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.

How do you plan your transformation? By looking out of the window or asking your two best friends? Or would it be better if you had an overview of all the things that your organization does - in the form of a process inventory?

Michael is a distinguished thought leader and executive, specializing in addressing Digital Transformation and Operational Excellence challenges through his innovative, process-based framework. With over 25 years of experience in the Financial Services industry, he has primarily served as a management consultant, empowering clients with forward-thinking solutions in technology, processes, and risk and spearheading large-scale business and digital transformations. Michael brings a powerful combination of superior sales and delivery skills, having personally sold and delivered over $100M in consulting services.
He is the author of the forthcoming book, ‘Digital Transformation Success,’ in which he introduces his groundbreaking Process Inventory framework. This promises to be a transformative approach to achieving success in the digital era, unlocking unprecedented levels of operational efficiency and strategic alignment.

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• Michael's background
• Why do 70% of transformations fail?
• What is the Process Inventory Framework?
• What are the potential use cases?
• What are key success factors in this approach?
• Which role play CoEs and Process Owners?
• What are the steps to create and maintain a Process Inventory and the connected models?

Michael can be found on LinkedIn (of course) and on his website at https://www.processinventory.com/.

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

Last week's episode of the podcast was a very good conversation about learning and enablement with Ron Cohen, Peter Dern, and Adam Egger, and we could have talked for hours about this topic.

However, the conversation took quite a turn after I asked how the future of learning will look like. But we also were at the top of the hour and we didn't want to cut it out unheard.

The solution to the problem? Another What's Your Baseline Shorts! Enjoy the conversation and -sometimes creepy- outlook into the business of learning and enablement, and let us know what you think where the future will go. Have you or your organization already started on this track?

Hey J-M, what do think when you hear the word “seven”?

Well, maybe the seven wonders of the world? Seven rings? Seven deadly sins? My favourite song by Ariana Grande?

Hmm, these are all good ideas, but how about a Season 7 of the What’s Your Baseline podcast?

No way, what do we have in store for this season?

A mix of interviews and topic shows, just as in all of the last seasons. But we also will mix up some things - we will do video podcasts in addition to the audio podcasts now, And we’ll keep it short and sweet!

But what stays the same is the high-quality content that you expect from us and brought us to over 35,000 downloads. So, hang on a bit and we will be back with Season 7 next Monday August 26!

See you then!

How do you set up learning and enablement for your architecture/process people? What has changed since the days of instructor-led training, and where will the field of enablement go into the future (hint: it might be creepy for some of us). In this episode of the What's Your Baseline? podcast we are looking into the field of learning and enablement and discuss this topic with three experts of the field, and the background of working/having worked in process organizations.

Ron is the Director Global Learning at iGrafx, and an adept and insightful learning and development professional with a 20-year career leading training strategy and programs for a diverse set of global companies. He has a proven track record of building organizational development initiatives from inception to delivery—coaching large, complex teams through content assessment, design, and implementation.

Peter is the co-founder of SKLLD.de, a company that is all about Empowered Employees, Delighted Users, and Captivated Customers by combining Customer Centricity (CX), Employee Centricity (EX), and User Centricity (UX) with the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
His focus is on leadership development and team training, and he works as a coach, trainer, author, speaker, and podcaster. As a person, he is highly driven and motivated with more than 25 years of experience in the IT industry. He believes in leading by example with a clear focus on growing talent instead of just managing people.

Adam is the other co-founder of SKLLD. For over a decade, he has helped visionary teams worldwide build highly innovative products and cultures focused on customer satisfaction. Adam's training sessions teach teams innovation methods, optimization strategies, and how to use AI to be 10x more efficient at work. The end result? Customer-centric products, cost savings after a few days of workshops, new revenue streams—and owning the future of your industry.
When Adam is not obsessing about innovation and AI, you can find him shaping our future leaders - he teaches young people communication, creativity, AI skills, and empathy, so they can thrive in an AI-powered world.

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• Our guest's backgrounds
• Training/coaching/enablement (sender perspective) vs. learning (receiver perspective)
• What brings people to learn?
• Continuous learning as culture (and business benefits of it)
• Demands of reducing training/enablement time
• The influence of AI on learning and what to learn
• What to focus on in a corporate learning environment
• Implications for learning content creation
• How to measure the value of learning and enablement?

All three can be found on Linked In: Ron Cohen, Peter Dern, Adam Egger.

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

You bought the tool and now the most critical question for your success comes up: “Now what?”.

This leads to these questions: what you can do in the tools, what can you expect, and -maybe most importantly- what do you do after you’ve done a part of the analysis. You also need to have a “meta process” on how to approach a Process Mining project.

These are all the topics that we are talking about in this episode of the What’s Your Baseline? podcast. Since this is a comprehensive (and long) episode, I have added timestamps to the different topics, so that you can find the snippets that are relevant for you after listening to the whole episode 🙂

• Process Mining project approach
• High-level Process Mining Analysis
• Detailed Process Analysis
• Analysis Presentation

The full show notes, including time stamps and graphics can be found at whatsyourbaseline.com/episode57.

