Podcasts about lean innovation

Bio   Bala has rich experience in retail technology and process transformation. Most recently, he worked as a Principal Architect for Intelligent Automation, Innovation & Supply Chain in a global Fortune 100 retail corporation. Currently he works for a luxury brand as Principal Architect for Intelligent Automation providing technology advice for the responsible use of technology (Low Code, RPA, Chatbots, and AI). He is passionate about technology and spends his free time reading, writing technical blogs and co-chairing a special interest group with The OR Society.   Interview Highlights 02:00 Mentors and peers 04:00 Community bus 07:10 Defining AI 08:20 Contextual awareness 11:45 GenAI 14:30 The human loop 17:30 Natural Language Processing 20:45 Sentiment analysis 24:00 Implementing AI solutions 26:30 Ethics and AI 27:30 Biased algorithms 32:00 EU AI Act  33:00 Responsible use of technology   Connect   Bala Madhusoodhanan on LinkedIn     Books and references   ·       https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-chatbots-emily-m-bender.html  - NLP   ·       https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/27/clearview_europe/  - Facial Technology Issue   ·       https://www.designnews.com/electronics-test/apple-card-most-high-profile-case-ai-bias-yet  - Apple Card story   ·       https://www.ft.com/content/2d6fc319-2165-42fb-8de1-0edf1d765be3  - Data Centre growth   ·       https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/02/06/1087793/what-babies-can-teach-ai/   ·       Independent Audit of AI Systems -   ·       Home | The Alan Turing Institute   ·       Competing in the Age of AI: Strategy and Leadership When Algorithms and Networks Run the World, Marco Iansiti & Karim R. Lakhani   ·       AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World, Kai-Fu Lee   ·       The Algorithmic Leader: How to Be Smart When Machines Are Smarter Than You, Mike Walsh   ·       Human+Machine: Reimagining Work in the Age of AI, Paul R Daugherty, H. James Wilson   ·       Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, Nick Bostrom   ·       The Alignment Problem: How Can Artificial Intelligence Learn Human Values, Brian Christian   ·       Ethical Machines: Your Concise Guide to Totally Unbiased, Transparent, and Respectful AI, Reid Blackman   ·       Wanted: Human-AI Translators: Artificial Intelligence Demystified, Geertrui Mieke De Ketelaere   ·       The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond, Michio Kaku, Feodor Chin et al  Episode Transcript Intro: Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. Ula Ojiaku So I have with me here, Bala Madhusoodhanan, who is a principal architect with a global luxury brand, and he looks after their RPA and AI transformation. So it's a pleasure to have you on the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast, Bala, thank you for making the time. Bala Madhusoodhanan It's a pleasure to have a conversation with the podcast and the podcast audience, Ula. I follow the podcast and there have been fantastic speakers in the past. So I feel privileged to join you on this conversation. Ula Ojiaku Well, the privilege is mine. So could you start off with telling us about yourself Bala, what have been the key points or the highlights of your life that have led to you being the Bala we know now? Bala Madhusoodhanan It's putting self into uncharted territory. So my background is mechanical engineering, and when I got the job, it was either you go into the mechanical engineering manufacturing side or the software side, which was slightly booming at that point of time, and obviously it was paying more then decided to take the software route, but eventually somewhere the path kind of overlapped. So from a mainframe background, started working on supply chain, and then came back to optimisation, tied back to manufacturing industry. Somewhere there is an overlap, but yeah, that was the first decision that probably got me here. The second decision was to work in a UK geography, rather than a US geography, which is again very strange in a lot of my peers. They generally go to Silicon Valley or East Coast, but I just took a choice to stay here for personal reasons. And then the third was like the mindset. I mean, I had over the last 15, 20 years, I had really good mentors, really good peers, so I always had their help to soundboard my crazy ideas, and I always try to keep a relationship ongoing. Ula Ojiaku What I'm hearing is, based on what you said, lots of relationships have been key to getting you to where you are today, both from mentors, peers. Could you expand on that? In what way? Bala Madhusoodhanan The technology is changing quite a lot, at least in the last 10 years. So if you look into pre-2010, there was no machine learning or it was statistics. People were just saying everything is statistics and accessibility to information was not that much, but post 2010, 2011, people started getting accessibility. Then there was a data buzz, big data came in, so there were a lot of opportunities where I could have taken a different career path, but every time I was in a dilemma which route to take, I had someone with whom either I have worked or who was my team lead or manager to guide me to tell me, like, take emotion out of the decision making and think in a calm mind, because you might jump into something and you might like it, you might not like it, you should not regret it. So again, over the course of so many such decisions, my cognitive mind has also started thinking about it. So those conversations really help. And again, collective experience. If you look into the decision making, it's not just my decision, I'm going through conversations that I had with people where they have applied their experience, so it's not just me or just not one situation, and to understand the why behind that, and that actually helps. In short, it's like a collection of conversations that I had with peers. A few of them are visionary leaders, they are good readers. So they always had a good insight on where I should focus, where I shouldn't focus, and of late recently, there has been a community bus. So a lot of things are moving to open source, there is a lot of community exchange of conversation, the blogging has picked up a lot. So, connecting to those parts also gives you a different dimension to think about. Ula Ojiaku So you said community bus, some of the listeners or people who are watching the video might not understand what you mean by the community bus. Are you talking about like meetups or communities that come around to discuss shared interests? Bala Madhusoodhanan If you are very much specifically interested in AI, or you are specifically interested in, power platform or a low code platform, there are a lot of content creators on those topics. You can go to YouTube, LinkedIn, and you get a lot of information about what's happening. They do a lot of hackathons, again, you need to invest time in all these things. If you don't, then you are basically missing the boat, but there are various channels like hackathon or meetup groups, or, I mean, it could be us like a virtual conversation like you and me, we both have some passionate topics, that's why we resonate and we are talking about it. So it's all about you taking an initiative, you finding time for it, and then you have tons and tons of information available through community or through conferences or through meetup groups. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for clarifying. So, you said as well, you had a collection of conversations that helped you whenever you were at a crossroad, some new technology or something emerges or there's a decision you had to make and checking in with your mentors, your peers and your personal Board of Directors almost, that they give you guidance. Now, looking back, would you say there were some turns you took that knowing what you know now, you would have done differently? Bala Madhusoodhanan I would have liked to study more. That is the only thing, because sometimes the educational degree, even though without a practical knowledge has a bigger advantage in certain conversation, otherwise your experience and your content should speak for you and it takes a little bit of effort and time to get that trust among leaders or peers just to, even them to trust saying like, okay, this person knows what he's talking about. I should probably trust rather than, someone has done a PhD and it's just finding the right balance of when I should have invested time in continuing my education, if I had time, I would have gone back two years and did everything that I had done, like minus two years off-set it by two years earlier. It would have given me different pathways. That is what I would think, but again, it's all constraints. I did the best at that point in time with whatever constraints I had. So I don't have any regret per se, but yeah, if there is a magic wand, I would do that. Ula Ojiaku So you are a LinkedIn top voice from AI. How would you define AI, artificial intelligence? Bala Madhusoodhanan I am a bit reluctant to give a term Artificial Intelligence. It's in my mind, it is Artificial Narrow Intelligence, it's slightly different. So let me start with a building block, which is machine learning. So machine learning is like a data labeller. You go to a Tesco store, you read the label, you know it is a can of soup because you have read the label, your brain is not only processing that image, it understands the surrounding. It does a lot of things when you pick that can of soup. You can't expect that by just feeding one model to a robot. So that's why I'm saying like it's AI is a bit over glorified in my mind. It is artificial narrow intelligence. What you do to automate certain specific tasks using a data set which is legal, ethical, and drives business value is what I would call machine learning, but yeah, it's just overhyped and heavily utilised term AI. Ula Ojiaku You said, there's a hype around artificial intelligence. So what do you mean by that? And where do you see it going? Bala Madhusoodhanan Going back to the machine learning definition that I said, it's basically predicting an output based on some input. That's as simple as what we would say machine learning. The word algorithm is basically something like a pattern finder. What you're doing is you are giving a lot of data, which is properly labelled, which has proper diversity of information, and there are multiple algorithms that can find patterns. The cleverness or engineering mind that you bring in is to select which pattern or which algorithm you would like to do for your use case. Now you're channelling the whole machine learning into one use case. That's why I'm going with the term narrow intelligence. Computers can do brilliant jobs. So you ask computers to do like a Rubik's cubes solving. It will do it very quickly because the task is very simple and it is just doing a lot of calculation. You give a Rubik's cube to a kid. It has to apply it. The brain is not trained enough, so it has to cognitively learn. Maybe it will be faster. So anything which is just pure calculation, pure computing, if the data is labelled properly, you want to predict an outcome, yes, you can use computers. One of the interesting videos that I showed in one of my previous talks was a robot trying to walk across the street. This is in 2018 or 19. The first video was basically talking about a robot crossing a street and there were vehicles coming across and the robot just had a headbutt and it just fell off. Now a four year old kid was asked to walk and it knew that I have to press a red signal. So it went to the signal stop. It knew, or the baby knew that I can only walk when it is green. And then it looks around and then walks so you can see the difference – a four year old kid has a contextual awareness of what is happening, whereas the robot, which is supposed to be called as artificial intelligence couldn't see that. So again, if you look, our human brains have been evolved over millions of years. There are like 10 billion neurons or something, and it is highly optimised. So when I sleep, there are different set of neurons which are running. When I speak to you, my eyes and ears are running, my motion sensor neurons are running, but these are all highly optimised. So the mother control knows how much energy should be sent on which neuron, right, whereas all these large language models, there is only one task. You ask it, it's just going to do that. It doesn't have that intelligence to optimise. When I sleep, maybe 90 percent of my neurons are sleeping. It's getting recharged. Only the dream neurons are working. Whereas once you put a model live, it doesn't matter, all the hundred thousand neurons would run. So, yeah, it's in very infancy state, maybe with quantum computing, maybe with more power and better chips things might change, but I don't see that happening in the next five to 10 years. Ula Ojiaku Now, what do you say about Gen AI? Would you also classify generative AI as purely artificial neural intelligence? Bala Madhusoodhanan The thing with generative AI is you're trying to generalise a lot of use cases, say ChatGPT, you can throw in a PDF, you can ask something, or you can say, hey, can you create a content for my blog or things like that, right? Again, all it is trying to do is it has some historical content with which it is trying to come up with a response. So the thing that I would say is humans are really good with creativity. If a problem is thrown at a person, he will find creative ways to solve it. The tool with which we are going to solve might be a GenAI tool, I don't know, because I don't know the problem, but because GenAI is in a hype cycle, every problem doesn't need GenAI, that's my view. So there was an interesting research which was done by someone in Montreal University. It talks about 10 of the basic tasks like converting text to text or text to speech and with a generative AI model or multiple models, because you have a lot of vendors providing different GenAI models, and then they went with task specific models and the thing that they found was the task specific models were cheap to run, very, very scalable and robust and highly accurate, right. Whereas GenAI, if, when you try to use it and when it goes into a production ready or enterprise ready and if it is used by customers or third party, which are not part of your ecosystem, you are putting yourself in some kind of risk category. There could be a risk of copyright issues. There could be a risk of IP issues. There could be risk of not getting the right consent from someone. I can say, can you create an image of a podcaster named Ula? You never know because you don't remember that one of your photos on Google or Twitter or somewhere is not set as private. No one has come and asked you saying, I'm using this image. And yeah, it's finding the right balance. So even before taking the technology, I think people should think about what problem are they trying to solve? In my mind, AI or artificial intelligence, or narrow intelligence can have two buckets, right. The first bucket is to do with how can I optimise the existing process? Like there are a lot of things that I'm doing, is there a better way to do it? Is there an efficient way to do it? Can I save time? Can I save money? Stuff like that. So that is an optimisation or driving efficiency lever. Other one could be, I know what to do. I have a lot of data, but I don't have infrastructure or people to do it, like workforce augmentation. Say, I have 10 data entry persons who are graduate level. Their only job is to review the receipts or invoices. I work in FCA. I have to manually look at it, approve it, and file it, right? Now it is a very tedious job. So all you are doing is you are augmenting the whole process with an OCR engine. So OCR is Optical Character Recognition. So there are models, which again, it's a beautiful term for what our eyes do. When we travel somewhere, we get an invoice, we exactly know where to look, right? What is the total amount? What is the currency I have paid? Have they taken the correct credit card? Is my address right? All those things, unconsciously, your brain does it. Whereas our models given by different software vendors, which have trained to capture these specific entities which are universal language, to just pass, on data set, you just pass the image on it. It just picks and maps that information. Someone else will do that job. But as part of your process design, what you would do is I will do the heavy lifting of identifying the points. And I'll give it to someone because I want someone to validate it. It's human at the end. Someone is approving it. So they basically put a human in loop and, human centric design to a problem solving situation. That's your efficiency lever, right? Then you have something called innovation level - I need to do something radical, I have not done this product or service. Yeah, that's a space where you can use AI, again, to do small proof of concepts. One example could be, I'm opening a new store, it's in a new country, I don't know how the store layout should look like. These are my products. This is the store square footage. Can you recommend me the best way so that I can sell through a lot? Now, a visual merchandising team will have some ideas on where the things should be, they might give that prompt. Those texts can be converted into image. Once you get the base image, then it's human. It's us. So it will be a starting point rather than someone implementing everything. It could be a starting point. But can you trust it? I don't know. Ula Ojiaku And that's why you said the importance of having a human in the loop. Bala Madhusoodhanan Yeah. So the human loop again, it's because we humans bring contextual awareness to the situation, which machine doesn't know. So I'll tie back this to the NLP. So Natural Language Processing, it has two components, so you have natural language understanding and then you have natural language generation. When you create a machine learning model, all it is doing is, it is understanding the structure of language. It's called form. I'm giving you 10,000 PDFs, or you're reading a Harry Potter book. There is a difference between you reading a Harry Potter book and the machine interpreting that Harry Potter book. You would have imagination. You will have context of, oh, in the last chapter, we were in the hilly region or in a valley, I think it will be like this, the words like mist, cold, wood. You started already forming images and visualising stuff. The machine doesn't do that. Machine works on this is the word, this is a pronoun, this is the noun, this is the structure of language, so the next one should be this, right? So, coming back to the natural language understanding, that is where the context and the form comes into play. Just think of some alphabets put in front of you. You have no idea, but these are the alphabet. You recognise A, you recognise B, you recognise the word, but you don't understand the context. One example is I'm swimming against the current. Now, current here is the motion of water, right? My current code base is version 01. I'm using the same current, right? The context is different. So interpreting the structure of language is one thing. So, in natural language understanding, what we try to do is we try to understand the context. NLG, Natural Language Generation, is basically how can I respond in a way where I'm giving you an answer to your query. And this combined is NLP. It's a big field, there was a research done, the professor is Emily Bender, and she one of the leading professors in the NLP space. So the experiment was very funny. It was about a parrot in an island talking to someone, and there was a shark in between, or some sea creature, which basically broke the connection and was listening to what this person was saying and mimicking. Again, this is the problem with NLP, right? You don't have understanding of the context. You don't put empathy to it. You don't understand the voice modulation. Like when I'm talking to you, you can judge what my emotion cues are, you can put empathy, you can tailor the conversation. If I'm feeling sad, you can put a different spin, whereas if I'm chatting to a robot, it's just going to give a standard response. So again, you have to be very careful in which situation you're going to use it, whether it is for a small team, whether it is going to be in public, stuff like that. Ula Ojiaku So that's interesting because sometimes I join the Masters of Scale strategy sessions and at the last one there was someone whose organisational startup was featured and apparently what their startup is doing is to build AI solutions that are able to do sentiment analysis. And I think some of these, again, in their early stages, but some of these things are already available to try to understand the tone of voice, the words they say, and match it with maybe the expression and actually can transcribe virtual meetings and say, okay, this person said this, they looked perplexed or they looked slightly happy. So what do you think about that? I understand you're saying that machines can't do that, but it seems like there are already organisations trying to push the envelope towards that direction. Bala Madhusoodhanan So the example that you gave, sentiment of the conversation, again, it is going by the structure or the words that I'm using. I am feeling good. So good, here is positive sentiment. Again, for me the capability is slightly overhyped, the reason being is it might do 20 percent or 30 percent of what a human might do, but the human is any day better than that particular use case, right? So the sentiment analysis typically works on the sentiment data set, which would say, these are the certain proverbs, these are the certain types of words, this generally referred to positive sentiment or a good sentiment or feel good factor, but the model is only good as good as the data is, right? So no one is going and constantly updating that dictionary. No one is thinking about it, like Gen Z have a different lingo, millennials had a different lingo. So, again, you have to treat it use case by use case, Ula. Ula Ojiaku At the end of the day, the way things currently are is that machines aren't at the place where they are as good as humans. Humans are still good at doing what humans do, and that's the key thing. Bala Madhusoodhanan Interesting use case that I recently read probably after COVID was immersive reading. So people with dyslexia. So again, AI is used for good as well, I'm not saying it is completely bad. So AI is used for good, like, teaching kids who are dyslexic, right? Speech to text can talk, or can translate a paragraph, the kid can hear it, and on the screen, I think one note has an immersive reader, it actually highlights which word it is, uttering into the ears and research study showed that kids who were part of the study group with this immersive reading audio textbook, they had a better grasp of the context and they performed well and they were able to manage dyslexia better. Now, again, we are using the technology, but again, kudos to the research team, they identified a real problem, they formulated how the problem could be solved, they were successful. So, again, technology is being used again. Cancer research, they invest heavily, in image clustering, brain tumours, I mean, there are a lot of use cases where it's used for good, but then again, when you're using it, you just need to think about biases. You need to understand the risk, I mean, everything is risk and reward. If your reward is out-paying the minimum risk that you're taking, then it's acceptable. Ula Ojiaku What would you advise leaders of organisations who are considering implementing AI solutions? What are the things we need to consider? Bala