This content associated with the first topic will take you about 50 minutes of video watching plus 15 minutes of reading.

The following video is an introductive video to the video series published by Jan Mendling who is the co-author of the textbook of this course. This video introduces the book that is used as a textbook in this course. Other videos could be found on his Youtube channel or here or in other parts of this interactive syllabus.

The following video will help you understand what Business Process Management (BPM). This understanding is crucial for the whole semester as the context of BPM is needed for understanding Business Process Analysis (BPA).

BPM can be explained also from the managerial point of view. The following article in CIO magazine explains BPM from the point of view of a Chief Information Officer (CIO). If you are curious, how BPM can be implemented, you can go through the links in the article to find out more.

A more thorough and academic explanation of the nature of BPM can be seen in the following lecture video. The stress in this video is on the importance of IT for BPM. Pay attention especially to the example from the banking sector and on cited sources (supplementary reading: Michael Hammer: Reengineering Work: Don't Automate, Obliterate).

To fully understand the nature of BPM, you should know something about its origins. In this video, Jan Mendling explains the main roots of BPM.

The central term and concept of BPM and BPA is a business process. Characteristics and definition of a business process are outlined in the next video.

You can conclude the fist topic with a video that will introduce what we will cover in the next weeks. BPM is a cyclical process that can be described by the BPM Life-cycle.

In the class this week, we will discuss and deepen several important concepts and ideas that are in the sources you went through.