Human processes are business processes that generate a business outcome that is heavily dependent on interactions between people. These are also called “tacit interactions� by economists, which is an attempt to differentiate between routine transactions and interactions that rely heavily on judgment and context. These “tacit interactions� are the most prevalent kind of business processes in which knowledge workers take part.

Most of the work involved in executing these human processes is with the communication, coordination and management aspects of the process. Currently, most human processes in business are executed using standard productivity tools (e.g. Microsoft Office), email (e.g. Microsoft Outlook) and meetings.

Human processes have a number of defining characteristics:

1. Unstructured – there is a standard framework for the process and how to achieve the intended result, but each case is handled separately and requires human understanding (for both decisions and flow) as part of the process. There is not enough standardization between instances of the process that allows for a formal, complete and rigorous description of the process end-to-end.
2. Dynamic – the flow of the process changes on a case by case basis, based on available information and human decisions. A flow can also change while the process is being executed based on new information, or a changing environment.
3. Interdependent – the activities of the humans in the process are interdependent and cannot be done completely in parallel.
4. Extended – require more than a single interaction between humans to be completed.
5. Borderless – Human processes can involve anyone that is relevant – be it within or outside the group/team/project or even organizational borders.

What is Human Process Management (HPM)?

Human process management is an attempt to bring order, tracking and management to human processes in organizations. Managing human processes allows for codification and optimization of these processes (e.g. KPIs, best practices), lowers email overload, and ensures follow up to completion of the process.

Most human processes are executed using standard office technology (e.g. email, documents) but are not managed by the technology, but rather through standard management techniques – e.g. process descriptions, benchmarks, measurements, follow-up, and reminders – with no, or minimal, system support. Key requirements in managing human processes are to provide a best practice for the process that is flexible and can be easily modified by the people executing the process, the ability to know the status of the process at anytime and the ability to retrieve historical information about process execution and outcomes.

What is a Human Process Management System (HPMS)?

A Human Process Management System is a tool to bring order, tracking and management to unstructured, dynamic, interdependent and extended processes that are currently executed via email and meetings. It must support the way people actually do their work, use their problem solving abilities and make decisions that drive the process forward. It must be easy to use both for the user “defining� the process, and by the users executing the process. An HPMS should support a wide variety of different types of human process use cases

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