Madhusoodhanan Okay. So going back to the business strategy and growth. So that is something that the enterprises or big organisations would have in mind. Always have your AI goals aligned to what they want. So as I said, there are two buckets. One is your efficiency driver, operational efficiency bucket. The other one is your innovation bucket. Just have a sense check of where the business wants to invest in. Just because AI is there doesn't mean you have to use it right. Look into opportunities where you can drive more values. So that would be my first line of thought. The second would be more to do with educating leaders about AI literacy, like what each models are, what do they do? What are the pitfalls, the ethical awareness about use of AI, data privacy is big. So again, that education is just like high level, with some examples on the same business domain where it has been successful, where it has been not so successful, what are the challenges that they face? That's something that I would urge everyone to invest time in. I think I did mention about security again, over the years, the practice has been security is always kept as last. So again, I was fortunate enough to work in organisations where security first mindset was put in place, because once you have a proof of value, once you show that to people, people get excited, and it's about messaging it and making sure it is very secured, protecting the end users. So the third one would be talking about having secure first design policies or principles. Machine learning or AI is of no good if your data quality is not there. So have a data strategy is something that I would definitely recommend. Start small. I mean, just like agile, you take a value, you start small, you realise whether your hypothesis was correct or not, you monitor how you performed and then you think about scale just by hello world doesn't mean that you have mastered that. So have that mindset, start small, monitor, have constant feedback, and then you think about scaling. Ula Ojiaku What are the key things about ethics and AI, do you think leaders should be aware of at this point in time? Bala Madhusoodhanan So again, ethical is very subjective. So it's about having different stakeholders to give their honest opinion of whether your solution is the right thing to do against the value of the enterprise. And it's not your view or my view, it's a consent view and certain things where people are involved, you might need to get HR, you might need to get legal, you might need to get brand reputation team to come and assist you because you don't understand the why behind certain policies were put in place. So one is, is the solution or is the AI ethical to the core value of the enterprise? So that's the first sense check that you need to do. If you pass that sense check, then comes about a lot of other threats, I would say like, is the model that I'm using, did it have a fair representation of all data set? There's a classic case study on one of a big cloud computing giant using an AI algorithm to filter resumes and they had to stop it immediately because the data set was all Ivy League, male, white, dominant, it didn't have the right representation. Over the 10 years, if I'm just hiring certain type of people, my data is inherently biased, no matter how good my algorithm is, if I don't have that data set. The other example is clarify AI. They got into trouble on using very biased data to give an outcome on some decision making to immigration, which has a bigger ramification. Then you talk about fairness, whether the AI system is fair to give you an output. So there was a funny story about a man and a woman in California living together, and I think the woman wasn't provided a credit card, even though everything, the postcode is the same, both of them work in the same company, and it was, I think it has to do with Apple Pay. Apple Pay wanted to bring in a silver credit card, Apple card or whatever it is, but then it is so unfair that the women who was equally qualified was not given the right credit limit, and the bank clearly said the algorithm said so. Then you have privacy concern, right? So all these generic models that you have that is available, even ChatGPT for that matter. Now you can chat with ChatGPT multiple times. You can talk about someone like Trevor Noah and you can say hey, can you create a joke? Now it has been trained with the jokes that he has done, it might be available publicly. But has the creator of model got a consent saying, hey Trevor, I'm going to use your content so that I can give better, and how many such consent, even Wikipedia, if you look into Wikipedia, about 80 percent of the information is public, but it is not diversified. What I mean by that is you can search for a lot of information. If the person is from America or from UK or from Europe, maybe from India to some extent, but what is the quality of data, if you think about countries in Africa, what do you think about South America? I mean, it is not representing the total diversity of data, and we have this large language model, which has been just trained on that data, right? So there is a bias and because of that bias, your outcome might not be fair. So these two are the main things, and of course the privacy concern. So if someone goes and says, hey, you have used my data, you didn't even ask me, then you're into lawsuit. Without getting a proper consent, again, it's a bad world, it's very fast moving and people don't even, including me, I don't even read every terms and condition, I just scroll down, tick, confirm, but those things are the things where I think education should come into play. Think about it, because people don't understand what could go wrong, not to them, but someone like them. Then there is a big fear of job displacement, like if I put this AI system, what will I do with my workforce? Say I had ten people, you need to think about, you need to reimagine your workplace. These are the ten jobs my ten people are doing. If I augment six of those jobs, how can I use my ten resources effectively to do something different or that piece of puzzle is always, again, it goes back to the core values of the company, what they think about their people, how everything is back, but it's just that needs a lot of inputs from multiple stakeholders. Ula Ojiaku It ties back to the enterprise strategy, there is the values, but with technology as it has evolved over the years, things will be made obsolete, but there are new opportunities that are created, so moving from when people travelled with horses and buggies and then the automotive came up. Yes, there wasn't as much demand for horseshoes and horses and buggies, but there was a new industry, the people who would mechanics or garages and things like that. So I think it's really about that. Like, going back to what you're saying, how can you redeploy people? And that might involve, again, training, reskilling, and investing in education of the workforce so that they're able to harness AI and to do those creative things that you've emphasised over this conversation about human beings, that creative aspect, that ability to understand context and nuance and apply it to the situation. Bala Madhusoodhanan So I was fortunate to work with ForHumanity, an NGO which basically is trying to certify people to look into auditing AI systems. So EU AI Act is now in place, it will be enforced soon. So you need people to have controls on all these AI systems to protect - it's done to protect people, it's done to protect the enterprise. So I was fortunate enough to be part of that community. I'm still working closely with the Operation Research Society. Again, you should be passionate enough, you should find time to do it, and if you do it, then the universe will find a way to give you something interesting to work with. And our society, The Alan Turing Institute, the ForHumanity Society, I had a few ICO workshops, which was quite interesting because when you hear perspectives from people from different facets of life, like lawyers and solicitors, you would think, ah, this statement, I wouldn't interpret in this way. It was a good learning experience and I'm sure if I have time, I would still continue to do that and invest time in ethical AI. As technology, it's not only AI, it's ethical use of technology, so sustainability is also part of ethical bucket if you look into it. So there was an interesting paper it talks about how many data centres have been opened between 2018 to 2024, which is like six years and the power consumption has gone from X to three times X or two times X, so we have opened a lot. We have already caused damage to the environment with all these technology, and just because the technology is there, it doesn't mean you have to use it, but again, it's that educational bit, what is the right thing to do? And even the ESG awareness, people are not aware. Like now, if you go to the current TikTok trenders, they know I need to look into certified B Corp when I am buying something. The reason is because they know, and they're more passionate about saving the world. Maybe we are not, I don't know, but again, once you start educating and, telling those stories, humans are really good, so you will have a change of heart. Ula Ojiaku What I'm hearing you say is that education is key to help us to make informed choices. There is a time and place where you would need to use AI, but not everything requires it, and if we're more thoughtful in how we approach, these, because these are tools at the end of the day, then we can at least try to be more balanced in the risks and taking advantage of opportunities versus the risks around it and the impact these decisions and the tools that we choose to use make on the environment. Now, what books have you found yourself recommending most to people, and why? Bala Madhusoodhanan Because we have been talking on AI, AI Superpower is one book which was written by Kai-Fu Lee. There is this book by Brian Christian, The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values alignment of human values and machine it was basically talking about what are the human values? Where do you want to use machine learning? How do you basically come up with a decision making, that's a really interesting read. Then there is a book called Ethical Machines by Reid Blackman. So it talks about all the ethical facets of AI, like biases, fairnesses, like data privacy, transparency, explainability, and he gives quite a detail, example and walkthrough of what that means. Another interesting book was Wanted: Human-AI Translators: Artificial Intelligence Demystified by a Dutch professor, again, really, really lovely narration of what algorithms are, what AI is, where, and all you should think about, what controls and stuff like that. So that is an interesting book. Harvard Professor Kahrim Lakhani, he wrote something called, Competing in the Age of AI, that's a good book. The Algorithmic Leader: How to Be Smart When Machines Are Smarter Than You by Mike Walsh is another good book, which I finished a couple of months back. Ula Ojiaku And if the audience wants to find you, how can they reach out to you? Bala Madhusoodhanan They can always reach out to me at LinkedIn, I would be happy to touch base through LinkedIn. Ula Ojiaku Awesome. And do you have any final words and or ask of the audience? Bala Madhusoodhanan The final word is, again, responsible use of technology. Think about not just the use case, think about the environmental impact, think about the future generation, because I think the damage is already done. So, at least not in this lifetime, maybe three or four lifetimes down the line, it might not be the beautiful earth that we have. Ula Ojiaku It's been a pleasure, as always, speaking with you, Bala, and thank you so much for sharing your insights and wisdom, and thank you for being a guest on the Agile Innovation Leaders Podcast. Bala Madhusoodhanan Thank you, lovely conversation, and yeah, looking forward to connecting with more like minded LinkedIn colleagues. Ula Ojiaku That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!   

Bio  Brian McDonald, an award-winning author, filmmaker, graphic novelist, and podcaster, is a sought-after instructor and consultant. He has taught his story seminar and consulted for various companies, including Pixar, Microsoft, and Cirque du Soleil.  Interview Highlights 01:30 The Story Spine 04:00 Proposal, argument, conclusion 07:40 Video games – noodles are not cake 11:30 Armature 16:25 Stories in speeches 21:25 Finding your armature 23:00 Tools and weapons go together 25:30 The first act 27:00 Angels 28:00 Brian's memoir 28:45 Paying attention   Connect  ·       Brian McDonald (writeinvisibleink.com) ·       @BeeMacDee1950 on X ·       @beemacdee on Instagram ·       Brian McDonald on LinkedIn   Books and references  ·       Land of the Dead: Lessons from the Underworld on Storytelling and Living, Brian McDonald ·       Invisible Ink: Building Stories from the Inside Out, Brian McDonald ·       The Golden Theme: How to Make Your Writing Appeal to the Highest Common Denominator, Brian McDonald ·       Old Souls, Brian McDonald ·       Ink Spots: Collected Writings on Story Structure, Filmmaking and Craftmanship, Brian McDonald ·       Brian's podcast 'You are a Storyteller'  Episode Transcript Ula Ojiaku Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. Welcome back to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast, this is Part 2 of my conversation with Brian McDonald. In Part 1 we discussed defining a story, why we tell stories, among other things, and in this second part, Brian shares more of his insights around the storytelling formula, Brian's upcoming memoir, and building a story's armature. It's been such an honour to speak with Brian and I hope you find Part 2 of our conversation as insightful as I have. Everyone is a storyteller, everyone has a story to tell, and we knowing how to structure it is key to making it impactful and helping people to get information that heals, that helps them survive, that helps them navigate the conflicts of this world. So, you, in your book, Invisible Ink, you gave us a storytelling formula, do you mind sharing that with us? Brian McDonald So the story spine are seven steps that you need to create a story. So they use it at Pixar, I've worked with them quite a bit so we speak similar language, but they use this too, and I think we basically learned it from the same source. So, they are once upon a time, and every day, until one day, and because of this, and because of this, until finally, and ever since that day. So they are once upon a time, and every day, until one day, and because of this, and because of this, until finally, and ever since that day. And you set up the status quo, this is what happened, this is who this person is, this is what they want, whatever it is, and then something changes. Now you're into the ‘until one day', and the second act, now that would be the first act, the second act would be the body of the story. It's really what people say the story is about, so that's the longest part. That's why it's sort of split in two in a way because of this and because of this. There are some people who will add more because of this, but I don't, and some people don't like that I'm so rigid about it, but what I find is that the hardest thing I teach people is how to simplify. That's the hardest thing. So, adding more details is easy, simplifying is hard, right, and so that's why I stick with the seven and the because of this and because of this. And then, until finally, now you're into the third act, and ever since that day, because the third act is all about the conclusion or the resolution, but the conclusion, but the way I like to think about the three acts is this, and I had been thinking about it this way, and this is something that I don't know where Hitchcock got it, but Alfred Hitchcock talked about it, but I've never heard it anywhere else. So it's proposal, argument, conclusion. That's the way stories work, and those are the three acts. Proposal, argument, conclusion. Now, it's the way people talk. That's why it works. So the proposal is, let's say, I say Saturday I went to the best party I've ever been to in my life. That's my proposal. Everybody knows what comes next. My proof, this happened, that happened, this star was there, this blah blah blah, whatever it is, whatever my argument is, that this is the best party in the world, right? And then the conclusion, often stories are circular, so you'll come back around to the beginning again. So, that's the best party I've ever been to, then I talk about it, and then I say, oh, what a great party, oh, that was the best party I've ever been to, whatever it is, it's the way we speak, that's why it works in stories, because it's natural. It's the way a legal argument is constructed. Your honour, my client is innocent. Then the trial, which is all proof, and then the conclusion as you can see, my client is innocent, that's the conclusion of that argument, but the resolution is, do they go to jail or not? And that may or may not matter to your story, depending on the story you're telling. So therapists say, well, we tell ourselves the story that I'm not good enough, we tell ourselves the story that I'm not attractive enough or whatever it is, and that's not a story, that's a conclusion that you have derived from stories, it's not a story, that's a conclusion. The conclusion is I'm not worthy, I'm not smart, whatever it is, but there are stories that made you think that or feel that, that's where the stories are, and so the problem is if you have different definitions for stories, I found this when I'm collaborating, if I'm working for a studio or a video game company or something, if we have a different definition for story, then we are miscommunicating from the very beginning of the conversation.  So they maybe will say, well, we should do this, and I say, well, that doesn't fit the story, well, I think it does, oh, well, we're not talking about the same thing. So the thing is, people can take my definition or leave it, that doesn't matter to me, but they ought to have a definition, and it ought to get results consistently, and then you can make sure everybody's on the same page. Ula Ojiaku What I'm hearing you say is it's important to take time to define the terms being used because that makes things easier when you're collaborating with people. So how do you then approach it? Brian McDonald It depends. Sometimes I come in and my job is to lecture, and that is to give them that shared definition and understanding of story. So sometimes that's my job. If I come in on a specific project to help on a specific project, that's usually because either they've heard me lecture before, or they've read my books and we already have a shared definition. So that's usually how it works, most of the time. Ula Ojiaku What would you advise when you're getting into a new collaboration with people, would you say, take the time to define the terms and what exactly generally would you say? Brian McDonald Yeah, if we're talking specifically about story, I think I would give them the definition. I would probably let them struggle with the definition of story first, because I think that's an important part of the process, because people have to know they were given something, because it sounds obvious when you say it. So we will fool ourselves and think, oh, I knew that, so the struggle is really important, so I would let them struggle, make sure they understood that they got something, oh, now I have a definition, and sometimes just having a definition elevates what you're able to do. Just having the definition. So, then I would break down story, I would break down armature, which I haven't done yet I don't believe in the concept of interactive stories, I think that's a misnomer, because once you interact with the story, it becomes a game. I don't think they can occupy the same space. Now, the word story comes from the word history, where it comes from, comes from the word history. A story has happened. So for instance, if you and I were somewhere and we had some crazy adventure, as it's happening, it is not a story. It's only a story when we're done and we tell people about it. A video game is happening in the moment, the same way as any other experience. It's an experience, but it's not a story till it's done, and you're telling people that, and so I just don't think they occupy the same space. Now they have a lot of the same ingredients, and that's what fools people. So for instance, it's sort of like, I would say you can use eggs and flour to make noodles or cake, but noodles are not cake, and so because you can have characters and settings and scenes and a lot of the same ingredients as a story, I think people think they're the same thing, but they are not, and that's what's interesting to me is that video game people desperately want their thing to be story, and I don't know why. It's like, no, you have your own thing. They have scenarios. In the old silent movie days, they didn't have screenplays, they didn't write screenplays. So, Buster Keaton would say, get me a fire truck and I'll make a movie, and he would then make it up, Chaplin did the same thing, he would make it up, they didn't write them down. Sometimes Chaplin would shoot and then say, okay, everybody has a week off while I figure out what happens next. He didn't know, so the reason they started writing screenplays, one of them was to budget. Well, what do you want? I'm going to need a truck, I'm going to need this, I'm going to need that. Okay. So they knew how much it was going to cost to make it, that's one of the reasons they started doing it. So you'll see on old silent movies scenario by, so it would be like, what if a guy robs a bank and this happens so that's the scenario. Video games have a scenario, and anything can happen in that scenario because the player has some agency, and that's like being in real life. Being in real life is not a story, it's just not, it's a story later, but I think that when we are experiencing a story, it feels like the present, and so I think it's confusing, and people will argue with me and they'll say, but have you played this video game or that video game or this one? And I'm like, you're not actually arguing. There's a little bit of story, and that stops and then there's gameplay, they don't occupy the same space, they're just close to each other. You have to switch from one to the other, I just don't believe they can occupy the same space, and I think technology has fooled us to thinking that that's the case, because you don't need technology. If there is such a thing as interactive stories, you could do that without technology. Choose your own adventure books were that, so you don't need it. Everybody remembers them, but how many people ever tell the story of a choose your own adventure book? You ever heard anybody say that? No one does, because it wasn't really a story, it was a game. There's nothing wrong with it being a game, I think that's totally fine, but I don't study games, I work with game people. There are people that study games and that's their whole thing. I get that, and there's game theory, and there's a bunch of stuff I don't know, but they seldom study story, and I do know that. So when they say, well, this game has a story, I'm telling you, it doesn't, because that's my field of study. And then an armature. So, I used to work in creature shops in Los Angeles. So I moved to LA in the mid 80s, and my roommate was a special effects makeup artist. And so my first jobs in LA were working in creature shops because he could get me these jobs, and this is before CGI and computers and stuff, so things had to be built. My roommate was working on the movie Predator when I moved there, I remember, it was called Hunter, I