2026 Agenda

A successful digital transformation starts with process discipline, not technology. Join Sanjeev as he shares how HBF, Australia's second-largest not-for-profit health insurer, delivered a five-year, whole-of-organisation transformation, and how those foundations are now powering AI-led process improvements that weren't possible before.  

• Walking the walk on large-scale transformation: 3.1 million hours, 500+ people, and an organisational turnaround from laggard to leader
• Why process re-engineering came before technology and how that discipline is now the difference between AI that delivers and AI that disappoints
• AI claims automation in production: 90%+ accuracy and 50% cost reduction built on clean data and standardised processes
• Deploying AI agents across member and contact centre channels: moving service delivery from transactional to consultative
• Practical AI governance that accelerates adoption: a Red/Yellow/Green framework giving teams clarity and the Board confidence
• Managing the people dimension: sustaining change across 1,100+ employees over five years

 Hear from leading thought-leaders as they discuss how Business Process Management serves as the essential nervous system for organisations.  

• How to leverage BPM as the structural framework for scaling AI and machine learning across legacy systems
• From rigid process modelling to "living" processes that use real-time data to self-optimise and predict bottlenecks
• Strategies for redesigning workflows that balance high-speed automation with meaningful human decision-making and oversight
• Leveraging AI and process mining not just for data, but for actionable decision-making
• Moving beyond simple efficiency metrics to track the ROI of process agility and organisational resilience

Join the discussion and hear how you can unpack practical strategies for embedding process maturity in large, multifaceted organisations. strengthen business relationships, improve operational efficiency, and enable organisational agility. Learn how collaborative leadership, structured governance & strategic processes can be implemented to create scalable, user-focused frameworks.  

• Optimising operational efficiency
• Best practice implementation
• Measuring value

To thrive in a competitive market, organisations must shift their focus from internal bureaucracy to the external customer experience. This session explores the transition from static, rigid workflows to dynamic, automated processes designed specifically to deliver superior value.  

• Moving away from "set and forget" procedures toward agile processes that adapt to real-time customer data and market shifts
• Identifying "friction points" in the current journey and using innovation to remove barriers to customer satisfaction
• Creating a seamless thread of value that connects the back office directly to the front-line customer experience
• Building a digital foundation that can grow without increasing complexity or diminishing the user experience

Implementing a targeted process improvement project to quantify ROI, demonstrating significant time and cost savings through a structured, tool-driven approach focused on one high-impact manual process.  

• Targeting a highly manual, repetitive process impacting many staff to maximise improvement potential
• Applying a structured methodology with clear goals and the right toolset
• Demonstrating measurable time and cost savings from a few improvement initiatives

Transitioning to an "Intelligent Enterprise" requires more than just new software; it demands a fundamental shift in operating models. By weaving together Lean’s waste reduction, Six Sigma’s precision, and Agile’s adaptability, BPM managers can create a cohesive "Way of Working" (WoW) that sustains digital transformation.

• The Integrated Modern Framework
• Lean (Efficiency): Focusing on the value stream
• Lean Six Sigma (Quality): Empowering data-driven rigour needed for AI
• Agile (Velocity): Shifting from annual planning cycles to iterative sprints

Excellence is an easy, slippery concept. Everyone likes the idea of process excellence. What’s not to like? Everything working well and continuously improving. But, inevitably, that feels more like noble aspiration than lived experience. Process management and improvement ideas always work well in PowerPoint. How do we transition them to the gritty reality of managing a real organisation with all its complexities, latencies, impossible demands, and human frailties? Imagine the impact if we made the process of process management and improvement our best-performing process.

This presentation outlines a coherent, workplace-ready set of tools and approaches to achieve and sustain first relevance, then excellence.

• Establishing the primacy of process
• Enabling and sustaining continuous process management
• Delivering proven, valued, business benefits

In this session, Meraphil Bucad shares insights from enterprise transformation initiatives across financial services and insurance, demonstrating how Lean Six Sigma can help organisations simplify complex workflows and break down operational silos. Rather than focusing solely on tools or methodology, the discussion highlights the importance of engaging the people closest to the work and strengthening cross-functional collaboration so that teams become active participants in the improvement journey.

