted discusses and
argues that not all critical success factors are critical for different stages, which is similar to
our research. The article looks into reasons and objectives for adopting BPM, the adoption
stages of BPM projects, and outcomes of BPM in a case-specific adoption. While the focus is
different from ours, it is one of the few articles that focuses on identifying critical success
factors for different stages of BPM. Further research mentioned, along with Trkman (2013)
suggests that one case study is not adequate and that more research focusing on CSFs is
19
required. Further on in the next subchapters, we discuss the article that our holistic framework
is derived from and list up identified success factors from our prior research.
2.9.1 Holistic framework
The holistic framework used in this thesis is based on the framework from the article “Means
of achieving business process management success factors” (Bandara et al., 2009). Further
research mentioned in the article mentions the need to further validate and re-specify the
presented framework through empirical evidence from a case study (Bandara et al., 2009).
The article's research question, being “What are the success factors of BPM” and “What are
the means of achieving these success factors within BPM initiatives?” are similar to what we
wish to research and this has given us an incentive for using their framework as a basis in
creating our proposed holistic framework.
The framework presented in the article, shown under Figure 7: BPM Success Factors
framework, consists of nine categories displaying BPM success and the success factors that
they are composed of. This framework was further expanded on in our thesis, and the
categories presented were used to help categorize our 127 discovered success factors from our
literature search.
Figure 7: BPM Success Factors framework (Bandara et al., 2009)
The nine categories presented in Bandara et al. (2009) article are as follows:
Culture
Culture is a combination of people’s values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours that distinguish
one group or category of people for another.
Communication
Communication is the interaction between different people, either in different levels or
departments of the business.
20
Information technology
IT has a vital role in BPM, how to utilize IT in BPM is different in each project. How to
implement IT in the project can be a success factor or an obstacle if not done right.
Leadership
Leadership is to drive, monitor, and control the activities related to the project.
Methodology
Methodology is a collection of procedures, techniques, and tools that has been developed for
the BPM life cycle of the project.
People
The Individuals and groups in the organization affected by the BPM project.
Performance measurement
Measurement of the processes, project, and people that should be compared with the goals
and benchmarks of the processes.
Project management
Management of the project and the tasks. Develop a schedule with clear milestones. Resource
management, and identification of stakeholders are some of the tasks that are included.
Strategic alignment
Linkage with the business strategy of the organization and the BPM project.
2.9.2 Identified success factors from prior research
The following table is a list of the success factors discovered from our literature search, and a
total of 127 success factors were found. These success factors are used as a basis for our
revised holistic framework in the thesis and are mapped using the holistic framework by
Bandara et al. (2009).
Table 10: Discovered success factors (Jensen & Eriksen, 2019b)
Article Discovered Success Factors

Critical Success Factors in 1. Champion,
business performance 2. Management of Resistance,
management – Striving for 3. Management Support,
success. (Ariyachandra & 4. Sufficient Resources.
Frolick, 2008) 5. Team skill,
6. User support,
7. Effective Communication,
8. Clear link of business strategy,
9. State of existing data management infrastructure,
10. Evolution development methodology.
Exploring BPM Adoption 1. Top management support,

Factors: Insights into Literature 2. Management involvement,
and Experts Knowledge 3. Leadership
(Gabryelczyk, 2018b) 4. IT,
21
5. Development of service-oriented business
applications, adapting IT infrastructure,
6. IS support
7. Strategic alignment,
8. alignment of processes to org. goals.
9. Governance,
10. clearly defined process owners,
11. appointment of process owners
12. Methods,
13. Methodology
14. Project management,
15. change management,
16. ability to implement proposed changes
17. Performance measurement,
18. measurement and control
19. People,
20. level of employee’s specialization,
21. training,
22. empowerment of employees,
23. motivated employees
24. Culture,
25. communication,
26. teamwork,
27. social networks
Business process management 1. Strategic alignment

success framework for 2. Project and change management
transition economies 3. Governance,
(Gabryelczyk & Roztocki, 4. Performance management
2018) 5. IT
6. Method
7. People
8. Culture
9. Communication
Increasing process orientation 1. Strategic alignment
with business process 2. Performance measurement
management: Critical practices 3. Organizational changes
(Trkman, 2013) 4. IS support
5. Employee training
6. Employee empowerment
Propositions on the interaction 1. Culture

of organizational culture with
other factors in the context of
BPM adoption (Indihar
Štemberger, Buh, Milanović
Glavan, & Mendling, 2018)
MEANS OF ACHIEVING 1. Culture

BUSINESS PROCESS 2. Communication
22
MANAGEMENT SUCCESS 3. Information Technology IT
FACTORS (Bandara et al., 4. Leadership
2009) 5. Methodology
6. People
7. Performance measurement
8. Project management
9. Strategic alignment
An exploration of BPM 1. Top management support

adoption factors: Initial steps 2. Management involvement
for model development. 3. Leadership
(Gabryelczvk, 2018a) 4. Information technology
5. Development of service-oriented business
applications
6. Adapting IT infrastructure
7. IS support
8. Strategic alignment
9. Alignment of process to organizational goals
10. Governance
11. Clearly defined process owners
12. Appointment of process owners
13. Methods
14. Methodology
15. Project management
16. Change management
17. Ability to implement proposed changes
18. Performance measurements
19. Measurement and control
20. People
21. Level of employee’s specialization
22. Training
23. Empowerment of employees
24. Motivated employees
25. Culture
26. Communication
27. Teamwork
28. Social networks
The critical success factors of CSFs based on contingency theory:

business process management 1. Strategic alignment
(Trkman, 2010) 2. Level of IT investment
4. Level of employee’s specialization
CSFs based on dynamic capabilities:

1. Organizational changes
2. Appointment of process owners
3. Implementation of proposed changes
4. Use of continuous improvement system
23
CSFs base on task-technology fit theory:
1. Standardization of processes
2. Informatization
3. Automation
4. Training and empowerment of employees
Critical success factors for 1. Top management support, Management

different stages of business involvement
process management adoption 2. Strategic alignment (linkage to organization
– a case study. (Buh et al., strategy, alignment of process to organizational
2015) goals)
3. People (capable and motivated employees,
training and empowerment of employees,
personnel commitment)
4. Methods, Methodology
5. Communication
6. Information technology, Technology support,
Level of IT investment
7. Culture, Organizational culture
8. Project management, Change management,
Champion
10. Governance
11. Understanding the BPM concept, understanding
the process
12. Continuous improvement, continuous
optimization
13. Clearly defined process owners
A grey-based DEMATEL 1. Strategic Alignment

model for evaluating business 2. Project Management
process management critical 3. Information Technology (IT)
success factors (Bai & Sarkis, 4. Performance Measurement
2013) 5. Collaborative environment
6. Top management support
7. User Focus
8. Culture
2.10 Revised holistic framework and Critical Success Factor analysis
The following section is our analysis of the categorized critical success factors discovered
from our prior research. In this section, the identified 127 success factors are mapped into 11
critical success factors and are analysed. The results presented here are of our preliminary
work done for this master thesis in our IS-420 report (Jensen & Eriksen, 2019b).
24
2.10.1 Success factor analysis of the new proposed framework
Culture
Culture is a complex phenomenon that can be divided into two different descriptions. First,
culture is the values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours in people’s minds that differentiate one
group or category of people from another (Bai & Sarkis, 2013; Bandara et al., 2009). Second
is organization culture, this is a complex phenomenon of values, beliefs, attitudes, and
behaviours that exist only within an organization, and is in regards to the process-centered
organization (Bai & Sarkis, 2013; Indihar Štemberger et al., 2018). In BPM research, there
are arguments that culture in the organization is the creation of collaboration and facilitation
environment for BPM. Adoption of BPM has a strong link to the cultural and human aspects
(Gabryelczvk, 2018a; Gabryelczyk, 2018b; Gabryelczyk & Roztocki, 2018). Organization
culture can be defined as “a pattern of basic assumptions, invented, discovered, or developed
by a given group, as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal
integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore is to be taught
to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel concerning those problems”
(Indihar Štemberger et al., 2018). BPM adoption must be compatible with the culture that the
BPM initiative is built from, if not, the concept is likely to fail (Buh et al., 2015).
Communication
Communication has a strong link to BPM adoption and plays a vital role in the success of a
project (Buh et al., 2015; Gabryelczyk, 2018b). Communication facilitates to the mutual
understanding of the strategy and goals in the organization (Bai & Sarkis, 2013), and gives a
shared understanding of the strategic direction between business and IT. Effective
communication enables business and IT capabilities to be integrated effectively in an
organization (Ariyachandra & Frolick, 2008). Clear and effective communication to levels of
the organization is necessary both before and during and BPM implementation (Bai & Sarkis,
2013). Communication can support better alignment between business and IT, leading to
effective development and execution of an organizational strategy (Ariyachandra & Frolick,
2008).
Information Technology
In BPM, information technology (IT) means the technologies and tools dedicated to
modelling, analysis, simulation, controlling, automation, and process management
(Gabryelczyk, 2018b; Gabryelczyk & Roztocki, 2018). IT is hardware, information systems
(IS), and communication technology that provides individuals with the information required
(Bai & Sarkis, 2013). IT plays a vital role in BPM and is generally the enabler and facilitator
of change that is identified in a BPM project. The relationship between IT and BPM has a
mutually beneficial, in that successful IT implementation also requires effective BPM (Bai &
Sarkis, 2013). The state of the existing IT infrastructure has a crucial role in the deployment
of a BPM initiative. Usually, the BPM effort builds on existing IT systems, and the
satisfaction of the existing system can play a role in the motivation to change. However,
satisfaction with current IT systems may prove to discourage motivation to change
(Ariyachandra & Frolick, 2008; Gabryelczyk, 2018b). The development of such systems is
25
expensive and may require automation that is not technically possible, and this is a
disadvantage (Trkman, 2013).
Challenges with BPM is frequently associated with the use of IS that supports business
processes, and this can be automatically generating purchase orders or delegate tasks to the
right person (Trkman, 2013). Aligning IT strategy and business strategy to face a competitive
market successfully is acknowledged in the literature (Trkman, 2010), but there are no
findings that support the level of investment in IT and service performance. Thus,
organizations should not believe that IT investment by itself could give any improvements,
and organizations that have implemented the latest IT have returns below the means. Core
processes must be re-engineered from the customer perspective for IT to yield any
competitive advantage (Trkman, 2010, 2013).
Leadership
Support from top management is essential and recognized as one of the most critical success
factors in BPM and for organizational change projects (Ariyachandra & Frolick, 2008; Bai &
Sarkis, 2013; Buh et al., 2015; Gabryelczyk, 2018b). This has been proven both by literature
study and by experts in the field (Gabryelczvk, 2018a). Commitment to a project can help
establish legitimacy and visibility for the project, and top management has the authority of the
resources necessary for the completion of the project. They are a significant link in the cross-
function in an organization and must approve and support all the decisions made. Leadership
and support from top management can reduce resistance by taking part in resolving conflicts
that may arise and create a shared organizational vision for the BPM project (Ariyachandra &
Frolick, 2008; Bai & Sarkis, 2013).
Methodology
Methodology is methods and techniques that are suitable for BPM implementation and in all
phases of a BPM life cycle. These methods can be business process modelling, analysis,
simulation, and improvement (Gabryelczyk & Roztocki, 2018). Implementing a BPM in
iteratively stages enables the organization to acquire quick rewards and further validation of
the BPM project (Ariyachandra & Frolick, 2008).
People
An essential factor in BPM is the presence of a devoted and energetic employee, and this is
called a project champion. A project champion supports and promotes the BPM initiative with
information and political support towards the project. Generally, a visionary executive who is
politically intelligent with knowledge on how to sell the values of the BPM project and build
support among influential executives (Ariyachandra & Frolick, 2008).
Engagement from users ensures that requirements are heard and communicated to the
development team. Involving the users enables them to be a part of the process to gain a better
understanding and appreciation of the BPM solution (Ariyachandra & Frolick, 2008).
Processes have users either internal or external to the organization, and meeting their
requirements in the process could give the organization a competitive advantage (Bai &
Sarkis, 2013).
Employees that conduct a process must be educated and trained to raise their competence in
the area. Empowering the employee and giving them motivation, combined with involvement
can help with acceptance of the change (Bai & Sarkis, 2013; Gabryelczyk & Roztocki, 2018).
26
Empowering the employee to take individual decisions can shorten the operations time and
have smoother execution. Education gives the employee a better understanding of the entire
process and the connection with other parts of the whole process, not just their activity.
Employees involved in a process should understand how their work contributes to the process
and the organizational goals (Trkman, 2013).
Performance Measurement
Performance measurement is the undertaking of measuring time, cost, quality, productivity,