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

Implementing a tool or standing up a new capability can be a complex task. Standing up a Center of Excellence as part of this implementation can help ease the pain for new users. However, it is not always clear what a CoE shall do and how it is integrated into an organization (or where it is located in the org structure). In this episode we are talking with Thi Nguyen about exactly this topic, and he has some interesting -and maybe sometime controversial?- opinions about this topic.

Thi is a Vice President at SAP in Asia and spent a significant amount of time in various positions at Siemens in Vietnam, Germany, the UK, and the Czech Republic - being a CIO as well as a CFO, and leading CoEs.

However, his passion lies in sharing his knowledge and ideas in two shows: "Tea with Thi" and "Differential Hallucinations".

In this episode of the ⁠podcast⁠ we are talking about:

• Thi's background
• What is a Center of Excellence?
• How are they structured?
• What is the business case for a CoE?
• How do you stand up a CoE?
• When do you move on from a Center of Excellence (think a hamster lifespan)?
• Do you need a COE for each technology or each process?
• What's next?

Thi is very active on LinkedIn with is "Tea with Thi" and can be found here: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/teawiththi/⁠.

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

The way how we communicate and learn has changed over the last couple of years. One contributing factor is podcasting (or videocasting - we are no purists over here at What's Your Baseline?). By now there are tons of excellent podcasts about Business Process Management, Process Mining, and Enterprise Architecture out there free of charge for you.

We thought that it was a good idea to look at this phenomenon and invited three former guests of our show who also run their successful podcasts to discuss the impact of podcasting for our discipline. Listen to our panel session with Josèphe Blondaut, Mirko Kloppenburg, and Jakub Dvořák.

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• Why did our guests start their podcasts?
• Which hurdles did they encounter?
• Do you think podcasting is relevant for the discipline and how is their audience's reaction?
• What were favorite moments from their podcasting days?
• What has podcasting done for you, your career, your company, and how did you see this realized and measured?
• How do you increase reach?
• What are some hard earned best practices that helped propel the success in podcasting?

If you like to connect with our panel you can find them here on LinkedIn: Jakub Dvořák, Josèphe Blondaut, and Mirko Kloppenburg.

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

This is another What's Your Baseline? Shorts episode and we are following up with the guest from our last episode, Moritz Berger.

Moritz took the APQC Process Classification Framework and imported it into "The Brain" to visualize the breakdown and connectivity of processes to each other.

Since this Shorts consists mostly of a demonstration, you might want to watch at it on Spotify, YouTube, or on our website at whatsyourbaseline.com/shorts10. And if you like to click through the Brain for yourself, please go here: https://bra.in/3qzgr6.

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

We spoke about frameworks and reference content as accelerators in a previous episode (listen here), but one of those is pretty popular here in North America, so that we have a deeper look into the APQC Process Classification Framework today. We are talking with Moritz Berger about the ins-and-outs of APQC, and will extend this conversation with another What's Your Baseline Shorts in a week from now (WYB Shorts 10).

Moritz is a senior leader with credentials in technology strategy, management consulting, sales, business development, marketing, and enterprise architecture. He has 20+ years of global industry experience including AWS, KPMG, and Microsoft and is a trusted advisor to Fortune 500 organizations.

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• Moritz' background
• What is APQC and the PCF?
• What is the structure and what is included?
• Who is the framework for and which use cases can be covered?
• What are the benefits of using a structure like the PCF?
• How to get started?
• Considerations and lessons learned

If you like to connect with Moritz, reach out to him via LinkedIh here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/moritzberger/.

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

Process Management has a bad reputation of downsizing, replacing humans with bots, and all those other things that one relates to "bad capitalism". But there are also other ways to include humans into process management that are outside of these parameters. And, believe it or not, you still need humans to analyze, design, and improve processes.

Today we are talking with Christoph Piller about the topic of subject-oriented process management.

Christoph, also known as the Process Wizard, has a focus on (S-)BPM, Hyperautomation, Process Sprint, and AI, I empowering businesses and individuals to excel. He offers personalized coaching, consulting, and training in (subject-oriented) BPM, Hyperautomation and Process Sprint Week. He wants you to experience the power of Hyperautomation and AI as a BPM assistant, optimizing processes for maximum efficiency.

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• Christoph's background
• What is S-BPM?
• Why should one care about subject-oriented process management?
• How do you model this (using the PASS notation - Parallel Activity Specification Scheme)
• Why hasn't S-BPM conquered the world?
• What is next for S-BPM?

You can find Christoph on LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, and on his website.

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

Sometimes you have to mix up things a bit and come down to the level of practicality ... in this case we are looking at process-bility in this week's episode of the podcast.
What that is? Oh, it is the approach to process modeling that our guest Kevin Tan has developed.

Kevin is an accomplished Business Process Analyst with more than 20 years of global experience gained through roles in Australia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia and the UK. His industry experience includes insurance, supply chain, utilities, technology, HR, education and telecommunications.

Kevin helps organizations create sustainable competitive advantage by establish Process Governance Framework and Architecture, continuous business process improvement, implementing modeling best practices, ensure quality BPM models and uplifting BPM competency.

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• Kevin' background
• The creation of Process-bility and how it came to this
• The three layers of Process-bility - why, how, what
• How to apply the three layers to your process diagrams, especially to accomplish storytelling, visual balance, and simplicity

You can find Kevin on LinkedIn, or connect with him via the process-bility website.