When employees are involved in shaping better ways of working, organisations build stronger ownership of outcomes and create more sustainable cultures of continuous improvement.

• Practical ways to use Lean Six Sigma to bring cross-functional teams together around shared process goals
• How involving frontline teams in redesigning processes leads to stronger ownership and more sustainable improvements
• Approaches for simplifying complex workflows and reducing operational friction
• How collaboration and shared accountability can help improvement initiatives move from short-term projects to lasting organisational capability

Many organisations invest heavily in process improvement, automation, and transformation, yet find that gains often don’t stick. Cycle times creep back. Escalations return. Coordination overhead rises.

This session explores a critical diagnostic question: Is the variance we’re trying to eliminate caused by execution, or by the structure the process lives within?

Using a practical “building code” analogy, explore the difference between local process optimisation (materials and workmanship) and enterprise-level design constraints (decision rights, boundary design, funding logic, escalation rules). When environmental conditions shift, like market tempo, regulatory pressure, & AI-driven change, improvements may fail not because teams executed poorly, but because the underlying architecture cannot sustain them.

• Developing a clear diagnostic to distinguish execution problems from structural constraints
• Identifying signals that indicate when optimisation has reached its structural ceiling
• Reaching a simple decision threshold for when structural repair is economically justified

 The aim is not to replace BPM, but to strengthen it, ensuring process excellence is applied where it can genuinely perform.  

Operational waste, such as rework, friction, workarounds, delays, duplicated steps, and overcomplicated controls, is often your earliest signal of system stress. These are not just productivity problems. They are indicators that Work-as-Imagined (WAI) and Work-as-Done (WAD) are drifting apart.

Most organisations manage to the Black Line, the procedures, rules, and documented controls that describe how work should happen. But performance actually lives in the Blue Line, how work really gets done under real-world pressure, variability, and constraint. The gap between Black Line and Blue Line is where learning lives. And it’s also where waste, friction, control erosion, and weak signals begin to accumulate. Learn how to create high-performing systems that focus on understanding alignment gaps rather than purely focusing on closing compliance gaps.

The "Future of Work" is no longer a distant destination, it’s an active evolution happening in real-time. As AI, decentralisation, and the talent economy shift the tectonic plates of business, organisations must move beyond static efficiency.

In this session, we’ll explore the transition from organisations that "do,” to organisations that "learn.” Take a deep dive into the "Big Picture" of organisational improvement, where we’ll dismantle traditional hierarchies and replace them with agile, self-evolving systems.

• Why the speed of unlearning is now more valuable than the speed of execution
• Moving from rigid KPIs to fluid, improvement-oriented cultures
• How the next decade of work will redefine "institutional knowledge"

As business process leaders, delivering change and encouraging adoption requires a structured, people-centric approach that moves beyond simple implementation to focus on and foster user engagement. Explore the intersection of behavioural science and process optimisation, addressing how leaders can navigate the emotional and practical hurdles of change. From overcoming "change fatigue" to building robust support frameworks, examine how to ensure new processes don't just exist, they thrive.  

• How can organisations use transformational or servant leadership models to drive efficiency?
• Beyond the 'Go-Live': Moving from forced compliance to organic adoption by aligning new processes with user motivations and daily workflows
• Managing change fatigue: strategies for maintaining momentum and psychological safety during long-term, whole-of-organisation transformations
• The feedback loop: building structured communication and training frameworks that treat employees as co-creators of the process, rather than just end-users

In an era of constant disruption, efficiency isn't just a metric, it’s the engine of true organisational agility. This keynote redefines Process Excellence not as a tactical toolkit, but as the ultimate high-level business strategy for the modern enterprise.

Drawing on her extensive experience in strategic execution and her role shaping the next generation of leaders at AGSM @ UNSW Business School, Julia Checchia explores how the world’s most effective leaders move beyond "tactical friction" to architect organisations that are optimised by design.

