From Zero to Hero with Timo Peters, Bayer

Welcome welcome back to the mining your business podcast show all about process mining data science and advanced business analytics We are live in a studio Jakub. Are you excited? I'm very excited Patrick I hope you are so joining us on the podcast today is team of Peter's COE lead for process mining at bio And he will share his thoughts on how to build a center of excellence hyper growth and what that means and also answer some of our audience's questions Let's get into it Hello again, dear process mining and suzeast I'm very happy to announce that this is actually the first episode that you will hear that we record Onside in studio with all of the people who will you will hear in the episode sitting next to me It's amazing. It feels great. I can literally touch Patrick. I will not do that. But I could if I wanted to Patrick, how do you feel about recording here? Well, honestly, Jakub does such a change from what we usually do and it's so nice to see the people face-to-face and there's a completely different interaction and I'm really digging it. I do not miss the squeaking floor. I have in my apartment Oh, I don't either and you're noisy neighbors and oh my god Yeah, I think at some point I had a dog barking there. So this is much better Anyway, you already know from the name of the episode who are we going interview but I would still like our guest to introduce himself first. So demo. It's yours. Yeah. Welcome from my side as well to the podcast. So my name is Timo Peters. I'm leading the center of excellence for process mining at buyer. So since 2019 I'm in the process mining so a bit longer time already and really happy now to the first podcast life. Yeah, I mean, we are happy as well that you accepted the invitation and that you are sitting here with us as you are also from Munich. Timo, these days it's almost difficult not to see you as a presenter somewhere you have been part of Celosphere on two separate sessions. How did you end up in your career as this process mining protagonist? How did you where did you start and how did you get to where you are now? So if you look into the whole journey, right? So like I actually I was starting 2002 at Siemens and I was doing order placement for Asia, right? So like I was the guy who was creating sales orders in the system and SAP best experience. Yeah, and I still living from this partially, right? So like that I know what is ongoing there. And then I had several kind of roles. I was moving through this organization. I was an auto management supply chain sales procurement IT and many other other functions. And what was constant on this I always was involved in projects with process improvement or where we introduced new SAP systems or came alongside with CIM or Salesforce. And I think 2018 I had a kind of special role we was looking for introducing new technologies into the supply chain that was our key task. And we came across the process mining because we said, yeah, we need to digitalize, we need to get more automation and the usual things what you're always here at. And that was the starting point when 2019 when I started to look at the process mining. And that was quite an interesting journey because it was lifting off, right? So like we saw what are the capabilities, what you can do instead of like what you did the password manually. And then it was evolving, right? So like it was like like a given pass, right? So like what you need to do next. So it was like always clear for me. What is the next level but that we that we scaled so heavily and so far I didn't foreseen this. So and it was was not a plan. So we used the opportunity and we always listen to to the request of our internal customers what they want and how fast they want to go. And then like we we moved in step by step. Yeah. And there was a lot of challenges, a lot of learnings. It was not always easy. But that that was the point, right? And then I believe a lot in an acting in communities. So that is like why I'm doing all the shareings, why I do all the peer calls, why I'm, you know, like such present, but I think there's a value in this. Sitting here in the podcast with us. Yeah, sitting here. We will definitely get to this piece on communities before what I wanted to mention is that you are not the first person who went through what almost seems like a neighbor in process community, which is Siemens, because we already talked to Lars Rankamire before with he as well. Where everybody is kind of a process expert and they brought a lot for the community as well. So it's pretty cool. And second thing actually, I know that a lot of listeners, including ourselves, we don't remember how it looked 10 or 15 years ago when it came to process improvement. You know, speaking about process improvement, now you have all these fancy tools, a lot of digitalization process mining eventually as well. What is how did it change from your point of view, doing process improvement five or let's say 10 or 15 years ago to how you do process improvements now. So like how we always did it in the past, it was very manual, right? So like you you had an idea how the process should ID look like and you was talking to people, but tell you like the main passes. But you didn't have the capability of really understand what are the alliances in the process. Yeah, so like and if they didn't told you about this, you was not aware and you wasn't able to design it. And everybody was no like very famous is like all reverse or like sending sending damage goods back, right? So like nobody was thinking on the way back only way forward. And now nowadays, right? So like if you're looking to the capabilities and you really can do a data driven analyze is giving you much more, right? So like you can really see end to end. You don't need to look to certain kind of parts. You're you're able to identify the root cause many times if you're not taking the end process really like really, really end to end. You just see the symptom and you try to fix the symptom and you're not finding the root cause. And this is then like you miss the opportunity to really