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 the topic of today's episode - transformation - a couple of times on this podcast, even though we did not call the episodes like that. But why?

Because transformation in today's times is not an exception but the reality for all organizations. It is not just "an update by IT", or something that is a "one and done". We all need to change and transform our organizations all the time.
However, a lot of organizations are caught in their day-to-day issues and don't plan the change - they don't know how their "tomorrow" should look like.

Our guest this week is James Toomey, one of the founders of TMWR Lab and an expert in defining the strategy to get to the desired "tomorrow" but also in the "how" to get there.

He is a Connected SaaS Business, Commercial Innovation, and Brand Strategy executive with a proven track record in creating, enhancing, and building tangible value for companies, products, and brands across a diverse range of sectors.
In addition to this he's an Expert Design-thinking and workshop facilitator and seasoned problem-solver with proven ability to tackle an issue/opportunity from all perspectives to deliver actionable roadmaps: new revenues, new business models, advanced capability building, and culture advancement.

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• James' background
• Companies are looking how to modernize and transform, but often don't have a clear vision and strategy
• Development of a top-down strategy: Customers and Go-to-Market; Operational capabilities; Employee engagement and/or empowerment; Vendors and networked value
• Automation capabilities vs. innovation capabilities
• How to activate transformation programs

You can find James on LinkedIn, or have a look at his website here: https://www.thetmrwlab.com/.

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

Some topics seem to be a "stretch too far" for this podcast, and the topic for today's episode seems to be one of those: Sustainability.

But is it? Yes, Sustainability -or the lack of it- is a global problem, that manifests itself in climate change, social restructuring, and many other forms. But it also becomes a topic that organizations have to adjust to in their business practices. And some areas of the world are doing this for decades by now - not only being pushed by the desire to do something good, but also because regulations require it and it is just "good business practice".

Our guest this week is Anthony Gilbreath. He has over 20 years experience in oil & gas, alternative energy and sustainability consulting. He authored the CurrentState Sustainability Audit for Caelus as well as many sustainability consulting services for Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC). He has extensive international experience (10 years + in Moscow, 5 years + in the UK) as well as experience with blue-chip clients such as BAE Systems, Raytheon, Unilever, Gazprom, Bombardier, Transport for London, Virgin, SAP and others.

He was also a subject matter expert and contributor to Ted Turner and Sam Nunn founded NUCLEAR THREAT INITIATIVE (NTI) study on “High Technology Business Accelerators for Russia”. Finally, he authored the book 'The Ultimate Guide to Greening your Home' in 2010 (https://tinyurl.com/y4j45x4n).

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• Anthony's background
• A brief history of Sustainability
• Standards and frameworks
• How to approach Sustainability when you get started with this topic in your organization
• ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) and TFCD (Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures)
• The future of Sustainability

You can reach Anthony via email or LinkedIn, and also via his website here: https://www.caelusconsulting.com/.

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 are like a ticking time bomb when it comes to their processes and (IT) architecture.
"The old guard" is about to leave the organization in masses (and sometimes not voluntarily) and a lot of knowledge about how things are wired up - which is what architecture is all about, right? - will leave as well. And not too many organizations are prepared for this, and rather pretend that the young kid fresh from college can fill the hole. Note to those orgs: they won't.

Our guest in this episode is Peggy McCann - she is a veteran business professional who has specialized working in areas that transform business operations. Peggy worked extensively in process mapping and process improvement utilizing new and emerging technologies. She developed workflows for companies that installed new ERP systems that necessitated corporate culture and process change, and worked on multi-national implementations advising and working to meld program roll out to national standards and diverse cultures both internal and external.

Peggy is a project leader covering process engineering; functional/system integration; process controls and system security, and does business advisement for entrepreneurs; financial tracking, marketing, web presence, and ecommerce. She is an advisor for game development firm dealing with internet safety for children, multi user controls and guidelines - community work establishing and defining arts in action.

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• Peggy's background
• The impact of (forced) retirement for the individuals and what organizations do wrong in that situation. And challenges for the people who shall replace them
• Benefits of keeping older employees around (the pendulum that swings)
• Risks for organizations - IT architecture, lack of interest on old technology, data lakes, etc. Orgs don't know what is running!
• What can companies (HR) do? How does the conversation between the org and the individual change? How shall roles change?
• Steps going forward: HR assessment, structured knowledge management capture plan, mentoring, flexible transition models into retirement

Peggy can be found on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peggy-mccann-147b564/.

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

Welcome back to the What's Your Baseline? Podcast. We are starting our Season 5 (who would have guessed that?) next Monday, July 31, with our 50th episode about Sustainability.

We can't wait to hear back from you :-)

Welcome to the last episode of our podcast in Season 4 (no worries, we'll be back for a Season 5). Today we are talking about Customer Experience Management, which is complimentary to BPM and EA.

The key difference is that Customer Experience Management has an outside-in perspective on things, versus the inside-out perspective of your organization, which many BPM groups try to capture and manage. The point is that you shouldn't stop with this, but rather create an additional view in your architecture, that then can be designed - just as you design your process or app landscapes.

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• What is the purpose of Customer Journey Mapping?
• Outside-in vs inside-out perspective
• What benefits / risks are there on businesses that justify the need for CXM/CJM?
• How does this fit into a process and architecture transformation lifecycle?
• Who contributes to Customer Experience Management?
• How to design Customer Experience
• How to measure Customer Experience?
• How to analyze Customer Journeys?

