What's Your Baseline?

Book update, week of March 10 — the finish line is in sight :-) — I have uploaded all PDFs to Kindle Direct Publishing, and we are ready to go! Publishing day will be March 24 and the book will be available in multiple countries at that time (US, CA, UK, FR, DE, ES, IT, NL, SE, PL, AU, JP) ?? — But until then, I had to rework the graphics twice (and get two more proof copies) until they printed OK. And then I updated the colored graphics in a second manuscript for the e-book. What a joy … — We also recorded a “behind-the-scenes” episode of the What's Your Baseline? podcast, in which J-M was asking “the hard questions” :-) The link to the episode is below. — I also had the chance to be the guest on the BPM360Podcast, and we spoke about the content and concepts of the book. This will be the perfect “partner episode” and will be out in about two weeks (for those of you on the fence … go, download the sample from the whatsyourbaseline(.com) website ;-) — The e-book is now live on preorder (link also below) and I have an offer for you: if you send me your preorder receipt, I will send you a PDF today so that you don't have to wait until publishing day. Thanks again for all of your support. You are the greatest! PS: And remember that we have a book giveaway. Comment on any of the book-related posts from me, J-M, or What's Your Baseline? and we will draw three lucky winners on publishing day! #businessprocessmanagement #enterprisearchitecture J-M Erlendson Rocco De Angelis Robert Branch Mei Lee Viktoria Zaruches Lina Li Julian Smith Bruno Cardoso Robert Scott Robert Thacker James Berrocales Christie Lindstrom Christoph Pacher

There are a million reasons for writing a book. And especially when it covers a niche topic like #businessprocessmanagement and #enterprisearchitecture. There are some personal ones (as I am speaking about below), but there are also professional reasons - for example, how comes that so many architecture tool and architecture capability implementations fail? One of the reasons is that it will not be taken seriously - "give me the damn licenses for your overpriced tool and then go away" is one of the mostly heard ones from immature people ... and I don't blame them. It is not their fault to not know the different topics and nuances. It is not their fault that their tool artifact is not embedded in the overall value stream creation and seen as "overhead". It is not their fault that they haven't made a solid argument why establishing this capability is important to be agile and survive in these fast-changing times of today's business. Or is it? Well, I guess the answer is "both" and that is why I wrote my book "Successful Architecture Implementation". It talks about the why and the changing role of architects (and I include analysts and all those other roles in that as well for simplicity reasons in this post) and what you need to do besides procuring a tool and handing out licenses. And that is what J-M and I are talking about in the latest episode of the podcast. Episode 86 "Successful Architecture Implementation (Roland wrote a book)" is now out wherever you get your podcasts. PS: and those of you who already have listened to/watched the episode (thank you!) know, we have a book giveaway - comment on any of the book-related posts here on LinkedIn in the next two weeks and we will draw three lucky winners to get a free copy. Evelyn Mortenson Randolph Schütte WALTER CABANILLAS - IA vía Transf. Digital Walter Bril Claire Harrison Aletta Pinto Aaron Bozeman J. Aaron Popham, PhD Aaron Gauthier, MBA, MSDS, MSFM Michael Idengren Henry Ellender Santiago Madruga Laura Jordan Luca de Risi

(Roland here) Writing a book is a big task, and the backstory of mine is not different. It started when I was reading that the average non-fiction book has about 50k words, so I was curious how many words all the articles on the What's Your Baseline? website had … 43k. So, my first thought was “I can write the remaining words in a week” (or so) … but nothing is further from the truth. I had to rewrite all existing articles, sometimes because words like “as we've seen in last week's article…” don't fly well in a book, but also because my thinking has evolved since I wrote the articles, and I identified gaps. And then on top of that, there was almost the same number of words of new content, creation of freebies, graphics, etc. Is it worth it? My hunch is that from a monetary standpoint, it won't (I also read that the average book sells about 1,000 copies … that is a bad hourly rate), but I think it is worth bringing my experience and perspective to the conversation. And if I could help only one person to resolve their problem, then I made a difference. Hear more about my book, the why, the process behind it, and also learn about how to become self-published in the latest episode of the podcast. Episode 86 “Successful Architecture Implementation (Roland wrote a book)” is available wherever you get your podcasts now. #businessprocessmanagement #enterprisearchitecture J-M Erlendson Caspar Jans Christoph Pacher Marcus Zschuckelt Olaf Geyer Michael Schank Larry Marine Hari Mann Bolanie Olanarin Adityo Prabowo Putranto Neelesh Harmalker, PMP, LSS-GM Sheldon Frank Francesco Blafo

What did Ted Lasso say? “Be like a goldfish.” Even though this might be a precise description of our attention spans that we have a quarter into the new millennium, there is also a place for focus and spending time with a subject. Or am I wrong? Well, we will find out because our Roland Woldt has written a book about how to implement an architecture tool. And as curious as J-M Erlendson is, we did an episode about this. We are talking about why this book, what is in it, how the process of writing and self-publishing of a book works, who were on the team (even though you spent a lot of alone-time, it is still a team sport), and what is in for you - the audience of the What's Your Baseline? podcast. Oh, and there will be some freebies and an offer for you in the episode as well, but we will talk about this next week ;-) For now, reserve some time in your calendar because Episode 86 “Successful Architecture Implementation (Roland wrote a book)” will be available wherever you get your podcasts. #businessprocessmanagement #enterprisearchitecture Hanneke Loefs-Mos, RC Breanne Casteel Michael DeCamp CBA? Martin Holling Randolph Schütte Guillermo Lopez Felipe Hari Mann Scott Dempster Scott Little Scott Armstrong Scott Guidi Scott Huie