generate the value. And in the past, it was really really difficult to find them. Is it more that you just had to go on a hunch where you say, well, we think based on the conversations we've had some part of the business is not going well and then we just trying to investigate or is it. How did you go about it? Yeah, so it was like a lot of, you know, impression of people that they give you indication we had to go. Then you came a bit more like to this lean zigzigma and this kind of methodology where you're also was trying to build in data samples and looking for for topics what you can really do and how to improve. But if you're using it, there was not such capability to base behind that you always could it do for certain kind of part of the process for only a certain kind of time you can't run it continuously. So it's always like a picture of the moment. Yeah, this is snapshot and there's a risk in this one. So it might be you're starting to implement something and what is a bit older data, but the world have already changed. So like you're trying to fix something. What is that? It's fun living in the future and actually be able to do data driven decisions. Timo, you recently changed jerseys if I can use the sport. And it almost feels, you know, being in the community and no starting to know the people it almost feels like a blockbuster trade when you go from one company to another. If you can kind of summarize the journey you did in Nokia because you for sure had a lot of learnings and I guess a part of where you are now is also being in Nokia. If you had to capture something that you're really, really proud of from this this years that you spend with Nokia, what would you pinpoint? I think building up the scent of excellence was was for sure the highlight. I mean, there's a couple of things. I mean, I still remember quite good how we implemented the SAP in Asia, right? So I came to one and it was a great team and great experience and I'm still with many people in touch. And that also helped me a lot in in the first steps with the process mining because you know, like people are moving and they they're going on with the career and they add certain points and like if you sometimes need help, it's good to know them. But the building up the CE was was one of of that highlights for sure and I liked that a lot. Because we had we had the luxury that we had the freedom to grow it, right? So as fast as we can, we was empowered to make our decisions like how we want to move on. And the team spirit was one of the key why it came to a hyperscale. So like if everybody is pulling in the right direction and. Also, if it means like we we did a lot of long working hours sometimes to get the things moving and resolve topics well. You you feel the spirit right so like and and the team is moving with you and that is actually fun right so like. I would say like that's the most interesting time. I would say right so the right people at the right place. Yeah and bringing them together right so like and that they're moving with you and that they believe into the vision what you're going to do. And you're working on this one and building this up is unique right so that you're creating something and it's not not of steady operating model. But it's like you can define your own world right your own company and I guess if you're asking people that founding a company they will back what looking they will say like that was a lot of fun and I feel I feel it in the in the same way and I. And honestly I as I was get that opportunity I was thinking like how you want to do it and I always saw it like my my own company my own part of the company. And how I would like to grow it and what kind of service I would like to deliver. And that's what I'm also now doing in by again right so that I'm thinking like okay like yeah I would want to move it what kind of service what kind of quality and how my stake or my customers would see me right. So I mean having that sort of freedom to and maneuver the this part of the business how you would like to see it was difficult to convince maybe upper management to give you that freedom or was it just. Given to your actually you know it's it's on like some people say I'm crazy right so like but I did more than 400 sessions a demo sessions and in that time to. To find it to find the sponsors to find the people that are going to to follow you and see that opportunity it I think the biggest group was around about 1,200 people at once. And I did like want to once as well sometimes and it was always if you do that you you're getting some reaction back right so it wasn't we never get a bad feedback about the capabilities. So everybody was saying oh my my God right so what we see there and what opportunity is there but there was people that coming out and was looking for the next steps they ask about this one they want to get involved and then you have the opportunity to find your your champions. And you find your sponsors right so like over the champions you find your sponsors and that was like the past we went. So it was just a matter of time to get the sponsor and to assemble the dream team yeah and I mean it's it's a lot for me it's logical right so like if you're talking about digitalization we need to understand what we're doing and this is a one of the big enables for digitize your processes and your company. You need to have this capability so it's just then a topic of educating the people make some understand and then it will come that you find your sponsor. I do like bringing this entrepreneurial spirit into what sometimes seems like a very rigid organization because after all we worked with companies we know how difficult sometimes is to motivate people. We don't have the luxury of hosting 1200 1200 sessions with them what it would probably pay for us in that case but it is I mean it's very important and I like that you mentioned this you know again people game and bringing it up. Have you ever faced this difficulty because what we noticed very often is that it seems that when you are trying to define your champions and bring these people who are then helping