What's Your Baseline? Enterprise Architecture & Business Process Management Demystified

The topic of this What's Your Baseline Shorts podcast is Process Simulation and why you should not have this in your Process Mining tool, but rather as part of your design platform. We speak about these topics: Why simulation? What do you need for simulation What are the outcomes of a simulation What are the different types of simulation? Please reach out to us by either sending an email to hello@whatsyourbaseline.com or leaving us a voice message by clicking here.

Sometimes things in business kill the best podcast publishing schedule. Today's guest, James Dening, the CEO of Minit, has sold the firm to Microsoft on March 31. Nevertheless this interview with him is very insightful regarding his way to becoming the CEO, process mining as a discipline, as well as the process mining market compared to the last "hot thing" Robotics Process Automation. James is a former geek, now a commercial leader, with a passion for combining how you use data effectively and how you nurture and develop people superbly to create amazing kick-ass organizations. He has have held senior positions at Amazon, Google EMEA, XLN Telecom, Red Gate Software, and most recently in the RPA space with Automation Anywhere, as GM EMEA and our first Chief Evangelist, growing revenue from zero to tens of millions per year and building a team of over 250 people across Europe. Today he works at Minit Process Mining, as CEO, in one of the most exciting and fastest growing spaces in software, shining a light on how processes are actually performing, and enabling companies to target their automation and process improvement efforts accurately. When James is not working, you can either find him with his family, or out with his spaniels, or possibly taking his boat to the pub. We are talking about the following topics: James’ background from a software engineer, through sales person, to general manager and what cross-knowledge he gained and still values The situation of process mining and why it is a significant change in how doing BPM Qualities needed and lessons learned on the way to becoming CEO How to select and nurture the right people (and keeping seats open) How to grow personally when you reached his career step Advice for aspiring junior folks Minit as young company/challenger in the industry; James’ outlook on the market development and M&A activities You can find James on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesdening/ and reach out to him directly via email at james.dening@minit.io. Please reach out to us by either sending an email to hello@whatsyourbaseline.com or leaving us a voice message by clicking here. The  full show notes, including graphics, further links, credits, and transcript, are available at whatsyourbaseline.com/episode20.

The topic of this second "Shorts" podcast episode is "Capabilities". We spoke about this in Episode 2 "Why EA and BPM?", but received some feedback that we should dig deeper into this topic. So here it is :-) The high-level topics of this episode are: What is the difference between a capability and a process? How do capabilities fit into architecture? A real-life example of how capabilities can be used in a program for planning purposes Business vs. IT capabilities Where should capabilities be used, and how? Please reach out to us by either sending an email to hello@whatsyourbaseline.com or leaving us a voice message by clicking here. The  full show notes, including graphics, further links, credits, and transcript, are available at whatsyourbaseline.com/shorts2.

Analysts are the mystical wizards of the tech industry. Their reports and analysis results shape markets and sometimes also the fates of organizations that play in that market. Therefore, many organizations want to control access to analysts and a lot of questions are unanswered, leaving behind confused people. But we are here to change this, by having Amardeep Modi, an experienced analyst on the show who is giving us a "look behind the scenes" of the analyst business. Amar is a Vice President at Everest Group. He's a seasoned advisor and leader with many years of strategy consulting and business research experience. He's a seasoned RPA, intelligent automation, and process mining SME, advisor, and leader. At Everest Group Amar leads the Service Optimization Technologies (SOT) research and advisory practice, which includes not only leading a 12-membered team, but also developing and managing client relationships and identifying and leading business development efforts. We are talking about the following topics: How Amar came to the Everest Group and what he’s doing there The role of analysts in the marketplace Buyers of analyst reports and services The main two offerings of Everest Group Which type of people become analysts The engagement model (and sometimes a pay-to-play scheme in the market) How analysts identify trends and topics for their research How a major report, such as the Peak Matrix Report, is created You can find Amar on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amardeepmodi/, and the Evererst Group's website is https://www.everestgrp.com/. Please reach out to us by either sending an email to hello@whatsyourbaseline.com or leaving us a voice message by clicking here. The  full show notes, including graphics, further links, credits, and transcript, are available at whatsyourbaseline.com/episode19.

This is the first episode of the What's Your Baseline Shorts series. We are talking about the topic of process notations, especially if you should choose the BPMN or the EPC notation. High-level topics include: What are EPC and BPMN? A bit of history Specialties of each notation, and difficulties that might arise Data exchange with BPMN External standards Please reach out to us by either sending an email to hello@whatsyourbaseline.com or leaving us a voice message by clicking here. The  full show notes, including graphics, further links, credits, and transcript, are available at whatsyourbaseline.com/shorts1.

Welcome to What’s Your Baseline “Shorts”! In this series, we’re distilling down our usual long-form content from the hour-long What’s Your Baseline podcast into a more concentrated and visual form (that’s right... you get to see our faces! At least on Spotify and on YouTube). But most importantly, these "Shorts" are brief focused discussions about a key topic in architecture, process, business, change and much more - just enough for you to “get the gist of it”. And don’t worry - we’ll still have our regularly-scheduled biweekly full episodes of the podcast on whatsyourbaseline.com/podcast for a longer conversation. So get excited for our honest and unscripted opinions, lessons learned and best practices. One topic, one Session, one Take - that’s What’s Your Baseline Shorts.  Stay tuned!