still have the script, it was called Hunter at the time, and so they were doing some reshoots. They had gone on location and shot the movie without having a design for the creature. So they came back and they were doing some shoots in studio and stuff with this creature, I remember that vividly. Anyway, but they had to build these things, and so I would work on these movies, I worked on a zombie movie and a movie called Night of the Creeps and all, but you had to make things, and I would watch these sculptors, amazing sculptors, sculpt these little mock cats of whatever the creature was, and they were, I'd never seen in real life, somebody really able to sculpt something that was so amazing, and I was 21 years old, it was amazing to see, and they would make though this wireframe skeleton before they sculpted the clay, and I asked why, I didn't know, and they said, well, we have to make a skeleton, an armature. In fact, the wire is called armature wire. We have to make this armature because clay can't support its own weight, and so after a little while, could be a day or two days or sometimes a few hours, it'll collapse upon itself. So you need to make this skeleton, and I thought, oh, that's really interesting. It's something I'd never thought about, and then when I thought about it in terms of story, I realised that a story has an armature. It holds everything up. Everything is built around this armature. It ends up being one of the most important parts, like with the clay, but it's not anything anybody notices, except when it is in there, it's the thing that makes it work, it's the thing that makes it stable, and the armature for a story is your point. What are you trying to say? What's the survival information you're trying to convey? So, some people would call it a theme, it's a mushy word, people don't quite know what it means. So I usually start with armature, then I use theme interchangeably, but I start with armature because it's a visual idea that people can sort of wrap their brain around, where theme is, I think, almost too intellectual. And the way I like to think of it is this, that a story doesn't have a theme. This is what you always, you hear this, stories have a theme, this story has to have a theme. Stories don't have a theme, stories are a theme, stories are a manifestation of the theme. If you are telling the story of King Midas and you're saying some things are more important than gold, then the story is a manifestation of the illustration of that theme. Ula Ojiaku So if a story is a manifestation of a theme and an armature is your point you're trying to make, so what is a theme then? Brian McDonald Well, theme and armature are the same. It's just that theme takes a long time for people to wrap their brains around, it's too intellectual. I think a lot of terms for storytelling and writing and all of that were made up by people who weren't practitioners, but observers, and so their words are often not very helpful. So it's like, well, theme's not a helpful word. I struggled with the idea of theme for a long time, even though I knew what a theme was, I was lucky because of the things that influenced me would always have a strong theme, and so I knew instinctually how to do it. It was a while before I understood what I was doing, and the word theme completely confused me because it was something I thought I had to put in my story, I had to fit it in there, but it's not that way. Ula Ojiaku So if I said a theme is the point you're trying to make, or a theme is the message you're trying to pass across would that be wrong? Brian McDonald You know, the interesting thing about having a point, is that when we talk, we have no problem with the concept, and in fact, when somebody's talking to you, and it's clear they don't have a point, you lose interest fast, you also don't know what to listen for. So one of the things that often comes up is people will talk about I think mood, for instance, is a trick of literature. So, because you can paint pretty pictures with words and you can do these things, I think that's a trick and has nothing to do with storytelling. It's almost a special thing, and so sometimes people will say, well, what about mood, because you're so into story, what about mood? I go, well, here's the thing, nobody talks in real life about mood. So if I say to you, hey Ula, I have something to tell you, a clear blue sky, seagulls in the distance, the sun beating down on me, salt air coming off the ocean. Okay, I'll see you later. You'd be like, I didn't tell you anything, but if I just add one sentence, if I say my trip to Mexico was amazing, clear blue sky, now you know why you're listening. That changes everything. Armature does the same thing. If you know why you're telling the story, it will all fall together in a different way, and people know they're in good hands, they feel it, they won't know why, but they'll understand why they're listening. Ula Ojiaku People in other disciplines have to give presentations and already is an established case that storytelling helps with engaging people, and when you know the point you're trying to pass across, it's a great starting point to know what message you're trying to pass across to the audience. What advice would you give to leaders? What can they bear in mind to about weaving in stories so that it's engaging without losing the message? Brian McDonald I've helped people write speeches and I've had to give speeches on different things that were not necessarily story related. And in fact, when I was at the creative agency I was at, we would often be asked to help people write speeches, and all the writers would follow basically the rules that I laid down about how that should happen, and we could do it really quickly and the CEOs were always amazed at how quickly we could do it, but they usually have a story, they just don't recognise it. Most people don't recognise the stories that they have to tell because they take them for granted, and so often we would pull that out of them and say, that's your thing, but I once heard an interview, this is pre-pandemic. So pre-pandemic, there were a lot of people, who were against vaccines, even then, and I heard this doctor talking on the radio and the doctor said, because people were afraid, they were like, well, wait, if my kid gets the vaccines, gets immunised, this leads to autism, that's what they thought,  and the doctors were like, all the research from all around the world does not bear that out, that's not true. So, and they kept trying to provide data that showed that this wasn't true, and I remember listening to this going, they're not going to win with data because we're not wired for data. The reason those people believe what they believe is because they have a story. I knew somebody this happened to, I heard of a person this happened to. You can only win with another story, you're not going to win with data. So the thing is, you find a story, a human story about whatever you're talking about, because there is one, and when you find it, that's what people will latch on to. We're not wired for all that other stuff, we're not wired for charts and graphs, and that's not the way it works. We're wired for stories and we want to know, hey, how is what you're telling me going to help me, that's what we want to know, and so there is a story there, there always is, they just have to find it. How does this thing connect with me? Steve Jobs was good at this, and I've worked with tech companies making pieces for them, and if they have a product, they often want to give you the stats, like it does it's this, and it does this and it does this and it has this many whatever, but do you remember there was a commercial, at least here I don't know if it was everywhere, but there was a commercial for facetime, and when it first came out, there was a commercial for it and the commercial was just people on the computers, or on their phones, connecting with other people. So there was a guy who obviously was stationed somewhere, a military guy, and he sees his wife and their new baby over the thing, somebody seeing a graduation, I think is one of them, all these things that connected people. Now you got, I've got to have, that because you're giving me emotional information. I don't know anything about technology, so you're not going to impress me with technology, you're going to impress me with how is this going to impact my life for the better. So they told you those little stories, those little vignettes, and it was a powerful commercial. So an armature should be a sentence, so it should be something you can prove or disprove through the story. It has to be a sentence. So a lot of times people go, well, revenge, that's my theme, that's my armature. It's like, it can't be. Revenge is sweet, can be. Revenge harms the avenger, could be. It can't be friendship, friendships are sometimes complicated, friendships are necessary, something like that. So companies can have armatures, they're often looking for their armature. What's interesting is that Nike's armature is if you have a body, you're an athlete, and when you have a strong armature, it tells you what to do. So, if you have a body, you're an athlete, which they sort of contextualised as ‘just do it', but the armature is, so they did an ad with an overweight kid jogging. It's just one shot of him jogging and having a very hard time doing it, but doing it, and that's better than having a star. A lot of times clients used to come to us with the agency and go, we got this star and this song. It's like, yeah, but what are you saying, because it won't matter. That was a very powerful ad, that kid just jogging and just doing it, and you were like, it was more impressive than the most impressive athlete, you had empathy for him, you had admiration. It was amazing, it's an amazing ad, and it's simple, it doesn't cost a lot of money. It doesn't have any special effects. It doesn't have any big stars. What was interesting is that Nike changed ‘just do it' for a while to ‘be like Mike', to be like Michael Jordan, be like Mike. Well, guess what? You can't be like Mike. If you have a body, you're an athlete. I can do that, but I can't be like Mike, so they went back. They had to go back, that went away. If you have a strong armature, it's amazing, what it does is sticking to your armature has a way of making your stuff resonate and be honest in a very specific way and feel polished, and so if somebody is giving a talk and they know their armature. I gave a talk, at the EG conference. I was flattered to be asked because James Cameron had spoken there, Quincy Jones had spoken there, they asked me to be there and they said, well, what do you want to talk about, and I said, well I'm a story person, I want to talk about story. They seemed bored by the whole idea of me talking about story and they said, well, what are you working on? Well, I had just started working on a memoir that's not out yet, but I had just started working on this memoir, and they go, tell us about that, and it was a memoir about my brother's murder, and they said, well we want you to tell us about that, what you're going to talk about in your memoir. So I thought, okay, I didn't want to talk about it really, but I didn't want to pass up this opportunity. It was a high profile talk, there were going to be high profile people in the audience, it was an honour to be asked to do it, so I did it. So when I prepare for a speech, or a lecture or anything, the first thing I do is I try to get into that venue as early as possible when there's no one there, and I walk on and off the stage, over and over again, because one of the things that throws you as a speaker sometimes is not knowing how to get on and off the stage. You might trip, so I just do it a bunch of times so I know how many steps. Then I sit on the stage, I just sit there, because I want it to become my living room, so I just sit there, it could be 20 minutes, just taking it all in. I ask them to turn the lights on the way the lights are going to be on during the talk, because sometimes it throws you when you're like, oh, I can't see anybody, or I can see the first two rows, I'm getting rid of all of those things. Then I go into the audience and I sit in different sections. What can these people see? What can these people see? What can these people see? I do all. So that's the way I prepare, and then I do all the tech stuff. Well, the EG conference didn't really let me do that. I got to go on stage for a couple of minutes, but I really didn't get to spend much time up there. I had my PowerPoint. So I had some slides and I had notes, and they said, okay, this is what time you're going up. I go, I've got to know if this is working, my slides and my notes and they didn't let me do it on stage, we did it backstage and I go, it's going to look like this. Fine, I get out there, the monitor on the stage is different, and I don't have my notes. I don't have my notes. I had seen people at this conference when something went wrong, they would stop their talk, they would go talk to a tech person. It took the air out of the room, it sucked the air out of them. So I was like, I'm not doing that, I'm up here without a net now, I'm just going to do this. Here's what saved me. I knew my proposal and I knew my conclusion, which were the same. All I had to do was prove that proposal. So as I'm up there, I had prepared some things, but I'm essentially making things up, that I know will do the job because I know the armature. Now this is not to brag, this is about how well the technique works. I got an immediate standing ovation. Some of those people, they know what they're looking at, some of those people are pretty big deal people, and so they came up, I'm friends with some of them now, like we've got to hang out, I've got to pick your brain, and I was sort of the celebrity of that thing, and there were people who went to the EG conference every year, and I heard from people that it was either the best speech they'd heard, or in the top five speeches they'd heard at that conference, and some serious people had spoken at that conference before. So, but that was just the technique, it's nothing special about me, I just knew the technique, and everybody can learn it, and when I've taught it to people like a guy I used to work with, Jesse Bryan at the Belief Agency, we helped the CEO write a speech, and he's a shy guy, but we found his armature and we said, this is your armature, this is what you have to do this about, and he did it, and we heard back from people who worked with him. It's the best speech he's ever given, he was comfortable, he knew what he was saying, he knew what he was doing up there and he believed what he was saying, because that's key. It's key to believe what you're saying. So it doesn't matter whether you're writing a story or whatever, it always helps. For instance, a lot of times people will write an email to somebody and in the email, there's like 10 or 15 things to pay attention to, and then when that happens, a lot of things don't get addressed. So if your armature is your subject, and everything is dealing with that, and then if you have more to say, that's another email. This one's just about this, now, all of a sudden, I've told people that, and I know other people I've worked with who've told people that, and all of a sudden, people are responding to their emails differently, things are getting addressed that weren't getting addressed, because they started with their armature. Because there's too much to pay attention to. Is this for me? Is this for somebody else, especially if it's a group email, who's this for? Am I supposed to do this? But if it's one thing, hey, Brian, take care of this thing. Oh, okay.  One thing about point, which is interesting. So I've been teaching this a long time now and I don't usually get new questions, but one day somebody had a question I'd never heard before. So I'm talking about having point, and somebody says, what's a point? And I thought it was pretty self explanatory, but I try to honour the question, and so I answered and I talked about armature, talked about having a point, knowing what you want to say and all of that, and anyway, he got it, but afterwards, I went, what is a point? I have to actually know that. So I looked it up, a point, the definition of a point, one of the definitions is the tapered sharp end of a tool or a weapon, and I'm like, that's exactly what a point is in a story, because you can weaponise. As a matter of fact, I actually don't believe that you can make a tool without also making a weapon. I think that they always go together. When we harness fire, that's a tool, but it's also a weapon. A hammer is a tool that can also be a weapon. Writing is a tool that can also be a weapon. Storytelling is a tool that can also be a weapon. I don't think you can make one without the other. It's just what you decide to do with it. Ula Ojiaku It's like different sides of the same coin, really. Brian McDonald Yeah, the tapered sharp end of a tool or weapon, and that's what a point is. Ula Ojiaku So what led to your updating of the Invisible Ink? Could you tell us a bit about that, please? Brian McDonald Well, it took me six years to get the book published. I wrote it and it took forever to get published, it took a long time. And so, I learned more, and when the book was finally going to get published, I thought, well, I know more now than I did then, when I wrote this book. Do I amend the book? Or do I put it out the way it is? Well, I had been teaching, and that book was essentially what I had been teaching, and I knew it worked for people, and I knew it resonated with people, so I went, well, you know, this is fine. I'll just put this one out and then later I'll know enough new stuff that I can put that in the book, and so that's what I did. I started teaching things that weren't in the book, and there were enough of them that I thought, okay, this is enough new stuff that I can justify a new book, and also I changed some of the language a little bit, there was some gender stuff in Invisible Ink that, as the years went on, rubbed people the wrong way, and I understand that, and so I'm like, let me adjust that. It took me a while to figure out how to adjust it, but once I figured that out, because I wanted to be honest about the things I was observing, but the world moved on and I didn't want to be stuck. Now in another 10 or 20 years, there might be stuff in the book that people go, I can't believe you wrote that, but there's nothing I can do about that, but as long as I'm around to make changes, I'll make those changes. So that was a less of it than really I had more to say and I found ways of being more clear and over the years I've gotten questions, like people didn't know how to build a story using an armature, so I started teaching that more and so that's in the book, and also I talk about first acts more because I think the first act is so important and it's actually getting lost, particularly in Hollywood. I was told by an agent I had not to write a first act, because they want to get right to the action, but the first act in a story, there's a lot of work it's doing, and one of the things it does is it creates a connection between the audience and the protagonist. So the difference is this. If I say there was a terrible car wreck yesterday. Oh, that sounds terrible. Was anybody hurt? Yeah, your best friend was in a terrible car wreck. Ula Ojiaku That changes everything. Brian McDonald Everything. That's what the first act does. Oh, I know this person this is happening to. You eliminate that, you get all the spectacle and all that other stuff, but you don't care. That first act makes people care. So I focused on that a lot, and I talk about how to build a story from that armature, how that helps your first act, and how to build the rest of the story using that armature. So that's why I've changed the subtitle to Building Stories from the Inside Out, because that's more the focus of this book Land of the Dead is my favourite of my books right now, because most of what I teach, in some way or another, used to be taught, a lot of it was common knowledge up till about the 1920s. So all I've done is do a lot of studying and reading and all of that. The Land of the Dead has things in it that I haven't read other places, and I feel like it's my contribution, in a different way, to storytelling. I think I've added some vocabulary to storytelling, broadly speaking and there's one thing in particular in that book, angel characters, I talk about angels, not in a religious sense, but in a story sense and how they operate in stories, and I don't know if anybody's ever talked about it. They may talk about it somewhere, but they don't talk about anything I've read about story, and there's some other things too in The Land of the Dead I think I've added to the vocabulary, so I feel proud of that. I feel like I put my handprint on the cave wall with that book. We'll see, I don't know, people like what they like, I like that book, and The Golden Theme I liked too, but those two, I think those two for me, they're actually in a way, opposite books in a way, that one is about the underworld and the information and the lessons we get from the underworld, but they're both, I think, positive. Some of the reviews with Land of the Dead talk about how it's strangely positive, given what it's about, and I'm proud of that. There's just a lot of things, I'm very proud of that book, and the memoir, which will be out who knows when, it takes a long time, it's graphic, so it's being drawn and that takes a long time, so hopefully it'll be out in another year or so. Ula Ojiaku Looking forward to that. So where can the audience find you if they want to reach out to you? Brian McDonald Well, they can go to my website, writeinvisibleink.com They can do that. They can follow me on Instagram, which is @beemacdee Those are the places where people usually find me and they can write me from the website, and my classes are offered there. So I teach zoom classes. Ula Ojiaku Do you have any final words for the audience? Brian McDonald I would say, to pay attention to the stories around you, pay attention when people talk, if you learn how to do that, you will learn everything you want to know about storytelling, because it's in the natural world. So you'll learn when you're bored, why you're bored, when you're engaged, why you're engaged, and it's hard for people at first, but if they can learn, I say, observe stories in their natural habitat. So, the problem is when people are in a conversation, they're in a conversation and it's hard to observe and be in a conversation, but if you practice it, you can do it, and it's really interesting to hear somebody talk and they'll talk in three acts, they'll have a proposal, they'll have an argument, they'll have a conclusion and you'll hear it, and the reason I think that's important is because until you teach it to yourself, you will think, oh, what did Brian say, or I think Brian's wrong about this, or this is his take. When you observe it yourself, you're teaching it to yourself. You don't have to listen to me at all, teach it to yourself. It'll prove itself to you, and then that comes from a different place when you start using it. You're not following my rules and quotes, and so I think that's really important that people have ownership over it and that they know that it's theirs, and they're not painting by numbers. Ula Ojiaku Thank you, Brian. Pay attention to the stories around you. This has been an amazing conversation and my heart is full, and I want to say thank you so much for the generosity with which you've shared your wisdom, your experience, your knowledge. Thank you. Brian McDonald Thank you. Thanks for having me. Ula Ojiaku My pleasure. That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!     

