5.2 Discovery Methods

• Discovery methods are techniques for gathering information.

• Evidence based discovery

  • Consists of:
    1. Document analysis
       • There is documentation material available that can be related to an existing process
       • Good for getting familiar with the process, the environment and for creating hypotheses.
       • Issues:
         • Documentation is not available in a process oriented way.
         • The level of granularity of the material might not be appropriate.
         • Many documents are only partially trustworthy.
           • Outdated, do not show how it is in reality
    2. Observation
       • Directly follow the processing of individual cases.
       • The process analyst can either play:
         • Active role such as a customer.
           • Process analyst triggers the execution of a process.
           • Records the steps that are executed and the set of choices that are offered.
           • Provides a good understanding of the boundaries of the process and its essential milestones.
           • Process analyst will only see parts of the process that require customer interaction.
           • Back office processing remains a black box.
         • Passive role such as an observer.
           • Appropriate for understanding the entire process.
           • Requires access to the people and sights where the process is being worked on.
             • Requires approval from the managers and supervisors of the corresponding teams.
           • People can change their behavior under observation.
             • Work faster and more precise.
           • Displays how a process is conducted today in contrast to document analysis that usually captures the past.
    3. Automatic process discovery
       • Use of event logs stored by information systems
         • Individual case of the process
         • Specific activity of the process
         • Precise point in time
       • Log information can be misleading (ex. after a system crash)
       • Creates rather complex models.

• Interview based discovery

  • Labor intensive.
  • Interviews have to be conducted with various domain experts involved in the process. (due to everyone not having the same amount of knowledge)
    • Domain experts feel more comfortable with using a free-form interview than a structured one.
    • Information can be hold back when not specifically asked.
    • The interview usually describes an sunny-day scenario.
  • Expertise of the process analyst is required for understanding how individual cases are executed in order to create an meaningful process model.
  • Multiple interviews to check if the independent process model is correct.
    • Important to ask what happens when something goes wrong or unexpected cases are handled.
  • Strategies for scheduling interviews:
    • Upstream = Starting backwards from the result of the process.
      • Understanding what input needs to be available before a activity can start.
    • Downstream = Starting forwards from the beginning of the process.
      • Understanding which decisions are taken at a given stage.

• Workshop based discovery

  • Offers the opportunity to get a rich set of information on the business process.
  • Contributors get immediately used to the modeled process.
  • Involves more participants.
  • Uses 5x 0.5 day sessions.
    • Restricting speech time .
    • Everybody should express their perspective.
  • Lighter method: using sticky notes to represent task/event.
    • Purpose: Build a map of activities and their temporal ordering.
    • Tasks/events need to be the same level of detail.
  • Involves additional roles for facilitating the discussion and operating the modeling tool.
    • Facilitator = Takes care of organizing the verbal contributions of the participants.
    • Tool Operator = Directly entering the discussion results into the modeling tool.
    • Domain Experts = Participate in the discussion.
    • Process Analyst = Participate in the discussion.
    • Process owner = Participate in the discussion.

• Strengths and Limitations

• Objectivity
  • BEST: Evidence based
    • Existing documents, logs and observation provide unbiased account of how the process works.
  • Interview en workshop based
    • Rely on descriptions and interpretations of domain experts who are involved.
    • Risk that those persons may have perceptions and ideas of how the process operates, may not be correct.
    • Domain experts might opportunistically hide relevant information about the process because of fear for loss of power, influence or position in a political environment.
• Richness
  • BEST: Interview and workshop based
    • Domain experts are a good source to clarify reasons and objectives for why a process is setup as it is.
    • Provides history of the process and the surrounding organization.
    • Provides information about the personal agenda of the different stakeholders.
  • Evidence based
    • Might show issues or raise questions, but do not provide an answer.
    • Provides insight into strategic considerations when documented in white papers.
    • Does not tell anything about the personal agenda of the different stakeholders.
• Time consumption
  • BEST: Evidence based
    • Can be easily made available to a process analyst.
    • Automatic Process Discovery costs a lot of time extracting, reformatting, and filtering of event logs.
    • Passive observation requires coordination and approval time.
  • Interview and workshop based
    • Conducting interviews and workshops is time consuming.
    • Interviews can take many iterations
    • Difficult to schedule workshops with various domain experts on short notice.

• Immediacy of feedback

  • BEST: Workshop based
    • Inconsistent perceptions can be resolved directly
  • Interview based
    • Offer opportunity to ask questions
    • Interviews take many iterations to come to the right model.
  • Evidence based
    • Questions can only be answered by talking to a domain expert.

• Best to use an mixture of the discovery methods.