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

We have spoken about Process Mining and data-driven decision making quite a lot on this podcast.

But does it stop with mining processes? I think the next step is growing this field of data analysis to "Enterprise Mining" where the same idea will be applied to apps, data, orgs, risks, etc. And the idea is the same - get a factual basis from system records and then augment it with human information and interpretation.

Our guest this week is Mark McGregor, a former Research Director at leading IT industry analysis firm Gartner, Mark has an extensive background in enterprise architecture, business process management, process modeling, process mining, and change management. He has held executive positions with several technology companies. Since retiring from Gartner, he has worked with clients such as Changepoint, Erwin, Mega, Planview, LeanIX, Signavio, ABBYY, Workpath, Axellience and iGrafx. Currently he serves as a Head of Product Marketing & Strategy at Apromore, while also providing advice to investors and management consultancies on these specialist markets.

Mark has authored or co-authored four books on business and process management, including “Thrive! How to Succeed in the Age of the Customer” and “In Search of BPM Excellence” and “People-Centric Process Management”. Widely respected for his knowledge and views on business change, he is the creator of "Next Practice" and has been described as a “BPM Guru," a "Thought Leader" and a "Master of Mindset”.

Mark spent much of the last twenty five years traveling the world, learning, teaching, and researching the cultural issues of change and how executives perceive business and process improvement. In this capacity, he has taught hundreds of people and been fortunate to interview and interact with many CEOs.

Mark is passionate about the people aspects of change, and has travelled the world, learning, teaching and researching the cultural aspects of change and how executives perceive business and process improvement. He has presented and taught thousands of people the importance of process and how to harness the power of process. He has also been fortunate to interview and interact with many CEOs about their perception and views on BPM.

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• Mark's background
• His perspective on the Process Mining market today (and how we got there when looking at Business Process Management vendors)
• Full process lifecycle support (mining > design > simulation > automation), and how people try to shortcut things
• Enterprise Mining - extending the concept of mining to other areas (rule discovery, etc.)
• Workforce productivity management and how process/task mining fit into the picture of Enterprise Mining
• How BI and Mining will come/work together and the ethics on these topics

You can reach Mark via email or LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmcgregor/.

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

We are at the next step of moving our organizations to the digital twin which will allow us to monitor "the plane" (our businesses) in real-time and compare it with the predictions of the future. This missing step is Process Simulation, a "thing" that existed for years already and was widely underused.

The change though is that the next generation of Process Simulation tools now is much more advanced and uses AI to help with predicting future outcomes of your process and helping finding suggestions on how to improve the process to enable that you reach your business objectives.

John started out as economic analyst at the Bank of England, worked at another Simulation company and then founded Silico to transform the way organizations make decisions. He is interested in complex systems and computational simulation and lives close to London.

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• John's background
• What is Process Simulation and how does it work?
• What are main areas that Process Simulation aids?
• How does a client get started and how does it fit into the DMAIC cycle and continuous improvement initiatives?
• What is a "Digital Twin" of an organization?
• How does Process Simulation help with choosing the correct transformation initiatives?
• An example of a successful client deployment of Simulation

John can be found on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-hill-3879b823/ or be reached at john@silicoai.com.

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 the next episode of our podcast. Today we are talking about Gamification, a topic that we are a bit critical towards, but which seems to be here to stay (it's a generational thing, I guess...). But the twist in this episode is how it influences the performance of your architecture or business process team.

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• What is a gamification and what are the core elements?
• Why should you gamify everything (or not)?
• How do process/architecture and gamification fit?
• How to create a gamification strategy
• What are the day-to-day "mechanics" and how do you reward success?
• What does that mean for process management and architecture?
• Potential benefits of gamification
• Four examples of organizations that deployed gamification and had success with it

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

Enterprise Architects? Aren’t those the useless people who always say “no”? That is one of the perspectives we have heard about EAs in the past. But what can EAs do and how do the progress from “noisy” to “influential”?

In this episode of the What’s Your Baseline? podcast we discuss the role of Enterprise Architects and the changes to the discipline with Luca de Risi from Mega International, who brings a wealth of experience in this field to the episode.

Luca is Mega’s Chief Executive Officer and he held various leadership positions at the firm before that, like, being the country manager for the APAC business while being located in Singapore, or as Business Development Executive in the United States. He started his career as an internal auditor for a major French car maker before joining Mega.

Luca lives in Paris with his wife and young daughter, so we all know that he’s busy on two fronts 🙂

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• Luca’s background
• Key drivers for EA today and the key role of the architect
• Business Transformation and continuous change
• Examples of transformation projects
• EA and Security – a connected approach
• Resilency and change of the EA role from designer to orchestrator
• What slows EAs down?

Luca can be reached via LinkedIn or you can contact him via Mega’s website.

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

When starting with process management one of the first questions is “what process notation shall I use”. In this episode of the What’s Your Baseline? podcast we discuss this question with Walter Bril, who is one of the co-inventors of the Universal Process Notation (UPN) and why it is not *really* important what notation you should use … it is more important which approach to Business Process Management you choose.

