Conventional use cases have long been advocated for business process design as well as software design [15]. Such designs typically begin with use cases specially written to describe business process interactions -- that is interactions between people or business units rather than people interacting with computer systems.
Essential use cases are technology free: they describe the abstract intentions and responsibilities in a use case, and so any given use case can be implemented in a range of interface technologies. This is practically useful: exactly the same essential use cases can be reused where one system has more than one interface (for example, as a desktop application for a call center, a web site, and an interactive voice-response system). This also means, however, that they can characterize designs using no technology -- that is, business processes -- as well as designs based on intensive computational support.
We have had some experience with applying essential use cases and system responsibilities to business processes design and have been successful: the same advantages of abstraction, dialogues, and common responsibilities accrue to business process design as to software design.