Bio   Brian McDonald, an award-winning author, filmmaker, graphic novelist, and podcaster, is a sought-after instructor and consultant. He has taught his story seminar and consulted for various companies, including Pixar, Microsoft, and Cirque du Soleil.   Interview Highlights   02:45 The gift of writing 04:00 Rejected by Disney 05:35 Defining a story 07:25 Conclusions 10:30 Why do we tell stories? 13:40 Survival stories 17:00 Finding the common thread 19:00 The Golden Theme  20:45 Neuroscience   Connect   Brian McDonald (writeinvisibleink.com) @BeeMacDee1950 on X @beemacdee on Instagram Brian McDonald on LinkedIn  Books and references   Land of the Dead: Lessons from the Underworld on Storytelling and Living, Brian McDonald Invisible Ink: Building Stories from the Inside Out, Brian McDonald The Golden Theme: How to Make Your Writing Appeal to the Highest Common Denominator, Brian McDonald Old Souls, Brian McDonald Ink Spots: Collected Writings on Story Structure, Filmmaking and Craftmanship, Brian McDonald Brian's podcast 'You are a Storyteller' Episode Transcript   Ula Ojiaku   Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. Very honoured to introduce my guest for this episode, Brian McDonald,. He's an award-winning author, filmmaker, graphic novelist and podcaster. Brian is a sought-after speaker, instructor and consultant who has taught his story seminar and consulted for companies like Pixar, Microsoft, and Cirque du Soleil. In this first part of our two-part episode, we discuss the gift of writing, his experience being rejected by Disney, his book Invisible Ink, that book is lifechanging. We also discuss defining a story, conclusions, and why we tell stories. Stay tuned for an insightful conversation!  Brian, it's a pleasure to have you on the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast and an honour. Thank you for making the time for this conversation.   Brian McDonald Thank you. Thanks for having me.  Ula Ojiaku  Awesome. So could you tell us a bit about yourself? What are the things that have led you to being the Brian McDonald we know today? Brian McDonald  How I got to be, I guess, a story expert or whatever it is I am, the memory I have is of being in kindergarten and seeing an animated film about King Midas, and I was obsessed with it. It was stop motion animation, so it was frightening, it scared me, but I couldn't stop thinking about it. So I got obsessed with stop motion animation and I got obsessed with the story of King Midas and I thought about stories a lot. We lived not very far away from a drive-in movie theatre, and so we would, as a family, watch movies from our porch, and I remember, because we couldn't hear them, I remember piecing together the stories that we couldn't hear, and I would tell my younger brother and my sister what I assumed was happening. So it was an early, early thing for me. I didn't know necessarily that I was studying it, I was just obsessed with it. What made it work and what made people laugh and what made them scared and what made them lean forward, that was fascinating to me, but I didn't know I had any particular gift for it, until I guess I was in the seventh or eighth grade when a friend of mine did a drawing and he said to me, Brian, come up with a story for this drawing because you're good at that. I didn't know I was good at it, right. It was so natural to me, and so I just pursued that path. I wanted to be a director. Before that, before the 70s, not every director was a writer, but in the 70s, it seemed like every director was a writer. So Francis Ford Coppola was a writer, Steven Spielberg was a writer, George Lucas was a writer. So I thought that's what you had to do. And I had dyslexia, so writing scared me, it was difficult for me, but wanting to tell stories overrode that, and I just thought that's what I had to do, so I just kept doing it and pretty soon, accidentally became an expert at it, where people would start asking me for advice and the people who started asking me for advice were higher and higher up the food chain. I remember I was on a plane next to some award winning writer and I happened to be sitting next to him and I was star struck that I got to sit next to him on this plane and we were talking and I thought we were just talking about story stuff and then he said, do you mind if I take notes? So I thought, okay, maybe I've got something, but I didn't think anything I was saying was worthy of taking notes, but he did. Yeah, and then I wrote the book for two reasons. I submitted a screenplay to Disney for their fellowship program, and it was rejected in the first round, and I didn't think that was right, and they also gave me a list of books I could read about screenwriting, and I was so angry and I thought, have you read these books, because I could write one of these books, and so I did. So then I had a student, the first class I ever taught, I didn't mean to be a teacher, it happened accidentally. I needed some money and somebody needed a screenwriting teacher and so, I said, well, sure, I'll try it. It turns out I had a talent for it that I didn't know I had. So a woman in my class said to me, oh, you should write a book, and I said yeah, people say that, and she looked me dead in the eye and she said, no, you're good at this, you're good at communicating it, you have a responsibility to write a book. So those two things made me write the book.  Ula Ojiaku  I'm thankful, because when you experienced those things and sometimes they seem negative in the moment. So who would have thought that being rejected for a fellowship with Disney would lead to better things in my view, of bigger, better things. It's really amazing. I'm glad you did because we wouldn't be having this conversation if you didn't. Thank you again. Your work is affecting even other generations. I know my children definitely are big fans already. You being a storyteller and I don't want to read your book out to the audience, how would you define storytelling?  Brian McDonald First you have to define story. I noticed that most people who teach writing, who teach anything about story, just start talking about it without defining it, and it has a definition, story has a definition, and I find that people are using the word story, it's become a very hip word at this moment and I'll tell you what made me look it up. I heard an interview with a jazz bassist on the radio and this jazz bassist, I wish I could remember who it was, but apparently if you play jazz, this is the bassist you want, and the interviewer said, well, how did you become that guy? How did you become the guy everybody wants? And he said, well, I was a bassist for a long time and I was pretty good, and he said, one day I decided to look up bass in the dictionary, and he said, a bass is a foundation. Everything is built on the bass, and he said, once I understood that, I knew what my job was, and I became a better bassist. So, I'm like, I should probably look up the definition of what I do. So, I looked up the word story, and one of the definitions, now I've altered the definition and I'll tell you why, but I've altered it slightly. So a story is the telling or retelling of a series of events leading to a conclusion, meaning having a point. So one of the first questions I asked my classes is ‘what a story is', and I let them struggle with it for a while because, once you hear it, it sounds like, of course, that's what it is. So I let them struggle for minutes, uncomfortable minutes coming up with all these things, because then they know they didn't know. Before they would say nothing. Now I think they've heard some of what I say or read it somewhere and they come back like they're repeating something I said, but without understanding it. So they'll say a series of events and I'll be like, no, it's not a series of events. It's the telling or retelling of a series of events. Right. That's a huge part of it. Right. So also leading to a conclusion, which I think is a huge part of it, and that's the part I added. Now, here's the thing, I don't know if you know how they write dictionaries, but how they write dictionaries is they go around and they ask people they think are smart, what words mean. That's what they do. That's how they do it. What do you think this word means? And then they get a consensus. And so this many people thought this, that's why you have a number one and number two and number three. Well, people who know that stuff are word people. I'm not a word person. I'm a story person. These are different things. We conflate the two things. We think they're the same, but they're not the same. You don't need words at all to tell a story. The first 30 years of movies were silent, ask any choreographer or dancer or pantomimist, you don't need it, right? We put them together, but they don't necessarily go together. The people who define story as the telling or retelling of a series of events are word people, but as a storyteller, I know that stories have a function. So they are leading to a conclusion. So that's the part I added, because they were word people, not story people, and for a story person, that was not a definition for me that worked, but I think that my definition helps people write stories, whereas the other definition does not. Ula Ojiaku Can I ask you a question about your definition of a story, because you said it's leading to a conclusion. Would you say that the storyteller has to tell that conclusion, or is this something that the people being told the story would infer or a mixture? Brian McDonald Oh that depends. So a lot of times people will talk about resolution, that a story needs to resolve, happily ever after, but if you look in the east, they don't necessarily resolve, but they do conclude, they do allow you to draw a conclusion. A lot of Zen parables are like that, where it's almost as if it's left hanging, but it isn't exactly left hanging. I talk about this in my book, Land of the Dead, but there's a story about a monk and he's walking through the jungle, he sees a tiger, and the tiger starts to chase him, so he's running from this tiger, and he gets to the edge of a cliff, and so he's got the tiger behind him, and he's got the cliff in front of him, and he doesn't know what to do, he jumps, but he catches himself on a branch, a little branch, and the branch is starting to give way and there are these jagged rocks below. So if he falls, that's it. On the end of the branch, there are three strawberries growing, and he reaches out and he grabs strawberries and he eats them, and they're the best strawberries he's ever had. That's the end of that story, because the conclusion is all about how precious life becomes when we know it's near the end, and we could take that into our lives because we never know when it's going to be over, right, so that's a conclusion to be drawn from the story. It doesn't resolve - does he get out of it? How does he get out of it? What happens when… it doesn't resolve, but it concludes. So I like the word conclusion more than I like the word resolution. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for that, Brian. So now that you've laid the foundation for us on what a story is, what's storytelling then? Brian McDonald Well, you have to then ask what stories are for. Why do people tell stories? All around the world, in every culture, in every time, human beings have been storytellers. Why? Now people will come back and they'll say entertainment. That's not why you. You don't need stories to entertain. There's lots of things you could do. Think about it for a second. We tell stories all the time. We think we're just talking, but we tell stories all the time when we're having conversations. We don't even know we're telling stories, but we do it all the time. Then we tell ourselves stories. You have an imaginary conversation with somebody, right? Well, then he'll say this and then I'll say this and then he'll say that, and then I'll say…so you're telling yourself the story. You do it all the time, right? And then when you come home and you want to relax, you'll find a story either on your television or your phone or a book, that's the way we relax, so we do it all day long, right? And then we want to relax and we find a story to relax too. Then we go to sleep and we tell ourselves stories when we sleep. Well, that's a lot of energy for one thing, and the only conclusion I can draw is that it's a survival mechanism, because that's just the way evolution works. It had to have been selected for. The people who didn't tell stories are not here, so it has to be selected for, and anything that's selected for has an evolutionary advantage. There's no other animal that would spend that much time doing anything if it wasn't related to their survival, it doesn't make sense. And there are clues to this. So, some of the clues are, first of all, you'll notice with children. If you tell children it's story time, they lose their mind, and I think the reason they do that is because they are new to the world and they need to know how it works, and stories tell them how it works. So they are feeding in a way. I think story stories and food are very close together in terms of how important they are to us. As a matter of fact, if you found yourself in some place or something without food, you would start to immediately think of stories about people in that situation and how they got out of it. So that's one clue. The other clue is that any writing teacher will tell you that stories need conflict, that you have to have conflict in the story, and they would always say to me when I would ask as a kid, well, why, and they'd say, it's more interesting, for me, that's not really an answer. I think because I'm dyslexic, I have to go to the very basic part of it. Like, no, that's not an answer. There's an answer, and it's that conflict is the thing that we're trying to survive. Stories aren't necessarily entertaining, but they are engaging. Sometimes entertaining, sometimes they're just engaging, take Schindler's List. Is that entertaining? No, but it's engaging, so I think that the reason that we find stories engaging, and sometimes entertaining is because nature wants us to engage in that activity. It's why food tastes good. It wants us to engage in that activity. So it's a by-product, entertainment is a by-product of good storytelling. Ula Ojiaku It makes perfect sense, and I've watched a few of your episodes on the You Are A Storyteller podcast on your website writeinvisibleink.com and you said something about that stories can heal, can save lives. So it's not just about the entertainment factor. Can you expand on that, please? Brian McDonald Now, it's funny, I talk about survival and a lot of times people go immediately to physical survival, but there's all kinds of survival, so there's cultural survival, there is social survival, don't act this way, act that way. There is emotional or spiritual survival, and you'll see that with support groups, 12 step programmes, anything like that, where stories are medicinal, both the sharing of the story and the taking in of the story. Again, nature wants us to engage in that activity, and so we don't even know we're doing it. When I was a kid, we moved from one neighbourhood to another and it snowed one day and a friend of mine said, a new friend of mine, he said he came to the house and he said, hey, we're going to Dawson Hill. I didn't know what it was. What's Dawson Hill? Well, it's a big hill. There's a Dawson Street was the street. It's a big hill, and everybody goes sledding down this hill when it snows. Okay, so I go up there, and when I get up there, I hear this story. I probably told this story later, I don't remember, but I'm sure I did, I heard it retold to new kids all the time. So when you were a new kid in the neighbourhood, you would hear this story. There was a kid about a generation older than us. I actually worked with a woman years later who was from the same neighbourhood, and said she knew that story. She knew the story. She's a generation older than me, she knew the story. So anyway, a kid was going on an inner tube down the hill and he hit a utility pole and he got the wind knocked out of him and everybody gathered around, you know, are you okay, and it took him a minute to sort of recover, and he said, I'm fine, I'm okay, I'm fine, and he stayed for a little while, but after a while said he wasn't feeling well and he went home and took a nap and he never woke up because he had broken a rib and punctured an organ and was bleeding internally and didn't know it. Now, kids tell that story because that's the kind of story kids tell, right, but what were they saying to me? They were giving me survival information. Look, be careful going down this hill. They could have said that, that doesn't stick. The stories are what we've evolved to take in. So that doesn't stick. So, they don't even know they're doing it. This is how natural it is, they're just telling a story they think is creepy or interesting, whatever they think, but what they're saying is, be careful going down that hill, and if you do get hurt, you may not know how hurt you are, so get yourself checked out or let your parents know or something like that. There's two bits of survival information in that story. That's how natural it is. We do it all the time. And we navigate the world that way all the time, we just don't know we're doing it, and that's another thing, it's so natural. It's like breathing, there are people who study breath and how you breathe, but that's a whole field of study because we ignore it, and I think story is one of those things, as far as I know, you can go to school and you can study journalism and you can study medieval literature and you can study French poetry from whenever, you can study all of these things about writing, but I don't know if you can get a degree anywhere on story itself, which I find fascinating. Ula Ojiaku Unless you want to change that. Brian McDonald Maybe I will. I knew a woman who was a playwright and she would come to me for advice about storytelling, and