The IAM professional and academic literature contains multiple and diverse business process models of IAM (e.g. Al-Khouri, 2011 , Bertino and Takahashi, 2010 , McMillan, 2013 , Osmanoglu et al., 2013, Ravindran, 2013, Witty et al., 2003). Between authors, the terms used to designate processes varies, the level of abstraction used to model processes varies and the scope of processes varies. This is a natural consequence of the fact that process modelling is more an art than a science (https://open-measure.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/QUOT/pages/62455934). Even though we observe a lot of commonalities between authors on core and well established processes (e.g. the “provisioning process”), this diversity makes it a challenge to establish a convincing map of IAM processes.

Polyvyanyy et al., 2014 observes that process models may pursue varying objectives (e.g.: communicate a message, give instructions, facilitate analysis), serve different stakeholders (e.g.: top management, process workers) and be modeled at distinct abstraction levels with varying abstraction criteria.

The IAM Process Map represent one possible map of IAM processes.

This map does not prescribe one particular organizational structure; that is, IAM process components may be located in or spread among different organizational units.

This map privileges comprehensiveness over consistency; sometimes at the cost of process overlaps. Organizations may of course choose to not implement some processes or to structure them differently.

The objective of this map is to help IAM consultants or managers to check the comprehensiveness of an organization’s existing IAM process model, to design a target IAM process model and to develop an IAM transformation roadmap.

The method used to establish this map is iterative between phases of academic and industry literature reviews on one side, and feedbacks from the community of IAM professionals on the other.

Open

The map focus is to enable the development of an IAM Performance Measurement System (PMS). In consequence, care is given to assure coverage of IAM value propositions while modeling processes.