On Mining Work, Workers and Workarounds

Abstract: Recent years have witnessed the emergence of sophisticated techniques for discovering work processes under the ‘process mining’ title. Traditional process mining focused on discovering the order of activities as executed by multiple resources in a single process. However, processes do not exist in isolation and together make up a broader working sphere of resources. These resources are subject to obstacles, pressure, interruptions, and more. In this talk, we will discuss recent and ongoing studies looking from the resource perspective, specifically focusing on two domains: (1) healthcare and (2) academia. We will discuss new forms of process mining that provide broader insights into work as a whole, and end with a discussion on collecting the required data through personal data donation.

Bio: Iris Beerepoot is an Assistant Professor at Utrecht University, where she also completed her PhD. Her research takes place in the field of Process Science and revolves around discovering how people work in organisations. Her specific interest is in the aspects of processes that are typically not included in the event data used for process mining, for example, the use of workarounds. The topic of her PhD thesis was aimed at discovering how these workarounds may serve as valuable indicators for processes that need improving. Generally, she employs a resource-centric perspective on processes, looking beyond single processes and taking contextual factors into account.