If you don’t have the time to watch the full Process Mining Café about the Explorative Analysis right now, watch this 3-minute video about how to create a baseline in Disco.
Without the right baseline you will get incorrect results. In this short video, we show you how to create a good baseline in Disco.
Yes, you should define your process mining analysis questions early in the project (even before you start extracting your data). And there are many different questions that can be answered by process mining.
However, in last week’s Process Mining Café, we did not focus on answering these analysis questions. Not yet. Because before you can go into the Targeted Analysis (Step No. 10 in the process mining project methodology below), you need to discover the process. You need to understand how the data relates to the process that you know. And you need to explore where you can best break up the data set in the right way to get ready for your analysis. This step is called Explorative Analysis (Step No. 9 in the process mining project methodology below).
The Explorative Analysis step differs for every process and data set. But there are some common steps that you can take. As a guideline, we give you seven questions that you can ask yourself:
You start by looking around: Does the process resemble your expectations?
Where does the process start and end?
Do you have one or more processes?
Is there a little or a lot of variation?
Are the activities on the right level?
Do the cases have the right scope?
Have you created the right baseline?
To give you an experience of what exactly such an Explorative Analysis looks like, Rudi and Anne take on the loan application process of the BPIC 2016 dataset. You can even join our exploration by downloading the data set and following along with us!
Watch the recording here if you weren’t at the live broadcast or want to re-watch the café. Contact us anytime at cafe@fluxicon.com if you have questions or suggestions about the café!
Have you seen that the Process Mining Café is also available as a podcast? So, if you prefer to listen to our episodes in your favorite podcast player, you can get them all here.
Sign up for our café mailing list and the YouTube playlist, follow Fluxicon on LinkedIn, or add the café calendar to never miss a Process Mining Café in the future.
Before answering your analysis questions, you need to get an overview of your process. Where does it start, and where does it end? Can you recognize the expected process? Is there a little or a lot of variation? Do you see rework or other unexpected patterns?
This initial explorative analysis is more of an art than a science. To help you build up your experience, in the next Process Mining Café, Rudi and Anne will take you on a journey to discover two different processes. We show you step by step how you explore the process, make sure you understand it, and get the data ready for your analysis. Join us!
The café takes place tomorrow, Wednesday, 11 December, at 15:00 CET (Check your timezone here). As always, you don’t need to register. Point your browser to fluxicon.com/cafe when it is time.
Sign up for the café mailing list here to receive a reminder one hour before the session starts. Or add the time to your calendar if you don’t want to miss it.
The new dates for our Process Mining Trainings 2025 are out!
Most of you know already that process mining is not magic. It is hard work that requires a smart human analyst to interpret what they are seeing. But it surely looks like magic, and you will be able to dazzle others and have exciting new perspectives on your business processes.
At Fluxicon, we have more than 20 years of experience with process mining. We use that knowledge to build the best process mining software for professionals. We are also busy capturing the best practices in our process mining book and shaping the process mining methodology together with all of you in our annual Process Mining Camp and the monthly Process Mining Cafe.
But the most direct way to benefit from our experience is to join one of our hands-on trainings. Here is what you need to know about our process mining trainings:
Our trainings are live. This means that the lessons are not pre-recorded. Instead, you join the teacher and the other participants in interactive web meetings.
The groups are deliberately small. So, you can be sure to be able to bring in your own topics. You will also learn from the questions of your peers, who often have a different perspective than you.
Our trainings are really practical. You will learn all the essential concepts of process mining in practice. This training will give you the basis to use the full potential of process mining in your work.
No prior knowledge is required. We will start from scratch, so don’t worry if you are totally new. But even if you already have some experience with process mining you will benefit, because there is a lot to know!
The training does not end after two weeks. We meet with the same training group after 1-2 months to discuss the first results. Afterwards, we stay in contact and keep supporting you on your process mining journey.
Each training consists of four two-hour sessions over the course of two weeks. In between the sessions, there are exercises to apply what you have learned.
The next available training dates are (click on the month below and scroll down to enroll):
January 2025 Training: Mo 20 January, Thu 23 January, Mo 27 January, and Thu 30 January at 15:00 until 17:00 CET each day.
March 2025 Training: Mo 17 March, Thu 20 March, Mo 24 March, and Thu 27 March at 15:00 until 17:00 CET each day.
May 2025: There is no training in May as this is the month of our annual Process Mining Camp! Camp takes place next year on Thu 15 May and Fr 16 May in Eindhoven, the Netherlands (with an optional pre-training Boot Camp on Wed 14 May) –> Sign up at the camp mailing list to be notified about the program as soon as it is available.
June 2025 Training: Mo 16 June, Thu 19 June, Mo 23 June, and Thu 26 June at 15:00 until 17:00 CEST each day.
September 2025 Training: Mo 15 September, Thu 18 September, Mo 22 September, and Thu 25 September at 15:00 until 17:00 CEST each day.
November 2025 Training: Mo 17 November, Thu 20 November, Mo 24 November, and Thu 27 November at 15:00 until 17:00 CET each day.
Make 2025 the year you get serious about bringing the magic of process mining into your organization and reserve your seat now!
I recently spoke with a customer who had built a complicated SQL query to remove certain activities from their event log. He wanted to measure the process from one step in the process to another step in the process.
When I asked him if he knew how to do this in Disco he said “No no, you don’t understand. The two steps I want to measure are in the middle of the process”. My response was “Yes exactly! Let me show you how you can easily do this”.
He was amazed and this now saves him a lot of pre-processing time. Maybe some of you also don’t know how to focus your analysis between two steps. So, we recorded a 3-minute video to show you how.
info@fluxicon.com.