Structural Process Analysis For Governance Diagnosis: Evidence From Suas Payments

Public governance diagnostics frequently emphasize institutional maturity, compliance mechanisms, and digital capabilities, while underexploring the structural characteristics of operational processes. This study investigates how structural process mapping can support governance-oriented diagnostic assessment in public sector contexts. Adopting a qualitative embedded case study design, we analyze the Process of Payment for the Execution of Unified Social Assistance System (SUAS) within the Brazilian federal administration. The process was elicited through participatory workshops and validated with institutional managers, followed by BPMN-based modeling and structural analysis. Findings reveal that actor multiplicity, layered validation mechanisms, and branching intensity significantly shape governance performance by influencing coordination density, accountability controls, and administrative burden. The study demonstrates that process architecture constitutes a critical analytical layer for governance diagnosis, complementing traditional maturity and compliance-based assessments. The results contribute theoretically by integrating BPM and public governance perspectives, methodologically by proposing a workshop-based structural diagnostic approach, and practically by offering actionable insights for improving governance performance in complex public-sector workflows.