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 address poorly performing cases. In recent years, various prescriptive process monitoring methods have been proposed. This article studies existing methods in this field via a systematic literature review (SLR). In order to structure the field, this article 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. This article highlights the need to validate existing and new methods in real-world settings, extend the types of interventions beyond those related to the temporal and cost perspectives, and design policies that take into account causality and second-order effects.