you spreading the world. It almost seems that it's on top of their daily tasks and it's difficult to get that resource that you so desperately need and take it from someone else that's usually where I see a lot of friction a lot of pushback how did you address this. Yeah I think they're becoming the end of the point of the set set of experts right so like you will have the champions in the organization in the business or in the different teams or program projects whatever that will not have like a hundred percent. Time for doing this one they have a daily job and building up the the center of excellence meaning you have people that are fully dedicated to this and and building this kind of service or like you know you also can say this this kind of product what your champions can use and promote and like finding cases so you. Actually the CUE is the main enable to do that and if you don't have that dedication and like people that can do it 100% then it's very difficult. It's getting nearly impossible because for for people that an operative business there will be always a drawback that will be always like the focus on the business side we need to generate money this is our business. And it will be only like the second drop the second part of this one. And so I know that one of the sessions that you had or will have on cello sphere because interestingly we are recording this one day before cello sphere so you are already I'm sure that you already ready and rehearsing your your speeches. Is 10 tips on COE would you be so kind and kind of review some of those tips for us so that we can also elaborate a little beer a little bit on those. Yeah for sure I can do right so like I think every bill everything will be said yeah so like before or like other people will hear that before. So I mean the 10 important to mention the 10 tips all coming out of like own experience and and many of them was like big failures what we had. Maybe maybe I'm struggled a lot and it always was also iteration of it yeah so like it it was like you failure and then you was trying to change it and to improve it and then you fail again and move them to certain kind of stage where it's really good. So I think one and I already mentioned right so like this was the 400 sessions what I did with a with an intercourse and a demo session enable people. This is like an endless opportunity to generate and finding new use cases I know that we should go data driven but if you're starting starting the journey with process mining you don't have the data connection and you. And everybody is looking that you generate very quickly a return on a west yeah so like you you can't build up the entire process and then say like yeah let's look right so like it's it's not not good way so that you can. You can do that right so like if you have the right sponsor and you have the the trust into this one but and it unfortunately you're like not unfortunately but it was not the case for us. So we was starting to again like a bit more this old traditional way we listen what are the problems we was then starting to and order the cash and sauce to pay area. And finding the first cases and then the level the value but the key was that we was really going in there and we showed the capabilities and what is possible and then finding the people and. I'm I'm still continue to do that so like I think in the last two weeks I had around about like 10 sessions very introduced to people the process mining yesterday. I was talking to the warehouse management and logistic team right and it's it's very important to get expanding right so making the people are there trained. How do you find the right audience. So traditionally like you you're looking to I mean the audience it can be anyone like you don't need to take care that you say like hey I only can go to continuous improvement people are I'm just going to. To operational people it doesn't matter right so like I never honestly I never take care too much on this one I try to bring that to the whole organization is a knowledge and always expanding. And whoever is interested is interested in was interested and and sometimes you have I said right sometimes like you you find people that raising their voice and they want to join coming from a side what you never expected. So like you say like oh is this from coming right and and people that you were hoping for reacting they're not right. So to not limit this one I was trying always to to make it broad and and show the capabilities and many times I ask also at the end of the sessions to say like who could be interested as well so that I'm getting additional names and asking them for building the contact and sometimes we go into team. Calls or like we going to all hand call all hands calls and showing this yeah so it doesn't matter actually yeah so what is audience and important is that you raise interest and the people come back and then start to work with them and. If nobody raised the voice ask always like you know who could be interested who who do you think like what have a benefit of this and that was always helping us. So this is this is one of of the good thing so like I said I'm not going to stop this I'm going to continue this even stronger now I like that you mentioned that sometimes. You go to people that you hope you would get the you you know you would hear back from them and you would get the excitement and you don't. And I also seen it sometimes that we are just barking at the wrong people yeah or maybe right people but the people who either have enough of work on their own and it's just cannot do what you expect them to just have to go elsewhere. I was actually thinking yesterday about this a lot and that that is very complex right so like how how to address the topics that they are understanding what they do right and. Also how you can restructure your demos and the people understand this because I I've the feeling many times it get viewed as and and probably I dashboard so they see the dashboard and say like yeah that is probably I or table or whatever. But they do not see what they can do with this right so like and it's