ICT521 Business Process
Management
Lecture 5
Process discovery
Reference: Dumas, M., Mendling, J., La Rosa, M., Reijers, H. A.
Fundamentals of Business Process Management. Germany: Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Compiled by : Dr. Aruni Niroshika
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Lecture-5 Objectives
What is Process Discovery?
The Setting of Process Discovery
◦ Process Analyst Versus Domain Expert
◦ Three Process Discovery Challenges
Discovery Methods
◦ Evidence-Based Discovery
◦ Interview-Based Discovery
◦ Workshop-Based Discovery
◦ Strengths and Limitations
Process Modeling Method
Process Model Quality Assurance
◦ Syntactic quality: Verification
◦ Semantic quality: validation
◦ Pragmatic Quality: Certification
◦ Modeling Guidelines and Conventions
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What is Process Discovery?
Process discovery is defined as the act of gathering
information about an existing process and organizing it in
terms of an as-is process model.
This definition emphasizes gathering and organizing
information.
Accordingly, process discovery is a much broader activity
than modeling a process.
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The Setting of Process
Discovery
(1 of 4)
Four phases of process discovery:
Defining the setting: This phase is dedicated to assembling a
team in a company that will be responsible for working on the
process.
Gathering information: This phase is concerned with building an
understanding of the process. Different discovery methods can be
used to acquire information on a process.
Conducting the modeling task: This phase deals with organizing
the creation of the process model. The modeling method gives
guidance for mapping out the process in a systematic way.
Assuring process model quality: This phase aims to guarantee
that the resulting process models meet different quality criteria.
This phase is important for establishing trust in the process
model.
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The Setting of Process
Discovery
(2 of 4)
Typically, one or several process analysts are responsible
for driving the modeling and analysis of a business process.
Often, the process analyst is not familiar with all details of
the business process.
The domain experts have to cover the relevant
perspectives on the process.
Therefore, different domain experts should be involved. A
domain expert is any individual who has intimate
knowledge about how a process or activity is performed.
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The Setting of Process
Discovery
(3 of 4)
Process Analyst Versus Domain Expert:
The process analyst is the one who has profound knowledge
of business process modeling techniques. A process analyst
is familiar with languages like BPMN and skilled in organizing
information in terms of a process diagram. However, process
analysts have typically a limited understanding of the
concrete process that is supposed to be modeled.
Domain experts have detailed knowledge of the operation of
the considered business process. They have a clear
understanding of what happens within the boundaries of the
process, which participants are involved, which input is
required, and which output is generated.
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The Setting of Process
Discovery
(4 of 4)
Three Process Discovery Challenges:
Fragmented process knowledge: Having received input from all relevant
domain experts, the process analyst has to make proposals for resolving
inconsistencies, which again requires feedback and eventually approval
of the domain experts.
Thinking in cases: Domain experts will find it easy to describe the
activities they conducted for one specific case, but they might have
problems responding to general questions about how a process works in
the general way.
Lack of familiarity with process modeling languages: The domain experts
are often not trained to create process models themselves, but also that
they are not trained to read process models that others have created.
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Discovery Methods (1 of 5)
Evidence-Based Discovery :
Document analysis: Usually documentation material
available that can be related to an existing process.
Observation: In order to get an understanding of how a
process works. The process analyst can either play the
active role of a customer of a process or the passive role of
an observer.
Automatic process discovery: Makes use of event logs that
are stored by these information systems.
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Discovery Methods (2 of 5)
Interview-Based Discovery :
Interview-based discovery refers to methods that build on
interviewing domain experts about how a process is
executed.
Process knowledge is typically fragmented due to
specialization and division of labor. For this reason,
interviews have to be conducted with various domain
experts involved in the process.
Approaches:
◦ forward vs backward
◦ structured vs unstructured
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Discovery Methods (3 of 5)
Workshop-Based Discovery:
Gather all key stakeholders together
Participants interact to create shared understanding
Typically one process analyst (facilitator), multiple domain
experts, process owner may also attend
May be software-supported – a model is directly created
during the workshop (typically a separate role – tool
operator)
Model is used as a reference point for discussions •
Alternative: brown-paper workshops
Usually 3 to 5 half-day sessions
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Discovery Methods (3 of 5)
Strengths and Limitations:
The different methods of process discovery have strengths
and limitations.