How do you construct your OKRs? You start with the destination - who do you want to be "when you grow up". And then you think about how to measure the success, and then, and only then you start thinking of the actions that you do. This is one of the lessons from Ben Lamorte from our latest episode that made the concept of OKRs understandable to me and showed how it differs from "traditional goal setting". Listen to more "nuggets of wisdom" from Ben in our latest episode. Episode 85 "OKRs" is now available wherever you get your podcasts! #okrs #businessprocessmanagement #enterprisearchitecture J-M Erlendson Neelesh Harmalker, PMP, LSS-GM Vignesh Jayaraman Francesco Blafo Sheldon Frank Dan Marquez Craig Overmars Stefanie Hanschkatz

OK, here is the entire truth — why do people need to write books? Oh, to improve their podcasting game and have the camera better aligned to eye level :-) But all jokes aside, it was a rough week here at Bookwriting Central. I redid the 130+ the graphics and ordered a second proof copy. And the second print, while marginally better, still didn't cut it. The print-on-demand printer just doesn't use enough ink, and the blacks are more of a dark gray. Which does not resonate with screenshots and my favorite colors. So, I reworked the graphics a third time and also did additional changes (font sizes, colors), and created the black and white version that will result in a third proof copy #sigh. And meanwhile, I will update a second manuscript that will have the nicer colorful graphics for the e-book. Isn't being an author an exciting journey? But I would rather not complain. The good news is that the e-book will go on preorder within the next days (for whatever reason, Amazon does not do preorders for the paperbacks), and the website will be updated as well on the occasion. And meanwhile, I have an excerpt of the book available for you to download so that you get an idea of what to expect: https://lnkd.in/eANGugku #bookwritingfun #businessarchitecture #enterprisearchitecture J-M Erlendson Hanneke Loefs-Mos, RC Caspar Jans Matú? Mala Dr. Russell Gomersall Christoph Piller Daniel Matka Mirko Kloppenburg Josèphe Blondaut Breanne Casteel Michael DeCamp CBA? Michael Schank

“What is the critical focus area for improvement now, and why?” That is the key question in our conversation with Ben Lamorte from OKRs.com when we spoke with him about, well, OKRs. But why is that different from the “regular goal setting”? For starters, it is not articulating to-dos, but aims for outcomes. It is also a change in mindset, from “I did all my jobs, can I get a candy now” to “have we done everything we could to be successful?” Subtle, but important. To learn more about OKRs, tune in to the Episode 85 “OKRs” wherever you get your podcasts. #okrs #businessprocessmanagement #enterprisearchitecture J-M Erlendson Dr. Russell Gomersall Sanjeev Purohit Brando Maco Brandon Zaruches Steve Bates Steve Ponting Steve Gerke Steve McGuire Steve Teichman Steve Lew Stephen Kearney Daniela Geiger Daniela Beeger Julian Haupt

This is a bit different from the usual content here, but one interesting thing (I think) is that it says “A What's Your Baseline? Publication” on the back cover, and our little project here is now listed as an official imprint in the database that holds all ISBNs or the US. And now the whole world can look it up :-) Preorders will go up next week, and the publishing date will be a bit later in March. Sign up to get notified when these days arrive at https://lnkd.in/eFdwtYW9. #businessprocessmanagement #enterprisearchitecture J-M Erlendson Amirhosein Keyhanpoor Stephanie Barnes Laura Minen Travis Reese Lara Meyers Chris Jarvis Roland Sonntag

OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) can be overdone easily — by not looking at the core of the approach: what is the intended outcome of the work? Our guest in the latest episode of the podcast, Ben Lamorte, shares the story of one organization that he consulted with that had a spreadsheet with thousands of objectives, and one of them was "bring flowers". That is not how you do this and create focus. But to learn more about the OKR approach, you will have to tune in to Episode 85 "OKRs" - available wherever you get your podcasts now. #okr #businessprocessmanagement #enterprisearchitecture J-M Erlendson Caspar Jans Christoph Pacher Christoph Piller Christian Pe?aloza Mike Leese Ron Baker, POPM?, CSSMBB, MBA, M.S. Mech. Engr. Laura Minen Theresa Klose Arnaud Meunier Dr. Russell Gomersall Shoeb Javed Stefan Hessenberger Olaf Geyer Ron Cohen

“OKRs” - a term that some of you might have heard of, but is mostly misunderstood as a fad, or a different way of saying “objectives” or “KPIs”. Since we struggled with that as well, we invited an expert in OKR, Ben Lamorte, to our podcast so that he can educate us a bit on this topic. And man, he did (in a good way). :-) Episode 85 “OKRs” will be available wherever you get your podcasts next Monday, February 24. #businessprocessmanagement #enterprisearchitecture #okr J-M Erlendson Caspar Jans Josèphe Blondaut Shrrine Mohamed Mohammed FELLAH Florian Tarte Michael Idengren Darin Williams Carl Varney Bharat Varma Teesee Murray Marc Stromberg Mark Stripp Steve Barnes - The Process Expert