Start with the Problem, Not the Methodology with Prem Krishna

Start with the Problem, Not the Methodology with Prem Krishna

Description:  In this episode, Sam Lewis speaks with Prem Krishna, Global BPM Transformation Leader at IKEA. Prem's career has taken him from software development and management consulting in India, through operational excellence and supply chain leadership roles at Johnson & Johnson, to leading business process transformation in one of the world's most recognised brands.  What makes Prem's perspective particularly interesting is that he does not see himself primarily as a process professional. He sees himself as a problem solver. Throughout his career, he has worked across industries including manufacturing, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, supply chain and retail, applying the same fundamental principle: understand the problem before choosing the solution.  This is a practical and thought-provoking conversation about process, governance, continuous improvement and why organisations often focus on the wrong things when trying to solve business challenges.  They discuss:  * Why Prem sees himself as a problem solver rather than a process professional, and how that mindset has helped him work across industries from manufacturing and pharmaceuticals to retail and supply chain  * The danger of starting with methodologies such as Lean Six Sigma, Agile, process mining or AI before fully understanding the problem you are trying to solve  * Why organisations often blame process when the real issues are governance, ownership, decision-making and unclear responsibilities  * The lessons he learned improving manufacturing operations, and how data, observation and systems thinking help uncover what is really happening on the shop floor  * The difference between improving physical production processes and digital workflows, and why process mining has become such a powerful tool for understanding how work actually gets done  * How he helped build a five-year cost reduction strategy at Johnson & Johnson, and why winning stakeholder support one conversation at a time is often the key to successful transformation  * How AI is changing the way organisations operate, why it should be treated as a tool rather than a strategy, and what happens when you apply AI to a process that is already chaotic  If you work in process management, transformation, operational excellence or enterprise change, this episode offers a refreshingly pragmatic perspective on how to solve problems, improve performance and create lasting results.  Host: Sam Lewis [https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-lewis-9bb216172/], Director at bpmd  Guest: Prem Krishna [https://www.linkedin.com/in/prkr13/], Global BPM Transformation Leader at IKEA

Why the future of AI depends on process management with Carina Siemen

In this episode, Liam O’Neill speaks with Carina Siemen, Global Quality Systems Leader at Nexperia, where she leads global quality systems, process improvement and digital transformation across a highly complex international manufacturing environment. Carina’s route into process and quality management is not a conventional one. Before moving into aviation, operational excellence and global quality leadership, she started her career in fast food, managing restaurant operations at 19 and opening a brand new restaurant as a manager at 22. It was there, long before she formally studied quality management, that she first learned what process really means under pressure. This is a practical and wide-ranging conversation about why process is fundamentally about enabling scale, why so many organisations misunderstand quality management, and why AI is about to make process governance more important rather than less. They discuss: *  Why fast food taught Carina more about process management than most corporate environments, and how operating under real-world pressure shaped the way she still thinks about standardisation, execution and scale today  *  Why standardisation, when done properly, creates freedom rather than bureaucracy, and how clear processes allow organisations to move faster without losing consistency  *  What the business world still gets wrong about quality management, and why many organisations become “audit-ready but operationally fragile” by focusing too heavily on compliance, documentation and approvals  *  Why process improvement only works when the people doing the work are involved in designing it, and how communication, operational credibility and stakeholder alignment determine whether change actually succeeds  *  How Carina approaches process and quality systems by starting with how work actually flows through the business first, then mapping standards onto that reality afterwards  *  Why AI agents still require clear rules, governance and process frameworks to operate effectively, and how process repositories are becoming a critical organisational asset in the age of AI  *  The difference between uncontrolled AI data environments and governed process knowledge, and why organisations with clean, trusted process frameworks will have a major advantage as AI adoption accelerates  *  How Carina’s team built an AI-powered internal process chatbot, why prompting AI is fundamentally different from using Google, and what organisations need to do if they want employees to use AI effectively rather than become frustrated by it  This episode is particularly relevant for anyone working in process management, quality, operational excellence, transformation or digital change. Especially those trying to understand how AI, governance and process thinking are starting to converge in large organisations. Host: Liam O’Neill [https://www.linkedin.com/in/l-oneill/], Managing Director at bpmd Guest: Carina Siemen [https://www.linkedin.com/in/carinasiemen/], Global Quality Systems Leader at Nexperia

Seeing the Work You Shouldn’t Be Doing: Process Intelligence, Hidden Factories and the Future of CI with Paul Rudge