she had a degree in playwriting. And I said, well, what did they teach you when you were in school? She said, it never came up. So it's interesting to me that we don't study that, which is the common denominator across all those other things. All those other disciplines have story at their core. Ula Ojiaku And that's what you were saying, the common denominator in The Golden Theme, I have digital copies of the other books, but The Golden Theme, that was what you were saying, that storytelling is the common denominator, if I remember correctly, but it's like something that runs through all of us as human beings. Brian McDonald Well, the thing is this, that stories have a point, they have a reason to be told, and I was looking for the thing that all stories had in common. One of the things, and again, this goes back to being dyslexic, but one of the things dyslexics do well, is see connections that other people miss. I'm bad with details, but I can see the big picture of things. Let's take the movie Seven Samurai was made into the movie Magnificent Seven. So it takes a samurai movie, they make it into a Western. What I see when I see those things is I say, this is about people learning how to stand up for themselves, this is about all these other things, and that doesn't matter if it's a Western or if it's, so I just see that how they're the same. The differences are superficial to me, I don't see those. So when people say what genre, if I'm writing something with genre, I'm like, I know what you mean, I don't know why it matters. I don't say that part, but I don't, because what matters is, is it compelling? Is it true about being a human being? Does it get to a truth? That's the important thing for me, and so I was looking for the common thread. Every story will have what I call an armature and I can explain what that is, but I thought, there's a common armature, there's got to be, that links all stories, and I thought about it for a long time. As a matter of fact, one of the things that got me started thinking about it was, I was walking through a cemetery with a friend of mine, we were working on a project, and it was a cemetery near where I lived, it's actually the cemetery where Bruce Lee is buried, and my mum is there now, which would have thrilled her to be close to Bruce Lee, but I was walking through that cemetery with a friend of mine and I said, you know, if these people could talk, I bet they would just have one thing to tell us. And he said, what? I go, I don't know, but I bet they'd have one thing to say that they would think this is the most, and I thought about that for a long time, so both The Golden Theme and Land of the Dead came out of that walk through the cemetery. So I thought about it for years, and in fact, it's a strange thing, I didn't even know it was happening. You know that sound of a chalkboard and the chalk, that sound, that was in my head constantly like I was working out some kind of equation, and I don't know if I'm synesthetic or something, but I could hear it, and then one day it stopped, and it was quiet, and what I call now The Golden Theme came to me. The one thing that the cemetery said and the thing that stories have in common is that we are all the same. That's what the cemetery tells you. We're all the same. We're all going to die one day. We all worry about the same stuff. We all care about the same things, and the closer you get to that in a story, because that's the underlying baseline, the more that story resonates with people, the more they see themselves in somebody they don't expect to see themselves in, the more it resonates. Wait, that person's nothing like me and yet they're everything like me, right? So that I think is what's underneath. That's what The Golden Theme is, is that recognition, because stories wouldn't work if that weren't true. For instance, if I say to you, I was walking on the beach and I was barefoot and there was hot sand between my toes. If I say that to you, the only way that you understand it is to put yourself there. Ula Ojiaku In your book, Invisible Ink, you also delved a little bit into the neuroscience, how our brains work and that our brains are wired for storytelling. When someone is telling a story and we're relating to it, the same parts of our brain are being kind of lit up and active, as if we were the people. Brian McDonald Because of the mirror neurons that we have. If you see somebody doing something, your brain does not know the difference between you doing it and them doing it, it doesn't recognise the difference and so the same part of your brain lights up. They'll show people smiling in a picture and have people in an MRI and the smile part of the brain lights up when that happens, and the frowns and all of that stuff. So that's a further proof of The Golden Theme, but also that's how we get the lesson from the story, because we put ourselves there, if we couldn't put ourselves there, we wouldn't get the lesson from the story and we wouldn't get the survival information. We would basically say, well, that happened to them and it would have nothing to do with you. And in fact, there are people like that, and we call those people, we will say, well, that guy, he's got to learn things the hard way. What does that mean? That means they don't listen to other people's stories, that's all it could mean. If there's a hard way, there's got to be an easy way, right? Ula Ojiaku The easy way is listening to people's stories and learning from them instead of you going through the experience. Brian McDonald Yeah, there's a saying that where there is an old person, nothing need go wrong. What that means is they have all the stories, so when there's a drought, go to them, they've been through five droughts. I think as we get older and our bodies fail and all of that, what we become is a collection of stories, and this is where we get the idea of that's where the wisdom is because that is what, before the internet, old people were the internet. That's the natural internet, the old people who have been through a lot and know things and have seen more patterns as you get older, you see more patterns, you're like, oh, I see where this is going to go. Ula Ojiaku And to be honest, you're not by any stretch old or anything, but one of the reasons I have this podcast is to hear people's stories and gather as much from people's experiences, to learn. So it's not really about posting it to the world, it's selfish, it's for me to ask questions of the people. So, like you said, people are a collection of stories, not necessarily just about the age, but just saying that's one of the reasons I want to hear your story. What happened? What made you do this? What made you do that? And I find myself, maybe let's see, tomorrow, a few weeks from now, I'll be like, oh, Brian said he went through this and I'm seeing something, I'm playing out and I'm instinctively knowing how it's going to play out, and then, oh, he said he did XYZ and okay, maybe I should try that and it works. Sorry, it's not about me, but I'm just saying I resonate with what you're saying. Brian McDonald It's just a very normal, natural thing, and I think it usually goes, it can go older to younger, but it can often go more experienced to less experienced, which is really the bigger thing. So I used to work with combat veterans that had PTSD, and I used to help them tell their stories to help with their healing, and I would ask them about storytelling in their work, and I'd say, okay, so you get deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq or something, are there stories before you go? And they were like, yes, there's lots of stories, because that's a highly dangerous situation, so people have a lot of stories about that. People who have been before say, make sure this happens, make sure you don't do this, make sure you do that. They said there's stories when you're going, there's stories when you get there, and there's stories about when you're about to leave, because what I was told was, there are lots of incidents where people are on their last few days of deployment and that's when they get hurt or killed, because they get careless. So the stories are saying, be as careful on your last day as your first day, and that's just naturally happening. I think if people start paying attention now, often they're getting that kind of information, it changes how you hear stories, it changes how you listen to stories. There is this idea, this cliche, particularly in this culture, I don't know how many cultures have it, but in the United States, it's big and it's, oh, grandpa and his stories, or grandma and her stories, on and on and on, and blah, blah, blah with their stories. Here's the thing about that, they're just trying to help you survive. That's all that's happening, and if you listen, because you know, those people aren't going to be around forever and then you'll later, you go, why didn't I ask about this? Why didn't I ask about that? That's what happens. So just listen over and over again, even if you heard it 50 times, because there's going to be a time when you're going to want all those details, I guarantee you. If you listen that way, you listen differently. You start listening for how are they trying to help you survive, and it may not be apparent immediately. So I was in an improv class once and there was a woman in the improv class, Melissa was her name, and we're taking a break and we're having a talk and she used to be a flight attendant, and I said to her during this break, well, what was that like, and did anything weird ever happen on a plane or, you know, I was hoping she'd tell me about a UFO or something, but what she said was, well, she said a couple people died on flights I was on. She goes, that was a weird experience, but then she remembered something, and she said, oh, there was this one time there was a kid who kept getting up and running to the bathroom. She didn't say how old this kid was, but a young kid kept getting up, running to the bathroom and then coming back to his seat and then kept doing this, and he was annoying all the flight attendants, but Melissa said I was concerned. So I went up to the mother and I said, is your son okay, and the woman said, I think so, and she goes, well, I'm just concerned, he keeps getting up and going to the bathroom. And then she said, I noticed that his lips were a little swollen, and she said, I remembered a story that my parents had told me about my father having a fish allergy, where his lips swelled like that, his throat closed up, and he almost died. She said to the mother, is your son allergic to anything? And the mother said, I don't know. Melissa said, I think he might be having an allergic reaction. She checked the menu. They had served a salad that had shrimp in it. She said, I think this is what's happening. She's able to get on the phone from the plane to a clinic, they told her what to do, there was a doctor on the flight and when the plane landed, there was a team ready to help this kid. Now, when Melissa heard that story about her father, she did not think, here's information. She was just concerned about her father, but when she needed that information, that story was right there. We do that all the time. We just don't know we do it. It was right there. So even if you think this story is irrelevant, that this old person is telling me, you don't know that yet, it could be really relevant later on. Ula Ojiaku Thank you for listening to Part 1 of our conversation with Brian McDonald. Be sure to tune in for Part 2, coming up soon. That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless.    

Bio    Kerrie, a serial entrepreneur, was introduced to mentoring after her last successful business sale. Realising she had no support or guidance in what she was doing, Kerrie founded the Association of Business Mentors in 2011 to provide mentoring skills and training for those seeking to mentor business owners professionally. Kerrie's vision for the ABM was to provide reassurance to business owners that they are in the safe hands of a trusted and experienced ABM professional business mentor. Kerrie mentors businesses of all shapes and sizes. She also mentors within the workplace, working closely with HR departments to run mentoring programmes to support the growth and development of their employees. Interview Highlights 01:30 Give it a go or you'll never know 03:30 Starting out in mentorship 06:30 The vision or the team? 10:30 Boundaries in business 12:30 The onion exercise 16:30 Mentoring v coaching 21:00 The mentoring door 22:00 Quietening the mind  23:30 Embedding an organisational mentoring culture   Contact Information   ·         ABM website (Association of Business Mentors) ·         Association of Business Mentors on LinkedIn ·         Kerrie Dorman on LinkedIn   Books & Resources   ·         The Mentoring Manual - Julie Starr ·         A Complete Guide to Effective Mentoring (The FT Guides), Dr. Ruth Gotian, Andy Lopata ·         Henley Business School webinars ·         Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice, Matthew Syed ·         The Choice: Embrace the Possible, Edith Eger Episode Transcript   Intro:  Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener.   Ula Ojiaku   I am very honoured to have the Founder of the Association of Business Mentors, Kerrie Dorman, as our guest on the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. Kerrie, thank you so much for making the time for this conversation. I've been looking forward to it for ages. Kerrie Dorman You're very welcome. Thank you for having me. Ula Ojiaku My pleasure. So what's led you to the place where you are today and being the Kerrie Dorman that we've gotten to know and admire? Kerrie Dorman Okay, so actually part of my upbringing was being very much around entrepreneurship. My father was a key project manager on business ideas, primarily in Africa, and my stepfather also ran a very large family business. So I had business sort of around me from quite a young age, and I would talk to both my father and my stepfather about why things would happen and et cetera, et cetera. And so I became a serial entrepreneur from quite a young age. I think what gave me the impetus was the fact that I wasn't afraid to give something a go, and actually my motto now is give it a go or you'll never know, and if it works out, amazing, if not, then you learn and you move on. So my first business was in optics, because what I did do was get a profession behind me first, and that was a qualified dispensing optician. And so my first business was in recruitment for people within the optical industry, and I somehow managed to sell that by the skin of my teeth. And I just felt that it was incredibly satisfying, and a great sense of achievement to have been able to build something, even though it was very small, that was attractive to somebody else to want to pay for it. And so hence my entrepreneurialism streak started. So I started all sorts of businesses in all sorts of industries, I saw niches and just as I said, gave it a go. Some work just failed, and some I managed to sell, so I sort of came out vaguely on top at the end of it all, and then of course, there was the Association of Business Mentors, which is still going, and that came about because when I sold my last business, which was probably the most successful of them all, there was a new government funded mentorship program happening. It was an incubation centre, so there were young and bullish business owners wanting to be in this incubation centre to make sure that they had the best start, and so I was asked to come and share all my experiences, the successes, the failures, what I learnt, and I felt that I had a lot to share with these people, and that was my first stab at being a mentor. However, I didn't really know what I was doing, I'd never had my own mentor before, and I felt that I was getting quite frustrated with these young, inspiring people because they weren't running a business the way I had run a business. And I thought that that's what mentoring was about. There was no guidance on this scheme, and I just felt that it wasn't quite right in terms of what I was supposed to be doing. So I looked around for somewhere to hang my hat, find some other mentors, get some guidance, get some training, get some code of ethics, and the whole standard thing was really important to me. And apart from the EMCC, which is very European-centric and it was very coach-centric as well at the time. The European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC), which is still going strongly to this day, and we sit with them on the Global Code of Ethics Committee. They just have a lot of kudos and I'm very, very flattered that we work alongside them. So then I just realised that mentoring was about to explode in the UK. It was very big in the States and we really needed somewhere for mentors to go and be supported and guided and also for mentees, so for business owners to go somewhere where they knew that a mentor had the guidance, had the structure, had the ethics and they were in safe hands, and that was 13 years ago. Ula Ojiaku Wow. And look where the Association of Business Mentors has gotten to with, I believe, thousands of members across the country? Kerrie Dorman We are up to, I think, two and a half thousand members at the moment. But you know what, Ula, the thing is, is that it's not just been me, it's absolutely about the team and the other people who have helped get it to where it is today. I definitely cannot take all the credit. I can take the credit for having the idea and the initial oomph to get it going, but it's really been down to all the volunteers in all the different regions, the different members of the board. It is really who you manage to bring on board with you and help you get initiatives to where they are. Ula Ojiaku Thank you for that. I'm a big believer that as long as you're learning, it's not really failure. Kerrie Dorman Yeah, absolutely. So it's only a failure if you don't learn, and so I think my fear