What's Your Baseline? Enterprise Architecture & Business Process Management Demystified – Details, episodes & analysis

A lot of folks who are beginning with Process Mining see this as a technical or academic exercise and just want to know “how things works”.
But what is that worth? You need to be able to implement changes based on your analysis. Otherwise, the exercise has no value IMHO (besides if it is a Proof-of-Concept in a sales situation, but even then you should choose a process that you get some actionable insights from).

We are speaking with Olaf Geyer about this topic. Olaf is a very experienced BPM consultant and held multiple leadership roles in the past, such as Consulting Director, Customer Success Director, or leading the Consulting Team for the Americas at one BPM software vendor.

These days he is working in the professional services organization at Software AG and is focussing on Process Mining and the consulting methodology that his team uses when working with clients. The Process Mining Readiness Assessment is one of the “products” that came out of that work.

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• Olaf’s background (and the long history we are sharing at two employers)
• Why doing a Process Mining Readiness activity – what are the experiences that Olaf has made in the past that led to the development of the offering?
• Criteria for picking the right process as the first Process Mining project
• Objectives for the first project and how it fits into the “bigger picture”
• Data readiness as critical factor supporting a goal-oriented Process Mining
• What is goal-based / hypothesis-based Process Mining?
• What is the result of the Process Mining Readiness Assessment and what do you do with it?

Olaf can be reached on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ogeyer/.

Please reach out to us by either sending an email to hello@whatsyourbaseline.com or leaving us a voice message by clicking here.

Some organizations seem to perform better, create results faster, and the people in those organizations seem to have fun on top if this? But how can that be when you are currently stretched in all directions and don't know how to get stuff done?

In this episode we are talking with Amy Levine, who is an expert in neuroscience and how it impacts high-performance teams and the leaders (and their leadership style). Science to the rescue!

After a decade leading global productivity for Fortune 100 companies, Amy ventured on her own to help even more high-potential organizations improve performance and profitability. It's been a fascinating ride.

She partners with leaders and organizations to build high-performing cultures and achieve accelerated growth. With a focus on science-based strategies and proven methodologies, Amy helps clients improve stakeholder collaboration, optimize processes, and drive award-winning results. As a seasoned facilitator and coach, she creates inclusive environments for open dialogue and peer exchange, ensuring effective communication and goal achievement.

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• Amy’s background and her focus in building high-performance teams
• What is the problem for (new) leaders
• The need for strategy, aligned communication, selection of the right people, gamification/”competition”
• Impact of high-performance organization on leadership and outcomes
• Neurotransmitters as potential influence for culture (wow, science!)
• How to apply this knowledge to organizations
• Behavior as a leader and questions to ask yourself and your team members for adapting

Amy can be found on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amyllevine

Please reach out to us by either sending an email to hello@whatsyourbaseline.com or leaving us a voice message by clicking here.

This episode closes out the mini series about data, and this time we talk about data modeling. Data models are some of the things that I have seen the least often in projects over the last two decades. Why is that? Is it because it is too geeky, or not interesting enough compared to, say, a process model in BPMN?

But being clear about data is important when it comes to designing solution architectures (and in other use cases, such as regulatory compliance), and the three questions that you have to answer are:

• What is the data that we are talking about?
• Where do I store data and how is it transformed? 
• Where do I ask for the data?

In this episode of the What's Your Baseline Podcast we talk about:

• Conceptual / logical data modeling
• Canonical data models versus information asset views
• Application and data (from a logical perspective) - interface designs
• Data used in the context of processes
• Application diagrams and physical data models
• Data mapping in screen diagrams (wireframes)
• Screen navigation models for context

Please reach out to us by either sending an email to hello@whatsyourbaseline.com or leaving us a voice message by clicking here.

A lot of projects are just looking at processes and applications. One thing that typically does not get the limelight is the data that is needed to empower these two things. But why is that? Is it because data is "invisible" and cannot be touched or felt?

Our guest today is Wiebke Apitzsch, who is working in "data" for over 15 years with companies like the Boston Consulting Group. Currently she is working in a small organization named "Datahearts" that focusses on the combination of business, data, and change expertise.
Her role is the head of data strategy, in which she defines the use cases (that match the client strategy), looks at the systems that support the data strategy, and set up project and change management to make the project a success.

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• Wiebke's background
• Why you should focus on data in your projects
• Data as solid basis for discussions
• Change management as key for data project success
• Data strategy
• How to implement data (the example of a brick wall)
• How to manage stakeholders and their potential objections

Wiebke is very active on LinkeIn and you can contact her here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wiebke-apitzsch/.

Please reach out to us by either sending an email to hello@whatsyourbaseline.com or leaving us a voice message by clicking here.

As we all know, the majority of time in a process mining project is in some form or fashion related to data preparation and a significant lower share of time is spent on the actual analysis. There are multiple ways of getting you data into shape (SQL, visual data modeling tools, etc.), but our guest today has developed an approach and a tool to flip this time relation and shorten process mining projects significantly.

Our guest today is Lotte Vugs, who, after 5 years working as a process mining consultant, co-founded Konekti to speed up data preparation for process mining.

