Strategies for Teaching Business Process Management

Chosen theme: Strategies for Teaching Business Process Management. Welcome to a space for educators, trainers, and learning leaders who want to make processes feel alive, useful, and memorable. Explore classroom-tested tactics, vivid stories, and practical tools that help students think and act like process professionals.

Clarifying Learning Outcomes for BPM Courses

Map verbs from Bloom’s taxonomy to BPM capabilities like modeling, analysis, redesign, governance, and measurement. Publish target verbs up front and invite students to propose authentic demonstrations of mastery that move beyond recall into analysis, synthesis, and reflective judgment.

The Paper Airplane Factory

Give teams materials, variable demand, and strict quality rules. Compare push versus pull, capture throughput and work-in-process, and visualize bottlenecks. Debrief on roles, sequencing, and waste. Post your best tweaks to this exercise and we will spotlight creative adaptations.

Gemba Walks on Campus

Lead observational “gemba” walks to the library checkout or advising desk. Students map steps, waiting times, error points, and service recovery moments. They propose low-cost improvements, then test quick changes. Invite readers to suggest campus processes ripe for a respectful gemba visit.

Teaching Modeling Languages and Tools Without Overwhelm

Begin with four core elements—start, task, gateway, end—and a tiny domain like ordering pizza. Run timed modeling rounds, progressively adding events, pools, and lanes. Debrief with token flow demos. Share your favorite minimalist palette that accelerates early confidence.

Teaching Modeling Languages and Tools Without Overwhelm

Teach semantics before software: events trigger change, gateways encode decisions, lanes clarify accountability, and levels of abstraction guide scope. Once principles stick, any tool feels familiar. Recommend a platform that supports learning without feature fatigue or confusing interface noise.

Teaching Modeling Languages and Tools Without Overwhelm

Use structured critiques where students validate token flow, mark ambiguity, and spot missing controls. Provide checklists and require two iterations. Celebrate clarity and readability. If you have a peer-review rubric that works, share it so others can adopt and adapt.

Score diagrams on correctness, readability, and inclusion of controls such as exceptions, risks, and handoffs. Provide annotated exemplars that show acceptable and exemplary levels. Invite students to self-assess before submission and share how those reflections changed their drafts.

Assessment and Feedback that Drive Improvement

Real-World Integration: Cases, Partners, and Data

Co-create assignments with partners who approve sanitized process maps and data. Define boundaries, timelines, and deliverables early. Students gain authentic constraints and stakeholders gain thoughtful recommendations. Contribute your confidentiality checklist to strengthen responsible, sustainable academic–industry relationships.

Real-World Integration: Cases, Partners, and Data

Invite practitioners to critique models live, narrate real decision points, and discuss failed improvements. Prep them with learning outcomes and a facilitation guide. Ask readers to recommend guest questions that elicit stories, not slide decks, for richer classroom insight.

Inclusive, Ethical, and Global Perspectives in BPM

Provide diagrams with alt text, high contrast, and screen-reader friendly exports. Invite multiple representations—textual narratives, models, and storyboards—to include diverse strengths. Share an accessibility tip you’ve used so we can compile a practical checklist for colleagues.