Participatory business process reengineering design: generating solutions

PAWS (Participatory Approach to Workgroup Systems) is an alternative approach to radical BPR (business process reengineering). Its main feature is to include participatory design by employees in the reengineering activity. It consists of a set of sequential stages. The third of these stages is intended to obtain the largest possible number of alternative solutions to the previously identified problems of the organization during the second stage of the PAWS method. Since the idea is to make employees participate, the consultant must be able to motivate workers to generate ideas. It will probably take several rounds of participatory work and individual sessions to achieve this generation. Mechanisms to motivate participation may be designed; many of them can be supported by a computer system. Three aspects of the work related to PAWS Stage 3 are presented. The first is a participatory model, making explicit the elements which motivate people to participate in a collaborative work environment. The second is the computer mechanisms designed to motivate participation. Finally, the third is a software prototype based on the proposed GPS (Generation oPtions Support) participatory model