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Conceptualizing Change Activities in Process Mining

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Enterprise Design, Operations, and Computing. EDOC 2024 Workshops (EDOC 2024)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 537))

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Abstract

In an increasingly dynamic world, business processes must be able to respond to frequently occurring and random changes during their execution. Consequently, this means that the process models must be able to handle this complexity and enable process analysts to derive the right conclusions quickly. However, current approaches in the field of process mining do not distinguish between process activities associated with change and those with routine. This condition leads to more complicated, overloaded, and sometimes misguided process visualizations that make it difficult for analysts to evaluate them. In this paper, we address the research problem by conceptualizing a new type of process activity that we call change activity which we base on causal knowledge. We thereby extend the causal process mining approach with another important aspect for handling random occurrences of events. We evaluated our findings through a survey of process mining experts from research and practice. Our results indicate that a dedicated visualization of change activities reduces the complexity of process visualizations. In addition, unimportant information is hidden and important information is highlighted so that analysts can make better assessments.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In this case, negative impact primarily refers to structural effects with regard to rework, correction, disarray, or negligence [18]. For example, changing the delivery address after a parcel has been sent to a customer has negative consequences for the customer experience.

  2. 2.

    In this case, neutral impact primarily refers to no structural effects with regard to rework, correction, disarray, or negligence [18]. For example, if a delivery address is changed before a delivery is sent to a customer.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Einstein Foundation Berlin [grant number EPP-2019-524, 2022].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Rudower Chaussee 25, 12489, Berlin-Adlershof, Germany

    Steven Knoblich, Lukas Pfahlsberger & Jan Mendling

Authors
  1. Steven Knoblich
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  2. Lukas Pfahlsberger
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  3. Jan Mendling
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Steven Knoblich .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany

    Monika Kaczmarek-Heß

  2. Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences, Mönchengladbach, Germany

    Kristina Rosenthal

  3. Czech Technical University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic

    Marek Suchánek

  4. Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

    Miguel Mira Da Silva

  5. TU Wien, Vienna, Austria

    Henderik A. Proper

  6. TU Wien, Vienna, Austria

    Marianne Schnellmann

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Knoblich, S., Pfahlsberger, L., Mendling, J. (2025). Conceptualizing Change Activities in Process Mining. In: Kaczmarek-Heß, M., Rosenthal, K., Suchánek, M., Da Silva, M.M., Proper, H.A., Schnellmann, M. (eds) Enterprise Design, Operations, and Computing. EDOC 2024 Workshops . EDOC 2024. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 537. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-79059-1_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-79059-1_10

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