Process Mining: Some Random Thoughts on Intuitive Decision-Making

For the past decade or so, thousands of companies have been using Process Mining to support their process improvement initiatives. Without delving too deeply into the benefits of such analytical tools (you can read more here: https://www.voglio.no/partners/celonis), let’s simply conclude that Process Mining provides leaders with better visibility into how business processes actually function—thus aiding decision-making when addressing process-relate disscussions. That’s the theory, at least. But how does it play out in practice?

A recurring the mein business school research has been the role of gut instinct indecision-making—even when hard data and reports are readily available.

I’m writing this blog while attending a road cycling training camp in Mallorca. Much like in the business world, we endurance athletes are bombarded with mountains of data, collected through our expensive gadgets. After a week of exhausting our selves on long rides, it’s been interesting to look back at our training metrics. If you didn’t know we were in the middle of a training camp, the raw data might suggest our fitness is declining rather than improving. Power output and heart rates are down, and that’s backed up by heavy legs and occasional dips in motivation.

My roommate—who works as a developer for a well-known smart ring company—told me his device began warning him of high stress levels and an increased likelihood of illness. Another app recommended three full days of recovery… after just our first day of riding. It all seems a bit absurd and leads me to question the practical usefulness of such tools.

Business studies support the obvious: data and analysis are valuable when relevant and well-applied. But it’s also perfectly valid to trust your instincts and experience (see: https://hbr.org/2019/10/when-its-ok-to-trust-your-gut-on-a-big-decision).

Having worked in Business Intelligence for many years, I’ve often felt that analytics can raise more questions than they answer. Performance reporting is frequently compressed into single metrics or KPIs, which risks oversimplifying the complexity of the world around us—and frankly, undervaluing the depth of professional experience we bring. When reality can’t be neatly summarised in a dashboard, we often fallback on our intuition, roll the dice, or even ask ChatGPT what it all means—and whether we should care.

Process Mining, the technology we at Voglio offer together with Celonis (https://www.celonis.com/), helps bridge this gap. It provides leaders with the ability to discover genuinely new insights about their business—without feeling as though they’re being spoon-fed simplified answers. But like all powerful tools, there’s a catch: Process Mining provides a full end-to-end view of your operations, without hiding anything behind aggregated figures. To make sense of what you’re seeing, and to identify the right actions, you need deep contextual business understanding and the leadership to drive meaningful change.

In both sport and business, some of the most capable individuals are absolutely obsessed with collecting data—and that’s perfectly fine. But I also remember the days when we’d watch Contador on Eurosport, attacking up mountain passes by feel, without fixating on his bike computer. That was cool too.

In conclusion, it’s wise to seek out data and alternative sources to validate intuitive decisions, but when the moment calls for it, also trust yourself. 

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