and customer satisfaction, and this forms feedback utilized for continuous improvements
(Gabryelczyk & Roztocki, 2018). The importance is “You cannot manage what you cannot
measure”, and this is especially true for BPM. Progress in an implementation must often be
measured for efficient and effective control to ensure that the goals are achieved, with the
help of auditing tools and appropriate decisions (Bai & Sarkis, 2013). The need for measuring
the processes is essential for a high level of BPM adoption and maturity of the organization
(Gabryelczyk, 2018b). Critical processes in an organization should be measured at critical
steps of the process. There is a possibility that there are too many in-progress measures
without focus, which may prevent the process owner from making effective use of the
information. Future goals or improvements are determined using measurement information,
and the organization must dedicate to performing this practice (Trkman, 2013). New
processes must be measured and compared to the process it replaced (Trkman, 2010).
Project Management
BPM projects must have a clearly defined plan and objective purpose (Buh et al., 2015).
Project management defined as establishing and planning activities to help and ensure that the
implementation processes are managed (Bai & Sarkis, 2013). Different functional groups are
essential in a BPM project. This type of project has a high level of uncertainty, and to counter
this solid management knowledge and planning in projects are required (Bai & Sarkis, 2013).
There is a combined definition of project and change management, which is a system inside
the organization with the task of developing and managing projects that change the
organization consistent with the organization strategy. The reason is maintaining a presence in
the changing market (Gabryelczyk & Roztocki, 2018). Knowledge and expertise of planning,
organization, follow-up, and control of the project phases are necessary considerations to
project management. Experience and skill to recognize and overcome difficulties in the
project are essential (Bai & Sarkis, 2013). Governance in project management refers to
orders, documents, standardized operational processes, decision-making processes, and
responsibilities (Ariyachandra & Frolick, 2008).
Strategic Alignment
Strategic linkage between organization strategy and the operation function is crucial. It will
help organizations achieve higher Business Process Orientation (Trkman, 2010, 2013)
Definition for strategic alignment is: “The continual tight linkage of organizational priorities
and enterprise processes enabling the achievement of business goals” (Bai & Sarkis, 2013).
Awareness and understanding of BPM are required to build a structure with business process
goals obtained from the organization strategy, with a strong link between them (Gabryelczyk
& Roztocki, 2018). Aligning strategy with the BPM project is essential to achieve long-term
success, improved performance, and maximize the value of process improvements (Bai &
27
Sarkis, 2013; Trkman, 2010). Processes have to be designed, executed, managed and
measured according to strategic priorities and situations (Bai & Sarkis, 2013).
Organizational Change
In BPM initiatives, there are an in-depth analysis of the organization and often changes in the
organization structure. Organizations may have a culture that is inconsistent with the desire to
organize around the customer, and processes are siloed in departments and not in the
customer lines. Departments in an organization often operate as individual silos, and
horizontal end-to-end processes are not well understood (Trkman, 2010).
There is a difference between an organization that has implemented BPM, and a traditional
organization is the existence of process owners. Each process should have a clearly defined
owner, that assess the performance of the process and have the reasonability for the
continuous improvements. This role must be permeant, with authority over designing, training
frontline workers, and measuring. This role usually is given to an employee with a senior
executive and supervisory or frontline level. “Success in implementation organizations
changes is dependent on the quality of the implementing process” (Trkman, 2010).
The achievement of success is a combined effort between a manager and change agent. A
change agent could be middle management, employees, or both. Unpredictability during the
pre-implementation stage of a BPM project is a focal point on the strategic concept of change
in later stages. This mainly relates to the appropriate procedures in implementing changes.
Projects often focus on critical processes since the simultaneous change in all identified
processes are bound to fail (Trkman, 2010).
Processes
To qualify as a capability, something at a minimum must work reliably. This is the reason
standardization of processes is desirable, especially in service industries. Standardization
offers technical interchangeability, compliance with regulations, and improved customer
confidence. A standardized process is the only process that can be supported by a proper
technological solution. BPM systems can lead to increasing standardization because processes
are executed after defined specifications and rules. Too strict regulations on the process can
decrease innovation, reduce accountability, and harm performance. “Many processes are
more art than science” (Trkman, 2010) and not over-standardizing these more artistic
processes (Trkman, 2010).
2.10.2 Proposed holistic framework
Our proposed framework consists of the inclusion of two newly discovered critical success
factors Organizational Change and Processes. These two CSFs have been included since the
discovered success factors from our research did not match any of the nine categories
presented in the framework by Bandara et al. (2009). In total, our new revised framework
consists of 11 categories, which are the critical success factors for BPM success, and
underneath are the success factors associated with each category. The articles used for the
success factors and categories are found under Appendix A.
28
Figure 8: Proposed holistic framework
29
3. Research approach
This chapter describes the research design, process, conceptual framework, strategy, data
generation and analysis. In the research design and conceptual framework, we display the
structure of the thesis and the processes undertaken in answering our research question.
Afterward, we explain the research strategy, how we generate the data and how this is analysed.
We discuss our limitations of the research process and potential ethical issues. This chapter
concludes by explaining the steps undertaken in gathering the data and our validation.
3.1 Research design
To illustrate the thought process of this research, a figure was created to display the different
stages that were undertaken in answering the research question. The first step was conducting
a literature study that was used in discovering source material. In the literature study was
where the framework by Bandara et al. (2009) was discovered, and used as a basis to analyse
and map out the discovered success factors. Once this was done, the proposed framework was
created and used as the basis for creating the interview guide. After the interview guide was
created, we began by gathering data through the use of interviews. These results were
afterward analysed and used in answering our research question.
Literature Study
Creation of framework
Creation of interview guide
Gathering data
Analysis
Answering Research Question

Figure 9: Research design with steps undertaken for this thesis
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3.2 Research process
To illustrate the research process, a research process model was created. The model consists
of the components in our thesis and gives an overview of our entire research process. Our
presented research process model is based on the model described in the book by Briony J
Oates (2005, p. 33)
Figure 10: Research process model
The model displays how the research question was derived from experiences, motivation, and
literature review. Experiences and motivation are included since our master thesis is written
about a topic that interests us and has had an effect on us as well. Our literature review was
the second part where we look at previous work done on our chosen field. A literature review
was chosen since it allows researchers to look at the strengths and weaknesses of prior work
done. This helps to show that the researchers are aware of the previous work conducted in this
field and point to gaps that have previously been unidentified or weak (Oates, 2005, pp. 71,
72). These points were especially crucial for our research as we did not want to repeat
previous work done by other researchers, and we wanted to add to the research gap of our
chosen topic.
3.3 Conceptual framework
A conceptual framework allows researchers to structure their thinking about their research
topic and show in greater detail the process undertaken (Oates, 2005, p. 34). For our research,
we have used a single explanatory case study as our research strategy, an interview for data
generation, and qualitative data analysis. Figure 10 displays the framework created based on
our prior research and the results from our literature review.
3.3.1 Strategy – Case Study
A case study is defined as “An empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary

phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon
and context are not clearly evident” (Oates, 2005, p. 142).
A single-case study allowed us to focus on one investigation thoroughly and was our chosen
strategy for the thesis. We believe that a case study suits our research as in-depth research
conducted through a chosen data gathering method, a qualitative interview in our case. We
obtain a detailed aspect of people's thoughts, opinions, and general perception within the
organization (Oates, 2005, p. 141).
We also focus on depth rather than breadth, which consists of us obtaining as much
information as possible about one instance under our research (Oates, 2005, p. 142). Since we
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are looking into a specific phase, we believe that a case study fits well for our research. Our
research may be considered as a holistic study since our focused success factors interconnect
closely to one another. There are three main types of case studies, exploratory, descriptive,
and explanatory. An exploratory case study is used if there is little literature and real-life
instances are needed to cover the topic. A descriptive case study consists of analyzing in great
detail a phenomenon and its context, and explanatory is similar to descriptive as it tries and
explain why certain events happened and their outcomes (Oates, 2005, p. 143).
The type of case study conducted for our thesis is explanatory. We have chosen this type of
case study since we wish to both analyze and discuss in great detail of what occurred during
the implementation phase and try to identify the success factors. We want to compare what
was found in the literature to see if our identified factors match prior research. Our case study
can be considered as a historical study since we ask individuals about what had happened in a
previous time and their recollections of the events.
3.3.2 Data generation method and data analysis
A qualitative interview was used as our primary source of data gathering. Qualitative
interviews have been used in many different kinds of research (Myers & Newman, 2007) and
are considered as one of the most common and important data-gathering tools for qualitative
research. This method was chosen since we wish to gain insight and inside information about
the employee’s thoughts and meanings. Qualitative interviews gives the possibility to see
things that are there but not easy to see: “Permitting us to see that which is not ordinarily on
view and examine that which is looked at but seldom seen” (Myers & Newman, 2007).
The type of interview that we decided to use is a semi-structured interview. Since semi-
structured interviews are conducted with an incomplete script, this helps us focus on allowing
the interviewee to speak as much as possible about a specific subject without interference.
Semi-structured interviews enable us to obtain open-ended answers and gives the interviewee
room for discussion. Due to these reasons, we did not see it fit to use a structured interview as
this requires a prepared script beforehand and gives no room for improvisation (Myers &
Newman, 2007).
While qualitative interviews have many benefits provided to data gathering this type of
interview presents multiple problems and pitfalls, as mentioned in Myers & Newman’s (2007)
article. In this thesis, we want to limit potential problems and pitfalls and tried to follow their
finding on this. Table 11 consists of a summary by Myers & Newman (2007)of the problems
and pitfalls and we include our countermeasures to combat them.
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Table 11: Problems and pitfalls in qualitative research (Myers & Newman, 2007)
Problems and Pitfalls Countermeasures

Artificiality of the interview: This type of The length of an interview was informed
interview interrogates someone that is a that it could take up to an hour. Give
stranger to us. We will ask them to give us interviewees a brief description of the
an opinion under time pressure. project, what we are looking for, and why
they were chosen to participate in the
project.
Lack of Trust: As the interviewer is a When we reach out to our interviewe, there
unknow stranger to the intervieee, this can will be information on how the project will
raise concern on how much they can trust be conducted, what rights, and how we will
the interviewer. use the data gathered. Interviewees have a
right to withdraw their consent.
Lack of time: The time set aside for the Before the interview, they will receive
interview may mean that the data gathering information about the project to help them
can be incomplete. Under time pressure, the prepare for the interview. With interviews
interviewee creates opinions and make the set to 60 minutes, this will give them time to
data not entirely reliable. think before they answer
Level of entry: Which level the researcher With us working at UiA, and having
enters the organization. The researcher must knowledge of the project, we have direct
not enter on a too low level, because this contact with the project manager and people
may prove challenging to interview senior of the project group.
staff later.
Elite bias: Interviewing only a particular We plan to interview the project group and
type of people in an organization, may fail the department leaders in the departments
to give the researcher an understanding of that are involved in the project. We believe
the broad situation. this will give us a good overall
understanding.
Constructing knowledge: Naïve With our involvement in the project and the
interviewers may believe that it easy to knowledge that we have acquired, we
collect and remember data that is already believe that our constructed knowledge is
there. In an interview, interviewees typically accurate. Adding with the stories that we
want to appear knowledgeable and may will hear on the project from the
construct a logical story. This is a result of interviewees from our open questions.
that they may reflect on an issue that they
never have considered before.
Ambiguity of language: The meaning of Interviewees can answer our question
words are often ambiguous, and it is not without using BPM terminology and using
always clear for the interviewee. This can language that they understand and getting
lead to the interviewee maybe not fully their thought on what has positively
understanding the question. contributed to the project.
Interviews can go wrong: Interviews are Our semi-structured interview is designed to
full of fears from both sides, problems, and let the interviewees talk with adequate time
pitfalls. Interviewees can be offended or in answering open questions. We must read
unintentionally insult an interviewee. In the the interviewee and not push too hard to get
worst case, the interview may be abandoned. an answer.
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Myers & Newman (2007) also provides a figure that views guidelines on qualitative research
to help us conduct the interviews.
Figure 11: Guidelines for qualitative research interviews (Myers & Newman, 2007)
3.4 Limitations of research design and potential challenges related to data collection
Several limitations have come about conducting the interviews for data gathering in this
master thesis. UiA help project has a limited number of people working on the project, so
people with the knowledge and experience of the project that have the time and will to be
interviewed are in low numbers. In our calculations, there were around 15 employees that
were interesting for us to interview. Variation in the people at UiA help is limited, with most
people having low or no knowledge on BPM and success factors in general. The project
leader, project workers, and department heads are the variation of people that are of interest to
us. Even though they do not all have an understanding or knowledge of success factors and
BPM, they can still tell us what they think and what was positive that helped the project in
this specific phase.
Employees at UiA’s administration, from our prior experience, have some difficulties in
agreeing to an interview. Limitations on people accepting are something that we must account
for to have enough possible interview objects. This study is also a historical study that poses
several limitations. The main limitation of this is that we are dependent on peoples
recollections and memories of the implementation phase. Documents that we may come
across about the phase may have a different audience in mind and have to be interpreted by
us, which can cause issues with validation.
34
3.5 Data processing
The data gathered will be processed through several ways to both validate and keep the data
anonymous and safe. The personal data that will be processed will only be the essentials
needed for us to conduct our interviews. We have chosen to process only email and sound
recordings, though other data that can identify the person still may be present. This includes
data where the interviewees are working, what role they have, and the role that they have in
the project. Ensuring that identifiable data stays anonymous, there will be no mentioning of
the interviewees role or position in this thesis and will be anonymized through a coding
system. The coding system will consist of only what authority they have had in the project
and will be given a rank of 1 to 3. Rank 1 will be given to interviewees who have had little
authority in the project, rank 2 middle authority, and rank 3 high authority. The way we
determine who has what authority will not be disclosed in this thesis to preserve anonymity
since our interview pool is limited in size. Other identifiable personal data, such as names,
will also not be mentioned in the thesis and will be coded out.
The sound recordings of the interviews will be stored on the universities official cloud storage
platform. The platform will have restricted access to only the authors of this thesis and the
supervisor if needed. Sound recordings themselves will be deleted after our thesis has been
conducted. Interview transcriptions will be stored on the cloud storage platform with the same
restricted access rules.
3.6 Interview guide
The interview guide was made in a preliminary course to the master thesis. We decided to
have a semi-structured interview and had two interviews in this course that we used as test
interviews. Small changes were made to the interview guide with some language changes to
the questions and a change to the success factors that are in our framework. Questions in our
guide were divided into two parts. The first part asked the interviewees about their opinions
and perception of the implementation phase. The second part asked their opinion on how or if
each success factor has had an influence on the implementation phase. The interview guide
that was used for this master thesis is found under Appendix B.
Limitations with our interview guide may be that some interviewees may need some
encouragement to talk freely on the subject, and we must be careful not to influence their
answers to get their honest opinion. Mirroring answers the interviewee is a method to counter
this problem. Researchers should be flexible and not be sticking to a guide at all cost to
explore and look for surprises in the interview (Myers & Newman, 2007).
3.7 Potential ethical issues related to the project
Since researchers in this thesis were employees at UiA help in the time period of conducting
the interviews, we have been careful with personal bias from our side. Hands-on knowledge
and experience with the organization and project means that we have a pre-existing
interpretation of the project and the phase. In conducting our interviews, we have been
working towards not bringing our bias and own opinions on the project and phase. Semi-
structure interviews with few and open questions are our way to keep the interviewees talking
during most of the interview and let them give their own opinion without our influence.
35
To be allowed to conduct these interviews, we must get approval from the Norwegian centre
for research data (NSD). In this application, we must describe how we are going to gather the
data and how to handle the data that we collected, as this research must comply with the
Norwegian GDPR laws. With project approval from NSD, there are guidelines on what rights
the interviewees have by participating in our project. There is a consent form given to the
interviewees that must be signed before conducting an interview. They have rights to access,
edit, deleted, and copy the personal information gathered on them and, can send a complaint
to our data protection officer if needed. The data must be stored at a secure database at our
university that complies with the guidelines of storing data from NSD and will be deleted
when our master project is completed.
Personal information that we collected with our interviews will not be written in the thesis to
comply with GDPR laws and gives our informant the freedom to be honest in the interviews.
3.8 Gathering the data
There was a total of nine completed interviews with various individuals who were involved in
the BPM project. The project owner, project leader, department heads, and project workers
were interviewed to give us a complete picture of the factors in the implementation phase. Out
of the four departments involved in this project, we interviewed employees and department
heads in three of them. The individuals interviewed were from three different departments
within the university, the Library, IT, and Service departments. Unfortunately, we did not
obtain an interview from the Operations department due to cancelled interview and limited
personnel who has had any involvement in the project. All the interviews were conducted in
person and recorded through an offline recording device.
Table 12: Overview of conducted interviews
Interviews Duration Authority

