In many minds, legacy is “everything that works”. And even if that is not always true, many organizations look at their legacy systems and get a headache. How do you replace or update a set of systems that have served you so well over years or decades?

That is why we are speaking with our guest Kastin Deal about legacy modernization in this episode.

With over 8 years at Hitachi Rail, Kastin's expertise lies in spearheading IT strategy and digital transformation, aligning with the company's mission towards sustainable technological advancement. At Hitachi, the role involves balancing application, infrastructure, and data project investments and ensuring their alignment with our overarching IT strategy. Kastin's commitment to innovation and process excellence contributes to evolving business models and driving success within a global framework.

Most recently, as the Global Business Architect Lead, Kastin designed and executed the digital revamp of Hitachi Rail Group's business management system. This initiative encompassed strategy execution, process excellence, and enterprise architecture, harmonizing 50 global processes. The responsibilities also extended to product rationalization and the integration of sustainable IT practices, which have been instrumental in enhancing operational efficiency across multinational IT services and lines of business.

In this episode of the podcast, we are talking about:

• Kastin's background
• Definition of “legacy”
• Benefits of legacy modernization
• Alignment of Enterprise Architecture, Business Architecture, and Solution Architecture as key players
• How to get to the desired outcomes in legacy project and what architects contribute to this
• Different views needed when defining the legacy replacement solution
• Use of ArchiMate as notation for solution design

You can reach Kastin via LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kastin-deal-1b22b4203/ and email at kastindeal@gmail.com.

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/⁠.

Having the “Oracle of BPM” on the show? Yes, please.
Even though our guest, Zbigniew Misiak, denies that, the role he is playing is an important one for our little industry. He is one of the few who bring together the different ideas and trends that are hot every year. We were genuinely interested in speaking with him about what he learned over the years and where he sees the ship sailing. And on top of it, he turned around the roles and interviewed us for parts of the show …

Zbigniew is a BPM consultant at the BOC Group, where he also takes care of the community of their free Business Process Analysis tool (the “Community Edition”). As a part of his job, he is also working with other BPM vendors in BPMN Model Interchange Working Group. You can learn more about that effort in the “Making BPMN a true lingua franca” article on BPTrends.

Zbigniew has the privilege of working with a team of great BPM experts creating a new version of the OMG Certified Expert in BPM exam and participating in BPMN, CMMN and DMN task forces. From time to time, he also runs BPM courses at various universities in Poland. I also offer courses on Udemy such as BPMN for business analysts.

And since he doesn't have other things to do in his spare time, he is also currently co-authoring a book about BPM, which will come out later this year.

In this episode of the podcast, we are talking about:

• Zbigniew's background
• The history of the BPM Skills questionnaire since 2016
• Some topics from this year's version
• The “state of BPM” — trends and patterns
• Involvement of people and staging of ideas
• The example of a logistics company / InPost (also in the “additional information” section)

You can find Zbigniew's blog at bpmtips.com and reach him from there.

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/.

We have spoken about Task Mining in the podcast before (see the “Additional information” section in the full show notes), but I haven't seen a lot of adoption of this technology in organizations — for multiple reasons that we will discuss.

However, when we got into contact with Tuhin Chakraborty from Mimica, we could not say “no” to speaking with him about their AI-driven approach to Task Mining.

Tuhin grew up in the Bay Area, which means he was exposed to technology and the changes that we all see today his whole life. This led to positions at Pandora and LinkedIn, before he started Mimica Automation in 2017. Since then, he has perfected the AI technology behind this Task Mining tool to make it a “process improvement tool, not a performance measurement tool” (I love this attitude :-).

In this episode of the podcast, we are talking about:

• Tuhin's background
• What is Task Mining?
• How does Task Mining work?
• How Mimica captures the data and processes it
• How is Task Mining deployed?
• Using Task Mining to support changes in systems and monitoring the changes
• The data management/surveillance problem with Task Mining (that creates trust problems if not handled correctly)
• An outlook on the use of mining technology in the future
• Case studies and how can a customer prepare for their first project

You can reach Tuhin and take a look at the tool over at mimica.ai.

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/.

BPM is important because everything that we do in organizations are processes.
So, why don't we agree on a common nomenclature, and educate people with a standardized curriculum? Oh, it is because the players have a vested interested in coming up with “the next best thing” and selling it to your customers?

But there is the need for a basic training for everyone (?) in an organization about process management, and the guest in this episode, Matúš Mala, is working on creating the foundation for this.

Matúš is a BPM philanthropist & coach, podcast host, independent [Business] Process Management & Automation advocate, organizer of the BPM-Munich, meetup, trainer, mentor, servant leader, career advisor, solution architect, agile developer … or to say it in other words: a busy man.
He is currently fascinated by all aspects of modern BPM, including hyperautomation, citizen development, automation fabric and other hot trends. As a lecturer at the TH Augsburg, I have the opportunity to pass on my knowledge and passion for these topics.

In this episode of the podcast, we are talking about:

• Matúš' background
• Importance of education in BPM topics — do we need it, or is it enough to learn on the job?
• Is the current education status good or bad?
• Gartner predictions for Digitalization / BPM / Hyperautomation / AI / Low-Code / … areas
• Do we need to change something? And how?

Matúš can be contacted via LinkedIn and you can find him at the Process Academy and SCR Consulting.

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/.

We are trying something new here at What's Your Baseline? — J-M turns his focus on investigative journalism and starts asking the “hard questions” (and not just the softballs that I get from him at other times) :-)
But in all seriousness — this episode of the podcast is a conversation between the two of us, while I play the guest role and did not cheat and did not look into our Notion outline while recording.
So, what is it all about? Well — some of you might have heard — I wrote a book, which will be officially published soon (this month!). And since it is about the first and second most popular topics of all What's Your Baseline? podcasts, I think it is highly relevant for our audience.

In this episode of the podcast, we talk about:

• Why a book, why me, and why this book?
• How was the book writing/creation process?
• What does it take to become an author?
• Self-publishing versus an established publisher
• What is the book about? Who is it meant for?
• What is next for the book, the next thing, and What's Your Baseline?

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/.

I was late to the game when I got exposed to the concept of OKRs a few years ago. Before that, I thought that it was just another term for setting objectives, and you can dump a million of those onto your people.
But there is a different approach, a much gentler approach to OKRs, that makes more sense to me now. And because I found that mental change so interesting, I was excited when Ben Lamorte reached out to me and asked if he could be a guest on the show.

And of course, I said “yes”.

Ben Lamorte is a leading figure in the space of “Objectives and Key Results” (OKRs). He has more OKRs coaching experience than anyone on the planet. Ben is a coach to business leaders focused on defining and making measurable progress on their most important goals. He started OKRs.com in 2014 and over the past decade has helped 200+ organizations based in 20+ countries implement OKRs including eBay, Adobe, Capital One, 3M, ServiceNow, Zalando, and Nike.

After co-authoring one of the first books dedicated to OKRs, Ben wrote The OKRs Field Book, the first book written specifically for OKRs coaches, published by Wiley in 2022. He studied Engineering and Mathematics at the University of California, Davis and holds a graduate degree in Management Science & Engineering from Stanford University.

In this episode of the podcast, we are talking about:

• Ben's background
• Why OKRs gained popularity?
• How has the use of OKRs evolved over the last 20 years? (industries, levels of use etc.?)
• In general, why do so many workers complain about OKRs? Are their OKRs programs failing?
• What are the 3 phases for implementing OKRs as detailed in your field book?
• What are the deployment parameters that must be defined in phase 1 and why is this so important?

Ben can be found on LinkedIn and contacted via his website at okrs.com.

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/.

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/.