okay to start like this but then you over time you need to educate them that they really understand the power of process mining and that they can find the course is what you actually need to tackle and and bringing into into business contacts and that that is really difficult and every person. I work there a little bit different and I sense a different so. I sometimes try to change the approach but it's always like you know some people you you receive some people not and it's then permanently you need to go into this. What are some of the other tips that you might have and I think the strongest the strongest one right and the most important one I at the moment feel is that. We need to focus a lot more about value so. You heard that word yeah so and but there's actually it's already a little bit in my mind so I was invited for the first COE cello champion round and where everybody was presenting the approach to go. And after reflecting that day I was seeing that what what he was talking about either processes was it was talking about like implementation of an application. And I thought like but actually we want we want to talk about value right so like you you instead of talking about processes and and tools you need to. Think and value yeah so your product you want to money versus yeah so and what we now did. We we changed the whole approach that we that we putting the value in the middle of our of our mode of operation. We make it much more strong while we follow following it up much more tight and. It's not meaning that we leaving out the parts of change management or the process or the tool onboarding and but it need to have a red line through the whole story and there will be the value right so how does that approach from the usual approach that you would have taken before so. And I think before we was looking a lot of to the process and say like hey what kind of KPI or like what kind of steps we want to automate or what kind of bottlenecks in the process we want to resolve. We at a second question was then what potential value we can generate versus yeah so like it was always a second or the third question and even we we sometimes decided to go ahead without a clear agreement what is the business case. And that we now turned so the question will be what is the value what we can deliver and then you go into the implementation and then we we going even. And what we're now starting to implement is we we want to have that the business is going to deliver us the business case and the unit had and the financial control I need to sign it off yeah so we know that's a potential but also what we're going to implement is like a milestone check so they need to define. What they want to achieve at one point and currently be thinking of have the first milestone after the first month after the go live as a third month six months nine months at 12 months so and it can be like less than the potential what they calculated. Because traditionally you will have a ramp up and then at that point so it's like again a measure right so like if if you failing this one it's okay but at this. We need to say like what happened wrong or did we achieve it and what we can improve so that we have a bit shorter timelines to see are we moving in the right direction from value point of view to addition you could say like yes i'm doing that you know do we resolving this problem for this kind of countries or like do we have the adoption on the users yeah so like this is all like secondary part what we are going to to look at as well. But the main focus will be on the value and just making it much more stronger. It will make it much more tight of seeing if we moving in the right direction it's not like micro management or that we want to. You know force force into the value it need to be like like we need to achieve that together but it's again like. Actually we want to do a data data mining right so like and we need to behave in the same way that we see what what we can measure are we on the right track and if not we're going need to change it. Who does. At the end is or who is at the end responsible for the value like who do you assign it to and who is then the the. Holder of the responsibility for the one the blame is it the one who is at the center of excellence is it the technical team or is it like the business owner how do you segregate this so actually. The question more need to be like who. Who can make the decision that the improvement get implemented right or like that the change can happen yeah so like. And that need to be the owner of this one if he if the person that need to implement it can't decide it should be like this then it's the wrong place yeah so and. I think that that is a key learning so also if if you don't look to this one you might be have persons that have not the the power of deciding it right so how to do it and. Then you wasting a lot of time to to see and and good of effort and then you see like it's not going to happen yeah so you need to look who is able to make the decision and that is in the business owner or like yeah what you need to. And he need to be responsible of doing the change it can't you know I know a lot of see you see he had might be getting this kind of targets but it's the wrong the wrong thing right so like if I would get a. You know target to improve something but I can't decide it I only can decide for my cent of excellence what I'm going to do right but I can't say like hey. In order to cash now instead of using SAP or something you need to do something else right so like it's not in my power right. I'm regarding these tips that you still have I have let's say two questions one would be what is the tip that most of the organization usually fail at. And the second just to adjust so that you hear both and you have some time to think about it because you didn't have the questions which is the funny part the second is which of the tips is the most underrated one well like. You know the one that you receive and you actually like yeah it's not important but you actually think it is important. Maybe it's also some of those that you already mentioned