Interview 1 55:26 2
Interview 2 24:47 3
Interview 3 1:00:37 3
Interview 4 45:29 3
Interview 5 53:50 2
Interview 6 16:50 2
Interview 7 24:06 1
Interview 8 45:07 3
Interview 9 23:08 1
There were several positives that we are satisfied with when it came to our data gathering
process. First is that people interviewed knew a lot about the implementation phase and the
project. They were very honest with their answers, and it did not feel as if they were trying to
hide information or talk around certain areas. They were open and stated their opinions and
thoughts on what was asked. Interviewees were willing to speak, and they seemed generally
interested in our research and liked that we researched within the university. The responders
were honest if they did not understand a specific question and did not try and answer if they
were confused. We believe that the right type of interview was chosen, as the open structure
of a semi-structured interview gave us room for open discussion. Our interview guide worked
well as it was split up into two main parts. The first part was an open discussion where people
could speak freely about what they believe went well in the implementation phase. This went
36
well and we felt as if people could first openly state their opinions without us leading them in
any way. The second part consisted of us asking about our critical success factory categories
one by one, and we believe this also went well. While some confusion arose on some of the
success factors, respondents always asked us to elaborate if something was misunderstood.
There were however, only nine conducted interviews in total. The tenth interview with
operations department was booked, as well as two interviews with employees that were
directly impacted by the changes. These interviews were cancelled or not further booked
because of the Covid-19 shutdown of the university. Some people involved in the project that
worked a lot on the processes, and process mapping, did not have the time to be interviewed,
giving us some limitation on the range of views from the organization. Unfortunately, there
was one department we were not able to interview.
3.9 Validation
After the interviews were conducted, all the nine interviews were transcribed. This step is
especially important, as transcribing the interviews allowed us to narrow down what was said
and helping us in analyzing. Once the interviews were transcribed, a data analysis program,
NVivo, was used to help us analyse the transcribed material. NVivo was an especially
important tool as this allowed us to code, categorize, and visualize our findings. To code our
interviews, we created nodes in the program representing each success factor category and
going through each interview one by one. During this step, anytime a success factor was
mentioned, we would connect what was said to a corresponding node. If an existing node did
not match what was said in the interview, a new node was created. In the first round of
coding, the interviews were coded individually. Once this was completed, we met and
discussed our coded nodes. The nodes were cross-checked between our versions, and we went
through each reference and discussed if the reference reflected the node. This was done to see
if we were in compliance with one another of how we perceived what was said in the
interviews. This was an essential step as we prepared to write our results and discussion of
results. The number of references after cross-checking the nodes are displayed in Table 13. It
is also important to state here that the amount of references per node is not an indicator of
how important a specific success factor is, instead it is just a display of how many times that
our interviews referred to each of these factors. What was said about each factor is discussed
in greater detail in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5.
Table 13: Summary of amount of references for each node
Nodes Amount of references

General impressions of project 10
Culture 57
Communication 97
Information Technology 35
Leadership 68
Methodology 27
People 66
Performance Measurement 45
Project Management 56
Strategic Alignment 24
Organizational Change 36
Processes 55
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Throughout our research process, bias was a constant issue that we were aware of. The topic
of bias came up before beginning with our research since, at that time, we were employees at
the university. It was made clear that this could be an issue if we are to choose a case-study at
the same university. However, it was decided right from the start that we will have to be extra
aware and critical of our own bias throughout our research. In conducting our thesis, we were
cautious as to not allow our personal opinions to interfere in the research. We frequently
discussed with one another and reminded ourselves that we are to stay neutral and to only
focus on our gathered data.
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4. Result of findings
This project was not without problems. There were some impressions that there was more
work and mapping done before this phase. Creating a sense of urgency and an understanding
of why they must change was difficult. UiA help did not have an economic incentive at the
start of the project, but the reality is different today than it was three years ago. The situation
that the organization is in now has changed the reason for UiA helps existence
Some employees found the project hard to relate to and felt that too much was demanded
from them and their department. Other employees saw the benefits of this project and worked
towards changing these negative views.
“Now we have done a change, and we have laid a bit low when we did it. Not to create
a revolution, but an evolution” (Respondent 2)
4.1 Culture
Culture has been a significant influence and was crucial for this phase. Culture had some
issues, and was not all positive. Quickly there became a divide in cultures between who were
for and those who were against the project.
Some employees meant that this had been one of the most critical success factors for the
succession of this phase. There is a good culture in the department that is subject to the main
change in this project, though other departments have had a silo mindset in their culture. This
type of mindset made it more difficult to handle change and creating a culture for change.
Striving for a common service-minded culture across the four departments has been a priority
to help everyone understand why UiA help must exist, and what it symbolizes for UiA.
Department managers have been positive in working with each other from the start and
worked closely together in creating a positive common culture across all four departments.
“The culture we tried to create in the project or with the colleagues is the
understanding that we are here to deliver a product for the students. How we
delivered, it was not always logical, and they had to move from counter to counter to
get help for anything. To try and work with this sour culture was rather important in
this period.” (Respondent 1)
4.2 Communication
Communication has been one of the most mentioned and positively discussed success factors
by our respondents. Respondents stated that communication had had a large impact but at the
same time was difficult.
“Communication has a very big impact and is very challenging” (Respondent 5)
Communicating with employees was important as this avoided people coming up with their
own information and perceptions of the ongoing project.
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All of the nine respondents considered communication as a success factor for the
implementation phase. During this phase, they have also included the use of a new
communication platform. This new platform is a way for project stakeholders to communicate
with each other in an open forum, which was very beneficial for both employees and the
project leader. This made people feel comfortable that there were no hidden agendas, as stated
by one of our respondents:
“I think it made people feel much more confident that the communications were
completely open and there were no hidden agendas behind this, so I think it was
actually successful.” (Respondent 2)
Communication as a success factor has had a number of positive comments, and some
respondents had stated that it was much more important than first anticipated:
“I see that it could have been better, and it has had more significance. Even though I
thought it was of great importance, it is even more important than I thought”
(Respondent 4)
Communication played a vital role in reassuring the stakeholders of what is going in the
project and what can they expect to happen in the future, both reassuring any doubts and
making them feel more connected to the project itself.
Communication was not always beneficial, and specific issues were present during the
implementation phase. Some of the respondents stated that sometimes information that was
communicated out to employees was misunderstood, which caused both confusion and
frustration. These misunderstandings had caused opposition for the project as stated by one of
our respndents:
“If you are not good at it, then it created resistance in the short term, so it does not
take many days before you feel that it is for and against people in the organization,”
(Respondent 4)
4.3 Information Technology
With a change project like this, and in the phase where they implemented UiA help, IT has
been an influencer. They have a need for IT tools, and without them they cannot do their job.
Existing digital platforms have been important, and it was stated that without this, they would
have never reached the finish line. IT, hardware, and infrastructure must work. Without the
enterprise service management system (ESMS), it would have been much more difficult. The
infrastructure on how the connections in the ESMS between the front line and the second line
for UiA help and the IT department was designed and implemented during this phase. IT
played an important role, and one of the respondents stated that it had to be there, otherwise it
would have been impossible.
“Has it been a critical success factor? It is more like Maslow; it has to be there to
make it happen, if it is not there, then it is impossible.” (Respondent 2)
Usage of the knowledge management system in the ESMS helped to have a more systematic
approach to the way they mapped their processes. IT also helps to maintain and create flexible
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processes with the users in mind, which were seen as critical for this phase. IT has given more
value for the users since users expect these types of flexible processes.
“IT is, today, a very critical factor in getting the solution we want, especially with a
view to providing flexible services to users” (Respondent 5)
Some of the negatives concerning IT was how different user groups perceive the use of IT.
Developers and end-users have different desires for the use of IT, and their desires came into
conflict. The end-users do not always have the competence or know what can actually be
implemented, and in the end it was up to the developers that had to make these decisions.
“People have desires, those who are going to work with it have desires, those who are going
to use it and the user has desires, but none of these groups have any competence to be able to
point out how things should be done or what is possible or not so. It is in a way up to those
who are going to develop this here” (Respondent 5)
Other challenges with IT were the digital competence of the users, as there were different
digital maturity levels in the different departments. One of the responders stated that IT was
not important because it just worked for them.
“IT has not been so important to us. Because it just works” (Responder 7)
4.4 Leadership
Leadership from top-level was significant for the success of this project, but not so much for
the implementation phase. It was a widely discussed factor, and people have had mixed
responses. Some of the respondents deemed it as alpha omega, yet some had difficulties with
the way the project was managed before the implementation phase. The project had a rocky
start, and some respondents felt as if the leadership from the top level was lacking. One
respondent felt that the project owner only got involved to resolve disagreements for
important decisions and that the project owner did not have time or prioritized this project.
“It has been a bit lacking at times, and after all, many have responded to this.”
(Respondent 6)
Support is indeed very much needed from the top level, though one needs to be careful with
not being too involved. Too much involvement made things difficult in the project and, at
times halted the overall progress.
“We had a project owner who was very involved in the process, almost a little too
involved in fact, and sometimes became so close that it simply did not create room for
development, so you also have to be careful.” (Respondent 2)
Some believed that leadership from the top level was vital and is to be considered as a critical
success factor. It was stated that if there were no support and boost from top-leadership, then
there would have been no project at all.
“I think that is crucial too because if it hadn't been support it would have been
difficult.” (Respondent 8)
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4.5 Methodology
The methodology for project management was not advanced for this phase, but it worked for
them. To the extent a methodology was used, the project leader used Prince 2. Several
mention the usage of Prince 2 as a project method. One respondent mentioned that they tried
to incorporate the Agency for Public Management and eGovernment (DIFI) project template
but thistemplate was more suitable on a drilling platform than an organization project.
The usage of Prince 2, in theory, is easier than it is in practice as there is a long way from
theory to practice. They do not know whether this reason is because Prince 2s methodology
was difficult to use or if it was because of a lack of knowledge on Prince 2. Theory is always
limited to possibilities, variables, and stakeholders, but in reality, there are many more
variables. Project management techniques did not consist of any advanced methodologies, but
whenever a method was used, it was Prince 2, and this worked.
“Method is important, but I believe what succeeded for us was to find the right tool,
and the right framework that this project fits into.” (Respondent 3)
Some mentioned that they did not think that methodology had any influence on the day to day
project work, and do not believe anyone has had a special relation to methodology. Learning
by doing and innate characteristics was how one of the respondent’s approached
methodology.
“I do not believe that methodology has any influence on the way of life at all. I do not
believe that anyone has a relation with methodology. I do not believe that the project
leader had any special association with methodology, I do not have any special
association with methodology, I do not have an education for it, but we probably do
some methodology activities without us thinking about it.” (Respondent 1)
4.6 People
People have been a highly spoken of success factor. It was one of the most vital factors
mentioned that made the implementation phase a success, to begin with. Without the right
people, with the right mindset, and the right competence, the implementation phase would not
have succeeded. The respondents believed that several key people were essential for this
phase to succeed. People needed to have the right mindset, be enthusiastic, accepting of
change, and willing to put in the work required in this phase to succeed. There can be a lot of
documentation and on-going projects, but if people are not convinced and backed up, then the
phase will not succeed. When asked what was it that makes people so important, the
following statement was given:
“Enthusiasm for action, a willingness to give a little extra, a willingness to get into
things, even if you cannot do what you have done, there has not been an obstacle to
getting it done, people are willing to learn.” (Respondent 1)
We see that a large emphasis was put upon choosing the right people for this type of project.
People were needed who had the right competencies, right personality, service-minded, and
technically able. Technically able individuals seemed to be very important for this phase as it
was mentioned multiple times from different responders. The technical know-how of the
42
system that they are working with was great importance for succeeding, as stated by one of
the respondents:
“So, in fact, a third success criteria is high IT competence if there is an IT product

