Process Discovery

Process discovery refers to a collection of tools and techniques used to define, map, and analyze an organization’s existing business processes. The discovered “AS-IS” process becomes a baseline for process improvements, process refinements, problem identification eliminating the guesswork.

Process discovery methods

A process does not appear in isolation. It feeds from and feeds into other processes or systems. It has a beginning and an end with a multitude of steps and decisions between them. Discovering the activity-steps and the group of activities that are part of the, process is Process Discovery.

Process discovery tools and techniques can be manual or automated. Each with its own pros and cons.

Manual Process Discovery

In Manual process discovery, the analyst renders the process flows using editing tools. He or she interviews the Subject Matter Experts to come up with all the variations and details.

Pros:

• Identifying the process inefficiencies
• Designing efficient and effective processes
• Complete process documentation is possible with SME knowledge
• Creates a baseline for process comparison, improvement, and transformation

Cons:

• This is a cumbersome process.
• The availability of SMEs usually is one of the major challenges.
• Keeping the “AS-IS” process definition current becomes a challenge due to frequent technology changes and process complexities.

Automated Process Discovery

Process Mining and recently Desktop Task Mining (DTM) have become popular methods of Process Discovery. They are being used especially to identify processes ready for Robotic Process Automation (RPA).

Process mining gets the process flows generated out of the event logs in the backend of the system. Whereas, DTM involves capturing events and screenshots on the desktop as a user works. Analysis of events like keystrokes and mouse clicks helps generate the process flows.
Pros:

Pros:

• Quick identification of the most common process flows
• Help identify almost all combination of process flows followed
• Saves on resources, time and effort

Cons:

• Requires access to the system logs in the backend systems
• Cannot map the processes accurately if there are jumps between completely different systems to complete a process
• Requires SMEs to vet and correct the process flows after the capture
• Technical knowledge of the mining method used is mandatory to use the system

SurfaceAI – Accelerated & Automated with the advantages of Manual Process Discovery

If the processes discovered are themselves inefficient. RPA would only make these inefficient processes run faster. We cannot undermine the benefits of manual process discovery.

The knowledge of the SME is crucial in designing efficient and effective processes. To transform operations towards excellence manual process discovery is the best tool.

SurfaceAI accelerates the manual discovery process. Leverages SME knowledge and saves on time and effort in generating process flows and documents. The mundane tasks of the SME are automated. They can focus their efforts on what they are good at which is process mapping and design.