but yeah I think you might be the second question you need to place again right if I forget about this right. So the most underrated I think we had it already so there is a lot of my mind of things what you what you're not not notice what you're going to do and what is playing a very key role but one what is. Underrated is a lot this demo and the introduction sessions I know from other people say they're not doing it so heavily and if I remember right at the end as I was leaving Nokia we had around about 193 use cases and everybody said oh come on right so like how you find 193 use cases right. This was because like we did a lot of marketing for this and actually I think it's it's a right step and it's the second second detail into this one if you have a big variance of use cases you can do the right pick. I see coming to question number one I see a lot of companies are failing because they pinpointing to a to a especially in the beginning to one one use case. So I think very famous is duplicate checker. Or payment terms right and and especially I think duplicate checker is a very difficult one because all the companies are already checking if you pay double. That's just a question of how good they are at it and then like you know you're starting with your process mining and you you need to. Coming with a better quality product then it's existing one and yes you can do this we also did this but what is the benefit so how much more you can find right so like and that would be the additional value so like a lot. Actually then if you're looking to your return on the west you would have failed and because you was just starting this is one and if you're going broad and you looking to many kind of of use cases what coming in you have a bigger. Taking right so like what what is the best potential in this one if you just have three and you're looking at three you take the best one but if you have 100 so your pick could be much more better. So and this is sometimes where I see to fail and and the key key to get this is like doing the demos doing advertisement doing marketing captures as as much as you can. Everybody will understand that you can't execute everything at the same time so you need to have a like a priority and then you go ahead so like first you need to have the first success otherwise you can't go ahead. So now you just need to find someone like you to do 400 plus demo sessions in an organization. I mean like might be it was it's it's over playing I don't want to say that everybody need to do 400 right or like 300 yeah. And you can say like I'm focusing on on order to cash and you try to look to enter and and get the good priority of use cases. And if you seeing a couple of them that that potentially can return the value then you go to go but I would never go with one or three anymore I was also doing that in the past but yeah I think it's not good. And it's the same what I now do in buyers that we're looking to capture a lot of use cases I'm pushing for this one that we have that opportunity seems like you need to do a lot of groundwork before you even begin the implementation before you even say what you want to focus on. And with a lot of companies that we work with I know that they just have this tool they would want to use it they want to get going. And do you think that maybe they're spending a little too little time focusing on this aspect or is that maybe something can do beforehand or. Yeah so I think you need to be both right so I think everybody's keen then to start and and it's it's a question of like return on invest so they don't want to wait right and they have the feelings they're losing the time. So might be you spend like two one two weeks yeah so like really going broad and also the first one I did I used as standard demo right so it was not like based on our data I showed on demo. But you can give the idea about the capabilities that's important it you never have like always that fitting use case in your pocket for that audience group right. You need to try to explain them and how they can translate it and then asking yeah what kind of cases you would could imagine right and if you have a little bit. Up fronting around on this one you might be have enough use cases and that going to how to deliver the first return. One of the big topics that definitely comes into mind of a lot of listeners when they see you in the podcast and hearing the podcast is this hyper growth topic which is essentially from zero to hero kind of a kind of a path kind of journey where you start with. Very brief implementation or maybe even with no implementation at all and you try to scale the process that the initiative the center of excellence and everything that comes hand in hand when we speak about process mining initiative. How do you execute a hyper growth I'm sure that a lot of these core messages are already hidden in these tips that you provided on building a successful center of excellence. But at the end you I guess that there still are some secrets on how to do this as fast as possible because it's not just it's you know it's there's so many variables that come into thinking about it and what is hyper growth in the first. So if you're looking bit to the numbers right so like and might be two other startup companies this is like you know like not hyper growth at all right so but I feel for the process mining I sometimes hear right you know this this is like amazing what what was happens there. And actually it was like around about like 11 to 12 months what we was building up was coming from one person to I think finally the planning was like to go to 26 so like we already had. A lot of them hired at that point while when I was leaving or like soon coming in. We connected from zero tools to 21 tools in 11 months so there was some big SAP systems behind right so and like. Database some customized Nokia solutions some third parties and actually also saying like the first one it took six months so. And and the fastest one took 10 minutes yeah so and if you know like how how it's how it's going right so what you need to do and you you can be very fast right