Walter has a strong process knowledge management background, combined with skills and experience in technology management for more than 20 years. Involved in and contributed to the field of practical process knowledge preservation. As you will hear, he has a no-nonsense approach and a unique and practical way to involve and motivate people regarding process knowledge management, process thinking and creating awareness.

Besides nerding out on process notations, he spends more time in the interesting developments around the Bitcoin protocol and public blockchain. Particularly in the context of social developments, concerns regarding the sustainability of traditional thinking models, and the socio-economic potential that a public blockchain has to offer. The combination “process-nerd” and blockchain evangelist is particularly valuable in this (oh, and he is the co-author on two books on this topic as well).

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• Walter’s background
• The UPN notation and the 5 questions you should ask when modeling a process
• The “why” behind all this
• How to implement a new notation/approach in an organization
• How to convince people
• What is the “now what” then?

You can reach Walter on LinkedIn or by sending him an email to walter@elements.cloud.

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

What are the needs of a small business compared to a larger one? Can they use the same approaches for process improvement and business process management? Shall they use the same tools?

Yhis week we are speaking with an expert on this topic (and also a small business owner herself - Adi Klevit. Adi is running her own firm that has specialized on helping small organizations with process documentation/process management and helps them to create the consistency that they need ... just like larger organizations. She also runs her own podcast on that topic called "Systems Simplified Podcast".

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• Adi's background
• Why doing processes for a small organization?
• Sales of “process” to small organizations (vs. large organizations)
• Processes start with a “Why” and change management is important
• Uses of process documentation in small orgs
• Where to start when beginning the process journey? What is her approach to mapping?
• How to make sure that the process documentation is used?

You can reach Adi via LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adiklevit/. Her business can be found at bizsuccesscg.com and her podcast is called Systems Simplified Podcast.

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

I see a lot of separated efforts in organization, and model processes. Aren't these all connected activities that should be coordinated to create a *gulp* architecture that carries the load?

But what is a "Business Architecture" and how is it different from just an assembly of processes? Are these terms synonyms or is there more to a Business Architecture than that?

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• What is a Business Architecture?
• Why should I care and where to start?
• Align strategy to (business) architecture
• Two process views - functional processes vs. End-to-End processes
• Both process views are connected (big map vs. trip map)

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

If you have listened to a couple of podcast episodes you know that we are true believers in that the biggest "problem" in any architecture, BPM, or Process Mining project is not the technology or the processes and other architecture views - it is the people! 

Getting people along with your change is the hardest thing to do and therefore we are happy to revisit the topic of Organizational Change Management on a semi-regular basis.

Jehane has worked as a Change Management and Business Transformation lead for over 15 years working on large multinational projects in multiple industries including financial services, consulting, manufacturing, sports and entertainment, healthcare, transportation and the public sector. She likes to focus on helping clients to drive lasting change and to support teams in working better together while achieving their aims.

In her down time, Jehane enjoys coaching, reading, continuously learning and spending time with her tribe in relaxing environments like the spa...

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• Jehane's background
• Evaluating what you actually need to make org. change management real for your audience
• The five "Whys" and the "WIIFM" (What's In It For Me?)
• Meet people where they are, not where you want them or need them to be
• Questions to ask when making a change
• How to create a compelling story
• Setting up for successful adoption
• Partnering effectively with change managers
• Common mistakes
• What makes a good Org. Change Management professional

You can reach Jehane via LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jehaneadam/.

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

How do I get started? What is the first thing that I look at? Who will be my allies? What do I need to put in place? When you are tasked to build a brand new Business Architecture practice in an organization that has not had one before is a challenging task. When you have to do this in a 60-year old organization in a field that is relatively unique on the market, that might be even more challenging.

Our guest in this episode is Breanne Casteel, a catalyst for change enablement through collaboration and connections to drive empathetic business solutions.

She is a passionate advocate with 20+ years experience bringing awareness of Business Architecture and Business Analysis skills and mindset to numerous roles in the organization with an emphasis on communication, transparency, and collaboration across silos.

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• Breanne’s background
• The case for Business Architecture
• Finding sponsorship and allies
• Creating and showing the value of Business Architecture day-by-day
• (Lack of) Reference models
• How to get started without a BPM tool first – and then choosing one after the start
• Planning and building a roadmap – for the organization and the business architecture team as well
• Setting up a strategic project portfolio for the organization

You can find Breanne on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/breannecasteel/.

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

Developing a strategy for your organization seems like a mystery for a lot of people (and some organizations make a large coin from keeping that mystery), but in all reality it has a big part of “wild guesses” included. In this episode of the What’s Your Baseline Podcast we have Dan Marquez on the show, who knows a thing or two about this topic from his time at Accenture, Boston Consulting Group, or Google.

Dan is a passionate and eminently capable digital transformation professional, and also an expert in helping organizations understand and capitalize on the power of technology.

He specializes in adapting the enterprise strategies of his clients to find the real value opportunities and disruption resilience that can be powered by digital solutions. He also has deep knowledge of Operating Model and Culture design, supporting companies to drive the change necessary to make transformations sustainable.