In this episode, Liam O’Neill speaks with Paul Rudge, Process Intelligence Manager at RS Group, where he is helping to bring together nearly two decades of continuous improvement experience with a new generation of process intelligence capability. Paul has spent most of his career in Lean and Six Sigma roles, working hands-on with teams to drive improvement across complex operational environments. More recently, his focus has shifted towards using data and process mining to understand how work actually happens at scale, particularly in the context of RS Group’s SAP S/4HANA transformation. This is a practical and grounded conversation about what really changes when you move from traditional continuous improvement to a more data-led, process intelligence approach, and why greater visibility does not automatically make improvement easier. They discuss: * Why process intelligence can be “almost too powerful” at first, and how insight overload can slow you down rather than speed you up * The shift from improving hundreds of small things to focusing on a handful of changes that genuinely move the needle * Why most organisations underestimate the scale of variation in their processes, and what happens when you finally make that visible * The concept of the “hidden factory” and how process intelligence exposes the rework, manual touches and workarounds that traditional reporting never shows * Why years of well-intentioned customisation can make processes worse, and how standardisation can be a counterintuitive improvement * The gap between what people think the process is and what is actually happening in reality * How process intelligence supports ERP transformation by revealing complexity, reducing variation and identifying unnecessary work before migration * Why governance only works when accountability and visibility are in place together, and how making processes visible can drive behaviour change on its own * The importance of validating data with subject matter experts, and why even the best tools can produce misleading conclusions * Where AI is starting to add value in process and CI work, and why it still depends heavily on human judgement and critical thinking * Why continuous improvement as a discipline has been slower than expected to adopt AI, despite its potential Paul brings a pragmatic perspective shaped by years of experience delivering change in real organisations. If you are working in continuous improvement, process management, transformation or ERP delivery and trying to make sense of how process intelligence and AI fit into that world, this episode will give you a clear and honest view. Host: Liam O’Neill [https://www.linkedin.com/in/l-oneill/], Managing Director at bpmd Guest: Paul Rudge [https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-rudge-847768b/], Process Intelligence Manager at RS Group

Trust the Data, Focus on the Humans: 14 Years of Process Leadership with Aafke Post

In this episode, Liam O'Neill speaks with Aafke Post, Senior BPM Solution Manager at Philips, where she has spent 14 years building and leading enterprise process governance across complex, multi-country environments. Aafke's background is genuinely unusual for someone in this space. She started as a sports performance coach before studying Communication and Multimedia Design, and it is that combination of systems thinking and design thinking, always anchored to the end user, that has shaped everything she has done since. This is a thoughtful and wide-ranging conversation about what it actually takes to make process work useful rather than just correct. They discuss: * Why teaching people to abseil taught her more about trusting a process than any business programme * How she discovered a formal process framework at Philips that nobody in the business knew existed, and what that moment clarified for her * Why a technically correct process that does not serve the people who use it has already failed * The gap between how organisations work and how they think they work, and why that gap is so persistent * What good process ownership actually looks like and why it is rarer than most organisations realise * Why clean, consistent, agreed-upon data is the foundation everything else depends on, and how hard it is to get there in practice * How she built a chatbot in Copilot Studio, and what the transcripts of user conversations revealed about the real gaps in the process framework * Where AI is heading in the process space and why organisations without a strong data foundation will struggle to benefit from it Aafke brings a perspective that is both deeply practical and genuinely different from most people working in this field. If you lead process, transformation, IT or enterprise architecture and you are trying to build something that people will actually use, this episode is worth your time. Host: Liam O'Neill, Managing Director at bpmd  [https://www.linkedin.com/in/l-oneill/] Guest: Aafke Post, Senior BPM Solution Manager at Philips [https://www.linkedin.com/in/aafkepost/?originalSubdomain=nl]

If Your Governance Is Weak, AI Will Accelerate the Confusion with Hana Prooij

In this episode, Sam Lewis speaks with Hana Prooij, Business Process Management and Transformation Leader, formerly Head of Business Management Systems at Versuni, the global home appliances business behind some of the world's most recognised consumer brands. Hana spent over four years at Versuni, leading the design and implementation of the business management system through one of the most demanding periods the organisation faced, a full carve-out from a major multinational group, combined with an end-to-end S/4HANA deployment. Before that, she built her expertise across medical devices and consumer goods at Philips, working at the intersection of quality, process and organisational change. This is a grounded and honest conversation about what it actually takes to build a process and quality management system that the business genuinely uses. They discuss: * Why Hana did not set out to work in process management and how she ended up there through a consistent pull towards reducing friction between smart people who were misaligned * What quality management actually means in a large organisation and why it should never be a separate system from the way the business works * What it was like to build a management system from scratch during a carve-out, while simultaneously deploying a full S/4HANA stack and keeping the business running without interruption * Why S/4HANA does not tolerate ambiguity and how that forces the process clarity most organisations have been avoiding * How governance becomes a stabilising force rather than a bureaucracy when it is designed well and owned at the right level * The challenge of managing global standardisation against local variation across markets that have always done things their own way * Why process improvement initiatives lose momentum and what it takes to keep them connected to the business rather than becoming a documentation exercise * Why AI will not replace process thinking but will expose every organisation that has not got its governance and ownership right If you are responsible for process, quality, transformation or systems in a large organisation, this episode will resonate. Host: Sam Lewis, Director at bpmd  [https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-lewis-9bb216172/] Guest: Hana Prooij, Business Process Management and Transformation Leader [https://www.linkedin.com/in/hana-prooij/]