Adopting the Process View

Abstract

This case study focuses on the operation of an adoption agency in the UK, illustrating the issues involved in a small, not-for-profit organization seeking to respond to the pressures to streamline and automate its routines and procedures. It illustrates the limitations of inadequately planned IT-centered initiatives, and how such strategies can be redeemed by process-oriented methods specifically those derived from a combined BPR and soft systems approach. It also exemplifies the critical importance of organizational issues and the constraints they impose on effective implementation of IT. The methods involved demonstrate the strengths and limitations of a business process orientation, and show how BPR can be applied to an organization where professionals, employees and volunteers work together and coordinate their activities. The overall conclusions to the case point to ways in which the organizations processes can be improved and aligned; placing it in a far better position to take advantage of IT and associated technologies, both within the organization and with regard to its main sources of support and collaboration. As such it is a case study in organizational preparedness for IT rather than a straightforward study of an IT application.