1. Neo4j for Process Mining
Big Data and Hadoop Users Group of West Michigan
Gordon Food Service 3/9/2016

2. Agenda Introduction What is a Process What is a Process Model
What is Process Mining
Data Prospecting with Neo4j
Tool Demo

3. Introduction
In the domain of information systems it is very difficult to see a product let alone determine how efficiently it was developed. In most cases we are left with textual information to understand and make assessments of a process.

4. *Better ways to capture, visualize, and analyze processes*
Introduction
The purpose of this proof of concept is to explore the application of graph database techniques in conjunction with process mining to improve the assessment of software development processes.
*Better ways to capture, visualize, and analyze processes*

5. What is a Process?

6. *There are as many definitions of process as there are people*
What is a Process?
A series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end.
A collection of linked tasks which find their end in the delivery of a service or product to a client.
A set of activities and tasks that, once completed, will accomplish an organizational goal.
*There are as many definitions of process as there are people*

7. Definition for Presentation
A process comprises an identified body of work that can be characterized as a set of related activities or a defined sequence of steps and decisions
The process name is in action verb - noun form (usually)
The name is singular
The result must be discrete and countable
The result is what the customer of the process wants
The process is initiated by a triggering event that could be an action, time, or a condition
Workflow Modeling: Tools for Process Improvement and Application Development, Sharp & McDermott

8. Process Examples Suggested Process What We Call It Why Not a Process
Customer Relationship Management
Process Area
Doesn’t deliver a single, specific result; a set of related business processes meeting an overall objective
Acquire New Customer
Business Process
Delivers a single, specific result, and meets all other criteria. An “end-to-end business process
Assess Prospect Financial Status or Setup Customer
Sub process
Too small - both deliver specific results, but are intermediate results in an E2E process
Calculate Customer Credit Limit or Create Customer Account
Activity, Step, Task
Much too small - a part of a sub process. Possibly described in a procedure or use case.
Workflow Modeling: Tools for Process Improvement and Application Development, Sharp & McDermott

9. What is a Process Model?

10. BPMN Basic Elements
Activities
Gateways
Events
Data

11. BPMN Pools
White Box Pools
Black Box Pools
Pool with
Swimlanes

12. BPMN Pool Communication

13. What is Process Mining?

14. Process Mining
Process Mining Discovery, Conformance, and Enhancement of Business Processes, Wil M. P. Van Der Aalst

15. Three types of Process Models

16. Event Logs A process consists of cases
A case consists of events such that each event relates to one case
Events within a case are ordered
Events can have attributes
Set the context / expectation for the presentation by discussing current level of analytics maturity at GFS

17. Play-Out
Set the context / expectation for the presentation by discussing current level of analytics maturity at GFS
Process Mining Discovery, Conformance, and Enhancement of Business Processes, Wil M. P. Van Der Aalst

18. Play-In
Set the context / expectation for the presentation by discussing current level of analytics maturity at GFS
Process Mining Discovery, Conformance, and Enhancement of Business Processes, Wil M. P. Van Der Aalst

19. Play-In
Set the context / expectation for the presentation by discussing current level of analytics maturity at GFS
Process Mining Discovery, Conformance, and Enhancement of Business Processes, Wil M. P. Van Der Aalst

20. Replay
Set the context / expectation for the presentation by discussing current level of analytics maturity at GFS
Process Mining Discovery, Conformance, and Enhancement of Business Processes, Wil M. P. Van Der Aalst

21. Replay
Set the context / expectation for the presentation by discussing current level of analytics maturity at GFS
Process Mining Discovery, Conformance, and Enhancement of Business Processes, Wil M. P. Van Der Aalst

22. Data Prospecting with Neo4j

23. General Approach
Given that the artifacts from the SLDC are recorded and linked in JIRA (i.e. issue tracker) they can be viewed as a graph
Find a promising project in this case Wholesale Order Capture (WOC) and load the issues with their associate links into a labeled graph (i.e. Neo4J)
Use Cypher queries to assess the “Prospect” for developing event logs
Remediate good prospects (i.e. if possible)
Extract the event log from the graph database and load it into Prom

24. Traceability Network
Set the context / expectation for the presentation by discussing current level of analytics maturity at GFS

25. Graph Model
Set the context / expectation for the presentation by discussing current level of analytics maturity at GFS

26. Challenges Compiling Event Logs
Picking events and activities for the model
Finding good the timestamps
Assessing the relevancy and accuracy of the timestamps
Relating and ordering events and activities across systems

27. Neo4j Demo

28. ProM Demo

29. Conclusions
While the WOC project was very successful from a project context, it was not as successful in a process improvement context
Controls for workflow and traceability between issues needs to be improved
Neo4j is a very effective tool for prospecting and processing event logs
Process mining of the SDLC is feasible but will take significant effort on the data side (no surprise here !)