Process Discovery: An Introduction

Abstract

Process discovery is one of the most challenging process mining tasks. Based on an event log a process model is constructed thus capturing the behavior seen in the log. This chapter introduces the topic using the rather naïve $\alpha$-algorithm. This algorithm nicely illustrates some of the general ideas used by many process mining algorithms and helps to understand the notion of process discovery. Moreover, the $\alpha$-algorithm serves as a stepping stone for discussing challenges related to process discovery.