One misconception that many people have is that EA is just “that IT stuff”. Nothing is more false than that.

If you *really* look at an enterprise, you will see that a full architecture encompasses all layers from strategy through business (processes, risks, orgs, etc.) to data, apps, and technology.
But the real benefit is that you can create a line of sight through all these layers. This will help you not only to identify the as-is and how you should change based on where you are, but also allow you to connect all people who are happy sitting in their silos.

That is why we invited Leslie Robinet to be the guest of this episode.
Leslie is passionate about continuous improvement, practicing and promoting being an agent of positive change. She has leveraged this for the benefit of clients through her career in consulting and services. These values are also present in her commitment to volunteering and associations, with environmental and human considerations.

Leslie's dedication to sustainable development goes beyond a personal reach. On the associative side, actively involved in volunteer work since her youth, she invests locally by being one of the founders of “Mon Epice’Rit”, a co-operative grocery store demonstrating values of solidarity and ecology. Through this vector they raise awareness locally through presentations and workshops.

In this episode of thepodcast, we are talking about:

• Leslie's background
• Limiting EA vs. unlimited EA — where to start and what to accomplish
• Decision-making, people, perspective to plan and adapt to change: global approach to Enterprise Architecture
• How to approach the use cases — how can EA help solve the problems?
• Use models and modeling to represent the complex reality in a simplified way
• The Digital Twin concept.

You can find Leslie onLinkedIn and reach out to her company to get in contact.

Please reach out to us by either sending an email tohello@whatsyourbaseline.com or sign up for our newsletter and get informed when we publish new episodes here:https://www.whatsyourbaseline.com/subscribe/.

Why are so many organizations out there that have not discovered BPM (and in extension “architecture”) as something that can help their business problems, and also set the foundation for future growth?
Some reasons might lie in the niche characteristics (to avoid saying “nerdy”) of BPM and the lack of shared community and branding. That is why we invited our current guest to the podcast.

Hanneke's motto is to “Embrace the Chaos”: Creating structure during transition. She focuses on processes, finance, and systems with a human touch by implementing Business Process Management (BPM) so that she can be the linking pin between strategy and operations.

Her background is within the range of Startups (CFO Laevo exoskeletons) and global Corporates (Schiphol Airport/ ETG commodities) in various Industries. Hanneke is an open and engaging personality with a fair and critical mindset — which one can hear within the first few minutes of the episode :-)

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• Hanneke’s background in finance, process optimization (Lean/6S), and quality management
• The problem of lack of knowledge and objections about BPM in organizations
• The “carve out” concept and the use of a Target Operating Model
• The small BPM community
• Branding of BPM (the discipline, not tools)
• How to grow the community

Hanneke can be found on LinkedIn and at her website, www.olcama.nl.

Please reach out to us by either sending an email to hello@whatsyourbaseline.com or sign up for our newsletter and get informed when we publish new episodes here: https://www.whatsyourbaseline.com/subscribe/.

Welcome back to a new year and Season 8 of the What's Your Baseline Podcast, and we are starting with an episode that closes the loop with two other episodes (links below): “Process Mining Analysis” and “Lean and Process Mining”.

Today we are talking about Process Analysis in general, and we are thinking of the new business analyst especially, who doesn't know where to start or does not have a Process Mining tool at his/her disposal.

In this episode of the podcast, we talk about:

• The situation as a new analyst, not knowing what to do
• The problem — lack of visibility, followed by process analysis and improvement in process execution
• The positioning of analysis in the Process/Solution Lifecycle
• The different existing approaches to Process Analysis
• Advanced tool features, such as Process Mining or Simulation

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

Hey, this is Roland from the What's Your Baseline? Podcast and J.M. was also happy to be here.

Yeah. We're looking forward to our next season, season eight of the What's Your Baseline podcast. Who believes that?

So, J.M. Tell me, what's in stock for season eight?

