Key roles
Several roles are involved in successful process mining projects. Not every team or project has the same roles and responsibilities defined. Moreover, not everyone who participates in the mining project engages in the process from the beginning to the end; you might only need them for part of the duration. The following sections outline a few common key roles for these projects.
Process owner
The process owner is ultimately responsible for the success of the project. They're accountable for performance and outcomes of the process. The process owner sets the strategy and vision for the team. As a champion for continuous improvement, they seek ways to enhance the process at every opportunity. They understand the needs of the stakeholders and are the primary communicator between the stakeholders and the project team.
This role is a key leadership role for someone who understands all moving parts of the process in some capacity.
Project manager
The project manager is responsible for managing the project and the product. They help define scope and keep within that defined scope. They manage data specialists and other team members as needed. Additionally, they implement and maintain change management that results from the process mining activities.
Process mining expert
The process mining expert helps the team understand the concept of process mining and event log creation. They understand expected findings and how to learn from them. Also, they have knowledge of process maps and how to read them.
Business process expert (functional)
The functional business process expert helps the team understand the process and common business issues. The business process expert identifies gaps in project plans and offers a full gap analysis. They participate in testing and training plans and engage in continuous improvement with the rest of the team.
Business system expert (technical)
The technical business system expert helps the team understand the source system, tables, and its relationships. This expert is also responsible for making and maintaining a data dictionary that explains the data fields. They're the go-to expert when anyone on the team or other stakeholders have data questions.
Data wrangler
The data wrangler understands event log data. They know how to evaluate data for correctness. The data wrangler can merge data from different sources, normalizing it as needed.
Data engineer
The data engineer develops extract, transform, and load (ETL) architecture, the staging area, and an efficient transformation script. The data engineer ensures quality and integrity of the data throughout the process. This professional contributes to governance policies and procedures, including technical documentation that details ETL processes and the data models.
Roles and project stages
While the preceding sections offer some examples of roles for the project teams, several others might participate. The following table provides more examples of contributors based on the DMAIC stages and when they might be adding the most value to the projects.
| DMAIC stage | Roles |
|---|---|
| Define | Strategic |
| Management | |
| Business consultants | |
| Measure | Data engineers |
| Systems experts | |
| Business consultants | |
| Analyze | Business analysts-process mining expertise |
| Business intelligence experts | |
| Improve | Change management |
| Trainer | |
| Application consultant | |
| RPA developer | |
| Low-code developers | |
| Control | Management consultant |
| Business intelligence expert |