After many years in digitalization projects focusing on automated processes, one thing has become especially clear to me: the biggest challenge is not the technology but the requirements analysis.

The Typical Pitfall in Digitalization Projects

In numerous workshops with different departments, the same pattern emerges time and again:
Employees describe the current manual process steps they perform daily. But this is precisely where the problem lies!

• Manual steps are often not the best foundation for automation.
• It is far more important to understand the core logic of the process—independent of existing workflows.

This means: If we build automation purely based on existing manual workflows, we simply replicate inefficiencies instead of truly optimizing processes.

How Can This Problem Be Solved?

There are two proven methods to identify real automation potential:

1. Process Mining – Data-Driven Analysis

Process Mining can be a valuable method for analyzing actual process flows based on data.

• Advantage: It relies on real system data and shows how processes actually work—not just how they are theoretically described.
• Disadvantage: The data is often difficult to access, incomplete, or technically challenging to integrate.

2. Visual Process Methodology – Rethinking the Process

An alternative (and, in our experience, often more practical) approach is the visual process methodology.
Here, processes are captured visually and deliberately reduced to their essentials.

The key:

• Manual steps are only allowed in case of errors.
• Automation is considered a guiding principle from the start.
• Visualization helps quickly understand and optimize complex workflows.

Our experience: This method has proven to be significantly more effective because it actively involves departments and leads to implementable results more quickly.

Our Solution: iCore.UseCaseBuilder

To apply these insights in practice, we have integrated them into our iCore methodology. The iCore.UseCaseBuilderhelps us rethink processes from the ground up—with a focus on automation rather than manual work.

Conclusion: Automation Starts in the Mind—Not in the Code!

Even the best technology is useless if the requirements analysis is not conducted properly. Those who digitize processes 1:1 without questioning them miss out on enormous potential.