Process Discovery

Samuel Ady Sanjaya

14 x 27 = ?
 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
Process Dicovery Scope

Process Discovery

Process
Modeling
Discovery Task
• Defining the setting: team, scope
• Gathering information: brainstorming, previous documentation
• Conducting the modeling task: process modeling
• Assuring process model quality: ensuring performance and quality
Process Dicovery Roles
• Process Analyst
• gathering information about a given business process
• driving the modeling task under process owner
• familiar with process modeling languages such as BPMN
• Get the company/enterprise view, not only customer view

• Domain Expert
• who know a process or specific tasks within that process are
performed
• can be the process owner or operational manager
• Can consulted as partners, suppliers or customer
Customer View vs Bookstore View
Process Dicovery Challenge

• Fragmental Process Knowledge

• Process using many resource
• Business flow is not connected
• Think of process on a case level
• Too specific
• Solution: Reverse-enginerring
• Not familiar with business process modeling language
 01
Process
Discovery
Methods
Evidence-Based Discovery
• Document Analysis
• Previous model, internal policies, organization chart, employment
plans, quality certificate reports, glossaries, handbooks, user forms,
data & system models, work instruction, and work profile
• Observation
• Follow individual case/process
• Active (customer view), passive (operational/manager view)
• Automated Process Discovery
• Uses event logs, history of process execution by the company
Interview-Based Discovery
• Process analyst interviewing domain expert to know the process is
executed
• Backwards  from the outcome
• Forward  from the trigger
Workshop-Based Discovery

• in contrast to interviews, a workshop involves multiple process

participants at the same time
• Process analyst, domain expert and others stakeholder/participant on
business
• Typically 3-5 sessions
Strength and Weakness
Strength and
Weakness
 01
Process
Modeling
Methods
Step 1: Process Boundaries

• understanding the scope of the process

• Already done? Partially? Not yet?
• Identify participant: seller, customer, supplier
• Identify: event, outcome, possible choice
Step 2: Activity and Events

• Identify main process activities and intermeidiate event

• a later stage: relation
Step 3: Resource and Handoff

• Identify resource responsible for each activity

• Defined by pools and lanes
Step 3: Resource and Handoff
Step 4: Control Flow

• control flow relates to the questions of when and why activities and events
are executed
• identify order dependencies, decision points, concurrent execution of
activities and events, and potential rework and repetition
• XOR, OR, AND, Rework and Repetition
Step 5: Additional Elements

• exception handlers: internal/external exceptions, abortion, timeout, etc

• business objects: database, physical document, etc
 01
Process Quality
Assurance
Process Model Quality Aspect
Syntatic Quality and Verification

• conformance of a process model to the syntactic rules of the modeling

language used
• Syntactic rules: structural and behavioral rules
• Structural rules relate to the way the various model elements are
connected with each other
• Behavioral rules relate to the way a process model can be instantiated
Syntatic Quality and Verification

• Structural:
• Element level: Activities, Events, Gateways, Flows
• Model level: all flow nodes must be on a path from a start to an end
event
• Behavioral:
• Option to complete
• Proper completion
• No dead activities
Semantic Quality and Validation

• Semantic quality deals with 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
• No set of formal rules that can be used to easily check semantic quality
• Validate to participant: the company, supplier, seller, customer, etc
Pragmatic Quality and Certification

• Pragmatic quality relates to the usability of a process model

• User understand = good pragmatic, usually doing user acceptance test
• Certification is the activity of checking the pragmatic quality of a process
model by investigating its use
• Aspect:
• Understandibility
• Maintainability
• Learning
 Thanks!
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