The social and human aspects of Business Process Management (BPM) refer to the consideration of people within the framework of BPM practices. This encompasses how individuals interact with each other within business processes, how they are affected by those processes, and how their behavior and social interactions influence the design, execution, management, and improvement of business processes as well as the supporting information and software systems.
Integrating human expertise with AI-based software is highly impacting Business Process Management (BPM). AI assistants like ChatGPT and Claude are fundamentally altering interactions within business processes. In its 2026 edition, BPMS2 workshop explores AI assistants' impact on process design, execution, and human collaboration, considering broader organizational and social implications. It also examines how organizations can leverage AI to enhance processes while upholding human-centric values and social dynamics, addressing both technological capabilities and organizational implications.
At its core, BPM involves people. While processes can be automated, it's essential to design them with the users in mind, ensuring they are intuitive, efficient, and improve the work experience. This might involve ergonomic considerations, user experience design, and the reduction of cognitive load. AI-based assistants like ChatGPT and Alexa offer intuitive conversational interfaces, simplifying human interaction with business processes. The declarative interface of these assistants allows users to state outcomes rather than processes, placing the complexity of business process execution on AI, not the user. AI-based assistants could consolidate multiple services and information sources to fulfill diverse user requests efficiently. They could also personalize interactions and adapt to user preferences, enhancing satisfaction and engagement.
Business processes require collaboration, coordination, and communication between stakeholders. Understanding these interactions facilitates the design of processes that enhance teamwork, information exchange, and decision-making. Platforms, especially social ones, play a key role by fostering environments for value creation. They connect participants flexibly, facilitating information and innovation flow across the network, leading to organic, bottom-up business process definitions, unlike rigid, top-down approaches.
Social production on these platforms allows collective content creation and problem-solving, leveraging diverse strengths and insights of a broad user base. It empowers individuals in process design, resulting in more robust and accepted processes. The egalitarian nature of social platforms democratizes decision-making, with decisions emerging from the collective rather than a central authority, potentially leading to more equitable and effective outcomes.
Incorporating these interactions opens new avenues for process design, bringing a more adaptable and innovative approach to BPM. It also signifies a shift in BPM towards more participatory, inclusive, and collaborative roles. This evolution reflects a broader trend in organizational design, making processes more human-centric and aligned with social business principles.
BPM now revolves around human-AI collaboration, with AI assistants like ChatGPT and Claude providing intuitive conversational interfaces that streamline process interaction and execution. These assistants allow declarative process definition, consolidate services and information sources, and offer personalized interactions. Their natural language interfaces reduce cognitive load and enable democratic process design through collective input and refinement.
The evolution toward agentic AI introduces new dimensions to BPM through autonomous AI agents capable of goal-directed behavior and inter-agent coordination. Unlike traditional AI assistants that respond to individual user requests, agentic AI systems can orchestrate complex, multi-step business processes across platform boundaries through standardized protocols like Anthropic's Model Context Protocol (MCP) and Google's Agent-to-Agent (A2A) framework. Understanding the interplay between human expertise, AI agency, and platform network effects becomes essential for designing BPM systems that are both technically sophisticated and organizationally sustainable.
Incorporating AI assistants into BPM necessitates cultural and organizational adaptations, including evolving leadership approaches to support human-AI teams, developing new skills for effective assistant interaction, managing change for assistant adoption and integration, creating balanced incentive systems recognizing both human and AI contributions, and establishing effective knowledge sharing between human experts and AI systems.
AI-enabled BPM must address ethical considerations, including fair and transparent process automation decisions, inclusive design considering diverse user needs and capabilities, and an appropriate balance of human agency and AI assistance. Privacy and data protection across platform boundaries and equitable access to AI assistance and benefits are also crucial concerns.
The list of topics of interest includes, but is not limited to:
- Human-Centric BPM Design: Exploring ergonomic considerations, user experience, and cognitive load reduction in process automation / Using socio-technical perspective for designing processes and systems that connect people / Ensuring that a support system connects, not divides, people / Developing optimal interplay between people and technology to promote creativity and connectivity
- AI in BPM: Exploring the role of AI-based assistants in simplifying interactions and personalizing user experience within BPM / identifying Human-AI collaboration metrics / Natural language process inter-faces
- Agentic AI and Multi-Agent Systems: Autonomous agents in process orchestration / Agent coordination protocols and standards (MCP, A2A) / Organizational readiness assessment for agentic AI / Multi-platform ecosystem implications
- Social Interactions in BPM: Analyzing how social dynamics influence process design for improved teamwork and decision-making.
- Platform-Facilitated Collaboration: Exploring the impacts of social platforms on creating flexible, dynamic networks for BPM.
- Social Production and Process Design: Investigating collective content creation and bottom-up process definition through participatory platforms / Knowledge sharing in process design
- Democratic Process Management: The effects of egalitarian decision-making in BPM facilitated by social platforms.
- Organizational Dynamics: Change management strategies / Cultural transformation patterns / Team coordination frameworks
- Leadership and Engagement: The role of leadership in fostering a culture supportive of BPM and continuous improvement in process innovation
- Employee Motivation in BPM: How incentive and reward systems can align with BPM to improve job satisfaction and performance.
- Skills Development in BPM: Addressing the evolving training and development needs within BPM practice.
- Ethics and Inclusion in BPM: Designing inclusive BPM practices that cater to diverse workforces and customer bases / Ensuring fairness, transparency, and non-discrimination in BPM / Algorithmic fairness / Cultural sensitivity in global processes