BPM and Social Software

International audienceSocial software is software that supports the interaction of human beings and production of artifacts by combining the input from independent contributors without predetermining they way how to do this. Social software enhances business processes by improving the exchange of knowledge and information, to speed up decisions, etc. However, social software can also be used to overcome deficiencies of classic BPM approaches. During the design phase of the BPM life-cycle, social software better integrates the needs of all stakeholders in a more complete way. Using the aggregation mechanisms of social software, constraints for implementation and deployment are captured in finer detail. The aggregation and fusioning of knowledge to cope with incidents is also facilitated by social software. During the evaluation and improve phase, social software highly enhances the collection of suggestions for improvements because each collection can be instantly evaluated by all stakeholders