involved, which was service now, then the employees must have good IT competence.”
(Respondent 3)
Some negative associations mentioned include people who are unwilling for change,
misunderstandings, wrong priorities, different desires, and different skill sets that may not be
suited for the project. For the implementation phase to be a success, these need to be
addressed as the right people must be present for such a project to succeed.
“It is very important to find the right people to work, in relation to the type of people,
people who have the right competencies, real personalities, that they are service
minded, technical competence, structure, important to have the right composition in
the project group, both in relation to what kind of formal roles they have”
(Respondent 4)
4.7 Performance Measurement
In the public sector, there has not been a tradition to measure performance. Several
respondents said that they do not measure performance, and there has not been much focus on
it. UiA has some measurements on inquiries from phones, chats, and solved inquiries in their
ESMS, but have not used these measurements in this phase. To not focus on the numbers in
this phase was an intentional choice to not put extra pressure on employees in this already
strenuous phase.
“It is clear that as an organization, we have a big challenge when it comes to

measurement, and to know what we are doing. And this is in the nature, this science
and academical freedom are deeply embedded in the university’s culture, to not be
monitored, and not to be governed.” (Respondent 5)
Others believe that performance measurement (PM) is important, even critical, but not used
enough. PM can give them motivation by showing that they have better service now than
before. One departments use of PM has given them a positive awakening on the knowledge
level in the organization on the use of PM. UiA help wants to use PM at a later time to
measure how they deliver their services.
“I mean that it is very important even if it is difficult, even if it is painful, and it points
out that there is used a lot of time on something. That we are not effective on
something, that there are tasks that are to a certain degree needless, something
technical that we can do better, faster. Even if it is unpleasant, we must do it, it is a
leader's responsibility and a project's responsibility to implement.” (Respondent 5)
4.8 Project Management
The way the project was managed played an important role in the success of the
implementation phase. Responders had a lot to say about how the project before the
implementation phase was managed and the implementation phase itself. There were in total
two project leaders, as the previous project leader had to leave due to personal reasons. A new
43
project leader as assigned at the start of the implementation phase, and some employees felt as
if the project had gotten a new spark.
“When the project got a new project manager in February, the project got a new
start, you can say. One scraped away a lot of the old fun and started over again”
(Respondent 1)
During the phase, the project leader was stricter on getting things done, and this was reflected
upon from a number of responders. They felt that the new project group and employees were
doing their work well and delivered on time, something which was lacking during the
previous phases.
It was important for the employees that the project leader was partaking in project work,
address difficulties immediately, and continuously following up on the work being done. One
respondent stated that if the project had not received a new leader, then this phase would not
have been successful.
Some negatives also arose as many of our responders felt that their assignments were unclear.
Responders from different departments felt that communication could have been better
between the project leader and departments and that this part was a bit weak. Lastly,
responders believed that a much better mandate was needed. This had caused several issues
throughout the implementation phase, since assignments given to the different departments
were unclear, and people did not know who exactly was responsible for specific tasks.
4.9 Strategic Alignment
The university strategy and vision has been a central piece in the project and is the reason that
the project owner started the project. The vision of the project is that users can come to one
location to receive help with almost everything or be referred to the right person. This builds
on UiA’s vision to become more accessible, open, and transparent. Later in the phase, they
did get a formulation that this was to simplify the processes, improve the services, in a degree
streamlining, and creating a forward-looking organizational model.
“UiA's strategy, and vision have been a part of the project, which is why the project owner
started the project that would streamline how we welcome customers, users, or
guests.”(Respondent 1)
Several respondents do not believe that strategic alignment has had an impact on this phase,
and the goal and strategy of the university were not explained well from the top management.
“Organization goals and vision, I do not feel it is that critical.” (Respondent 6)
44
4.10 Organizational Change
Organizational change has been an important success factor throughout the implementation
phase and the project itself. Respondents have many opinions about the importance of
organizational change within the university and how it was conducted in the project.
Organizational change had a few positives, and people have stated that it affected the
implementation phase to a high degree. The way change is handled been very important since
this project affects many people. One of the respondents had the following to say about
organizational change:
“Although this is a lot about processes and IT and about process orientation, it is first
and foremost an organizational change project, and it has been of great importance,
to take care of all the things that come up in an organization change project, that
people are afraid of losing their job, people are insecure, they have to learn new
things, so everything that is very important to focus on in such a project.”
(Respondent 4)
Many of the respondents see the need and benefit to manage organizational change in the best
way possible, since it affects people directly as stated in the quote above. One respondent also
mentioned that they analysed and mapped all employee knowledge and skills that were in the
organization which was very beneficial. Organizational change was also very important for
people to accept their new role and learn that their everyday tasks will be different.
However, while people see the importance, the way organizational change was conducted
and perceived has been varied, and many people felt that the way change was handled in the
project could have been better. Some respondents did not like the fact that what was promised
to them at the start of the project changed during the implementation phase. For some
respondents, the need for change was difficult to accept. There was still a silo mindset in
some departments and cultural differences, which made it difficult to accept change.
4.11 Processes
In this phase, the four departments have mapped their processes individually with help from
the service development team (TuT) and worked to develop a digital solution for some of the
processes to get a better flow. Working to standardize the processes at the two locations
makes it easier to describe them, have knowledge management on them, and ensure quality.
Responders mentioned that it was valuable to standardize their processes. This has helped the
departments to easier find out which processes each department is responsible for and in
building a knowledge base to assure the quality of the processes. This seemed easy in theory
to accomplish, but in reality, it was much more difficult.
“This is, in a way the basis for digitalization, quality control, and to gain realization.
If we don’t know about our services, it will be impossible for digitialize them, and
hard to quality assure if we don’t know about the conditions on what we deliver and
getting gain realization on it. Services is important” (Respondent 5)
Two of the departments managed to map their processes and services before the summer, with
details and approximately how much resources each required. A lesson they learned was that
they often underestimated when estimating resources for each process.
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“This service mapping that has been done, definitions, and descriptions, that do I
believe if you do not do it, you won’t succeed” (Respondent 2)
This process of mapping has increased the knowledge in the departments of their processes
and services, which increased their maturity. One department manager wanted to get a
broader perspective of their services and processes but did not manage this because the
department was pushed to changes that they did not want. This is the reason as to why the
processes in this department have not been changed as much.
4.12 Maturity
While conducting our interviews, we noticed that several of our respondents had spoken about
how the maturity of the organization helped succeed not only in the implementation phase but
the whole project.
Maturity was an important point mentioned, and respondents spoke about how well change
was handled in the different departments and how quickly the organization copes with the
ongoing changes. The level of maturity impacted the success of the phase.
“I can say that I think we have a certain advantage in the technical, some good
expertise in the tut team and the work they do, I think it is very important, an
important factor for change” (Respondent 5)
Respondents also stated that because of the organization’s maturity, it made it easier to
conduct this type of project.
“Yes, there I think since we had a mature organization already around this, I think it
was organized what was needed to get this done” (Respondent 2)
Departments with a higher maturity handled the project with a lot less trouble as opposed to
those with a lower maturity. The IT department is an example of a higher maturity
department. Respondents associated with this department handled ongoing changes well and
knew what their role was for this project.
“Yes, again I look at what we have had in the IT department, and what we have had
here that we have long focused on this that we must be tuned for changes in some
form, so it has been a part that we have been working on for a long time and that is
part of the changes that have to come.” (Respondent 9)
Departments with a lower maturity level had a harder time in the project. The library
department did not have high maturity in both handling change and the technical aspect. This
department and the employees within struggled a lot more to deliver on what was assigned to
them and needed to use more time and effort as opposed to higher maturity departments.
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4.13 Summary of findings
Table 14 displays a summary of our findings. We were generally pleased with our results and
some results stuck out to us, such as methodology not being seen as critical. We were also
surprised just how important people and culture were, as these were mentioned many times,
and it had a large impact on the success of the implementation phase.
Table 14: Summary of findings table
Summary
Culture Large impact on the success of the implementation phase. UiA has
had challenges with negative attitude cultures, and a new culture was
needed to change this. A “get things done” culture emerged, and this
had a large impact on success.
Communication Played a vital role in the implementation phase, one of the most
important factors but it was difficult.
Information Technology IT has been an important tool for success, process mapping,
communication, and knowledge management
Existing systems such as service now have been there to facilitate and
enable the change because of the previous work that the IT
department has done
IT department has been very proactive. IT has to be there for the
whole project to work
If it was not there, then there would be a much bigger challenge
Leadership Respondents had mixed attitudes. Some said that top management
has not been present in this phase and was almost not visible for this
phase. Some mentioned that it had been good support from top
management.
One respondent felt that the project owner was only there to resolve
important disagreements, otherwise not involved.
Some respondents believed it to be a critical success factor
Methodology It was difficult to go from theory to practice. Considered
methodology as important, though not critical. They have tried to use
Prince 2, but it was difficult, and the DIFI project template but was
not suitable at the end. Some people meant that this factor had no
impact and was not important
People One of the most mentioned success factors. Several key people were
essential for the success of this phase and were seen as champions. It
was crucial that the project had people with the right mindset and
competence.
Negatives of this factor include people unwilling to change, wrong
priorities, different desires, different skillsets, and misunderstandings.
Performance This was not focused as much on the project. They had had some
Measurement measurements from before, such as the number of phone calls
received, chats, and solved inquires, though these were not used
during the implementation phase. Some respondents meant that it was
a good decision to not focus on this factor as it may put extra pressure
on the employees.
Project Management Not considered an important factor, felt as if the project got a new
spark with a new project leader. The new project leader was stricter
47
on getting tasks done and closely followed up on work being
delivered, which was well received by some respondents.
Communication and unclear assignments were some of the criticisms
received to the way the project was managed
Strategic Alignment A central piece in the initiation of the project itself, and it was the
reason why the project owner started the project. However, for the
implementation phase, several respondents do not believe this factor
has had an impact on the phase whatsoever.
Organizational Change Respondents see this factor as very important as it affects people
directly. There is however, still a silo mindset and differences in
department cultures, which has made it difficult to accept change.
Processes Departments mapped their processes, which was important and

