Derek,
This is an area that is more of an art then science - why so many organizations fail the long term objectives. I would recommend getting a good consultant with solid experience. Here is a basic sketch that might get you started >> Intended outcomes expected off of the process evaluation as you might be able to time yourself and set appropriate expectations with your team and the stakeholders who might be involved in this effort. This is an area that people easily tend to get analysis paralysis. Set some basic rules- >> Understand context of this process within the larger organizational context (capability mapping, value streams, value chains) >> Process models (SIPOC models with capturing ownership, tooling, business dimensions/industry benchmarks). This effort must capture the feedback from process owners. Understanding levels of process decomposition is key here but stay at the business or functional level (some will call this level-3). Getting any deeper will return no dividends and leave you in the red. >> once you have the basic process model in place, understand the governance and management dimension of this process (performance, process metrics, financials/costs, APQC is a good place for ideas on KPI) >> process maturity assessment (do industry comparison on trends, current leading practices) From above as you go each level described above, you will begin to see the big question marks and further areas of investigation and evaluation. My big secret to a conclusive SMART punch is to be able to summarize the many pages of findings into a well articulated/useful a single pager or powerpoint slide for an executive, and if you cant do that then you have missed the big picture. Mansoor Awan

The main problem is there often seems to either be a proprietary methodology for evaluating the company readiness to start a process improvement project or even if it is public there are varying points of view. eg. Lean Six Sigma, Business Process Modeling, handling ad-hoc processes etc. It sounds like what you are asking is there one specific POV in BPM? I doubt it. My brief review of various BPM tools appears to indicate some similarities like BPMN as the UI but the outputs can be heterogeneous and non-operationally compatible with the executing engines. As Tom D pointed out they teach courses on this topic. So my best advice would be to hire an experienced practitioner to give you advice or even run the development of the business case and setting up "the project" for deciding what your trying to solve.

As basic as it seems, it would be great to demystify all the terminology; the difference between a discipline, a methodology, a business practice, a framework, enterprise process model, architecture etc. Is there a glossary of terms you can point me to?