These can be discussed in terms of:
Objectivity
Richness
Time consumption
Immediacy of feedback
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Discovery Methods (5 of
5)
Strengths and Limitations:
Table. 5.1 Relative strengths and limitations of process discovery methods
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Process Modeling Method (1 of
8)
Modeling a process in the discovery phase is a complex
task.
One way to do so is to work in five stages, as follows:
1. Identify the process boundaries
2. Identify activities and events
3. Identify resources and their handovers
4. Identify the control flow
5. Identify additional elements
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Process Modeling Method (2 of
8)
1. Identify the process boundaries:
The identification of the process boundaries is essential for
understanding the scope of the process.
Need to identify the events that trigger our processes and
those that identify the possible process outcomes.
Example: The order fulfillment process triggered by the
receipt of a purchase order from the customer, and
completes with the fulfillment of the order as an outcome.
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Process Modeling Method (3 of
8)
2. Identify the activities and events:
Identify the main activities of the process.
The domain experts will clearly be able to state what they
are doing even if they are not aware of working as part of
an overarching business process.
Also documents might explicitly mention the activities.
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Process Modeling Method (4 of
8)
2. Identify the activities and events:
Fig. 5.1 The main activities and events of the order fulfillment process
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Process Modeling Method (5 of
8)
3. Identify the resources and their handovers :
Once the main activities and events are identified, turn to
the question of who is responsible for them?
This information provides the basis for the definition of
pools and lanes, and the assignment of activities and
events to one of these pools and lanes.
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Process Modeling Method (6 of
8)
3. Identify the resources and their handovers :
Fig. 5.2 The activities and events of the order fulfillment process
assigned to pools and lanes
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Process Modeling Method (7 of
8)
4. Identify the control flow:
The control flow relates to the questions of when and why
activities and events are executed.
Need to identify order dependencies, decision points,
concurrent execution of activities and events and potential
reword and repetition.
Decision points require the addition of (X)OR-splits, and
relevant conditions on the alternative sequence flows.
Rework and repetition can be modeled with loop structures.
Concurrent activities that can be executed independently
from each other are linked to AND gateways.
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Process Modeling Method (8 of
8)
5. Identify additional elements:
Extend the model by capturing the involved artifacts and
exception handlers.
For the artifacts: adding data objects, data stores and their
relations to activities and events via data associations.
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Process Model Quality
Assurance (1 of 6)
Process discovery involves at least a process analyst and
various domain experts. Since gathering information and
organizing it in a process model is often done in a
sequential way, and not simultaneously, there is a need for
various steps of quality assurance.
Verification: used to achieve syntactic quality
Validation: provides semantic quality
Certification: ensures pragmatic quality
Modeling guidelines and conventions: ensure a good quality
right from the start
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Process Model Quality Assurance
(2 of 6)
Fig. 5.3 Quality aspects and quality assurance activities
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Process Model Quality Assurance
(3 of 6)
1. Syntactic quality: Verification
Syntactic quality relates to the conformance of a process
model to the syntactic rules of the modeling language
used.
Two types of syntactic rules: structural rules and behavioral
rules.
A model is of high syntactic quality if it is syntactically
correct: Structurally correct + Behaviorally correct
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Process Model Quality Assurance
(4 of 6)
2. Semantic quality: validation
Semantic quality relates to the adherence of a process
model to its real-world process.
Validation is the activity of checking the semantic quality of
a model by comparing it with its real-world business
process.
A model is of high semantic quality if it is semantically
correct: Valid (all model instances are correct and relevant)
+ Complete (all possible process instances are covered)
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Process Model Quality Assurance
(5 of 6)
3. Pragmatic Quality: Certification
Pragmatic quality relates to the usability of a process model
Challenge = anticipate the particular usage of the model
Certification is the activity of checking the pragmatic
quality of a process model by investigating its use
There are several aspects of usability:
◦ Understandability: how easy it is to read and comprehend the model
◦ Maintainability: how easy it is to apply changes
◦ Learning: how good a model reveals how its corresponding process
works in reality
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Process Model Quality Assurance
(6 of 6)
4. Modeling Guidelines and Conventions
Modeling guidelines and conventions are an important tool
for safeguarding model consistency and integrity for bigger
modeling initiatives with several people involved.
Seven Process Modeling Guidelines (7PMG):
◦ G1: Use as few elements in the model as possible.
◦ G2: Minimize the routing paths per element.
◦ G3: Use one start and one end event.
◦ G4: Model as structured as possible.
◦ G5: Avoid OR-gateways
◦ G6: Use verb-object activity labels.
◦ G7: Decompose a model with more than 30 elements.
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