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• Lotte's background
• A quick reminder on what process mining is
• Time as a critical factor in every process improvement initiative
• Why data preparation takes so much time
• Why organizations are increasingly looking for ways to reduce the time spent on data preparation: it's all about effort vs benefit
• Time-efficient data preparation strategies: Now we know that data preparation is the problem, how to fix it?
• Managing time in large datasets

You can reach Lotte via email, her LinkedIn, or go to her website getkonekti.io.

Please reach out to us by either sending an email to hello@whatsyourbaseline.com or leaving us a voice message by clicking here.

This episode is a first for the podcast - we are not talking about something from an external perspective, but speak with someone "in the trenches" who is actively implementing BPM in an 160-year old organization.

Our guest today is Martin Holling, who is working at Kemna (a road construction company in northern Germany) and who has worked at Siemens, as well as a consultant in the BPM space before. His main objective is to figure out processes and how they should be designed and implemented to be efficient and effective. Then you should think about tools that can help you digitalize your work with continual improvement and automation.

Martin is also very active in the German BPM scene and is the co-host of the "BPM Stammtisch" (a regular meetup of BPM enthusiasts in Hamburg) that is organized via the New Process Pro community.

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• Martin's background
• His transition from Siemens to a consulting role, and his current BPM Lead role in a road construction company
• Challenges in road construction industry, including competition and thin profit margins
• Importance of efficiency and process improvement
• Martin's approach to introducing process management in a new organization
• Importance of employee engagement in the process
• Encouragement for listeners to stay open to new ideas and strategies

You can reach Martin via LinkedIn, and also via his website here: living-processes.de.

Please reach out to us by either sending an email to hello@whatsyourbaseline.com or leaving us a voice message by clicking here.

We had a couple of episodes where we discussed the Solution / Process Lifecycle, but this time we look at it from the perspective of Business Process organizations. What we see is a distinction between the different disciplines that are needed to deliver a full solution and there are organizations that see a "them" and "us" between those.
Unfortunately, I see a lot of these organizations also display a "mercenary approach" ("I am just here to create this artifact") and don't show the ownership of their part of an solution architecture and the following implementation, roll-out, and monitoring steps. This hinders them being seen as valuable parts of the team that changes the larger organization, the IT landscape, the capabilities of the enterprise. And I have seen BPM orgs struggling because of that lack of acceptance by others.

In this episode of the What's Your Baseline Podcast we talk about:

• Phases of a BPM / Transformation project
• Where Processes and BPM (as discipline) intersect
• Other considerations in Process projects
• Team to assemble
• Deliverables to expect

Please reach out to us by either sending an email to hello@whatsyourbaseline.com or leaving us a voice message by clicking here.

Welcome to Season 6 of the What's Your Baseline Podcast!

We’ve got another fascinating season coming up, chock full of emerging trends and leading voices from the EA and BPM space.

We will be talking about customer success stories, architecture topics like “data”, and also about how to make YOUR program a success.

See you there!

We are wrapping up Season 5 of this podcast with an episode that I was looking forward to for quite some time now – we are talking about operational intelligence.

What is that, you might ask. Well it is the insights into what your complex organization does by using technology and measuring the important things, while making them visible for you as a decider when you need to take not only the “big decisions”, but all those small decisions that you take dozens or more everyday. Those micro-decisions made by many, many people in organizations that pile up and determine the ‘actual’ direction.

Our guest this week is Shoeb Javed, the Chief Product Officer of iGrafx. He is a seasoned technology executive with broad experience in intelligent automation, process intelligence and enterprise software, and has a proven track record of leading product and technology teams that build amazing digital transformation solutions.
Shoeb loves to collaborate with digital transformation leaders to deliver meaningful business outcomes, and is a philosopher, swimmer, and biker.

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• Shoeb’s background
• What is operational intelligence?
• Why is it important to businesses?
• What technologies are available today that help companies use operational intelligence to benefit their business?
• How do I implement operational intelligence in my organization?
• How should I measure the success of my operational intelligence efforts?
• As a Chief Product Officer, how do you approach this in your company’s technology? Can you tell us more about what iGrafx is doing in this area?

You can reach Shoeb via email or LinkedIn, and also via the company website here: https://www.igrafx.com/.

Please reach out to us by either sending an email to hello@whatsyourbaseline.com or leaving us a voice message by clicking here.

You might have heard it in the last episode of the podcast (Ep. 59: Process Inventory), that our guest Michael Schank has written a book ;-)

That triggered two things with us - first, making a WYB Shorts about the process of writing a book and become a published author, and second, nudging Michael for a giveaway of three books to some randomly drawn winners.

To win, you need to do two things:

• Follow @whatsyourbaseline on LinkedIn (here: https://www.linkedin.com/company/whatsyourbaseline/),
• Add a comment to one of the LinkedIn posts that advertise this WYB Shorts episode.

We will have the following/commenting period open until Dec 19, 2023 and draw three lucky winners at 1800 ET. The next day, we will reach out to them to get their mailing addresses and once the book is published (ETA end of December 2023), Michael will send them out to the lucky people.

In the meantime, enjoy the Shorts episode with Michael.

Please reach out to us by either sending an email to hello@whatsyourbaseline.com or leaving us a voice message by clicking here.