Explainable Predictive Process Monitoring: A User Evaluation

Explainability is motivated by the lack of transparency of black-box Machine Learning approaches, which do not foster trust and acceptance of Machine Learning algorithms. This also happens in the Predictive Process Monitoring field, where predictions, obtained by applying Machine Learning techniques, need to be explained to users, so as to gain their trust and acceptance. In this work, we carry on a user evaluation on explanation approaches for Predictive Process Monitoring aiming at investigating whether and how the explanations provided (i) are understandable; (ii) are useful in decision making tasks;(iii) can be further improved for process analysts, with different Machine Learning expertise levels. The results of the user evaluation show that, although explanation plots are overall understandable and useful for decision making tasks for Business Process Management users -- with and without experience in Machine Learning -- differences exist in the comprehension and usage of different plots, as well as in the way users with different Machine Learning expertise understand and use them.

Prescriptive Process Monitoring: Quo Vadis?

Prescriptive process monitoring methods seek to optimize a business process by recommending interventions at runtime to prevent negative outcomes or poorly performing cases. In recent years, various prescriptive process monitoring methods have been proposed. This paper studies existing methods in this field via a Systematic Literature Review (SLR). In order to structure the field, the paper proposes a framework for characterizing prescriptive process monitoring methods according to their performance objective, performance metrics, intervention types, modeling techniques, data inputs, and intervention policies. The SLR provides insights into challenges and areas for future research that could enhance the usefulness and applicability of prescriptive process monitoring methods. The paper highlights the need to validate existing and new methods in real-world settings, to extend the types of interventions beyond those related to the temporal and cost perspectives, and to design policies that take into account causality and second-order effects.