This session provides a roadmap for closing the gap between ambitious board-level strategy and the reality of daily execution, focusing on:

• Closing the circuit between high-level ambitions and the reality of daily workflows
• Moving toward a culture of "Work-as-Done" excellence where process enables rather than restricts
• Defining the strategic metrics that prove Process Excellence is a high-yield value driver, not a cost centre

In the rush to "plug in" AI, many enterprises forget that the most powerful processor in the building is still the human mind. Move beyond the hype of chatbots to explore "cognitive orchestration," the art of blending AI precision with human empathy and strategic judgment. Using real-world insights from the front lines of digital transformation, this keynote reveals how to build an adaptive enterprise where AI doesn't just replace steps in a process, but reimagines the entire value chain. Join a deep dive into how AI is fundamentally reshaping the DNA of process management.  

• How AI shifts processes from static rules to real-time, self-optimising workflows
• Why the future of leadership is about orchestrating the hand-offs between machine intelligence and human intuition
• Practical insight on how to implement "modular" scalability

Most organisations are not failing at digital transformation because of technology. They struggle because processes are unclear, procurement decisions are misaligned, and automation is introduced without a deep understanding of how work happens.

This keynote explores how AI‑driven process improvement, when applied with discipline and governance, becomes a catalyst for smarter transformation. Drawing on Nano Business Technology’s (NBT) work across government, infrastructure, safety systems and enterprise platforms, the session is centred on real-life practical outcomes built on the foundations of Business Process Management. NBT’s approach brings together process mining, automation, and AI. Process mining is used first to expose real bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and risk points hidden inside operational data. Low‑code platforms then allow teams to rapidly design and adapt solutions aligned to those insights. Automation removes friction from high‑volume, rules‑based tasks. AI adds intelligence, enabling predictive insight, decision support, and natural‑language interaction where judgment is required.

This session is aimed at practitioners who want to move beyond tactical efficiency gains and use AI‑driven process improvement as a lever for resilience, accountability, and performance.

• AI-driven process improvement that’s built on strong BPM foundations
• Practical approaches that fuse process mining, automation, and AI
• Key challenges and risks associated with AI-driven process improvement

In an era of relentless market shifts, "good enough" is the enemy of "growth." For Business Process Managers, the challenge isn’t just finding a methodology, it’s orchestrating a symphony of efficiency, quality, and speed.

This keynote dives deep into the strategic integration of Lean and Six Sigma, moving beyond the buzzwords to examine how high-performing organisations are evolving these classic frameworks for the digital age. We aren't just talking about cutting waste; we’re talking about building resilient, data-driven engines of innovation.

• Understand why the "Lean vs Six Sigma" debate is dead and how the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control) framework integrates with Lean’s "Value Stream Mapping"
• Learn how to leverage advanced analytics to identify the 1% of variance causing 99% of your bottlenecks
• Beyond tools and belts, discover how to foster a "Continuous Improvement" mindset across remote and hybrid teams
• Explore how AI and automation are augmenting Lean principles to create "Self-Healing" processes

 Process excellence is the heartbeat of a scalable organisation. This session breaks down the structured methodologies that drive world-class efficiency. Join a deep dive into the application of LEAN and Six Sigma techniques in complex, multi-million-dollar environments. Whether you are managing a local South Australian firm or an Asian subsidiary, these techniques provide the framework for sustainable growth.  

• Redesigning and mapping processes to eliminate waste and enhance social selling
• Utilising "Engineering Thinking" to solve intricate commercial issues
• Ensuring projects remain on time and within budget through disciplined governance

• Taking Human and Organisational Performance from a theoretical safety concept and baking it into the rigorous world of Critical Risk Management
• The Intersection: where HOP meets CRM
• Ensuring that "Critical Controls" aren't just checked boxes on a form, but real-world protections
• Identifying "Dumb" or "Difficult" controls before they lead to a "Dangerous" breach of a critical barrier
• How a learning culture reduces the "friction" that usually leads to burnout and system erosion

Efficiency isn't just a "nice-to-have" in the back office, it’s the engine of enterprise agility. While many organisations focus on the what of their strategy, the most successful leaders prioritise the how. In this high-level session, we move beyond the tactical weeds of process mapping to explore outcome-driven Process Excellence as a strategic lever for the C-Suite. We’ll discuss how to cultivate a culture of continuous improvement that scales, mitigates risk, and directly impacts the bottom line.

