This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games.

– William S. Burroughs

Jim Reardan offers us a list of 45 reasons to model business processes. He equates process modeling with process inspection and argues:

The discipline of inspection is what enables one to deliberately focus in on something. Often, that something has been in front of us, and taken for granted, day-in and day-out. But as soon as we stop, focus, and examine it, we’re able to see things about the object that we’ve never seen before.

I think it’s an interesting list. And although many of the mentioned reasons are overlapping, it does give an idea of the many motivations that drive organizations to map out their processes.

Now, reasons to model a business process are also reasons to mine a business process. After all, process mining is simply a faster and more accurate way of getting to the inspection step.

So, what would be my top 5 reasons to do process mining? Off the top of my head I chose the following from Reardan’s list:

1. Improve Understanding
2. Spot Bottlenecks
3. Improve Accountability
4. Support Compliance
5. Provide Specifications for Automated Workflow

Anyone who thinks that there are important reasons missing in the list of 45? What would be your top five?

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

– Henry David Thoreau

Since I came to Eindhoven I wanted to get into the evoluon, a former science museum in the shape of a flying saucer.

One of the reasons that I wanted to get inside is the following 12 min evoluon movie from 1969 (when it was still a museum). I just love the technology enthusiasm that it transports from that era.

Today, it is not open to the public anymore. But last weekend, I finally got the chance to see it from the inside during an information day of the Dutch Chamber of Commerce. So, what was it like? Well, it is just a conference center. But a nice one.

Our website just got a complete makeover! We are quite proud of the result, most of all because we think that that the new site much better reflects what we want to do.

See what you think: www.fluxicon.com. And let us know if you have anything to say about it! Feedback is always appreciated.

Because we are still busy with the development of our product, we created a survey with 6 brief questions to get a better feel for what people actually need. It would be great if you could spare 2 minutes to give us your answers here.

We can’t give you any incentive other than: It’s really quick, can be done anonymously, and you can help to make the world a better place

Unfortunately I cannot seem to find the original source of this gem, it’s all over the web. I think I can see the reason for that, though — it’s just so true.

In his latest BPTrends article, Paul Harmon discusses why not more Business Process Management Systems (BPMSs) are sold today: The main stumbling point is that BPMS tools are not for organizations that aren’t knowledgeable (yet) about their company’s business processes.

He uses the CMM stair step model to illustrate where most organizations are today (level 2 and 3), and where they need sophisticated BPMS software to manage their processes (level 4).

Talking about organizations on level 2 and 3, he remarks:

They do not, at this stage, need tools to automate the management of their processes – they don’t understand them well enough to need to automate their management.

He suggests that BPMS vendors need to invest in moving companies from Level 2 to Level 4 by helping them to model, monitor and manage their processes before they can expect to see large scale roll-out of sophisticated runtime process management tools.

While he does not make the connection in that article (see his spotlight on Business Intelligence and Mining Techniques instead), it is obvious that process mining can help organizations to map out their processes much faster and more reliably. Using process mining is the perfect starting point to understand how your process flows look like in the first place. So, there are a lot of level 2 and level 3 organizations who can benefit from this technology to get a head start in moving up on the process maturity ladder.

Quite recently, the IEEE has established a task force on process mining. The stated goal of this task force is:

To promote the research, development, education and understanding of process mining

Besides promoting research in process mining, the task force also aims to raise awareness of process mining technology with industry, developers, and end users. Another explicitly stated goal of the task force is to promote interoperability by guiding the standardization of event log formats.

The member list of the task force reads like a who-is-who of the greater process mining community, including outstanding researchers, pioneering end users, and representatives of the most prolific and visionary BI/ BPI vendors. We here at Fluxicon feel honored to have been called to join the task force. In our opinion, the importance of this effort cannot be understated. It has the potential to put process mining on the map of many end users, and to significantly boost progress and adoption.

We are glad to back and support the task force in safeguarding the interest of end users and the community!

Some links for further reading:

• IEEE Task Force on Process Mining
• Process Mining research Wiki
• Process Mining group on LinkedIn
• …and of course, our website.

So simple but true. Drawing by Jessica Hagy. (via FlowingData)

On 22 September, I successfully defended my doctoral thesis “Process Mining in Flexible Environments”. If you are interested in a one-hour dissection of my work during the last four years, or would like to see how a defense ceremony is conducted in the Netherlands, here is a video recording.

(As Wil noted, it is also one of the rare opportunities to see me wearing a suit.)

I cannot thank enough all those many people that helped me get there: My supervisors Wil van der Aalst and Ton Weijters, the members of my doctoral committee (Diogo Ferreira, Mathias Weske, Manfred Reichert, Walter Daelemans, and Jack van Wijk), all my colleagues, everyone who took the time to attend, and all of you supporting me with encouraging and kind words!

Our mission here at Fluxicon is to bring process mining technology to a wider, professional audience, which is a logical continuation of my work during my PhD. So, if you are intrigued how process mining can help you and your organization, by all means, don’t hesitate to get in touch!

The manuscript of my thesis will be made available in electronic form very soon. So for those of you who want to take an even closer look at my work, watch this space.