of failure meant that I had to learn in order for self preservation, if that makes sense, and although it wasn't always apparent, that's definitely the case. There's a wonderful quote ‘I never lose, either I win or I learn'. Ula Ojiaku Now, the vision or the team, which one do you think is more important in setting up a successful enterprise Kerrie Dorman The team. Every single time. And do you know why? It's because visions change. Visions can change according to things outside of your control, landscape, you just have no idea where a journey is going to take you, and I think that it's quite close minded to stick to the exact same vision all the way through because you may start an initiative, a business for one reason, and then you end up delivering a solution to something completely different, which needs a tweaked and amended vision. And also, a really good team will help you to shape a vision as you grow, so that's it for me. It's team all the way. Ula Ojiaku And in all the businesses you've founded, how did you go about building the teams, the partnerships, the structure? Kerrie Dorman For me, it was all about the people that I knew, approaching them first and the like-mindedness about the core reason why I wanted the ABM to exist really was about standard support and guidance, and that was my unique selling point, for a commercial phrase, and I just found that there were lots of people out there who were just as passionate about me as those three things. And so, because I was so passionate, and so were they, it was easy to get the right people, and the people who felt that they wanted to join the movement, but didn't quite have the passion fell away along the journey. And that's sort of been a theme, I think, through all the businesses, it's about the people and about who I knew. So initially, when I would have a business idea, the idea was great, but until I had the right person in mind to help me run it, then it was a no go, but interestingly, and this conversation has been a catalyst for this thought, interestingly, it was having great people in my sort of hemisphere that sometimes often made me come to the conclusion that I needed to set up a business in a particular arena with that person. So sometimes it was the person that was the catalyst, and a great example of that, just to be crystal clear about what I mean is, one of my businesses was a beauty salon specialised in pregnant ladies and mums. So pregnant ladies, and then when they had the babies, they could come back. So it was all set up for massaging and wellbeing for mums who had bumps and boobs that couldn't ever lie on their tummies. So I got these special couches from the States and then they could have proper massages and then there was a creche so that once they had their babies, they could come back.  And so the catalyst for that business was, well A)I had a baby, but B) one of my employees in a current business was a qualified beauty therapist, and she was just having a bit of time out from the beauty world for one reason or another. And so I had my first born, and I had this employee who was really keen to get back and she was passionate about beauty and health. And for me, it then became this no brainer that the concept would work with her running it, and that's how it all started. Ula Ojiaku That's amazing. If you could speak to your younger self, what would you advise them to do? Kerrie Dorman This is a really great question and it really got me thinking. And I would sit myself down and I would say that I'd really need to ring fence my emotions. One of my downfalls has been to get too close to people that I have employed, and you know that saying ‘familiarity breeds contempt'. That actually really happened on several occasions. Ring fence my emotions, don't get too familiar. When you're in business, you have to have proper boundaries, and also, I can't stress the importance of having your eye on the numbers. You have to have your eye on the numbers all the time, not only just to make sure that you're making a profit currently, but that you have a sustainable business that can grow. So run forecasts and sense check them. Some people can get over zealous with it, but they just have to be there all the time. It's so, so important. And the fourth thing I would say to my younger self is to start delegating earlier. Took me a long time to really understand the power of delegating, and I think there was two reasons for that. A) I felt because I was quite young when I started these businesses, I just felt that I couldn't ask other people to do things for me when I was quite able to do them myself. And B) there was definitely an element of the fact that if I did it, it would probably be better than anyone else doing it. Two utterly ridiculous things, and if I'd learned that a lot earlier, then I would have been more successful, without a shadow of a doubt, and less tired probably. So when I'm running a training for mentors, I run this little exercise called the onion exercise, and it's all about stripping back and really getting both mentor and mentee down to the nub of the onion, because that's where you feel comfortable, safe, and that's where all the good conversations start happening. And so to get people talking to each other, I get them to pair up into twos and they have to talk about something that's very personal to them, and as an example, I tell the story about the fact that I give blood very regularly and that I have one of the rarer blood groups, and one time, it was about eight years ago, and I was giving blood and the nurse came over to check that everything was working, and she said to me, oh you have special blood. I said, well, it's just one of the rarer types. And she said, no, it is one of the rarer types, she said, but it's healthy enough to go to the neonatal clinic to save the babies. And I thought, oh my God, that's amazing. So I was giving this example in one training, and this  mentor said to me, well, that's great, and it's a really interesting story, but what does that tell us in business? And it tells you actually that I have strong maternal instincts and I allow that to get in the way of my emotions and my professional boundaries, and that's, that's the power of it. Ula Ojiaku Now, if you were to define mentoring, what would you say it's all about? Kerrie Dorman My definition of mentoring is based on this. So a mentor's job is to ease the pain for the mentees. So we're mentoring because we have a certain amount of experience and skills and ethics and our role is to make sure that mentees look at all the options that are available to them, explore with all the appropriate approaches that they have, and go about their business in a calm and considered manner that's got the best outcomes possible. And as mentors we can do that because we've been there, we've done all sorts of things, we can just make sure that considered decisions are made, with all options having been explored. But not only do we need the experience as mentors, we need the skills, I mean, there are questioning and listening skills and self awareness skills that do not come naturally to a lot of people. We do have to make sure that we practice those. And I know I, for one, have had to practice my mentoring skills a lot in order to get to where I mentor today, without a doubt. Ula Ojiaku So did you have to go through training? Kerrie Dorman Yep, lots of training, lots of self reflection. I went through an assessment centre twice with Professor David Clutterbuck, who told me that I needed to improve and on the back of that, I got some very special mentoring sessions with Bob Garvey, and I don't know if you've come across either of these gentlemen, but they are absolute experts in our field, and it was an incredible learning curve for me, being mentored by Bob Garvey. He was so giving and really made me look at what I was doing in terms of my mentoring practice, and that's where the real lessons came. Lots and lots of practice taking on board honest, upfront feedback and doing something about it. Ula Ojiaku What's the difference between mentoring and coaching? Kerrie Dorman The difference is that anybody can actually be a coach as long as they have the qualifications that go with coaching. Coaching is a lot more stringent and structured in terms of the need for supervision and accreditation. Anyone can call themselves a mentor if they have a little bit of experience, well, I know there's a lot of mentors out there calling themselves mentors and they've probably just read a book, but anyway, let's not go onto my rant. So the difference is, is that coaches need accreditation and qualifications, mentors need experience, as well as the training and the qualifications. So the experience is absolutely key. And the other big difference is that as mentors, we can talk about our experiences and our stories, whereas coaches, it's more about empowering the coachee to build their own stories and use their own experience in order to develop. So actually a mixture of both is what you really want. Ula Ojiaku And would you also as a mentor tell them what to do or do you give them the option to choose? Kerrie Dorman So the golden rule is that any decisions or any way that the mentee chooses to go forward is the responsibility of the mentee. We can call our stories hindsight, advice, whatever, but actually the responsibility stops, the buck stops with the mentee, and that's very important. So there cannot be a situation where a mentee can turn around and say, well, you told me to go down this particular route, that just doesn't happen. And that's part of being a professional and having our standards, and that's making crystal clear that the mentee is responsible for their own actions and decisions. Ula Ojiaku And you said that you now do a lot of work through the ABM, helping, mentoring business owners. Could you share maybe a bit more about this? Kerrie Dorman I have a small handful of mentees now, and my focus is all about supporting, training mentors to be the best that they can be, and I also work with bigger organisations and help them to set up mentoring programs that actually provide a return to the mentor, mentee and the organisation. So that's providing the motivation and the training, the know-how, and the monitoring, just making sure that everybody's getting what they want from it, because unfortunately, due to all sorts of things, normally lack of resource and knowledge, mentoring programs are tick box exercises, and so it's my mission to make sure that the majority of mentoring programs provide a value to all stakeholders. Ula Ojiaku And what would you say, in the situations where you felt were highly productive, or the mentees seemed to get the most out of the relationship, what was the difference between that and maybe an average mentor mentee relationship? Kerrie Dorman To be honest, for me, the difference has been the ego of the mentee. I've only had a couple of frustrating mentoring relationships, luckily. So I have actually reflected on this as to why I couldn't quite break through, why I couldn't provide them what I felt that they needed, what they thought they needed, and actually it was a little bit of arrogance and big egos on the mentees side, and as soon as I realised that I wasn't going to provide any value because of those barriers, then I just called it a day. I didn't say, I can't work with you because you've got a big ego, I just positioned it that we'd come to the end of our relationship and that it was time for them to look at somebody else with a different skill set, because otherwise it's unfair and it's frustrating and we shouldn't be in that position. I love the analogy of the mentoring door. So when both mentors and mentees turn up for their session, they go through the mentoring door, they're zapped of all the stuff that they're carrying around with them and they turn up and they're both present and they're good to go in that moment in time for mentoring, because we're all so busy and we're all thinking about all sorts of various different things - the last meeting, the mentee that's about to do this big bid, or whatever it is. We have to be able to learn to leave all of that at the door and be present. Ula Ojiaku Are there practices to help you with this? Kerrie Dorman Yeah, so I quite like Julie Starr. She wrote The Mentoring Manual. So she talks about quietening the mind, and it's about just taking as long as you need. So everyone's different, someone could walk through that mentoring door and have a quiet mind, just like that. Other people might need five minutes. Other people might need 20 minutes. It's up to you to know your own limitations, but when you walk through the mentoring door, the ability to take a breath and quiet your mind, and be present. That's my question to myself - is my mind quiet? And am I ready to take on the next lot of information that's about to be divulged to me. So that's a key phrase for me, quietening the mind, and she's got a couple of exercises in there actually. And the other one is the one that's just come out by Andy Lopata and Ruth Gotian is the Financial Times Guide to Effective Mentoring It's got some fantastic real life case studies in there and lots of people have been interviewed, myself included actually, I'm in there, and it's really good effective reading for mentors and mentees. Ula Ojiaku So, as leaders, how can we make sure that, one, we're effective as mentors in our organisations, and two, how can we make sure that that culture of mentoring is embedded in the organisation? Kerrie Dorman Two great questions. So the first one, how do we make sure that we are as effective as possible as mentors? So the only way is to keep self-developing and learning new exercises, having new tools and really getting involved with peer to peer discussions, and learning from each other. I really enjoy the webinars that come out of Henley Business School. There's a whole mentoring library there, and so I try and listen to one every six weeks as a minimum so that I'm just gaining a new perspective, making sure that I am actually on top of my game, but it takes work, because again, we're busy and we've just got to make sure that we do it. So I diarise Friday mornings to do that, and it's very rare that I'll give up that time unless I'm facing a deadline of some sort. It's rare that I'll give up that time to self-develop or network. So it's about giving ourselves the space in order to grow and to keep developing. How do we shout about it inside an organisation and make sure that it's effective? Well it's our responsibility as mentors to ensure that our time is providing a return, and the only way an organisation can do that is by monitoring and getting the results, and there's all sorts of ways that we can do that, but getting feedback and scoring and making sure that mentors are getting what they need to get out of a mentoring relationship as well as the mentees is absolutely key. So when I'm running an initiative inside of an organisation, I get mentors and mentees to fill out a feedback form at the end and getting quite specific, but also to score one to 10, 10 being highly beneficial, and so we get a hardcore number at the end so we can see and where it's not providing value for somebody, then you go in and we find out how, what we can do to improve. Again, it's just continuous development. So really as mentors, it's about making sure that there is a return and that it's monitored, and if it's not, shout about it. Ula Ojiaku What other books have you recommended the most to people and why? Kerrie Dorman So apart from Julie Starr's Mentoring Manual, the one I have suggested the most frequently is Bounce by Matthew Syed. So the reason why I love Bounce so much is because he provides an argument that we are not born with talent. It is absolutely something that we have to work at, and the whole book is about his research to prove that. And in my journey as a mentor, I know I've had to put in the hours and the purposeful practice and the self-development to be the mentor that I am today. We are not born natural mentors, and I'm quite happy to be challenged on that, so that's the reason why I shout about his book, because it's all about keeping at it and building up your hours to be an expert in your field, and I feel very strongly about that. The other book is a book that I read during the pandemic during lockdown and it did amazing things for me as a person, not just as a mentor, but as a person, and it's The Choice by Edith Eger, and she's still alive. She is an Auschwitz survivor. She's in her nineties now, and it's her story about the choices that we make, the choices that are open to us and, and how we make them, and she links it to the choices that she had in Auschwitz and as an escapee. Powerful, powerful stuff, but written beautifully, and really resonated with me. So yes, they're my two favourites, Bounce by Matthew Syed and The Choice by Edith Eger. Ula Ojiaku And if the audience wants to get in touch with you, how can they do so? Kerrie Dorman My details are all over LinkedIn, obviously all over the ABM website on my profile, and I really welcome anybody to get in contact with me for a chat, for discussion, run anything by. I love talking about mentoring, about the power of it, how we can use it to help all sorts of people and situations. So please don't ever hesitate to get in touch. Ula Ojiaku Thank you so much for that, Kerrie. Do you have any final words for the audience that you'd like to leave them with for this episode? Kerrie Dorman Yes. If you're not mentoring, then get at it, and if you don't have a mentor, then find one, because no one is above having a mentor, and it's one of the most rewarding experiences, that we can experience in life. Ula Ojiaku Thank you so, so much, Kerrie. I really have learned a lot and I appreciate the time you've made, the wisdom that you've shared with us. So thank you again. Kerrie Dorman Thank you for having me. I've loved chatting with you. ​ Ula Ojiaku That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!     