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• Dan’s background
• What is a “strategy”?
• What to look for when developing a strategy (and which traps to avoid)
• Explore the space by using an “intersectional strategy” method
• How to implement a strategy – duality of leadership mentalities
• PSA: style trumps substance
• Most challenges boil down to cultural problems
• Pursue an “L-shaped” transformation – focus on building foundational improvements while delivering value through narrow end-to-end use cases

Dan can be contacted via LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marquezd/.

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 people think that the work is done when they have a process be visualized  in their process mining tool and a nice dashboard is built. Nothing could be further from the truth and our guest today, Sebastian Kotulla, talks with us about why that is. To bridge the gap between visualizing data/information to knowledge as the result of the analysis Lean techniques can be applied.

Sebastian has a strong focus on and passion for digital solutions to support business transformation such as virtual factories, computer vision, AI, process mining and engines. As Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and Prosci Certified Change Practitioner he's used to run and consult in transformational initiatives from concept to successful implementation.

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• Sebastian’s background
• Define - (DMAIC and how to apply this to process mining, CRISP framework, leading and lagging indicators)
• Analysis (flow is key in Lean, different types of waste (TIMWOODS), Process Mining gives the reference points for the Control phase, Theory of constraints / bottlenecks, most of the problems are outside of the discovered process model!)
• How to prioritize which process to choose
• How to do the analysis - first look to define the problem (time analysis, Gemba)
• Fishbone to structure hypotheses (manual cluster analysis) - Find the story in your analysis, five Whys to find the systematic problems
• FMEA analysis risk analysis > risk simulation
• Design of experiments - statical method on how to design an experiment and then make predictions from the result; understand input variables better
• Advanced analysis
• A practical project example

Sebastian can be found on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastian-kotulla-1645ab88/ and also be contacted via email: sebastian@digitalprios.de.

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 4 of our podcast. Today we are talking about Solution Engineering, aka Presales, and what you can expect from your vendor's solution engineers (vs. their consultants).

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• What is a Solution Engineer?
• What is their primary job focus and their scope of work and process?
• What are Consultants (and are they different from Solution Engineers)
• What are the required skill sets for Solution Engineers (and Consultants)?
• How to work with both - when to contact, what info they need, and what 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.

Today we have a special What's Your Baseline Shorts episode for you, that has nothing to do with Enterprise Architecture or Business Process Management.  

However, we think that you will like it: our guest today is Jeremy Voltz, an indie-soul musician from Toronto, Ontario, who is gracefully letting us use his music for all intros, outros, and intermissions. In this episode we are talking with him about:  

• how he got into music (he has a PhD in Mathematics) 
• what kind of music he produces -
• how his process works (well, at least a bit of BPM) 
• and what is next for him  

You can reach Jeremy at jeremyvoltzmusic.com or via his LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-voltz-758118101/.  

We're closing out the episode with the full Non-Christmas Christmas song "When You're Near" by him as a small token of our appreciation for you. Please enjoy the upcoming holidays with your loved ones and we will see each other in Season 4 starting in mid-January!

Welcome to another episode of our podcast. In the final episode of the final season for this year, we are talking about another ten things we’ve learned over the years:

How to do things

• Transparency is more important than ever
• Strategic alignment is key to your success
• Sometimes you have to say “no” to requirements
• Make clear from the outset how a project’s success is measured
  

Tools

• BPM/EA tools are still too nerdy
• Tools need to be simpler - how to get to information in three clicks or fewer
• How to provide self-help resources
• (Bonus) Do not google “how to create subway maps”
  

The discipline/industry

• There will be a renaissance of forward-looking data-driven decision making (e.g., Simulation)
• Process Mining will cease to exist as its own market in 3-5 years
• Knowledge Management needs to be more in focus
  

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

There was a lot of buzz around Lean and Six Sigma back in the 80s and 90s, but not today anymore.

However, the practice is not dead and it is still relevant and used in many industries today. And there are good reasons to take a step back and have another look at why it was so successful and what of the practice still creates value and should be included in your process improvement and process excellence initiatives.

Today's guest on the What's Your Baseline Podcast is Ron Baker. He is an American Society of Quality (ASQ) Certified Black Belt and a SixSigma.us Certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt with over 26 years of proven success and increasing levels of responsibility in both domestic and international environments.

He has an expert level of business process improvement knowledge in transactional (Department of Defense, Financial & Retail) and manufacturing (Oil & Gas/Pharmaceutical/Health Care/Medical Device & Semiconductor) environments.
In addition to this he has recent program management office implementation experience, deploying continuous improvement techniques (Lean Six Sigma), and strategy development.

We are talking about these topics:

• Ron's background and how a 400m runner becomes a process improvement consultant
• What is Lean and Six Sigma?
• What are "belts" and what do they indicate?
• What is a typical approach of a Lean/6 Sigma project and how do you get buy in?
• Do you need special tools for a Lean/6 Sigma project?

You can find Ron on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ron-baker/ or send an email to ronwbaker@gmail.com.

The full show notes, including graphics, further links, and credits are available at whatsyourbaseline.com/episode36.

Welcome to another episode of our podcast. Today we are talking about what to do before, during, and after process discovery and design sessions.

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• Before the session
  - Identify what to change/purpose
  - Identify who to invite
  - Create strategic alignment
  - What to prepare
  
• During the session
  - How to structure a business architecture (> process discovery)
  - How to start the session (facilitation)
  - Structure of design sessions
  - Follow-up sessions
  
• After the session
  - Clean up of models and sharing with participants
  - After the final session
  - After publishing
  

The full show notes, including graphics, further links, and credits are available at whatsyourbaseline.com/episode35.

