To analyze the root causes for performance issues in this process, I'll focus on the data-specific considerations based on the variants provided. Here are the key observations and potential root causes:

1. Multiple Approval Layers:
   The variants with the highest performance times often involve multiple approval layers (e.g., ADMINISTRATION, BUDGET OWNER, SUPERVISOR). For instance:
   - Variant with ADMINISTRATION -> BUDGET OWNER -> SUPERVISOR approval has a performance of 1,084,338.407
   - This suggests that each additional approval layer significantly increases processing time.

2. Rejection and Resubmission Cycles:
   Variants involving rejections and resubmissions tend to have higher performance times:
   - The variant with two rejection-resubmission cycles before final approval has a performance of 2,542,497.917
   - Each rejection-resubmission cycle adds substantial time to the process.

3. Missing Approvals:
   Some variants include a "REJECTED by MISSING" step, which leads to high performance times:
   - A variant with this step has a performance of 1,947,246.400
   - This suggests that unclear or incomplete approval chains can cause significant delays.

4. Pre-Approver Involvement:
   Variants involving a PRE_APPROVER tend to have slightly higher performance times compared to similar variants without this step:
   - A variant with PRE_APPROVER approval has a performance of 861,058.409
   - This indicates that adding a pre-approval step increases processing time.

5. Budget Owner Approval:
   Variants that include BUDGET OWNER approval generally have higher performance times:
   - This suggests that budget owner involvement may be a bottleneck in the process.

6. Supervisor Rejections:
   When a SUPERVISOR rejects a declaration that has already been approved by lower levels, it leads to high performance times:
   - This indicates that late-stage rejections by higher authorities cause significant delays.

7. Administration Rejections:
   Repeated rejections by ADMINISTRATION lead to very high performance times:
   - A variant with multiple ADMINISTRATION rejections has a performance of 2,790,977.310
   - This suggests that initial quality checks or clarity in submission requirements may be lacking.

8. Outlier Performance:
   Some variants have extremely high performance times, such as:
   - A variant with just "Declaration REJECTED by ADMINISTRATION" has a performance of 13,805,869.200
   - This outlier might indicate a systemic issue in how certain rejections are handled or recorded.

9. Saved Declarations:
   The variant "Declaration SAVED by EMPLOYEE" has a performance of 0.000, which might indicate:
   - Either a measurement issue for saved (but not submitted) declarations
   - Or a potential for employees to prepare declarations offline before submission

These data-specific observations point to several process bottlenecks and inefficiencies that contribute to performance issues. The main root causes appear to be complex approval chains, frequent rejections leading to resubmissions, missing or unclear approval steps, and potential issues with initial quality checks or submission guidelines.