Business process management is the process of designing and maintaining an environment in which individuals, working together in groups, efficiently accomplish selected aims. This basic definition needs to be expanded as managers carry out the managerial functions of planning, organizing, staffing, leading and controlling. Management applies to any kind of organization. It applies to managers at all organizational levels. The aim of all managers is to create a surplus. Managing is concerned with productivity implying effectiveness and efficiency.

Many scholars and managers have found that the analysis of business process management is facilitated by a useful and clear organization of knowledge. In studying management, it is helpful to break it down into five managerial functions involving planning, organizing, staffing, leading and controlling. The knowledge that underlies those functions is organized around these five functions.

Managers are charged with the responsibility of taking actions that will make it possible for individuals to make their best contributions to group objectives. Management applies to small and large organizations, to profit and not-for-profit enterprises, to manufacturing as well as service industries. The term enterprise refers to businesses, government agencies, hospitals, universities and other organizations. In business process management, all managers carry out managerial functions. However, the time spent for each function may differ. Top-level managers spend more time on planning and organizing than do lower level managers. Leading, on the other hand, takes a great deal of time for first-line supervisors. The difference in the amount of time spent on controlling varies only slightly for managers at various levels.

Business process management, like all other practices such as medicine, engineering or baseball, is an art. It is know-how. It is doing things in light of the realities of a situation. Yet managers can work better by using organized knowledge about management. It is this knowledge that constitutes a science. Thus, managing as practice is an art; the organized knowledge underlying the practice may be referred to as a science.