positive. Worked to get these processes built into a knowledge base
to assure quality.
Maturity The level of maturity in the different departments had an impact on

this phase. Departments with lower change handling and technical
aspects had a harder time in delivering assigned tasks as opposed to
higher maturity departments.
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5. Discussion
This chapter is the discussion of our findings, data gathering, and research question. In our
discussion of the factors. We take a look at our prior research of the different factors and
summarize what we had retrieved from our literature. We then discuss our findings and relate
these to the literature and explore whether the literature and our findings are similar. We
address whether or not the success factor was critical for the implementation phase or not
based on our interview findings. Lastly, we answer if our prior research relates to our actual
findings and discuss possible reasons as to why our results differ or were similar to the prior
research.
5.1 Culture
Culture had a significant impact on the success of the implementation phase. There were in
total four different cultures that needed to co-exist and work together for the phase to become
a success. From our literature, it is stated that BPM adoption must be compatible with the
culture that the BPM initiative is built from, or it will fail (Buh et al., 2015). Based on our
interview findings, we perceive this statement to be true. The four departments have all had
different cultures, and our interview results indicate that they saw it as a must to have a
compatible culture for this phase to be a success. There has been a negative culture towards
the project at times, and ha a need ot establishe a new culture. It was crucial that a “get things
done” type of culture was present and played a large role in the succession of this phase. Syed
et al. (2018) stated that in the public sector, cultures are highly resistant to change, with little
attention to innovation. The fact that there were different cultures was not a good enough
indication that the cultures were resistant to change and little focus on innovation.
5.2 Communication
Communication has played a vital role in the success of the implementation phase. Prior
research has indicated that it is a key role for the success of a BPM project (Buh et al., 2015;
Gabryelczyk, 2018b) and helps facilitate the mutual understanding of the strategy and goals
for the organization (Bai & Sarkis, 2013). There is a need for clear and effective
communication to various levels of the organization, and it is necessary for the phases before
and during the implementation of a project (Bai & Sarkis, 2013). We find from our results
that communication played a vital role and indeed was one of the most important factors
during the implementation phase, which is consistent with previous research. We also find
that it has a significant impact during this phase, though it is difficult. One particular reason as
to why communication has been difficult was that information was misunderstood by
employees. The information that was sent out was at times not concrete enough, and as stated
by some of our responders, information must be concrete. Misunderstood information had
caused confusion for employees, which lead to a negative attitude amongst the employees.
5.3 Information Technology
Information Technology plays a central and important role in BPM and communication. It is
both an enabler and facilitator for change in a BPM project (Bai & Sarkis, 2013). We also
find from prior research that existing systems can play a crucial role as a motivator for
change, or as a demotivator to change (Ariyachandra & Frolick, 2008; Gabryelczyk, 2018b).
Existing systems play as a motivator in that, if you have a good existing IT system it is easier
49
to conduct a BPM project as this will most likely be built upon this existing system, but at the
same time, if the previous system is good enough then this could act as a demotivator to
change. From our results we see that existing systems have had an impact, as the existing
ESMS was a facilitator and enabler of change. The IT department has been very proactive in
this phase, and it was stated that IT has to be there for this to work, otherwise it would have
been a much bigger challenge. IT has been a valuable tool and is considered as an important
success factor for the project. IT was used for communication, mapping, and knowledge
management. For communication, Microsoft Teams was used, and people considered this as a
good way of communicating. Service Now was used for knowledge management and
mapping processes and resources. Because of these systems, the project has had an easier
implementation phase, as it was stated that it would be much more challenging if not for
these. One respondent mentioned that IT was not that important because “it just worked”.
5.4 Leadership
Support for the top management in a project is essential and acknowledged as one of the most
critical factors (Ariyachandra & Frolick, 2008; Bai & Sarkis, 2013; Buh et al., 2015; Renata
Gabryelczyk, 2018b). It is a vital connection in the cross-function in the organization with
decision and support. This can reduce the resistance in the project by being involved in the
resolving of conflicts that may arise and build a common organization vision (Ariyachandra
& Frolick, 2008; Bai & Sarkis, 2013). Several of the project participants said that top
management support in this phase has been lacking and almost not visible, and were there
only to resolve important and urgent disagreements or decisions. Respondents felt that this
project and phase were not prioritized from top management. While others saw the support as
being good in this phase and mention that top management support was a critical factor.
We conjecture that support from top management was a critical factor for this project, but not
critical in this specific phase. Mandate and decisions were made in the prior phases and
because of this, our finding points to low participation from top management in the
implementation phase. Respondents who felt that there was a good support in this phase, were
respondents with higher authority and who normally works closely with the project owner.
Those with lower authority, who work closely with customers, do not have a strong
connection to the owner, and they do not feel they have the support from the project owner.
The position that the project owner has in the organization requires a lot of time and has little
time to focus on this project. This is reflected upon in our findings as several have stated that
the project owner was not present, perhaps due to time restraints.
5.5 Methodology
Methodology are methods and techniques that are suitable for implementation in this type of
project (Gabryelczyk & Roztocki, 2018). Prince 2 project methods have been used during this
phase with the attempt to convert a project template from DIFI. The use of the Prince 2
method was difficult to implement in practice as opposed to theory. Lack of knowledge of the
method or the difficulty of using this method were mentioned as possible reasons as to why it
may have been difficult.
We argue that the choice of methods did not have a large impact on this phase. Respondents
mentioned that methodology was important, but did not have a large impact, while others did
not believe it had any impact at all in this phase. Since respondents never mentioned any
sspecific BPM methods, we argue that the lack of focus on specific BPM methods is the
reason for the little impact that methodology has had during this phase.
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5.6 People
People are seen as an essential factor in BPM. The presence of a champion, employees who
are committed and energetic, are both factors that emphasize why people are so important
(Ariyachandra & Frolick, 2008). Some of the respondents mention that people have been one
of the success factors for the implementation phase, and it was crucial to have people with the
right mindset and right competence. A number of champions were present in this phase, and
they were seen as essential for success. There also appeared some negatives in that there were
people who were unwilling to change due to wrong priorities, different desires, different
skillsets, and misunderstandings. We see this factor as a critical success factor since the
project revolved around people. They have chosen the right people for the tasks, which
explains that there were a number of project champions. The new project leader was also
considered as the correct choice. The competencies of selected people were also important, as
many respondents mentioned that competencies with what they are tasked with were vital,
such as digital competence if working with IT tools. This factor also goes hand in hand with
culture. As it is people who facilitate different cultures, and these two factors are closely
intertwined. An explanation for the negativities that were mentioned about people can be poor
communication between people, which can quickly create these negative views. To
summarize, people have definitely been a critical success factor and are closely affected by
several other factors such as culture and communication.
5.7 Performance Measurement
The task of measuring time, cost, quality, productivity, and customer satisfaction is the basis
of performance measurement. One needs to use the feedback from measuring to facilitate
continuous improvements (R. Gabryelczyk & Roztocki, 2018). It is not possible to manage
what you do not measure, and this is especially true for BPM (Bai & Sarkis, 2013) and
measuring processes is key for a high level of BPM adoption (Renata Gabryelczyk, 2018b).
Given the tradition of not measuring performance in public sector organization, we argue that
implementing effective and satisfying processes are difficult. UiA help does have numbers on
their processes but has deliberately not used them in this phase. To our understanding, they
plan to use performance measuring more in later stages of the UiA help project. Our findings
show that PM was not a critical factor in the implementing phase, but we believe that PM will
have a bigger impact after the implementation of UiA help. The focus on people in this phase
supports that it is an important factor in this phase. Some respondents said that they think of
PM as critical to determine what level of services they deliver, and they definitively would
use PM later.
5.8 Project Management
If BPM projects are to succeed, they must have clearly defined objectives, purpose, and plan
(Buh et al., 2015). This explains the need for project management in BPM projects, as project
management involves establishing and planning activities that help ensure that the
implementation processes are managed (Bai & Sarkis, 2013). From our interview results,
many of the respondents stated that project management was an important factor for the
implementation phase. Once the new project leader took over, it felt as if the project had
gotten a new start. The new project leader was more strict on getting tasks done and this was
well received. The new leader also focused more on closely following up on work being done
and employees felt that the new leader did a good job with their involvement. It was
important for some respondents that the new leader was a part of the front line rather than
51
staying at the back. Some criticism did come from some departments in that communication
and assignments were unclear.
We believe that this success factor is very closely related to people, as it was because the right
person was chosen that had an impact rather then the project management skills used. Even
though there was a bit of criticism towards the objectives not being clear enough, other
difficulties that arose during the phase were handled well, which in turn lead to a successful
implementation phase. We therefore see this to be an important factor, but not critical for this
specific phase. The phase was still a success, but as stated by one of the respondents, it was
most likely due to the project leaders ability to resolve problems that arose and not because of
clearly defined objectives, purpose, and planning.
5.9 Strategic Alignment
Linkage between the organizational strategy and the operational function is the strategic
alignment in an organization. This linkage will help the organization achieve higher Business
Process Orientation (Trkman, 2010, 2013). Aligning strategy and the project is essential to
achieve long-term success, improved performance, and maximize the value from process
improvements (Bai & Sarkis, 2013; Trkman, 2010). In the creation of this project, UiA’s
strategy and vision were a key reason that this project was started, but we argue that this
alignment did not have much impact on this phase. We see similarities between strategic
alignment and top management that they were both critical for the making of the project but
did not have much impact on this phase. Some respondents do not believe that this linkage
had any effect on this phase. We argue that the goal to become more accessible and open has
had an impact on the employee's attitudes towards the project and that strategic alignment,
therefore, had some impact on the implementation phase.
5.10 Organizational Change
Analysis of the organization and changes to the organization structure are common in BPM
initiatives. A visible change in an organization that has implemented BPM is the existence of
process owners, with each process having a clearly defined owner. The cultures in an
organization may be inconsistent with the desire to organize around the customer, and
processes are siloed in departments and not in the customer lines. Horizontal end-to-end
processes are not well understood in these individual silos, were departments often operate
(Trkman, 2010).
Throughout this phase, UiA has analysed the organization with each department’s processes
and its employees experiences. The respondents confirmed that organizational changes were
an important factor in the implementation phase, and how these changes were executed. The
influence on employees was an important focus in this change, as well as helping them to
become comfortable with the changes. Consistent with prior research, there were multiple
departments that operated as individual silos, and some may not have the desire to change.
One part of our finding here is the large focus on people and facilitating the ease of change for
the organization.
5.11 Processes
Standardization of processes is desirable, as something must work reliably as a minimum to