so. And then if you're looking from the use case point of view we moved from I think it's beginning like we had one or we then we was quickly coming to five. We invested a lot in the demos and then we moved about 100 so then we was like slowing down again because we feel like how we can fulfill all the expectations and but then we was coming to 193. So we went from zero data to 300 and gigabyte and then we quickly moved to four for terabyte of data. And we we was not loading all I mean if you imagine you have 21 core applications you could even load more but we we didn't have time right or we didn't have the use cases to do this all. And I think easily we could have put out like 10 10 terabyte of data yeah but then it's like putting the data model and this kind of stuff. So that that was like you know like how we feel is high basking so now I'm going to chase that again yeah so like I want to. I want to be faster more ambitious more for us to see more data yeah so i'm setting the new target of the hyper hyper grows right so and I think the key in this one is that you permanently need to learn how you do this thing so I mentioned example we for the first application for the first SIP system it took us six six months to do that and it it it it's not about like the technical capability that's difficult to implement this and but you have all the company internal. So yeah I'm like cybersecurity all the legal stuff you need to go through the different kind of environments right so like from development system to integration system to UIT to productive right so it always taking time and then you have your your free spirals where you can't do anything and actually that was a phase where we very learned a lot about that mechanism and how it works and and then we started to see like. It can't be like this right so like we need to be faster I can't get a use case waiting six months and then we're going to develop it and then like after nine months we have the first use case for like then we we always was starting to predict what is going to come next. Or what we need to take next to have like like like a world map so like what kind of of of areas you want to have and we was pre running this so like we prepared everything also be an invest a lot of energy and cybersecurity so to clear that out. And this is helping you to make it quick yeah so why why take 10 minutes yeah so like yes it's like a cloud version you have sorted out everything before so like it's just like the technical part what you need to do. And I think 10 minutes is not I mean it was super quick right so like we didn't repeat that yeah for sure not but internal you need to be ahead of the game yeah so that is like how you can grow fast so if you see what is coming what kind of use cases you know like then you can can go faster if you're always wait and be reactive. Then you are to slow yeah can I ask like in what part of the the process mining journey did you start this hyper growth in because I'm imagining that with one use case and then all of a sudden scaling to 28 developers for this is a hard sell when you're right at the beginning because it's not been proven barely been running for maybe a couple months or something like how do you convince somebody that this is. You need 28 developers in a year's time when you go to see for exactly I mean it was not like that you you know like we had we had a ramp up plan so that was made and then. Actually we were starting to get the first one in right so and then we go for four then we was around about 10 right so like we we always did step planning and achieve the goal and then if it was achieving it to see like you know are we still on track as it potentially to grow. If if not you can slow down or you're going to speed up right and actually it's the same like what we now do in buyer so we know see what what is in there. You need to have your measure points and but if the opportunity is in there and you can show that you can get the goal for the next phase so like you're starting the next phase of the next scaling part and it sounds like. Yeah like how you can ramp up so fast right so like and. But it was in a in a control manner so important is also that you establish all the working mode right and getting the team together here so like and how you executing this one if you just get in all the people it will be a mess if you don't control it yeah. How you going to work and there are a lot of challenges and you know how to set it up and how to sign the use case is getting the priority right so like you know you will face problems on yeah like that data not working or like this is still missing and. I guess you know we know this well you wake up in the morning you have all those red dots red dot red dot the red crosses. And I think actually this was a bit good because like we had a good good team spirit and everybody want to be a part and solving the problems and took the responsibility and accountability to do this. So that that not everything is sitting in one person to do that it's quite important and amazing was also I saw that I was not initiating this at all but the team was helping each other automatically so like some people are strong on pace very strong right so like. And some are not right and they are more on business side strong and they build it like a community and if someone was had a problem what he can solve there was calling calling each other and there was doing like a little team meeting and then there was solving the problem and then there was. Disappearance was always working daily that they did this and I wasn't able to need to push that or like bring it in this direction that was happening automatically because the spirit and the community is so good right so it's helping you a lot yeah. So that can also brings me to hiring the right talent then I assume that building. A team with this kind of focus in a let's say a large organization is challenging for sure yeah and important said right that you say you need to have the focus point right so like if you distracting this focus you get a problem right so like we had this times where we