What are the 4 main pillars for a successful Process Mining project?

Process mining is on the rise, especially in such unprecedented times, companies start thinking about how to properly invest in their digital transformation initiatives and what would be transformed next. To achieve this, you need to know why you are doing your process mining initiative and what is the potential project success factors that can empower you achieve your goals.

Process mining is deeper than just flowcharts or drawing of your as-is process or your desired process. Process mining is about collecting data from different sources like user interaction data, existing systems (SAP, Oracle, ServiceNow, Salesforce…etc.) and any other existing IT systems, to analyze the processes, then apply AI technology on how it can improve that work and create a better business outcome. Collect, analyze, and action.

Although process mining is essential, do not overexpect or do some of the common mistakes that can lead the project to undesirable results, some examples of what to avoid:

1. No technology is magic: The technology is great, but it is one piece of the equation, do not rely too much on the tech without having the right implementation partner, right people on your side ready to support or help when needed or no executive management sponsorship.
2. Not having the right data or approach to the data that can help process mining platform and consultants working on it to do the right job.
3. Too ambitious of what you can do in your first project in a short-time frame, indeed, process mining is powerful but being realistic and focus on one use case then move to another is the key to success, one step at a time.

So how can you make sure that your process mining initiative on the right direction of success? we have summarized some insights we see essential for any process mining project success, in four headlines:

1. Start small and think big:

May sound typical but important to start small, ideally with one process in mind, that you know pretty well and which you can obtain its data to gain experience and insights on how far can process mining help you. This will help you to find a quick ROI and give you the right confidence in process mining possibilities. Do not try to answer all the questions immediately.

2. Executive Sponsorship:

Sometimes, the project starts as bottom-top initiative not top-down, some executives or department heads see a specific need to do something with process mining and would like to start testing the waters.

3. Assemble the right team:

With the same importance of having executive management sponsorship, it’s important to assemble the right team players who know your existing processes and where to find the data. This will help in using factual insights instead of just subjective opinions on how things should look like. We cannot stress enough on the importance of this point. Facts do not lie.

4. Data, data, and data:

It is extremely important to have the right data in place with the right data quality, and not to draw conclusions based on incomplete data which can harm the whole process in empowering you and the business with the right results. Remember that process mining is here to help you get the best out of your processes, and not to prove a certain point.

Process mining initiatives are exciting journeys to real digital transformation and knowing what you really need to do. Think of it before the ERP era, professionals used to use excel and access to manage their work. Before excel people used paper and pen to manage their stuff manually. Now you can do a lot with your current systems, and it is getting more and more important to know where the bottlenecks are stopping you from your maximum potential.

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Coberg’s Process Mining Center of Excellence uses best technologies and platforms out there in the market to create transparency of companies’ processes. Process mining empower you to enable actionable insights based on your current historical processes data, to know the real story.

Know more about Coberg’s Process Mining Center of Excellence click here.