Improving PA Business Processes through Modeling, Analysis, and Reengineering

Inter-organizational Business Processes (BPs) are a set of interrelated and sequential activities that are collaboratively executed by two or more Public Administrations (PAs) to achieve a common business objective related to the provisioning of a service to citizens and enterprises. Too often PAs BPs implemented by Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are derived from ``old style'' intra- and inter-administration BPs without taking in due account the potentiality and inherent characteristics of adopted technologies. In this paper we present our experience in modeling, analysis and reengineering of PA BPs in order to make them more effective and efficient. In particular we used semi-formal notations to model three complex BPs involving many different PA offices. We directly involved domain experts and civil servants in the various BP management activities. Thanks to the adopted notation so to have a clear specification of BPs structural characteristics, we identified several pitfalls and opportunities for improvements. As a result we were able both to derive ameliorated versions for the analysed BPs, and to identify common ``bad habits'' in the specification of BPs for the PA, permitting to define a general quality framework for BP analysis.