lost. We lost a little bit of focus there like we had a lot of turbulence and if things are not going to go right so like you then fraction coming up and then it's and how to say you you you need to enforce that you have against a bubble that. People can do their work what actually they should do and and for enabling the value generation if you missing that point it can easily fall apart. But yeah a lot of talent right so you you need to watch out how it's coming together and so about the technical capabilities also like how the people fitting together yeah what is the spirit in this one and like also that's the right mixture in the team right so like and interesting was we had. Sometimes you you see there long people that working long for the company right so like 20 30 years or something like this and they for sure have a different views and people that just coming from the university and. It can go worse but many times we it was a good fit right so like I still remember of a couple of sessions was always sitting Friday evenings he was bringing the whole team meeting together and it was always such a fun and the community was always. Going bigger every Friday there was new people joining in right and we are always had a good laugh and it was a clear rule. We don't talk about business we just want to have fun right and and so. It can be like where you think if you see the people on the street they're not fitting together but if they have the same interest and you know you bring them together I think we can. Deb on this as well from process and if you know the goal which you want to achieve as a company in the project and everything and then just bring people who are hungry want to get there but you know can also mesh on on a people level and just ensure that it's just beautiful then environment to work in yeah. And I'm not sure like it should say it right so but sometimes he was sitting you know still still with all guys at around about like one or two or three am in the morning and it was like we was discussing some problems and like you know then somebody was like trying to change it and we had like then a little bit like of private discussions and again like you know joking about certain kind of things and then we was going back to work. But it was showing like the motivation in everybody sometimes like if needed everybody was going to do the extra mile for this because of the spirit right and it was like not like. Yeah we know like it's all late and it was not a must but people was volunteering to do that. And and we had fun on doing it right so like if and it it not feels like like work or like pain and. That also make me going right so like I also don't feel that it's work for me it's many time like you know it's my interest is my. My passion to to grow that and reaching the limits and trying to get the limits a bit further moved and and that keep me going. Great and Timma we asked or you asked before before the podcast even aired that you're you're joining and asking some questions what you would like to hear from the audience so we have a few we had hundreds of them. I don't know, you're two thousand so we just have to pick two lucky ones yeah so you did. Pre-screen is screening and you applied all the process mining methodology is to find the do of the best ones that we got. So the first one comes from Alan Ramazani please the question is usually process improvements cannot solely be associated with the use of a single technology solution. How do you specify the portion of realized value that links directly to process mining. So good very good question right so like it's very difficult to answer yeah so I saw that question before and for sure like I saw like how you how on earth you want to answer. But actually might be it's it's not that we need to drill it down to the and to to what is now the part of the process mining what is the part of might be of an API RPA involved or you know have other technologies what what playing their role. So you first looking to the complete value you deliver a service right so you're your customer stakeholders and I'm splitting it down only to the process mining or to the RPA I think it's the wrong so it need to be. Capture that's at the higher level and if you're splitting it down it it makes no sense for me to be honest right so because it will be always difficult right so like you you know like how you want to say it yeah so what is the person of what is it might be usage on data or like you know like who is actually. Changing changing it or like automatically doing that task right so it it makes no sense because you might be identified with the process mining without identifying it you can't do the RPA solution so. I would I would do it like this look at the point that you deliver the service and then it's like how you splitting it know it you know your customer is not interested in is also he's getting the value he's he's getting that benefit and then it's a solution what need to be any own place to deliver this yeah so if it's multi component it's fair I'm not sure like if you happy with the answer but I saw many times as well there's a lot of discussion about. Recharging the money back right so to the business units how you how you're going to recharge the license cost or something back and I went I felt at least I went through all this kind of off of discussions from. Charging it back on data driven right so like how many data and data objects a certain kind of group is going from license to centralized to. Value generalized right and that is the same if you're going to detailed on to this one you destroy at all because nobody is going to be happy with this yeah I do like the answer it actually reminds me there's one very iconic speech from the founder of apple from from jobs who he's being grilled by some programmer. Asking why don't you use this specific language it's open of it's free it's free for all and you know I love it and a community love is it is the best and he's like let's think about the product first what you want to achieve and then you ask your engineering team what they are going to provide. I mean