Bio Darren, as the European Managing Director of Cprime, spearheads transformation initiatives in EMEA, leveraging over two decades of experience in banking and IT leadership. As a SAFe Fellow and renowned author, he drives strategic growth by defining innovative go-to-market strategies and deepening client relationships. Darren is responsible for overseeing Cprime's consultancy services, implementing complex programs, and negotiating multi-million pound contracts, positioning the company as a leader in organisational efficiency and performance optimisation.    He co-authored the BCS Book “Agile Foundations – Principles Practices and Frameworks” and "SAFe Coaches Handbook". A contributor to the SAFe Reference Guide 4.5 and "The ART of avoiding a Train Wreck". Finally a reviewer of "Valuing Agile; the financial management of agile projects" and "Directing Agile Change”   Interview Highlights 01:30 Pandemic impacts 04:00 Cprime 08:00 Wooing clients 09:15 Using the right language 11:00 Doing your research 12:30 Mistakes leaders make 15:30 Changing mindsets 16:00 Ingredients for change 17:30 Reading for knowledge 26:00 Three thirds 28:30 Disruption 31:30 SAFe Coaches Handbook 37:50 SAFe frameworks 40:20 Enterprise strategy   Connecting   LinkedIn: Darren Wilmshurst on LinkedIn   Books & Resources -          Strategic Leadership: How to Think and Plan Strategically and Provide Direction, John Adair -          Tribal Unity Book, Em Campbell-Pretty, -          Drive, Daniel H. Pink -          SAFe® Coaches Handbook: Proven tips and techniques for launching and running SAFe® Teams, ARTs, and Portfolios in an Agile Enterprise, Darren Wilmshurst & Lindy Quick -          Agile Foundations: Principles, practices and frameworks, Peter Measey -          The ART of Avoiding a Train Wreck: Practical Tips and Tricks for Launching and Operating SAFe Agile Release Trains, Em Campbell-Pretty, Adrienne L. Wilson, Dean Leffingwell -          Industrial Devops: Build Better Systems Faster Dr. Johnson, Robin Yeman, Mik Kersten, Dean Leffingwell -          Radical Focus: Achieving Your Most Important Goals with Objectives and Key Results: Christina R Wodtke -          Who Does What By How Much | Jeff Gothelf & Josh Seiden (okr-book.com)   Episode Transcript Intro: Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. Ula Ojiaku It's a huge honour and privilege to have again with me as my guest on the Agile Innovation Leaders Podcast none other than Darren Wilmshurst, Managing Director at Cprime. Darren is an SPCT and a SAFe fellow. So for some context to the audience, Daz was one of the very first people I interviewed for the Agile Innovation Leaders Podcast and this was about five years ago or so, and I actually wanted to have a way of speaking with Daz, and I didn't know how to, so I said, hey, can I interview you for a podcast? And long story short, I ended up heading on a plane to Oman, but that's a different story. So, Daz, what have you been up to since then? Because when we recorded the first one, you were not yet a SAFe fellow, it was afterwards that you became a SAFe fellow and lots of other things must have happened. Darren Wilmshurst Well then the pandemic started, and I think that that changed life for all of us, most of our consultancy work stopped because it was discretionary spend, people were in retreat in terms of trying to buckle down and understand, try and reduce costs as much as possible. I think the biggest impact was then training, because obviously we couldn't do training in person. We weren't allowed by the certificating bodies to train online, so they had to give us permission to do that, which they did, and then we had to think about, well, how are we going to do this online? You know, what conference facilities are we going to use? What collaborative tools are we going to use? And how do we deliver this experience to make it still interactive and engaging? So I think that was a major challenge for us as well, and if I'm honest, whilst we're still doing stuff online, we're starting to see some training, at least moving back in person, but my preference is still in person because it's a different experience. The theatrics in me, the smell of the greasepaint and the roar of the crowd is still really important as well. So I think that's the first thing I think has changed is that we had that period where everything was remote, I think we're back into a world now where we're more hybrid, which I enjoy the in person stuff, but I think we'll probably never go back to pre-pandemic where everything was in person, both consulting and training. So I think that was the major change, I think for us as well. During that time as well, our major founder wanted to retire, so we sold Radtac to Cprime and that all happened during the early days of the pandemic as well. We had a number of suitors, about six suitors, we decided on Cprime for, for me, two critical reasons and this is quite important, I think as well. Number one is that Radtac felt like a really family firm. We had a set of values and principles, there's a DNA to Radtac and we wanted someone that matched our DNA, I think it was so important for us. We could have gone to some other organisations, but we might have ended up selling our soul to the devil in some respects. Cprime, acquired a company in the US called Blue Agility a few years earlier, almost similar size to Radtac, very similar what they did as well, and what was key for me was that all the people in Blue Agility were still in Cprime. In fact, two had left and come back, so that was a good sign to me that we were aligned in terms of values and principles. So that was number one. The second reason was that Radtac had a heritage of all this training, you know, we're back to 1998. We had all this good training, we'd build up the consulting part of our business, so we're really good in terms of training and consultancy, but we were very agnostic about tooling and technology, because we didn't have the capabilities, or the brand awareness around that part of our business, and it used to frustrate me because, we'd go in, we'd do a great job in terms of way of working, somebody else would go in and maybe do the tooling set up, configure it in a way that wasn't aligned, that wasn't working and that was frustrating. Now we could see opportunities to improve the continuous delivery pipeline, but we didn't have the capability to sort it out as well, whereas Cprime had all of that heritage. So for me, it completed that puzzle where now we can do the training, the consultancy, the tooling to visualise the work, configure the ways of working as well, and also really help with that continuous delivery pipeline as well. So that was the defining decision. We completed that acquisition in February 2021, so literally 12 months after the pandemic. Cprime was at the time owned by a French company called Alten, massive company, not well known, but massive company. Cprime probably wasn't really core to Alten, they were a project management engineering company and Alten sold Cprime January 2023 to Goldman Sachs and Everstone Capital, so that's been a change. So again, we've had the pandemic, we've gone through the acquisition, and now we're owned by a private equity as well, which brings different challenges to the organisation as well, and actually the reality was that after the acquisition, after the earn out, I was looking to maybe semi-retire, spending a bit more time in Spain, fishing and playing golf, but actually this next phase is really exciting, so a testament to Cprime and Goldman Sachs as well, that I want to be part of the next part of the journey as well. So, I'm still here Ula. Ula Ojiaku Well, I am glad you are, and it sounds like it's been a rollercoaster ride and a journey, but part of it is the thrills as well. Darren Wilmshurst Look, we're very privileged, aren't we Ula, because I work with great people, I say that genuinely. I work with great clients, I'm very fortunate in that. And although, you know, if I don't want to work with a client, I don't have to do that, but actually all the clients I work with, I really enjoy working with and I love the work that we do. So it's almost like the Holy Trinity, great people, great clients, great work. Why wouldn't I want to carry on doing what I do? So I always think that we're very privileged in what we do. So, I'm very grateful. Ula Ojiaku And I'll say that the little I've worked with you, what I know is you are a genuine person and you're a great person as well. I can't remember who this quote is attributed to, but people tend to be mirrors. So if you're good, people mirror what you show to them. And I'll say that based on my experience with you, I've learned a lot in terms of how to treat people, being genuine and caring genuinely about their welfare, not necessarily about what you get from them, and that's key. So, that's the sort of person you are, that's who you are. Darren Wilmshurst That's very kind. Ula Ojiaku I want say thank you for that, because there are times when I'm in situations and I'm thinking about maybe somebody or potential someone, colleague or clients, and I'll be like, what would Daz do? How would he probably think about this situation? Now, part of what you do as director involves also wooing, wooing and winning the client and the customer. So, what would you say are your go to principles when pitching, to communicate the value you could bring before an engagement and maybe later on, we can talk about during and after the engagements? Darren Wilmshurst Yeah, I'm still Officer of the company, so I'm still Director of Cprime, the UK entity and also the European entity, so I have some corporate responsibilities as well. I'm still a practicing consultant trainer, so I still have to earn my supper every night as well, and that's the bit that I really enjoy. I'm also responsible for developing the capability of our people, and the products or the value propositions that we take to market as well. So that's part of it, but you're right, I do get involved in what we'd probably call pre-sale as well, so pitching as well. And I think the one thing I think I've learned over the last two, maybe three years as well is, is that I'm very conscious of the language that I use. What do I mean by that? We see a lot of stuff on social media about ‘is Agile dead', stuff like that. It's not dead, but actually if I am talking to a client and I use the Agile word or the ‘A word' it can create an allergic reaction, it can trigger them and in the same way that, just talking about a framework, SAFe, as well that can create a same reaction as well. So for me, it's not about Agile, it's not about SAFe, it's about actually what are we trying to do? What is the problem? What are the challenges that you're having as an organisation? And how can we help you overcome those challenges and create value in what you do? Now, what we will do is we will use ways of working, Agile ways of working, lean ways of working, stuff like that to help them, but what I try and do is try and avoid the triggering word, because I've seen it so often where they, well, we've been in agile for ages, well have you? Or we tried agile, it didn't really work, or we spent millions of pounds on agile transformation and we haven't seen the benefit. So sometimes you have to be careful in terms of the context you're going to. So for me, stop talking about frameworks, stop talking about words that might trigger, talk about their problems and their challenges and how you can help them overcome it, and the value that you bring to their organisation to help them overcome that as well. And that's really key for me as well. Ula Ojiaku That suggests to me that there would be some sort of background work to at least understand who you are pitching to, understand what their experience had been in the past, to know what those trigger words are. Is that something you could share about? Darren Wilmshurst It's an interesting question, because I interview a lot of people to want to come and join our organisation, and the first thing I say to them, can you tell me what you know about Cprime? And if they haven't done the research, it's like, so you've come on here, you want a job at this organisation and you have no idea who we are, and what we've done, and that just really frustrates me. So in return, if I was going on to talk to a client, then of course I'm going to try and understand what they do - what's your core business, there's lots of information on their website. If they're publicly listed, then go get their annual accounts because again, that would talk very much about their last training year and some of their issues as well. Having said all of that, we're still seeing the same problems and the same challenges across all organisations, regardless of the industry they're in. Every organisation, we have more demand than we have capacity. Fact. Everyone has that. We don't know how to prioritise our work. We need to reduce our costs, particularly now. That's becoming more prevalent now, certainly in this last six months than previously as well. Our time to market is too slow. Our ability to turn our ideas into actions needs to be faster. So they're the common problems we're seeing is again, too much demand, not knowing how to prioritise, reduce our costs, and we need to be able to be more adaptive and bring our ideas to the market or to fruition quicker as well. Ula Ojiaku What would you then say are the common mistakes leaders spearheading a transformation make? Darren Wilmshurst Yeah, it's interesting because again, a lot of the work that we're doing now, if we think about the Law of Diffusion of Innovation, and that's a product life cycle as well. If I take that model and apply it to organisations and their adoption, let's call it ‘of modern ways of working' rather than agile, I think we're probably in that late majority. Those large legacy, traditional organisations that maybe even tried the agile transformation years ago, but still haven't mastered it or conquered it, and I'm talking about large banks still, telecoms, pharmaceuticals, automotive, and I really fret for the automotive industry, not just here, but in Europe and across America as well, their time to market from design to launch can be anywhere between five and seven years, and yet the Chinese are doing it in two. Ula Ojiaku Could it be, because you've mentioned financial services, telecoms, pharmaceuticals, and the common thread is that they tend to be highly regulated. So could that be one of the reasons? Darren Wilmshurst I don't think it's regulation. I think they're just such large organisations, the hierarchy within that organisation, is huge, so this is why I come back to the leadership piece as well. Actually, and what happens is the leaders are too far away, they're not connected enough to the organisation systemic changes that they need to make in that organisation to make that organisation more effective. And they need to wake up and smell the coffee because Chinese are coming, they're coming in terms of automotive, they're coming in terms of pharma. True story, my daughter went to university a few years back. She'd been with HSBC for donkey's years as a student, a youth account, and she said, I'm going to university, can I upgrade my account to a university account? And the response from HSBC was yes, you can, but you need to make an appointment, and the next appointment is in six weeks time. And so my son, who's a bit older, he said, just get Monzo or Revolt, just go online, and if they don't wake up, they will just find that the whole generation will go ‘I will not wait'. Now, she waited six weeks, she did it, but a lot of them won't do that, so I think it's a real threat and I think the organisations are so big that, just trying to get into that leadership space so that we can start to work with them to help understand what they need to do. So back to your original question, I think there's three things, and this is hard. We need to move that leadership from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. They will be of a generation age of mine, so now they would have been schooled back in the eighties and nineties in ways of working, and they will have seen those ways of working as being successful because that allowed them to progress to the senior positions that they're in now, so I understand that, but those ways of working are not appropriate for the complex, adaptive, changing organisations that we now need to be in.We need to get them to move from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset, and that's easier said than done. However, I was inspired, this was one of the most senior guys in the government organisation and he was having lunch with the CEO of HSBC Bank and they're talking about change, and they agreed that there were three core ingredients to change organisations. Number one, a transformed approach to partnerships, and he said the language is really important here as well. Again, I didn't call them suppliers, I call them partners. If we call them suppliers, they will behave as suppliers. The reality is that we call them partners, because we don't have the capability or the capacity, but sometimes when we bring them in, third parties, we treat them as an alien organisation. They wear different badges. They have different privileges. They can't do this, they can't go here, they have to be accompanied, things like that. So he said, we need, a transformed approach to partners. We need to bring them in, they need to be part of our ecosystem, number one. Secondly, he said an agile approach to problem solving, giving power and capability to those closer to the issue, and we talk a lot about decentralised decision making as well. Now, you need to know those that have the information need to make the decision in a timely manner as well. But this is the one that really, really got me. Most importantly, a learning culture, including their leadership, where those with the most influence must do as much or more learning than anybody else. Now that's unusual, because normally, I'm a senior person, I've got to where I am because I know a lot of information, and I wouldn't be where I am, but we need to understand that that information was schooled in a different generation. So what we can't do, we can't say to you, well, okay, you need to come on one of my training events, they say, seriously, you've not read my badge, I'm an important person, I have not got time to go on a two day training event, and we need to recognise that as well, these are senior executives, and their time is precious, and trying to find two days in a diary is difficult, so we need to, I think, as agents of change for organisations, and to bring leadership on the journey in order to move them from a fixed to a growth mindset, not to put them on a two day training event, but find a way of educating them in a in a smaller, bitesize way, almost like a series of small, interactive workshops that happen over a series of weeks, that sort of stuff as well, and we need to make sure that the content tackles their problems and their challenges, and we mustn't get into too much of our, again, the words that might trigger them as well. So that's the first thing. So we need them to understand that they need to go on an educational journey, but we need to find an educational journey that will meet their needs in terms of content and their time. Number one. Once we do that, then they need to lead by example, and it's all very well educating them. One of my colleagues was saying, would I go on a plane with a pilot that's read a book? No, they need to be able to practice their skill and hone their skills. Now that might be difficult, again, because their team members, their employees might be well schooled in this and they might feel uncomfortable practicing a craft that they're not that familiar with as well. So what we try and do is get them to practice in a safe environment, i.e. let's work as an agile team, as a leadership team, as a leadership group. Let's think about having a backlog of work that we need to do as a leadership team. Let's think about how we prioritise that work. Let's work in a small group and then review that work on a cadence and then just retrospective and maybe have someone that steps up and be a Scrum Master or Product Owner for that as well. So again, getting them to operate and start to learn by experiencing within their own environment is a great way, because if we can do that, now they're educated, and they practice their craft in a safe environment, they are better empowered to lead the change. This is what we need to do, and this is what I'm finding is that we need the leadership to step up and lead the change, because if we're going to make fundamental changes to organisations, systemic changes, organisational changes, the leaders need to be able to do that as well. And this is what I find – it's great having teams working at a great way, but without that support from leadership, the impact that they will be able to make will be limited. Ula Ojiaku Yes, I resonate with the last statement you made about the limitation to the impact teams can have if the leadership isn't bought in and if they are not walking the talk. It's not like, go ye and be agile whilst we still do what we've always done. There was something you said about moving from fixed mindset to growth mindset and the need for the leaders to have that continuous learning as in really that continuous learning culture is that they need to learn as much, if not much more than other employees, and that reminds me of this book by John Adair, Strategic Leadership, and in his book, he was saying that the origin of the word strategy comes from the military, and typically people who rise to the ranks are people who have been there, done that. And if people have the confidence that you know the stuff and you've been there, done that, if not better than everyone else, you'd have more respect you'd have more buy in, it's less friction getting the troops and kind of corralling the troops towards that vision. Darren Wilmshurst Yeah, it's interesting because again, at school, I was definitely not a reader. I was into numbers, I was a maths person. I went to university, did a maths degree, stuff like that as well. So I was one of those kids at primary school where I'd be given a book at the beginning of the week, and at the end of the week, I'd hand it back to my teacher and she would say to me, have you read the book, Darren? I go, yes, I have. I hadn't actually read the book. She'd give me another book and I'd move up the ladders that you did back in the day. Never read. It's interesting now, I read now more than I've ever read in the past. And I think what happened was it almost became a bit of a bug. I think going on the SPCT program, there were certain books that you had to read, but the more I read, the more I wanted to learn. So I think that got me into that habit as well. Secondly, I think that if I'm teaching this stuff, then I need to understand the provenance of what I'm teaching as well, and I can't do that without reading. So again, you can't be leader, a strategy leader without having been there and done it. So for me, reading is really important to understand some of the provenance of what we're doing and also giving some of the narrative as well. Ula Ojiaku So what would you say changed? Although you've just painted a picture of you before, back in school, and after, what's changed? Darren Wilmshurst I don't know I think I just started reading, it's a bit sad really, because I go