Another episode of the podcast, and we are having a very interesting and entertaining conversation with Jason Jovanis about working with recruiters - either as a candidate, or as an organization who is looking for new talent. Jason came to his job after 20+ years as a sales leader, who in 2018 had the crazy idea to quit the VP of Sales job and start a recruiting business. He knows what it's like to need to hire people (lots of people). He's wasted his own time and frustrated others by interviewing people he shouldn’t have, and he knows what it's like to look for a job. He's been treated like a product by some recruiters, so he decided to start his own company.  His firm is a boutique recruitment practice focused on matching talented individuals with progressive organizations and great leaders. We are talking about the following topics: Get to know Jason (and helicopters) Value that a recruiter brings to the table and how his approach distinguishes himself from other recruiters Tips to step up your LinkedIn game where 95% of all search activities take place The recruiting process, including the behind-the-scenes stuff Working with a recruiter as the hiring manager Please reach out to us by either sending an email to hello@whatsyourbaseline.com or leaving us a voice message by clicking here. The  full show notes, including graphics, further links, credits, and transcript, are available at whatsyourbaseline.com/episode18.

Welcome to another episode of our podcast. Today's topic is organizational change management, which is the counterpart to the previous episode of "Management of Change" where we spoke with Caspar Jans. This episode covers the "people side" of changes that are planned in your architecture and implementation projects, and we are covering the why, org design, communication, and enablement topics. In detail we are talking about: Org Change Mgmt vs. Management of Change. OCM is not the "feel good stuff" but a management practice Reasons for resistance: fear of loosing authority, security, capability Valley of Tears concept Three areas of a successful implementation: content, governance, and adoption The “why” of change Org designDisconnect when creating org designs Typically no connection to architecture group or solution designs Org design people need to pick up new skills OCM is a Management discipline Stakeholder identification, Net-Map concept OCM strategy and plan Communication - Content, frequency, mediums, assessing effectiveness of communication (feedback and measuring behavior) Building a change organization Get feedback and adapt communication material Communication is the long tail of transformation. Don’t stop communicating after go-live Celebrate success Enablement Curriculum Stakeholders, strategy and plan Develop material, setup infrastructure Conduct training - Role of client personnel (train-the-trainer, super users, first level support, etc.) Feedback Measure behavior changes Adapt your strategy Support Knowledge Management Please reach out to us by either sending an email to hello@whatsyourbaseline.com or leaving us a voice message by clicking here. The  full show notes, including graphics, further links, credits, and transcript, are available at whatsyourbaseline.com/episode17.

Managing change is hard - either managing organizational change or managing changes in the technology or architecture. In this episode of the podcast we are talking with Caspar Jans from Software AG about the latter and how to implement and operate a program to manage change. Caspar is a high-energy, fast learning and broad-skilled professional (BPM, Business Transformation, Supply Chain, Logistics, Procurement and IT) with an above average interest in the human connection and functional excellence. He excels in connecting human performance with process thinking and improvement. His public speaking, facilitation and networking skills provide full support for his external orientation approach (never reinvent the wheel). We are talking about the following topics: Caspar’s background in a manufacturing organization and in consulting Management of change versus change management Four types of change Change request intake and the five roles involved in impact assessment and the ‘rule of ten’ when it comes to effort The management of change process How to manage the changes (the doing) Including governance and [org] change management How to manage and document changes in practice, so that you have things always up-to-date Process Mining in management of change An example of improvements by establishing a management of change process Please reach out to us by either sending an email to hello@whatsyourbaseline.com or leaving us a voice message by clicking here. The  full show notes, including graphics, further links, credits, and transcript, are available at whatsyourbaseline.com/episode16.

Setting up a strategic process consulting practice or firm in our industry is not easy. On the one hand side you have the large system integrators/Big 4 companies, and on the other side you have the tool vendors helping setting up internal practices and capabilities. Finding your niche in that setup and build a sustainable business is a challenge. Showing an example of a successful enterprise, we are talking with Zach Bennett, who runs his own firm Visual Enterprise Architecture for over 25 years, in this episode of the podcast. Zach is a senior executive leader with demonstrated success in delivering transformational solutions and working directly with senior business and IT leadership to achieve strategic goals. He also championed culture of continuous business transformation across entire organizations and established company Centers of Excellence for Business Transformation and Enterprise Architecture and execution of transformational programs and projects. We are talking about the following topics: Zach’s background Where a small boutique firm in the process/EA industry can position itself (vs. the Big 4/SIs or tool vendors) How external consultants bring in new ideas, but also provide the continuity in an organization when their people move around every few years Zach’s perspective on where the market goes and what skills a newbie should develop How to grow a consultant team and what to look for when hiring Adding products to consulting offers Trends and challenges in the future Please reach out to us by either sending an email to hello@whatsyourbaseline.com or leaving us a voice message by clicking here. The  full show notes, including graphics, further links, credits, and transcript, are available at whatsyourbaseline.com/episode15.