Being the reasonable adult seems to be the parallel topic of this week's episode - even though the main topic is process automation. We were just so excited in our conversation that we got carried away 

In this episode of the What's Your Baseline podcast we speak with Bernd Rücker. He is a software developer at heart who has been innovating process automation deployed in highly scalable and agile environments of industry leaders such as T-Mobile, Lufthansa, ING, and Atlassian. Bernd contributed to various open-source workflow engines for more than 15 years and is the Co-Founder and Chief Technologist of Camunda – an open-source software company reinventing process automation. 

Bernd is also the author of "Practical Process Automation" and co-author of "Real-Life BPMN". Additionally, he's a regular speaker at conferences around the world and a frequent contributor to several technology publications. He focusses on new process automation paradigms that fit into modern architectures around distributed systems, microservices, domain-driven design, event-driven architecture, and reactive systems.

We are talking about these topics:

• Bernd's background and why he never had a 'proper job', and how Consulting influenced the product development
• The difference between process orchestration and process (task) automation
• How to use BPMN for orchestration and how the orchestration engine, well, orchestrates automation at the end points
• Automation with code and other means (RPA, low code/no code)
• Client examples and what to do or not to do

You can find Bernd on LinkedIn here: Bernd Ruecker | LinkedIn or send an email to bernd.ruecker@camunda.com. His personal website is https://berndruecker.io/.

The full show notes, including graphics, further links, credits, and transcript, are available at whatsyourbaseline.com/episode34.

A few weeks ago (in Episode 30) we spoke about how to select your process mining tool. And the conversation was so good, that we totally overran our planned time of an hour.

But instead of leaving our thoughts about use cases for process mining, that are currently not implemented in standard process mining tools, we decided to use them as a What's Your Baseline Shorts episode. We are talking about:

• Customer mining
• Processes in the ecosystem
• Process mining for sustainability (add this to analysis, not only of one firm, but a chain of more organizations)
• Process mining for ESG

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

We talk (a lot) about technology and processes here on the podcast. But what about the human side of Business Process Management? Do we just forget them and aim for the desired outcome no matter what? No, we don't ...

In this episode of the What's Your Baseline podcast we speak with Mirko Kloppenburg, who started his own company and project "New Process Lab" a few months ago after 20+ successful years at Lufthansa Group.

To start the New Process Lab, he linked the often fuzzy New Work ideas with tangible processes. As symbiosis of Process Management and New Work, the “New Process” approach was created. It adds a human-centric mindset to the already proven BPM tools and methods we know from the past.

The exchange about New Process has shown him that there is a great need to explore these ideas more deeply. To do this, he created the a platform to build a community, to perform experiments, and to share experiences. The NewProcessLab.com is driven by the purpose to empower you to rethink your process. In addition, he started the New Process Podcast to explore new ways to rethink processes and to share his journey with you!

We are talking about these topics:

• Mirko's background and his revelation that it is all about the people when doing process management

• The New Process principles: trust the people, involve the people, foster the development of people, give meaning to the people

• Inspire people for process by community building, focusing on experience design, and being a process influencer

• Examples of the New Process principles

• How to bring the principles to life

• The New Process lifecycle

You can find Mirko on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mirkokloppenburg/. His website is newprocesslab.com, and his podcast can be found here: newprocesslab.com/new-process-podcast.

The  full show notes, including graphics, further links, credits, and transcript, are available at whatsyourbaseline.com/episode33.

"I just bought your tool, now you have to tell me what I can do with it".
No kidding, that is what one client to said to me once. Well, here is a starter for you - in our latest episodes we are talking about the use cases for Business Process Management (not all of them, because we have that self-imposed limit of an hour-ish length for each episode).

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

• Short review of the Process Lifecycle
• (Process) Documentation, publishing, and standardization
• (Process) Inventory and analysis
• Process improvement
• System implementation
• Roll-out support
• Perishable insights response (BI and PI)
• Execution monitoring
• Customer experience design
• Risk mgmt and regulatory compliance
• Digital twin of an organization
• Quality management (Enterprise Mgmt System)

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

Even given the fact that we are living in the 21st century, it is interesting to see that the percentage of women who studied technology or worked in the process industry actually decreased over time. Which is a sad state of affairs. So the question now is, how we -as an industry- can add more diversity and pick the brain pool of intelligent female professionals. In this episode of the What’s Your Baseline podcast we speak with two women who have taken things into their own hands and started their own initiatives to improve this situation.

Josèphe leads the ARIS Product Marketing team at Software AG, dealing with all topics around ARIS from global marketing campaigns, social media, public relations, events to “simple” release activities. She is also a newly certified as a Sustainability Manager from the Cambridge University, Institute of Sustainable Leadership, and wants to make things move forward here too. And last but not least, she founded and leads a regional sustainable gourmet food business from the greater #saarlorlux region available onsite in Saarbrücken, Germany and online here: www.saar-lor-deluxe.com.
In addition to this she also runs two podcasts/shows about “Passion for Process” and “Women in BPM”.