be considered as a capability. BPM can lead to increased standardization when processes are
executed after defined specifications and rules. Standardization offers technical
52
interchangeability, compliance with regulations, and improved customer confidence (Trkman,
2010).
During the implementation phase, the departments mapped out their processes, and this was
seen as an important step. It was important as they received an overview and knowledge of
their processes, which in term had also increased their process maturity. They had also used
these mapped processes to build them into their knowledge base to assure quality. We see this
as a critical success factor since responders felt that if this were not done, they would not have
succeeded with the implementation phase. We agree with Trkman’s (2010) statement on
processes since the project leads to increasing standardization. With increased standardization
at UiA, customers receive standardized help at the new help desk, and it is easier for
employees to deliver their tasks. This also leads to less time being used on standardized
processes and opens up more resources to use in other areas.
5.12 Maturity
Complementary to the success factors in this research was our findings of maturity. Every
organization has numerous business processes, and every organization manages its processes
in its incorporated departments. There are several models to measure BPM maturity, and the
list over models is rapidly increasing (van der Kamp, Smit, & Ravesteijn, 2019).
Closely related to BPM maturity are capabilities. Capabilities deals with the same
phenomenon as processes, processes focuses on “how” and capabilities on “what”. An
organization’s collection of resources is divided into tangible assets and intangible
capabilities. The definition of capabilities is: “Capabilities are repeatable patterns of action
in the use of assets, including technical and managerial skills”(Kerpedzhiev, König,
Röglinger, & Rosemann, 2020).
We define the maturity that was mentioned from the responders as capability maturity at UiA.
Respondents mention maturity in how well the different departments responded to changes
during this phase. We believe this can be culture, people, and how the project was managed.
Several respondents mentioned one department that had a higher difficulty to adapt to the
change for this phase. A reason for this may be that the culture and people in this department
have a lower capability maturity than the other departments. Knowledge and education of the
processes that these departments were low, and combined this with their silo culture gave this
department a larger disadvantage than other departments. We believe that the creating of a
common service-minded culture may not have been as successful and did not receive the
results that they wanted. On the other hand, TuT and the IT department had higher maturity in
methods and technical experience.
From prior experience and through our conducted research, we believe that UiA is a capable
organization with a good understanding of how to utilize their assets. We argue that having an
organization that is mature in how they use their assets is positive for a successful
implementation phase. Figure 12 below illustrates which CSFs maturity has had an effect in
the implementation phase based on our findings.
53
Figure 12: CSFs that were impacted by maturity
5.13 Identifying the critical success factors in the implementation phase
In this section, we discuss the factors which we believe have been critical for the
implementation phase. In answering our research question, we take into consideration prior
empirical research and our interview results. The factors that we believe have been critical for
the success of this phase have been people, culture, communication, and processes. We
conjectured that people were the most important critical success factor. Our respondents
indicated that this factor had impacted the implementation phase greatly. It was crucial that
the right people with the right mindset and competence were chosen for the succession of this
phase. People has also had a direct effect on other success factors such as performance
measurement. The project leader decided to not focus on performance measurement as to not
put extra burden or stress on the people involved. Organizational change was also directly
affected as changes in the organization can cause people to be insecure about learning new
things and have a fear of losing their job. If people had not been taken into such high
consideration, we believe that the implementation phase would not have succeeded, as this
actor could have caused a ripple effect for the impact of the other critical success factors.
Figure 13 displays which success factor that we believe people have had a direct impact on.
54
Culture
Organizational
change Project
management
People
Perfomance
Communication measurement
Figure 13: Factors directly impacted by People in the implementation phase
We found culture to be one of the other critical success factors in the implementation phase.
Different cultures in the different departments had caused a few issues throughout this phase,
but their striving to have a common service-minded culture across the departments was very
important. We relate this factor again to people, as it was because of people that common
culture was crucial. The cultures present in the different departments also directly impacted
communication since the silo-culture departments had more issues in communication. Figure
14 displays which factors were directly affected by culture in the implementation phase.
55
People
Culture
Organization
Communication change
Figure 14: Factors directly impacted by Culture in the implementation phase
Communication is another critical success factor, and it directly relates to people and culture.
Communication made people feel more confident since the project leader tried to be as
transparent as possible. People felt that they were being heard because of an open platform
type of communication. Figure 15 illustrates the success factors that were directly impacted
by the implementation phase.
People
Project Communication IT
management
Organization
change
Figure 15: Factors directly impacted by Communication in the implementation phase
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We conjectured that processes were another critical success factor. We argue that the
standardization of processes leads to several positive outcomes during this phase. Some
responders mentioned that the mapping of their processes was very important to both create a
knowledge base and ensure their quality. We observed that the standardization of these
processes has helped with getting a clear overview of what each department is responsible for
and noticed that it had a direct impact on other success factors. Processes directly affected
both project management and organizational change in that it made it easier for the team
leader in managing the project. They had a clear overview of what tasks were to be taken by
UiA help and which tasks would remain as they were. This was very important for managing
the project and avoid misunderstandings amongst other departments, which again would
affect the other critical success factors. Figure 16 illustrates the factors which were directly
impacted by processes in the implementation phase.
IT
Processes
Organization
People
change
Figure 16: Factors directly impacted by Processes in the implementation phase
The other success factors, such as IT, leadership, project management, and organizational
change, are important success factors, and all had an impact on the implementation phase.
These factors were important, and we agree with prior research that they are critical for the
whole entirety of a BPM project. This thesis focuses on the implementation phase, and for
this phase, we cannot deem them as critical. We base this statement on our interview findings
and our interpretation, as we felt that these success factors were highly regarded for the
phases before, but not during the implementation. It was due to the right people,
communication, culture, and processes, which also had a direct impact on all of the important
success factors that were critical for this phase.
The remaining success factors, methodology, performance measurement, and strategic

alignment, were not deemed to be important for this phase. The methodology used in this
phase was Prince 2, and to some extent the DIFI project template. With this in mind, and from
multiple answers given from our respondents about methodology not having an effect, we
agree and therefore consider it as not important for this phase. Performance measurement was
also considered but was not taken into consideration as not to put a strain on employees and is
57
therefore not seen as important. Strategic alignment was considered important for the
initiation of the project but since the project was grounded in the previous phases, we argue
that it is not considered as important in the implementation phase.
5.14 Summary of discussion
Out of the 11 critical success factors that were discovered prior to conducting our research,
four of these are deemed as critical for the implementation phase, these being culture,
communication, people, and processes. These critical success factors that were discovered for
the implementation phase all relate either directly or indirectly to one another. Figure 17
summarizes how each of the discovered CSF for the implementation phase, highlighted in
orange, relates to one another. This also illustrates the importance of people, as this CSF
directly impacted nearly all of the other CSFs and success factors.
Figure 17: Summary of relations between CSFs and success factors
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Four success factors, IT, leadership, project management, and organizational, were not
considered as critical but important for the implementation phase. These factors had an
important role in the success of this phase, but if they were not present, we argue that the
implementation phase would have still succeeded. Methodology, performance measurement,
and strategic alignment are considered as not important for this phase as these either were not
taken into consideration at all or specifically chosen to not focus on in the implementation
phase. We argue that these did not have any impact on the success of the implementation
phase. Table 15 displays the summary of which factors are considered critical, important, and
not important.
Table 15: Summary of which factors were critical, important, and not important for the implementation phase
Success Factors Critical Success Success Factor but Not considered

Factor not critical important
Culture x
Communication x
IT x
Leadership x
Methodology x
People x
Performance x
Measurement
Project Management x
Strategic Alignment x
Organizational Change x
Processes x
59
6. Limitations
There were several limitations in our research, the first being that we did not manage to obtain
an interview from the Operations department. While this department had the least
involvement in the project, we still felt that it was important to interview the people involved
in this department. Unfortunately, the interviews were cancelled due to the outbreak of Covid-
19, and we could, therefore not get their perspective. We also wanted to interview someone
from TuT, but we did not manage due to the mentioned reasons. There were a limited
number of people that were involved in the project, and we were fortunate to have nine
interviews. We would have liked to interview more individuals from the organization with a
broader spectrum. Another limitation was that not everyone had thoroughly read our project
information sheet that was sent out prior to conducting the interviews. This had caused a
minor inconvenience as we sometimes had to explain our research before conducting the
interviews. Lastly, there is limited generalizability, since it is only one case that we have
looked into. Getting data from several public organizations would have provided a better basis
for generalizability.
6.1 Reliability and validity
Since our interviews were conducted in Norwegian, the quotes that were used in this thesis
were translated into English. This can cause some issues with validity as certain things may
be lost in translation, or the tone might be a bit different when translated to another language.
We translated the quotes to the best of our capabilities, but it must be stated that this can
cause issues in the reliability of the data. To combat this, we cross-checked the translations
and agreed upon whether this represents to the best extent possible. Another issue that
presents itself here is our personal bias. Personal bias, regardless of how hard we tried to be as
neutral as possible, may still be present without us even being aware of it.
60
7. Conclusion
The purpose of our master thesis was to identify which success factors are the basis for the
success of the implementation phase in a BPM project. To answer our research question, we
have conducted a literature review, created a framework about existing success factors, and
conducted qualitative interviews at the University of Agder. We have interviewed nine people
from three different departments who were a part of the implementation phase in the project.
Throughout our research, we have discovered which success factors were critical, important,
and not important for this phase.
Our proposed framework is a revision of an existing holistic framework by Bandara et al.

