How to Kickstart Your Process Mining Journey

SSON’s Process Mining & BPM Virtual Summit returned for another year and once again delivered great insights to our members. Over the two days, our 2024 thought leaders exhibited the sheer quality of initiatives taking place across the industry. From seasoned veterans within the process mining space to those just starting their journey, the summit exposed all the current process optimization trends and challenges within the shared services space.

The opening session of day two saw Stephanie Dentino, Internal Audit Manager at CURO Financial Technologies Corp, go back to the basics. Stephanie provided clear, actionable insights for organizations just beginning their process mining journey. Within the comprehensive roadmap Stephanie presented, there were a few key takeaways:

Learn to Love Data

Stephanie began with the all-important data, urging teams to get to know their Data Governance structure. Rushing into a process mining initiative without clear data policies can be disastrous. Teams should ask themselves: How is our data captured? How are we ensuring data integrity? What does our data maintenance look like? What program does our company use?

Beyond this, Stephanie recommended becoming familiar with data analysis and visualization, although not on an expert level. Teams do not need to be aces in data analytics, but a clearer understanding prepares a more stable foundation for a process mining initiative.

Understand Your Process Architecture

Next, Stephanie highlighted process architecture. To start, getting a bird’s-eye view of your organization allows teams to understand how all departments and processes intersect to form the “big picture.” This comprehensive view of the organization is crucial for process mining, as organizations should be able to zoom in and out of the process architecture with ease.

Stephanie recommends becoming comfortable with producing detailed flowcharts and maps with tools such as Visio, LucidChart, and Miro to achieve this “mosaic” of your organization. In addition, it is important to understand the source and quality of data within each area of the business, as data often looks similar but serves different purposes. To mitigate any confusion, desired outcomes and context must be considered.

Once organizations “learn to love data”, they should ensure the data illustrates a full picture of their organization. This transparency allows process mining to be leveraged effectively. As Stephanie acutely notes, “if this picture is not complete, the information you receive from process mining tools will be incomplete. Trash in – trash out.”

Understand the Importance of Sales

Stephanie then highlighted the importance of selling a process mining initiative to stakeholders. Without stakeholder buy-in, there is no process mining journey to kickstart!

Teams should aim to find an executive sponsor by knowing what it will take to deliver measurable and sustainable results before delivering findings.  This focus on selling the project will increase awareness of implementation and change management requirements. Waiting to consider these factors until after the findings causes delays in taking action and can even undermine the success of the initiative.

Stephanie’s final piece of sales-orientated advice is to always connect value to revenue, as this can further assist in stakeholder buy-in.

Remain Flexible

Despite the strong presentation, Stephanie’s parting words to our attendees highlighted the need for flexibility when kickstarting a process mining project. The presentation is reflective of Stephanie and the CURO team’s personal experience, but “there is no magic formula, as every organization is different.”

It can take time to “do it right”, but the overarching theme of the session appeared to be that the best way to kickstart your process mining journey is with extensive preparation. From understanding data, mapping the process architecture, and achieving stakeholder buy-in, organizations should be sure to walk before they can run.

Looking to learn more on process mining? Join SSON for Process Mining & BPM Virtual Summit October, an exclusive, one-day-only, event that will equip you with insights to take your processes to the next level. Secure your place now!