Gabriela is a Manager at Deloitte in NYC and is leading Process Mining projects, educating junior process mining talents, and identifying optimization potentials with process mining. She is so excited about process mining that she founded a new community “Women in Process Mining”, which targets women, girls and female leaders who work, study or research in the field of process mining.

We are talking about these topics:

• Josephe’s and Gabriela’s background
• Gabriela’s “Women in Process Mining” and Josephe’s “Women in BPM” initiative initiatives
• Their motivations and how things got started
• The experience they have in interacting with their audience
• What it takes to build a community and where they go from here

You can find Josèphe on LinkedIn here: Josèphe Blondaut | LinkedIn. Gabriela can be found here: Gabriela Galic, M.Sc. | LinkedIn.

The  full show notes, including graphics, further links, credits, and transcript, are available at whatsyourbaseline.com/episode32.

Updating the "plumbing" is not sexy. Looking at measures being put in place to avoid the worst case or deal with it when it happens is not fancy. Educating people and reminding them on being alert is exhausting.

However, the topic of Security and Security Architecture is one of the most important things to do, now that we outgrow the industrial age and move into the information age. In this episode of the What's Your Baseline Podcast we are talking with Rick Smith about Security Architecture.

Rick has over 18 years of experience in managing information systems to include, developing policies, portfolio management, writing programs and procedure development for information assurance programs. His various roles include a Network Administrator/Manager, Threat Analyst Subject Matter Expert, IA Strategic Planning and Database Manager. He is proficient in certification and accreditation policy and procedure including DoD policy, intelligence community policy, United States Postal Service (USPS) AS805, and NIST guidelines. He also has experience in cyber security architecture development for these same organizations. 

Rick has developed and taught CISSP classes. He has developed his own curriculum and approach in helping candidates become a CISSP.

In this episode we are talking about:

• What is Security Architecture?
• Define mission, threat
• Policies and SOPs need accountability, the need for education
• Digital natives and their approach to security - leading to decentralized security architecture
• How to approach threats
• How to mature your organization’s security by using NIST’s Cyber Security Framework CMMC and security self assessments
• Implement the framework

Rick can be found on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricksmth477/.

The  full show notes, including graphics, further links, credits, and transcript, are available at whatsyourbaseline.com/episode31.

Welcome to another episode of our podcast. Today we are talking about how to choose a process mining tool, to close the loop to the "How to select an architecture tool" episode (link in the full show notes on whatsyourbaseline.com/episode30).

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

    • What are process mining tools and how they are different than other tools (BI tools, modeling tools) and how can they work together

    • Features to look at when choosing a process mining tool

        ◦ Process Explorer (listen to the details what tools today can and cannot do)

        ◦ Variant analysis

        ◦ Root/cause miner, ideally AI-driven

        ◦ Custom dashboards

        ◦ Calculate new fields

        ◦ Package (dashboards, transformations, calculations) and make it reusable

        ◦ Predictive analysis

        ◦ Trigger actions (as a quick fix for a process, not a redesign)

    • Integration requirements

        ◦ Integration with source tools

        ◦ Integration with other mining tools (task mining)

        ◦ Integration with architecture tool

        ◦ Integration with process execution

    • Cost and other considerations

The  full show notes, including graphics, further links, credits, and transcript, are available at whatsyourbaseline.com/episode30.

It is interesting to see how a "fringe idea" became mainstream within just a few years and everyone of us is using the outcome of it in our daily lives (mostly without knowing it - or have you thought what runs your car radio or the datacenter of your preferred search engine?).

But another aspect that still has to gain traction of the Open Source movement is the cultural aspect. How do you develop a SW that is used by billions of people in an all volunteer organization?
The key ingredient for this is to build a lively community and develop a culture that is a win-win for everyone involved. Something that I don't see in every organization (unfortunately).

In this episode of the What's Your Baseline podcast we speak with Avi Ghosh, who has more than a decade of experience from within OpenSource companies.

Avi is currently a senior Global leader at MariaDB championing the company’s industry leading database services offering, SkyServices. Prior to his time at MariaDB, Avi was responsible for all commercial Red Hat Consulting in North America's Oil & Gas / Energy Vertical, formerly serving in a similar capacity to the company’s South Central & Upper Midwest strategic customers. Possessing over 17 years of hands-on delivery experience, Avi has lead several Fortune 50 organizations in embracing best-in-class, specialized, innovative solutions across the enterprise with an open source mindset.

His passion as a technologist and servant leader has helped him in his mission to support customers with complex transformational problems- all backed by measurable metrics, open source data design and development standards, and AGILE open organization principles. All of Avi’s years of insight and study have lead him towards one definitive outcome: the culture of open source is a sure-fire way to ensure adoption follows any change in an organization. He challenges all technical thought leaders to celebrate the value (and power) of community- and to consider the fundamentally important paradigm shift open source ideals can bring to their organization.

• We are talking about these topics:
• What is OpenSource and the freedoms that come with it?
• Why should organizations care?
• Who owns co-developed OpenSource software?
• Why do people contribute to OpenSource projects and how do these projects work?
• What are the implications of doing things the "OpenSource way"?
• What is the future of OpenSource?

You can find Avi on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/avigh0sh/.

The  full show notes, including graphics, further links, credits, and transcript, are available at whatsyourbaseline.com/episode29.