(2009) with the addition of two new critical success factors. The new factors that were
included, organizational change and processes, are a result of analysing existing literature of
BPM CSFs. This framework was used as a basis for our interview guide and answering our
research question.
Our results indicate that there were four critical success factors in the implementation phase,
culture, communication, people, and processes. Out of these CSFs, people had the most
significant impact on the success of this phase, and it was crucial that the right people with the
right mindset and competence were chosen. Culture was also directly impacted by people, and
we discovered that a common service-minded culture across the four departments was crucial.
Communication is also a critical success factor since the transparent communication
throughout the project made people more confident in the project and the project leader.
Processes were critical as it was vital to get an overview of the tasks in the different
departments and which tasks were to be implemented at UiA Help.
IT, leadership, project management, and organizational change are seen as important though
not critical. These factors are considered as important in the implementation phase since they
all had a direct impact on the CSFs. These success factors were highly regarded in the phases
before the implementation phase and can be seen as critical for the entirety of the BPM
project, but we discovered that these factors are not critical for our specific phase.
Methodology, performance measurement, and strategic alignment were not seen as important
for this phase. The implementation phase was conducted without taking these factors into
consideration, and it was still successful. Our responders were aware of these factors
throughout this phase but chose not to use time or resources to focus on them.
We conclude our thesis by providing an answer to our research question:” Which success
factors are the basis for a successful implementation phase of a BPM project” as people,
culture, communication, and processes. IT, leadership, project management, and
organizational change as important and directly impacted by critical factors. Methodology,
performance measurement, and strategic alignment are seen as not impactful for the
implementation phase of this BPM project.
61
7.1 Implications
Our research contributes in two ways. The first contribution lies in validating and re-
specifying conducted prior research bout the topic of BPM, which resulted in our proposed
CSF framework. BPM projects have many different success factors and frameworks, and we
wish to summarize these to make future research easier. We discovered overlapping material
in our literature review since many success factors were similar but had different names or
descriptions. In creating our holistic framework, we have standardised the names and created
descriptions for each CSF. This may help future researchers to find and use BPM CSFs for
their research.
The implication for practice could be to point other organizations in a similar implementation
phase to the CSFs. We believe that our findings can be used in both the private and the public
sector since this type of project and phase is people-intensive. A stronger understanding of
people and how they affect other factors will be positive for project success.
7.2 Future research
The following section addresses several points to help researchers conduct further research on
this topic. Since our research consists of a case study within one organization and one phase
of a BPM project, further research is needed. For future research, we recommend researchers
to conduct similar research and focus on other phases. This contributes to the limited amount
of research conducted about the critical success factors within the different phases of a BPM
project.
We recommend addressing the limitations of this thesis by expanding to a multiple-case study

with a larger interviewee pool. This could be done in a different setting as well such as the
private sector, and be compared to see whether findings are similar to the public sector.
Future researchers may use quantitative methods to identify which factors were most
impactful in a specific phase of a BPM project. We recommend using the AHP method or
other similar quantitative methods to classify which critical success factors are the most
prominent.
Lastly, we encourage continued research on our framework and the relations between the
critical success factors to validate our findings in this thesis.
Our findings contribute to future research about the success factors in the different phases of a
BPM project. This thesis lays a small foundation for future research on what CSFs are
important in each phase of a BPM project, with our findings focusing on the implementation
phase. We believe that identifying the CSFs for this phase, describing the relation, interaction,
and effects, gives a new perspective for BPM research.
62
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Appendix
Appendix A - Articles used in proposed holistic framework
65
Appendix B - Interview Guide
Intervjuguide og forberedelser
IS-501, Masteroppgave
Ola S. Eriksen, John Jensen
Formål med prosjektet/masteroppgaven:

Finne ut sukseefaktorer i implementasjonsfasen av et BPM prosjekt.
Viktige konsepter og teorigrunnlag:
BPM – Business process management
Sukseefaktorer
Forskningsdesign:
Casestudie
Datagrunnlag: kvalitativt, semi-strukturerte intervjuer
Sekundære kilder: Dokumentasjon av fellesførstelinje prosjektet
Type bedrift: Universitet
Bakgrunnsinformasjon – informant/deltager
Kodenavn:
Nåværende posisjon i bedriften:
Rolle i prosjektet:
Informasjon om bedriften
Universitet i Agder, Servicetorget
Hvor bedriften har sin virksomhet: Kristiansand og Grimstad, Norge
Intervju
Dato og tidspunkt for intervjuet:
Intervjuets lengde:
Type intervju og lokasjon:
Digitalt opptak eller lignende:
Form for transkripsjon:
Spørsmål
Åpningsspørsmål –
Hovedformål: Forklare etiske faktorer og konfidensialitet; at digitale opptak og
transkripsjoner blir oppbevart på en forsvarlig måte og vil ikke bli distribuert til andre uten
informantens samtykke. Sitater kan kun brukes hvis informanten er enig og eventuelt
ansvarlig kontaktperson for bedriften gir sitt samtykke til bruk av sitater og annen
66
informasjon om bedriften. Hvis ønskelig, skal oppdragsgiver få anledning til å lese gjennom
rapporten før innlevering av oppgaven. Dette gjelder spesielt sitatbruk og annen informasjon
som kan være sensitiv.
• Hva er dette prosjektet – Hva går vår masteroppgave utpå
a. Spesifisere hva vi leiter etter
• Hva går prosjektet utpå
a. Spesifisere at vi spør om bare fra februar til november
• Hvorfor vi intervjuer deg
• Bekrefte om å ta opptak
• Informere om personvern og hvordan data blir behandlet
Hoveddel 1: Spørsmål som er relatert til problemstilling

Hovedformål: Få ærlige meninger om hva de mener er positivt for dette prosjektet
1. Success factors in the BPM project
• Hva er dine tanker og meninger om implementasjonsfasen til UiA-Hjelp prosjektet
• Hva mener du har påvirket positivt i denne fasen av UiA-Hjelp prosjektet
o Er det noen du mener har påvirket mer enn annet
Hoveddel 2:
Hovedformål: Presentere «common success factors» som vi har funnet fra litteraturen
a. Culture / kultur
b. Communication / kommunikasjon
c. IT
d. Leadership / Top ledelse
e. Methodology / metodologi og metoder
f. People / mennesker
g. Performance measurement / ytelses måling
h. Project management/prosjekt ledelse
i. Strategic alignment
j. Organization change / Organisasjons endring
k. Prosesser/tjenester
67

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Business process management and success factors –

Which success factors are the basis for a successful

A qualitative case study about the success factors present in the

OLA SKARPMOEN ERIKSEN & JOHN JENSEN

University of Agder, 2020

Kristiansand, 3. June 2020

2. Related research ........................................................................................................ 6

3. Research approach .................................................................................................. 30

1.3 Case description

Table 1: Reasons for UiA starting the project (Agder, 2016)

Reasons for UiA starting the project

Figure 2: Organization chart

Figure 3: Single point of contact for each service help desk

1.4 Structure of the thesis

Chapter 2: Related research

Chapter 3: Research approach

Chapter 4: Results of findings

2.1 Literature search approach

Table 2: Literature search criteria

Keywords • Success factors

Other • Articles are to be peer reviewed

The phases undertook consist of the following steps:

Phase 1: Searching for articles in various databases with

Phase 2: Find and remove duplicate articles and articles

Phase 3: Check the titles and review them to see if they

Phase 4: Read the abstracts of the articles to further

Phase 5: Read chosen articles and highlight any

Figure 4: Five-phase approach to conducting a literature search (Danielsen, 2019)

2.2 Conducting the literature searches

Versions of Search string used

Version 2 TITLE-ABS-KEY ("BPM" OR "business process management") AND

Version 3 TITLE-ABS-KEY ('business process management' OR 'business

Version 4 TITLE-ABS-KEY ('business process management' OR 'BPM') AND

Phase 1 of our conducted literature search

Phase 2 of our conducted literature search

Phase 4 of our conducted literature search

Phase 5 of our conducted literature search

Phases in Version 1 of article search Results

Table 5: Results from Version 2 of article search

Phases in Version 2 of article search Results

Table 6: Results from Version 3 of article search

Phases in Version 3 of article search Results

Table 7: Results from Version 4 of article search

Phases in Version 4 of article search Results

Table 8: Reviewed articles (Jensen & Eriksen, 2019b)

Number Title Author Year Publication

15 Critical success Andrej kovacic, 2015 Economic research

21 A study on M Munizu, K 2019 IOP Conference

24 Critical success Boyoung Kim Hyojin 2018 Sustainability

2.4 Business process management

BPM is often defined as a holistic approach to the practice of organizational management, in

2.5 Business process management lifecycles

2.7 Single point of contact

2.8 Public sector versus private sector in BPM

Public Sector Private Sector

2.9 What have others done in this field

2.9.1 Holistic framework

Figure 7: BPM Success Factors framework (Bandara et al., 2009)

2.9.2 Identified success factors from prior research

Table 10: Discovered success factors (Jensen & Eriksen, 2019b)