Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 1 illustrates the steps of our method. In a first step, lived processes are elicit
from process participants. Second, collected information is analyzed and prepared for
further processing. There are two alternative ways of continuing: path A includes the
capturing of collected process data in fictive logs (Step 3) which were then mined
(Step 4). Choosing path B, the designer continues with manually designing process
models. In this work we focus on the analysis (Step 2) and the steps of path A (log
preparation and mining). In the following we describe the different steps at an ab-
straction level. In the Sections 3 and 4 the steps will be discussed in more detail.
Elicitation.
The elicitation of process information is an important step as it deter-
mines the quality of the gathered material. In our view, an organizational member
knows best what activities he or she actually performs in his or her job and how and
when this work is done. To-do lists can be used to capture all the things that need to
get done in a logical and also chronological order. To-do lists might also represent
practical processes of work of single persons. For example, particularly new employ-
ees may notice their To-do's for particular scenarios (e.g. “What is usually to do?”,
and “What is to do in a special case?”) during job instruction. Experienced employees
often have their To-do lists in a particular context of work in their heads. There are
several task management tools that support the organization of To-do's. If used by
employees, such tools can be considered as a source of information.
Analysis
. The To-do lists are examined with the qualitative content analysis. The
method supports the designers to identify key process elements (e.g. activities, tasks,
roles, agents, time, data, and tools) and terms (e.g. pre- and post conditions).
Log preparation.
The process views are then transformed into process view logs.
The logs illustrate personalized views of the process. Different views on the process
can be generated by subsuming To-do's of process members with particular character-
istics e.g. acting in the same roles, but also members of the whole process.
Mining
. In contributions related to process mining, processes are commonly con-
sidered to be already performed. The resulting process model is automatically derived
from generated logs. These logs include the IDs of each process instance and each
event within the process instances. In a human-centric approach of identifying the
business process model, as described in this work, processes must not be performed at
the time of process mining. The process model is constructed on the basis of To-do
lists of roles (humans) that are involved in the process.
3 Qualitative Content Analysis
In this section the qualitative content analysis and its potential in the context of busi-
ness processes are described. Challenges of analyzing To-do's of process members
are discussed, like unique labeling and the level of abstraction of To-do's.
3.1 Qualitative Content Analysis in General
The qualitative content analysis is a rule-guided technique to systematically analyze
text [5]. Typically, the content analysis includes the steps: unitization, categorization,
and coding [6]. Unitization means to divide the textual material into units of analysis
(e.g. sections, thematic units, or syntactical units) [7]. In the categorization step a
category scheme is created. The coding step includes the assignment of each unit of