• Connecting operational workflows directly to long-term business KPIs and outcomes
• Moving from "oversight" to "enablement" by building a mindset where every employee is an improver
• Identifying the North Star outcomes and underpinning metrics that prove the ROI of PEX to stakeholders

Trace the flow of process performance ideas and actions through every aspect of process management, moving process excellence from theory to practice.

The workshop begins with the establishment of compelling reasons for process performance clarity, then describes the discovery of process KPIs and targets, followed by a review of how they are used as effective management tools. Along the way, you’ll resolve the vexing question of whose job it is to manage cross-functional performance.

Attendees receive a comprehensive tour through all the aspects of process performance management and receive practical guidance and ready-for-immediate-use tools.

Learning objectives:

• Achieving the “continuous” element of continuous improvement
• Focusing for maximum impact
• Discovery, design, and use of Process KPIs
• Resolving the key question “Who’s in charge?”
• Making effective use of 11 specific tools and approaches
  
  

Key takeaways:

Performance as the ultimate metric

The core philosophy of the session is that a process has no inherent value unless it drives organisational performance. "Excellence" is redefined not as a well-documented flow chart, but as performance delivered.  

• Aligning process improvement to measurable business outcomes, not documentation or activity
• Focusing effort on what actually drives performance, value and results
  
  

Strategic Discovery of Process KPIs 

A major focus is moving beyond "vanity metrics" to discover and design meaningful Process KPIs and targets. By identifying the correct indicators, organisations can move from reactive troubleshooting to proactive management.  

• Identifying the right KPIs and targets to manage processes proactively, not reactively
• Turning metrics into practical management tools that guide decisions and action
  
  

Solving the "Horizontal" Accountability Gap 

One of the biggest hurdles in any organisation is the "vexing question" of who owns a process that touches multiple departments.  

• Defining clear ownership across end-to-end processes that span multiple teams
• Ensuring accountability is maintained across handoffs, not lost between silos
  
  

Sustaining Continuous Improvement 

To move from one-off projects to a truly continuous improvement cycle, the masterclass emphasises the use of 11 practical, ready-to-use tools to shift the organisational culture from "fixing things when they break" to a permanent state of process-based management. 

• Moving from one-off initiatives to embedded, continuous improvement practices
• Applying practical tools to build lasting capability and a culture of ongoing performance improvement

Move beyond incident-driven improvement and start learning from how work actually happens every day. This masterclass shows how to use HOP principles and AI together to surface early signals of friction, variation and risk, before they impact performance, safety or outcomes.

You’ll learn how to uncover the gap between Work-as-Imagined and Work-as-Done across teams, sites and systems, and use that insight to identify where processes are breaking down, becoming unstable or creating unnecessary effort.

By applying AI as a learning amplifier, not a control mechanism, you’ll see how to scale operational insight, detect weak signals across large datasets, and turn everyday work into a continuous source of improvement, better decisions and stronger system design.

Key takeaways on how AI and HOP principles unlock operational excellence:

Learning from Work-as-Done, not just Work-as-Imagined

The session emphasises that operational excellence isn't found in a manual, but in the gap between how work is officially designed (WAI) and how it is actually performed (WAD). 

• Identifying gaps between designed processes and how work actually happens across teams and environments

• Detecting early signs of system strain before they escalate into failure, risk or performance breakdown

The 4Ds: Surfacing early indicators of system failure 

Instead of waiting for an injury or loss to occur, the masterclass teaches participants to systematically look for specific signals in daily operations. 

• Detecting where work is difficult, inconsistent, unstable or unnecessarily complex
• Identifying hidden friction, variation and risk signals long before they appear in incidents or metrics

Using AI to amplify learning, not replace judgement

A critical takeaway is the ethical, human-centred application of AI, and its potential as a Sensemaking Assistant rather than a decision-maker.

• Applying AI to detect patterns, weak signals and emerging risks across large-scale operational data
• Using AI as a sensemaking tool to support better decisions, not automate or override them

Shifting from surveillance to insight-driven operations

The masterclass draws a hard line on the role of technology: AI should be used for pattern amplification, not people prediction or surveillance.

• Replacing static reporting and compliance monitoring with real-time operational insight and learning  
• Enabling organisation-wide visibility of how work actually happens to drive continuous improvement and better system design