Lasagna vs Spaghetti Processes

A widely-used process-mining shorthand for process regularity, introduced in sources/2011-vanderaalst-process-mining-book (Chs. 13–14). The metaphor captures the visual impression of the discovered process model.

Lasagna processes (Ch. 13)

Layered, well-structured processes with limited variability:

Most cases follow a small number of common paths.
Clearly identifiable phases / layers.
Discovered models are readable by domain experts.
Typical examples: insurance claims, loan applications, procurement, regulated healthcare pathways.
All standard mining techniques (discovery, conformance, performance) work well.

Van der Aalst proposes a 5-stage methodology (§13.3) for lasagna processes: plan/justify → extract → control-flow model + connect log → integrated multi-perspective model → operational support.

Spaghetti processes (Ch. 14)

Unstructured, high-variability processes where the discovered model looks like a tangled plate of spaghetti:

Hundreds of distinct variants, long tails of rare paths.
Typical of knowledge work, ad-hoc coordination, emergency response, debugging workflows, patient treatment in teaching hospitals.
Direct discovery produces illegible models; fuzzy mining (Günther & van der Aalst) and filtering / abstraction are essential.
Conformance and prediction are harder; often require variant clustering or declarative (rather than imperative) modelling — see frameworks/declare.

Why the dichotomy matters

The lasagna/spaghetti distinction is the primary practical filter applied to any event log before choosing a mining strategy:

Lasagna → imperative discovery (inductive miner / BPMN) + alignment-based conformance + performance annotation.
Spaghetti → fuzzy miner / filtering / clustering / declarative mining.

It also maps onto the behavioural-variability axis: highly spaghetti processes are often candidates for agentic automation where framed autonomy copes with variability the process designer cannot enumerate.

methods/process-mining-basics · concepts/process-discovery · concepts/behavioral-variability · concepts/process-model-quality · frameworks/declare (preferred for spaghetti)