The business world is a never-ending spree of changes. The thing that gave you great results yesterday may bring you nothing today. Among the big changes that we recognize is the one about how companies handle their work processes. This article describes process management: the change from local to global process management, the rise of smart tools such as task mining, and the still increasing relevance of process management in the era of artificial intelligence.
What is BPM, and how did it start?
When people are talking about BPM, they refer to Business Process Management. It is the way companies document, run, and upgrade the means of work.
First of all, BPM was merely the art of creating diagrams. An example process could be: “Customer sends request to staff – staff checks – approval – deliver.” The objective was to bring standardization, to lower the number of mistakes, and to raise the speed of work.
The model the companies used was not enough; after a while, they figured. The truth is that models are always changing. People do not always follow the steps. Systems become old. Consequently, the next step was about switching to data.
Process Mining and Process Intelligence
Once you have data on how things are done in reality, and not just how they are supposed to be done, you can do a lot more. This is the stage for Process Mining. Process Mining is all about using event logs and system data to illuminate the actual workflows.
Although this is a great way to find out what happened, it has its boundaries. Just knowing how things happened is not enough. One must also find out the reason for the flow, forewarn of the problems, and make the smartest suggestions. This is where Process Intelligence takes over. It uses analytics, machine learning, and real-time monitoring to facilitate decision-making.
Why the old way needed to evolve
In many companies, the traditional BPM method of handling business processes had its flaws, such as:
- Models closely related to the business were full of assumptions instead of being based on real data.
- Models did not update with the changed systems.
- Employees were doing the work in their own ways while the old process documentation stayed the same.
- Very few people knew about the bottlenecks, errors, and reworks that happened, and thus, they didn’t get solved quickly.
Because of these reasons, we have seen that many business process management initiatives do not manage to get the full value of their efforts. The business environment of today requires advanced and speedy tools to keep up with the pace of change. The old BPM method was simply out of date.
What is Task Mining, and how does it fit in?
Here comes task mining, the new hero. What is it? Basically, it is a method to gather and evaluate the details of tasks that are performed by computer users via their clicks, keyboard strokes, and applications to figure out in which way work is done.
Why would it matter if we knew this? The point is that sometimes even when we see the top-level processes, we still don’t understand what people really do. Using task mining, we can drill down to the individual tasks that make up a larger process. For example, filling out a form, copying and pasting between systems, waiting for a response, and doing manual work around repetitive tasks.
The power of combining Task Mining + AI + BPM
By integrating task mining with AI BPM, process intelligence, and so on, you can quite literally open the door to huge opportunities. Here is what you gain:
- Better visibility: You can see tasks and processes as they actually happen.
- Smart insights: AI helps to find the patterns, anomalies, and areas that can be improved.
- Prioritise right: Knowing where to work on is no longer guessing which tasks or processes use up time and produce errors.
- Scale faster: After determining what activities should be automated or efficiently organised, it is easier to delegate the resources.
- Continuous improvement: The cycle of projects changes from one-off to a culture of continuous improvement, which is embedded in the organisation.
For example, a business might find out that one employee takes half an hour every time to copy data from one system to another.
Why Task Mining is the Future of Process Intelligence
Those are the main reasons why task mining is going to be at the centre of process intelligence:
- The tasks are hidden in many processes. These tasks are not very visible in the diagrams or the logs. With task mining, you can find out what they are.
- The pace of business changes is increasing. Digitisation, remote work, and hybrid models all call for real‐time insight and agility. Processes need to be alive.
- The use of automation (“robot tasks,” “digital work”) is limited if you are not sure which tasks are the right ones for automation. Task mining provides that certainty.
- On the other hand, the digital footprints of employees (the apps they use, the desktops they work on) are a goldmine of information. Task mining exploits them to create value.
- Companies that have already reached a high level of maturity in process mining are going deeper into task mining.
Therefore, as the next move in the BPM (or “ai bpm”) journey, task mining is not just an additional instrument; it is the way to full process intelligence.
How to Use Task Mining in Your Organisation: Practical Measures
As a company or a consultant in your position, how could you start with task mining to develop process intelligence? The steps are pretty straightforward:
- Select a pilot area: A business area where there are many tasks, the tasks are repetitive, and they take up a lot of time.
- Win support: Let the team know that task mining means finding time for the work that matters. Privacy and openness should be considered.
- Get the tasks on tape: Through task mining methods, operations such as clicks, keystrokes, and applications can be recorded. Data privacy should also be accorded due attention.
- Work with the data: Answers to questions related to time-consuming tasks, frequently repeated tasks, and tasks causing delays or errors can be found.
- Implement AI BPM viewpoint: Apply AI tools to help reveal patterns, predict problem areas, and advise what to automate or change.
- Connecting with bigger processes: Apply process mining and process intelligence to understand how tasks relate to end‐to‐end workflows.
- Put the changes into effect: Some tasks can be automated, others can be redesigned, and waste or duplication can be removed.
Keep regular checks going: Employ process intelligence to determine how far the improvements attained are maintained and what the next steps should be.
Challenges and what to watch out for
Indeed, the introduction of any new instrument or concept is seldom without its share of problems, and task mining is no exception:
- Privacy and trust: As task mining involves the recording of user interactions, it is imperative that employees are made aware of it, the data is anonymized, and the ethical issues are properly handled.
- Tooling and data readiness: If your company is not equipped with good digital data and has complicated old systems, enabling task mining will be a challenging task.
- Change management: Even in a situation where you discover the insights, it is still necessary to modify people’s behaviour, systems, and tools. This is a time-consuming process.
- Integration: The integration of task mining, process mining, AI, and BPM is not only a complicated matter but also requires a suitable architecture.
- Avoid analysis paralysis: Task mining can provide you with heaps of data. You are required to prioritise what to act on; otherwise, you may find yourself stuck.
Nevertheless, the advantages of task mining outweigh its challenges, especially as every company is moving towards a higher level of digital maturity.
Looking ahead: What the future holds
When we think about the future, this is how the situation around BPM, AI, and task mining might change:
- Much more real-time control of work and workflows. With organisations going digital in their work, remote work and cloud systems being adopted, data will become available at a much faster rate, thereby allowing insights to take place almost in real-time.
- More intelligent predictive systems: AI will make it possible to foresee delays in processes or blocks in tasks ahead of time, and also be able to take preventive steps.
- More “digital twin” of the organisation: Thanks to task mining and process intelligence, a virtual mirror of the business that shows workers, tasks, processes, systems, and how they all interact.
- Greater democratization: The usage of this technology will not be limited to the teams of large enterprises. Small businesses will also start using task mining and AI BPM in simpler ways to keep up with the competition.
- Never-ending journey of process evolution: The cycle of map → monitor → optimise → automate will be the norm. Task mining will be regularly involved in that cycle, not as a one‐time occurrence.
Summary: Why this matters, in simple words
Let me put it briefly: Up till now, companies have been relying on BPM to lay out and oversee their work. Next, they have engaged in process mining to trace the actual workflows. Presently, thanks to the rise of AI BPM and task mining, they are not just stuck at one level; instead, they can penetrate further: opening the curtain of human activities, recording tasks, employing AI in pinpointing which part of the process is slow or wasteful, and thus solving it.
In the Indian scenario (and worldwide), where the majority of companies are subjected to the following pressures: doing more with less, digitalising faster, and serving customers better, this is very significant. Task mining tells you what, process mining shows you the flow, and process intelligence with AI BPM unravels the reasons and gives you the next steps.