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This study aims to apply Process Mining (PM) techniques to identify the critical elements that primarily affect the trials’ duration and suggest the best practices to enable their more efficient execution, reduce their duration and, consequently, create public value, through a case study conducted in an Italian Civil Court.

Through PM analyses and in-depth discussions with the court staff, we analysed the trials with the longest duration and those belonging to a specific subject matter to identify peculiar features and inefficiencies that prolong the trials’ duration.

Our results highlight how innovative tools like PM can revolutionise the judicial system by providing judges with objective trials data that can support and facilitate the entire trials’ definition. However, many issues, especially related to the little spread data culture and process-oriented approach in courts, are highly present, leading to data inconsistencies and subsequent difficulties in trials’ analysis and interpretation.

Little research has devoted attention to the PM potential to enhance the judiciary. Our study contributes to this strand, yet adopting a different approach: it investigates the trials’ excessive length by focusing on bottlenecks and inefficient activities that slow down trials and identifies activities’ thresholds to monitor the trials’ execution and limit delays.

Worldwide challenges impose public organizations to rethink their processes and satisfactorily meet citizens’ needs. Process mining (PM) techniques enable organizations to objectively analyse and improve their processes, by providing higher process transparency and efficiency. However, extant literature on PM applications in the public sector reveals there is still limited evidence on the opportunities and challenges perceived from PM introduction in the public sector, and on PM potential to enhance public sector digital transformation: this study aims to fill these gaps.

Based on Business Process Management and digital innovation fields of research, we administered a questionnaire to a sample of Italian civil servants working in different public organizations to investigate their perceptions of PM opportunities and challenges and the extent to which it can support public sector digital transformation. A three-level analysis was conducted to inspect findings with different levels of granularity, and results were analysed both descriptively and quantitatively.

We found a positive attitude towards PM introduction in the public sector, and perceived opportunities and challenges related to both the technical and the social systems. The triangulation between close-ended and open-ended questions suggests that PM could be the missing link between public sector digitalization and digital transformation. These findings can be used by policymakers to develop the best strategies to introduce PM into public organizations and support its adoption, and by researchers to further explore PM role in public sector digital transformation.

Despite PM claiming to push digital transformation, it is not clear if it is also true for public sector organizations. This paper addresses this gap and it is among the first attempts to explore PM from civil servants’ viewpoint to investigate their perceptions of PM opportunities and challenges, as well as the variables that influence these perceptions.