Activities
- Head of the Business Process & Project Management research area
- Programme Head of various continuing education programmes
- Module Leader and lecturer in Business Process and Project Management
Profile
Achim Dannecker has worked at the Institute for Information Systems at the FHNW School of Business since 2009. He heads the Business Process & Project Management research area and several continuing education programmes. His areas of expertise include business process management, process automation and project management. He combines a business perspective with technical implementation and practice-oriented teaching and continuing education.
Achim Dannecker holds a Diplom degree in Computer Science and has more than 30 years of experience in project management. Before joining FHNW, he held leadership roles as a founder, CTO and managing director in medium-sized companies. His responsibilities included building and leading teams, managing IT and software projects, and developing technology-based business models.
In his teaching, continuing education and applied research, he explores how organisations can design, digitalise and automate their business processes. He focuses particularly on the integration of process orchestration, hyperautomation and artificial intelligence. Further areas of interest include the use of generative AI in project management and the design and evaluation of AI-supported teaching and learning.
Areas of expertise
Business process management and process modelling
Analysing business processes, modelling them with BPMN and systematically improving them. Aligning business requirements, organisational workflows and technical implementation.
Process automation and workflow management
Identifying opportunities for automation and designing end-to-end digital workflows. Reducing manual steps, repetitive tasks and breaks in the digital flow of information, while integrating human decision-making into automated processes.
Business process orchestration and hyperautomation
Connecting people, applications, data and AI services across processes. Combining workflow technologies, interfaces, robotic process automation and low-code or no-code approaches to suit the task at hand.
Artificial intelligence in business processes
Exploring and designing applications of generative AI, large language models and AI agents in business operations. This includes processing unstructured information, supporting knowledge-intensive tasks and assuring quality through appropriate review and approval steps.
Requirements engineering and integration
Eliciting and structuring business requirements and translating them into actionable solution concepts. Connecting processes, information and systems through interfaces while taking account of the needs of the people involved.
Introducing and improving automated processes
Embedding automation in organisations and assessing its effectiveness. Addressing responsibilities, traceability, exception handling and maintainability from the design stage onwards.
Project management and AI in project management
More than 30 years of experience in planning, managing and delivering projects, particularly in IT and software. A further focus is the use of generative AI to support project management tasks.
Leadership and business implementation
Leadership experience as a founder, CTO and managing director in medium-sized companies. Connecting technical development, team leadership and business decision-making.
Teaching
Achim Dannecker teaches business process management, process automation, project management and requirements engineering in undergraduate and continuing education programmes. His teaching combines subject fundamentals with practical assignments and the implementation of digital solutions.
His international teaching includes Business Process and Project Management at the Universitat de València in Spain and at Foreign Trade University (FTU) in Vietnam.
He leads and teaches on the following continuing education programmes:
Business Process Orchestration & Hyperautomation
IT-Projektmanagement
Business Requirements Engineering
Projektmanagement (klassisch, agil, hybrid)
Research
Achim Dannecker’s applied research focuses on the use of artificial intelligence in project management education and process orchestration.
AI in project management education
Achim Dannecker investigates how generative AI can support the design of teaching and learning in project management. This includes developing and assuring the quality of AI-generated learning and assessment tasks, as well as using them in certification preparation. His research examines the accuracy of the content, its educational value and its impact on learning outcomes.
AI in process orchestration for SMEs
A further research focus is the use of artificial intelligence to orchestrate business processes in small and medium-sized enterprises. The aim is to integrate AI reliably into business operations and make use of its potential for process automation.
As part of this work, Achim Dannecker contributes to the Innosuisse project “Dynamic Process Bridge – Reliable AI-enabled Process Orchestration for SMEs”, focusing on reliable AI-enabled process orchestration for SMEs. The project connects his research on business processes and automation with practical business requirements.