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Illustration for: How can organizations accurately measure and manage process complexity across different operational levels?

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How can organizations accurately measure and manage process complexity across different operational levels?

The Many Faces of Process Complexity
Franzoi, Grisold, Berente, et al. · Journal of Information Technology · 2026

Operations & Supply Chain

What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive Review current digital transformation metrics to ensure your IT portfolio distinguishes between structural complicatedness (number of workflow steps) and emergent complexity (unpredictable user workarounds), preventing initiatives from inadvertently shifting complexity to the end-user.
  • IT Manager Audit your team's workflow automation tools by checking if your current process mining and complexity metrics operate at the single-action level or the sequence level, ensuring you measure actual operational friction rather than just step counts.
  • Business Strategist Evaluate a major operational process using the study's multi-level trade-off lens to verify that enforcing a standardized sequence across business units does not inadvertently force employees to use complex, unrecorded manual workarounds.
  • Researcher Adopt the unified three-tier mathematical notation (action, sequence, process primitives) from the study's integrative framework to standardize your upcoming empirical operationalization of process complexity across disciplinary boundaries.
  • Policymaker Examine current regulatory compliance reporting requirements to ensure that mandated standardization guidelines do not inadvertently penalize adaptive, emergent workflows by measuring them solely against rigid, linear process metrics.