Enterprise Process Research
Better systems don’t automatically produce better work.
YX Lab is an independent research lab studying how people, processes, and enterprise systems can work better together.
What YX Lab Studies
Three questions sit behind everything published here.
- 01
How people actually experience a process, separate from how it is documented.
- 02
How an enterprise system changes what people do, and what they quietly stop doing.
- 03
What the evidence says happened, as distinct from what leadership assumed would happen.
Nothing here is hypothetical. Field notes, process studies, and case studies are labeled clearly as applied, tied to a real, disclosed situation, or conceptual, a framework tested against available evidence but not yet tied to one engagement.
Current Areas of Work
Two places this is being studied right now.
Current, not exhaustive. As the questions above lead somewhere new, this list grows.
SAP Process Transformation
Independent study of SAP Signavio process modeling and SuccessFactors people-operations design: how these systems are meant to change work, and what the evidence shows actually changes.
Strivanta
A YX Lab research initiative inside indoor golf operations: pricing, membership, retention, and utilization, studied directly with operators.
Research Evidence
What’s been published so far.
The library is still young. What’s here is real, not a preview of something that doesn’t exist yet.
Robert D. Palmer Legacy Archive
Turning fragmented, conflicting historical material into a structured, evidence-first digital archive.
It’s an applied test of the same evidence-first method now being pointed at SAP and Strivanta: label what’s confirmed, label what isn’t, and never round a guess up to a fact.
SAP and Strivanta research is still being written up. Field notes and process studies will appear here as they’re ready, nothing gets published before it’s real.
YX Lab Research Instrument
Where Is Work Getting Stuck?
A 10-minute reflection on the systems, decisions, handoffs, and workarounds shaping how work gets done.
- Format
- 20 questions, one at a time, about 10 minutes
- Result
- A Process Friction Signal Map: directional, not a benchmark or a grade
- Cost
- Free, and never gated behind an email address
How We Think
Every finding here follows the same order: what we observed, what we think it means, and what we concluded, in that sequence, every time. It’s slower than starting with a conclusion. It’s also the only way a reader can actually check the work.
Case studies are labeled applied or conceptual, and never blended without saying so. Applied means it happened, tied to a real, disclosed situation. Conceptual means the reasoning has been tested against available evidence, not yet against one engagement.
- 01
Observe
State what's actually there. Not what the manual says should be there.
- 02
Interpret
Separate evidence from opinion. Say what's inferred, and say what's still unknown.
- 03
Conclude
Only after the first two. A conclusion that arrives first is a guess with good formatting.
About
Hi, I’m Kary.
My background spans people operations, behavioral coaching, and product and UX work. I use that background now to study how enterprise systems and processes actually change the way people work, not just what a rollout plan says should happen.
YX Lab isn’t an agency and isn’t a client roster. It’s an independent research lab: a place to study problems directly, publish what the evidence shows, and occasionally apply that thinking to a real engagement when the fit is genuinely good.
Get in Touch
If you have a process worth studying, get in touch.
Most of what happens here starts with a conversation: an SAP practitioner, a people-operations lead, an indoor golf operator, or a reader with a sharper question than the one this page just asked.