Sapere aude—the old Latin aphorism we were taught in schools and universities as a motto of the Enlightenment, the “Age of Reason”—should never lose its relevance.
Perhaps it never has. But it certainly hasn’t lost its place as a proclamation of good intentions, nor as a deep expression of our desire to satisfy both intellectual curiosity and our sense of fulfillment.
Yet in the world of operations management, despite all the rhetoric about the power of data, avoiding the truth about what’s really happening in our processes is almost the norm. For many reasons—many of them forgivable.
Life is beautiful, not easy.
Now that social media is echoing the idea that data doesn’t kill the narrative, it’s worth noting: companies are no exception.
On a slightly more nuanced level, it seems few dare to let data confirm their suspicions (their narrative: the implicit folklore in every company around the overused “what we all already knew”)—and allow those suspicions to become the new, accepted version of their actual reality.
We’re collecting more and more cases: A company in our system didn’t know it couldn’t resolve even 50% of its support calls on the first contact, all while the outsourced provider was conveniently being paid per call handled.
Everyone “knew,” but no one really knew—much less quantified—how some offices are dramatically slower than others in processing certain critical applications for citizens.
Or how data is not entered correctly into the system at least half the time, just because… reasons.
Now, with these cases, we’re quantifying the scale of the problem, and more importantly, providing a framework—mainly a mental one—for improving performance.
We return to tradition: what gets measured, gets done.
If you’ll allow us to say so, the best way to begin working with process intelligence based on data is to dare to know and shine a spotlight exactly where you need to look (yes, think of the joke about the drunk and the streetlamp).
We’ve also seen that the shadows we live in generate great uncertainty about the ROI of shining light into those dark corners.
That’s why we’ve created a starter package for process intelligence—an affordable project, free of major complications around time, data access, or system integration—that allows you to begin validating (or disproving) narratives.
Or even discover new truths of the “how did we not see this before?” kind.
Write to us if you’re curious.
Check some of our videos:
- New ➽ ICU discharges: where time slips away
- Fast Track vs Standard Path: Which is Better for Diagnosing Colorectal Cancer
- What causes discards in parenteral nutrition preparation? Key factors revealed!
- How Process Mining Uncovers Medication Administration Issues
The Prompter.io is our open project to share our experience—and that of others—in integrating language models and data-to-text techniques into process intelligence. Don’t miss it!