for an app you also don't ask what is a code line what is generating the right like you know you I mean for us engineers we are a little sad because you know much work when they know they say like it doesn't work. Yeah but there is a reason why it doesn't work you should see the code it's not adding a value to drill it down right so like I'm more important is that you deliver the value was expected value to your to your engineering customer right and I personally I say right if I'm opening the app I'm not don't want to know like what kind of technologies. Yeah included in does this one it's a fair reality I think we all need to accept next question the second lucky one that comes from your colleague actually dinner sasa who asks what is it that you haven't done yet with salonist that you would really like to try out with buyer. So we did a lot right so I'm not not all I guess but one point is very interesting and what I'm looking looking forward to is I call it like ecosystem process mining. The idea behind this is that if you're looking to an end to end process and might be taking an order to cash we are dependent on other companies as well right so in the process there might be. Logistics have provided what doing the delivery for you and you need to know you can't handle them as a black box if you really want to understand the end to end and how I'm going to integrate them and the difficulty is that they have a variance a big variance of systems and depend where you going to deliver your goods it will be like multiple kind of systems and different kind of system yeah more the company the we are the system yeah and. And also they have the only methodology of business language right so like how are you going to do that and. It get complex if you do traditional mapping of this one if they're going to change something right so like you need to change it to your side right so like there's a lot of technical part what you need to solve and then. There's huge discussion normally on cyber security and business object who's benefit from war right and and all this kind of so very very difficult and very broad as more players you have in the game as more complexity you will have. And this is something what what I looking forward to do i'm very complex might be will be a big failure at the moment i'm looking to a technology what is called web semantics that potentially could solve it it's not science fiction it's already in use if you google right so you're using web semantics yeah so yeah yeah. And it could it could be have the potential to solve it yeah so i'm now in the discussion with a couple of companies and that's the interest group into this one so we need to see how we doing the next steps we need to do some trials we need to pilot this a little bit but. It need to be ready to work with this ecosystem for sure can do this one to one right so like if i'm taking you know i get part of us i can already do it now but if i want to scale it to complete ecosystem and it's not going to work in the traditional something that you are also. Say looking into the future that's something that gets you excited and something that you like to chase a little bit more and see how far or how where it leads. Yeah yeah for sure right so like that is that is one one thing what we're looking into the future and what turns out the question for Tina what yeah what i'm keen on so might be early might be we are going to fail. But i think it's needed for the future to do that because there's a big potential and i strongly believe into this one and but i also have on the other side also for the future there's an interesting topic. Actually alongside the process mining i would to see would like to see the flow of the data or the flow of the data objects so because. And a simple sort is if i want to automate a task i need to have the right information at the right time at the right point and only if i have this information i can do the automation if not i can't do it right so and if you're looking to the process we understand the process flow but we do not see what kind of data is missing to do this right so we can have an out degree of automation or something calculated. But what is missing when the data coming in and that would be really interesting to see both very interesting topics and i'm sure i might have heard some of these also on the ICPM conference yes we recently visited and i'm sure we will bring some very smart people who are already getting deeper on these. Yeah for sure and needed right so like i might be not the specialist for all this kind of topics yeah so like we need to solve it in a community far of course. But this this this are two two of the things and yeah i hope you go forward with that the future is still exciting. I would say i was just talking to someone today say i feel like we're just scratching the surface with what we can do with these technologies which is very cool. um timo time is up i just want to thank you again that you found the time and drove all the way to studio to sit here with us i hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Yes yeah so like might be i can come back right so at one point yeah i was a lot of fun right so yeah i like it a lot. It also makes me thinking how we do it in the future maybe some combining and maybe bringing more people on the show will be pretty cool having some panel discussions as well. Oh yeah that'd be nice. Yeah anyway for you dear listeners thank you for tuning in again with yet another episode of mining our business podcast. I hope you enjoyed this one because we sure did. If you like us just leave us a rating leave us a review on your medium of preference. We are also on LinkedIn we are also on google so we can leave us or write us an email on mining your business podcast at gmail.com. And if you have any questions or any tips would you like to hear from some certain people just text us we would be very happy to hear from you. Thank you for listening timo Patrick thank you for joining me here in the studio and talk to you and hear from you in a next episode of mining our business podcast. Bye bye. [Music]