Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the key critical factors that affect the success of Business Process Management (BPM) implementations, considering the literature and experts practical experience. Design/methodology/approach A systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted, and 25 articles from 12 different countries were selected and analyzed. In addition, through a survey, 113 BPM experts were consulted in order to assist in the evaluation of critical success factors (CSFs) initially identified in the bibliography. Findings All CSFs identified in the literature were accepted as real critical factors according to the tacit knowledge of the experts. Thus, the factors identified in the literature and approved to a large extent by the experts can serve as a basis for organizations and professionals who want to implement BPM to know of their existence, to relate to them, to control them and thus to potentiate the success of the implementation. Originality/value The construction of the theoretical framework based on SLR on BPM is a contribution to the bibliographic database. Another contribution is the identification and synthesis of the CSFs most cited by different authors from 12 different countries and its analysis by professionals on BPM.