Well, we've listened to you. You've left us amazing feedback all over the internet, and we're going to make things shorter, snappier, more visual and most importantly for our season eight, forward-looking.

We will spend 2025 talking about the future of process and architecture because we know that you want to see what's coming down the road to be able to prepare yourself, your practices and to create the right kind of value at the right time for your organization.

That sounds super great, J.M. And with that, I wish you all will join in the next episode of the What's Your Baseline Podcast because season eight will be great!

The end is near … no, not what you are thinking.

2024 comes to a close in about two weeks, and we also end Season 7 of the podcast. And a lot has happened — in the industry, with tools, changes in companies and the life of people in our small community.

Tune in to learn about our thoughts about what we’ve seen in the last year and an outlook for 2025. And there is also an interesting announcement in it 😉

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

• Mergers & Acquisitions (and why they won’t stop in 2025)
• The use cases that we’ve seen the most
• Professional lessons learned
• Personal lessons learned
• Content creation in general, and What’s Your Baseline? specifically
• Other projects, like J-M’s BPM Walks or Roland’s The Digital Formula podcast
• Our outlook on 2025 for the industry and our podcast
• Roland’s “big announcement” and the request for people who like to help

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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 bridge the gaps between Strategy and Execution, and how do you evolve execution as strategy pivots? That are the questions that are the topic of our podcast this week - the first of two episodes of a collaboration with the "Strateg-ish" podcast, run by our friends Craig Overmars and Dan Marquez, who has been a guest on our show before.

This episode looks at strategy with the perspective that an architect might have - how is it done, what are the outcomes that one can align to, etc. In the second episode, which will be out on the Strateg-ish channel soon, we discuss the opposite side of this: what can strategists expect and what do they have to know when they are doing their work and expect it to be implemented.

Both, Dan and Craig, have a background in strategy and worked in various consulting organizations and are now working in this field at Google.

In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:

• Dan's and Craig's backgrounds
• What is "strategy" anyway (definition)
• How can it be developed in rapid-pace organizations?
• The process of strategy development
• The kind of artifacts that one can expect as an outcome of the development
• The typical timeframe of a strategy development project

Craig and Dan can be found on LinkedIn (of course) and their "Strategish" podcast can be found here: https://open.spotify.com/show/3h5l2eefFGb9YtPvUVnsDn?si=f8c690a4b197408a.

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

GRC — three letters that scare a lot of people. So much that they like to avoid thinking of risks and compliance at all.
But don’t be afraid (quite the opposite), GRC can not only be an addition to your artifacts to make them better, they can also benefit to your program by “having the ear” of influential people in your organization … who, by coincidence, can generate budget out of nowhere, it seems.

And we are happy to welcome Michael Schank (again) who has worked in that space in the financial industry for years.

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, process, 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 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
• Three lines of defense in risk management
• Integrated, business-oriented risk management
• How to create the foundation for this and integrate with performance data
• Involved teams and roles
• Why risk programs fail and teams struggle
• How to set up a program for success
• How AI and Digital Twins can help with the leg work

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.

I know that this might be a cultural issue, but I don't see a lot of planning when it comes to projects anymore. Everything is "Agile" and I don't see that things are seen through that often.
Which is bad, because one of the promises of EA (and BPM) is that someone understands how things are wired up and what to change, so that you accomplish your objective - which should always be business-driven FWIW.
From my perspective this is a step back in the maturity of the discipline of Enterprise Architecture. And given the fact that the maturity was never high to start with, this is not a good development.
To help a bit in this situation J-M and I talk about EA use cases to give you some direction what you can do when you decide that this is a capability that you want to implement in your organization.

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

• Short (-ish) review of Episode 70 "BPM Use Cases"
• Recap of Episode 70 to set the context
• App/IT portfolio mgmt / rationalization
• Roadmapping
• Project portfolio mgmt / rationalization (looking at capabilities)
• Mergers & Acquisitions
• Operational resilience and disaster recovery
• Strategy
• Roles of architects

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