on holiday and then I take business books with me and then I'm sitting around the pool reading these books and people say what are you reading, and I'm reading this book thinking that's a bit sad. And I remember one holiday I was sat in on a lilo in a pool reading a business book and my daughter took a picture of me saying dad what are you doing, you're on a holiday and there you are reading Tribal Unity by Em Campbell-Pretty on holiday as well. I don't know, I think when I started this, I wouldn't say it was an addiction, but it was like now i need to learn more now, I need to learn more and more, and so once you started then you don't stop and I'm still an avid reader Ula Ojiaku It reminds me of this book by what you've just said, Daniel Pink's book Drive. So for me, it sounds like the intrinsic motivation, you knew what you stood to gain by doing it and you didn't need to have your teacher asking you, did you read it and you'd say yes when you didn't, but you knew there was something at stake if you didn't. Darren Wilmshurst Yes, I think it was definitely the SPCT program I had to read, but then once I learned stuff, I wanted to learn more stuff, and so you're right, that intrinsic motivation, you know, I think in the video they talk about, people want to play the piano or guitar and just want to get better at it. I just wanted to really become better as an SPCT and then eventually as a fellow just to understand the wonderful thought leadership that has occurred over the last 20 and 30 years that has informed the way that we think and act and work now. Ula Ojiaku Wow. You've kind of nailed it, because Daniel Pink's book says mastery, autonomy, and purpose. So, the mastery bits, but going back to the original question, and thank you for sharing your experience, there is this saying that you can lead a horse to the water, but you can't force it to drink. So, we could have the edict where, okay, all the leaders can make space for those bite-sized workshops or sessions, but once that ends, is there a way we could encourage them to keep at it, because a two day training or maybe six workshop sessions spread over six months probably wouldn't cut it, or wouldn't be sustainable. So is there something or any tips on how to tap into that intrinsic motivation? Darren Wilmshurst I think Dean Leffingwell said to me, he talked about the third, the third and the third, and I'll talk about that as well, he said, in an organisation, there'll be a third of people that get it and want to do it. He said, there'll be a third that I would call my sceptics, not sure, need to be convinced, and there's the third that say, no, I'm very happy with the way I'm looking at it, I don't want to do anything else as well. He said, I don't care about the first third. He said, I actually I care about the second third, those sceptics, if I can convince one of them to lead the charge, he said, that's great because then the others then will come along as well, and if I can get that sceptic to change in terms of, I understand it, I want it, they're almost like  a reformed smoker, they become the greatest advocates of change because they say, I get it now. And he said, now I've got two thirds, now I've got a majority, he said, and that's the tipping point that allows me to make that change as well. And what happens is, he said, there are some in that final third will go, okay, I've seen enough social proof that I will make that change, I need you to convince me, I'll do that as well, he said, but there'll be some that go, I'm not happy with that, and they are the people that will either ride off into the sunset with either retirement or a different career or different organisation as well. So you've got to find someone in that leadership group that's going to be an advocate. You've got to find that one or two that are happy to lead the charge as well, and someone in the sceptic face is great because they become the reformed smoker as well, but you've got to find it and hope that they will then corral and cajole some of the leadership into doing this as well, but without that it's hard, even though the leadership understand the challenges, sometimes they're just reluctant to make that change, and I find that difficult to understand and sometimes quite frustrating as well, because, for me, there are some iconic British brands that I still worry about going forward as well. You know, we've just seen it recently, Body Shop, an iconic brand, again, just lost their way. I mean, retail is just so hard at the moment, with the stuff online, but we'll see it with automotive as well, we'll see it in some other industries as well, where if we don't wake up and smell that coffee, then I do fear for some real British brands. Ula Ojiaku I don't think it's only British brands, I think it's a global phenomenon and the fact is the olden perception of having different sectors or industries is being blurred. So think about brands like Apple. Now they started off building computers, but really they've cut across multiple industries, so before the watch industry, you think about Swiss-made watches with the mechanical things, but the Apple watch, they have this music streaming industry, and one of the things in the strategy course I did from the Cambridge Business School is this, they said, it's really about developing a platform. So if you have a platform where you can get your customers to depend on, it's easy to branch into multiple industries. So Apple, they make watches and their watches serve as healthcare monitoring devices and different other things, there are rumours they're building their own self-driving cars and everything is on that iOS platform, which allows them to branch into anything, they could go into pharmaceuticals, medical. So it's no longer about traditional sectors or segments, and the disruption in life is real and no sector, no country is spared, so it's really about moving from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset and saying, what are the things we're missing, and how can we think differently? How can we reposition ourselves? How do we build a platform that has a fort? Darren Wilmshurst Yeah, I think you're right. Apple has disrupted so many industries, in terms of, you know, who buys a torch anymore, who buys a map anymore, other things as well, I just go on. I think at the last count, there was like 24 different industries disrupted as well, and I think about Jeffrey Moore, who I remember presenting with on stage in Washington, I think that was 2019. And he said, what you can do, as an organisation, you can sit here and wait to be disrupted, and hopefully that you can be a fast follower, providing you're nimble enough and adaptive enough, you might be able to make that change. He said, but what might be better is, rather than we wait to be disrupted, be the disruptor. My worry is that some of these large legacy organisations, they are being disrupted, and I just fear that they are not nimble and active enough to be able to respond, they're so ingrained in the way they have done things for the last 10, 20, 30, 40 years that I just fear for them and you're right, it's not UK, obviously I care about the UK because I'm a UK citizen, but I think it's a global phenomenon. I know my colleagues in North America and their industries are having the same challenges as well, right. It's not just a UK issue, it's definitely a global issue. Ula Ojiaku I'd really like to just touch on your latest book, the SAFe Coaches Handbook. So before we go into some of the contents, could you share what led to your co-authoring this with Lindy Quick? Darren Wilmshurst So it's one of those itches I had to scratch, I suppose is the phrase that you use. I was a very small author of the BCS book called Agile Foundations. Peter Measey was a lead author and there were a number of smaller authors that contributed to that as well, and then I ended up reviewing two books. So again, a recognised review of a couple of books, Agile books as well, one around Agile financial management, one around Agile governance as well, the Em Campbell-Pretty, a fellow SAFe fellow wrote The ART of Avoiding a Train Wreck, which I reviewed and contributed to, so again, I was contributing to that as well, and actually Em's updating that book because that book's five years old as well, so I'm reviewing that as well. And having reviewed a few books, contributed to a few books, being a part author, I suppose I wanted to write my own book. I think that was it as well. That was part of it. The other part was that I've delivered a number of Implementing SAFe courses since 2017, and for me, it's not just about delivering the education, for me doing that course is about, what are the tips and tricks, what's the stories, what's the narrative, how's the best way to do this, and all those things that I deliver in that course that goes way beyond the slideware what I wanted to do was capture all of that stuff that I deliver in those courses in a book. So I got approached by some publishers at Packt, saying, would you fancy being an author, write a SAFe book? And I thought, yes, I would. Then, we've got another author that's also interested in doing it as well. I'd never met Lindy before, we met and, yeah, we wrote the book. We started October 2022, and it got published June last year. It took a bit longer than we thought, but again, I learned in terms of task switching and refactoring, trying to write a chapter during a working day when you've got meetings and stuff like that and messages coming in, couldn't do that, because in the end I needed that concentrated effort to write. I can't do it with interruptions. So task switching was not great for me, so in the end I said, right, if I'm going to do it, everything has to go off, I just have to concentrate on this as well. So writing the chapter was really straightforward, it didn't take that long in reality. What I found was though, the cost of refactoring took a lot longer, as we talk about as well, you know, doing it right first time, doing the rework is a lot harder, and both Lindy and I wanted to make the book as best we probably can. So I reviewed her chapters, she reviewed mine, her reviews were great. Again, we have some other reviewers as well that are listed in the book as well, and all those reviewers really contributed to making the book better, but having to incorporate and refactor the chapter took me longer than writing the chapter in the first place. So it ended up taking a bit longer than we thought as well. So two valuable lessons. Task switching is real and refactoring takes longer than doing it right the first time as well. Ula Ojiaku So with this realisation, would you do anything differently in terms of how you approached writing the book? Darren Wilmshurst I don't think so. We were pretty good because again, we'd write a chapter and we'd get it reviewed, and the chapters are not particularly long, so that was pretty okay as well, and then what we found there, even though we had a high level design of the book and the chapters and the content, as we went through there as well, we realised there was some stuff missing as well, so again, there was no concluding chapter, there was no preface, we realised that we split the chapter into part one, part two, part three, part one was all about the team stuff, part two is all about the art level stuff, and part three was all about the portfolio stuff. Ula Ojiaku Well it sounds to me like you were following the agile principles, breaking it in small chunks, getting the review, and to be honest, having spoken with other authors that you started, writing in October 2022 and got published in June 2023, that was speedy, maybe not by your standards, that was fast. Typically it takes them like three, five years, and it's just them writing the book with everything else going on. Darren Wilmshurst Yeah, I don't think I could cope with that. I think it's great that the publisher had quite a forcing function, if it dragged on that long, I think you lose that motivation and I was on a roll and when you're on a roll, you want to get it done and dusted. Ula Ojiaku And I think the key thing, and what I noticed is, like you said, that the chapters are kind of not too long and easily digestible and it's easy to write, but it's about refining it in such a way that is to the point and, packed with lots of invaluable insights, that's an art and it does take time to refine from just having a mass of words to something that's simple. Darren Wilmshurst We didn't want to make it a reference guide, the framework is the reference. You go on the website, that's the reference guide. I suppose our target audience was SPCs that are newly qualified, if you're thinking about training this, here's some tips and tricks, here's some narrative, here's some stories you can use here's some support, and some of the things that we have made mistakes and learnt from as well. So it really is trying to be a practical guide to newly minted SPCs in terms of those that want to be able to train or implement a scaling framework. Ula Ojiaku It's definitely something I wish I had after I'd attended your training. So in the preface, you and Lindy were saying you can't implement SAFe to the letter you don't implement it like a rulebook, it's something you implement with your brain switched on and I was like, yes. Can you expand on that please? Darren Wilmshurst I get very frustrated. You see it on social media about SAFe is bureaucratic, it's a prescription, it's overly governed, stuff like that as well, and it's a framework, not prescription. For me, it's a wonderful toolbox, and every organisation we go into is different. They're not the same. They have different project and product, different risk profiles and budgets to plug different people, to create different things. So how can you have something that is an ABC guide, a recipe book, it can't be that as well. So I always say that if I'm putting a picture on a wall, I'll use a hammer and a nail. I won't use a chainsaw, but a chainsaw in the wrong hands can be very dangerous. So for me, it's a framework. So there are some fundaments in there, but you have to understand the context, you have to understand the appetite for change and how much disruption you want to bring, because if you bring too much disruption, you could end up traumatising the organisation. We don't want to do that as well. So, but, and then you think about, okay, what would be the most appropriate tools that I need to bring to change the organisation as well? And then I remember Dean saying this word that then, if you implement SAFe, or the appropriate tools out of the framework as well, and you're doing the same thing a year later, you're doing it wrong because you're not inspecting adapting about how you could then improve on that, and the way that the framework has improved since 1.0 back in 2011 to 6.0 last year as well, is through practitioners and organisations implementing SAFe, finding new ways, and experimenting with new ways and things as well, and bringing that back to the party and that being part of the evolution of the framework as well. And that includes myself, again, this is myself as a fellow, is part of it is bringing my thoughts in terms of what I've done with organisations back to the framework as well. So for me, it's a framework, not a prescription. In terms of scaling, there's some fundaments in there, there are always some fundaments as well, but you have to implement it with your brain switched on and every time I've implemented it, all the validation has always been different, with some underlying principles that support me in that ways of working. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for that, Daz. And there is a chapter in your book on enterprise strategy, which I think is interesting, but I have a question for you, which one would come first, enterprise strategy, or the adoption of skilled at being SAFe, which one comes first and why? Darren Wilmshurst Look, you've got to have a strategy. One of the things we say as SPCs and even probably SPCTs to some extent, we're not strategy experts. The framework is not there to talk about how you create strategy. There is some guidance on what we expect to see in a strategy but as we go into an organisation, we expect there to be some sort of strategy in place. If not, then we'd highly recommend that a strategy is created, and there are great organisations out there that can help organisations create that strategy as well, because we need to know what's the strategy of the organisation, and then from that, we can then think about how then we align what we're doing to deliver that strategy, and then when we talk about alignment and scaling the organisation, that is right from the top of the portfolio, through to maybe the teams of teams and the team as well. So that strategy and that works to a point where a person at the team level can understand how the work they're doing is connected all the way back up in delivering that strategy as well. So we need that strategy in place. Ula Ojiaku Definitely. I agree, and there are some SPCs who have that training and background in strategy, so it helps if that's there. Darren Wilmshurst Yeah. Yeah. Again, as an SPC, if you've got that, that's great. It's just that SAFe as a framework, that's not what we're looking to, but we expect it to be in place. Ula Ojiaku Exactly. So what are the key things then, in terms of the enterprise strategy and making sure that the teams are aligned with the strategy, what are some things when you  are consulting with the leadership and saying, okay, giving them the guidelines of what the framework is saying, what are some key pointers for them to look out for and to be mindful in how they make sure the strategies align with the adoption and the rollout of the framework or the sustained implementation of SAFe? Darren Wilmshurst I hear a lot from execs that we have no idea what our team are doing, we have no visibility, we have no transparency what they're doing, so I think there's a couple of things that we need to talk about here as well. We need to make sure that the work that the teams are doing is visible in a way that is consumable by the executives as well. So we need to create the right dashboard. We go into organisations and the number of tool chains that exist in organisations that are not connected, there is no one version of the truth as well, is disconcerting. In a world where we're trying to reduce costs as well, the money spent on licensing stuff like that is phenomenal. So I think for me, having the right tool set that allows that work to be visible from the team all the way up to executive is really important, and so we need to make that work visible, but then also the leadership needs to come to the party as well. I think it's a two way thing, so we can make the work visible, but part of it is that one, we start doing our reviews of the work that we're doing, either a team level or at a team of teams level or at a large solution level, we need to be able to make sure that the leadership are involved in those reviews, and also in terms of prioritising and directing the direction of travel for the next cadence of work as well. I think that that's important. Ula Ojiaku Well said, Daz, I couldn't say it any better than you, you're the expert here. Dare I say that it's also important that the leadership would make the strategy visible to the organisation and in a way that can be consumed at the appropriate layers. So, this for this time frame, this is what we are trying to achieve, and that would help, so it's kind of almost like a virtuous cycle and complimentary, they are making their priorities visible and well in advance, whilst the team also work to make their work visible. Darren Wilmshurst You're right. It's bi-directional, isn't it, and we see it so often where a firm will go and create a strategy and then it's locked away in a drawer, no one ever sees it, and that strategy is a direction of travel. So then we think about, okay, what do we need to do to deliver that strategy, but you've got to make that visible and you need the support of the leaders, next leaders down to almost decompose that work into smaller chunks that that can be delivered, that then deliver that strategy as well. But you're right, we need to make sure that that strategy is communicated, again, in a way that inspires the people in the organisation. That's important as well, because you want to be, again, once you're inspired by the organisation and the work that you're doing, and you understand the work you're doing is connected to that strategy, I mean, how motivating is that? Ula Ojiaku Thanks for that, Daz. So in addition to your fantastic book, SAFe Coaches Handbook, which I would highly recommend to RTEs, coaches, business owners, what other books have you found yourself recently recommending to people? Darren Wilmshurst So the one that I'm really quite passionate about at the moment, we talked at the beginning about that agile and SAFe can create allergic reactions, become trigger words as well, and increasingly, I'm working in organisations that, and Agile is a small part of what we do, Agile ways of working, yeah, it's important, but it's a small part. When you think about, if we're working with automotive, lean manufacturing, something I call cyber physical DevOps as well, we have cyber physical machines building cyber physical products as well. How do we automate more of that as well? And then there's the whole thing around system thinking and all that stuff as well. So, two of my colleagues from the SAFe world, Suzette Johnson and Robin Yeman, have written a book called Industrial DevOps, and that for me is gold dust. I like the rebranding, it's about industrial DevOps, so it's how do we take all our learning from lean manufacturing, Agile ways of working, cyberphysical DevOps, and bring it together to help those big organisations be more effective. So if I was to recommend one book at the moment, how do we build better, complex, industrial systems faster, then Industrial DevOps, Dr. Suzette Johnson and Robin Yeman, for me, is the book. Ula Ojiaku Thank you for that. Any other book? Darren Wilmshurst There's a lot of people talking about OKRs, objectives and key results, and on CVs people saying I'm an OKR consultant. I think, okay, well, okay, well that's great, but it's almost like they're saying OKRs, if we go in and implement OKRs, it is the panacea, it will solve all your ills. Look, it's just, it's another tool in the toolbox as well. One I read last year was Radical Focus, really good, talks about yes, it's great creating OKRs, but there's so much more to that than just creating the OKRs. People think if I create the OKRs, then the world would change, no, it doesn't. Ula Ojiaku Oh, wow. Thank you for that, and I guess I agree, OKRs is a is a tool, and it's really a great tool for connecting strategy with the implementation, and back to what you said about the transparency of strategy and the work of the teams OKR is a good way of actually helping with measuring, okay, is the work we're doing moving the needle for the enterprise and vice versa. How do we as the leadership team clearly communicate in a digestible way what our priorities are, what the strategy is over a time frame. So, yeah. Another one on that note I would recommend would be, well it's in the pre-release, but Jeff Gothelf, actually he and his co-author Josh Seiden have gone to do what you've just done with the SAFe Coaches Handbook, which is, okay, yes, there's all this buzzword about OKRs, but actually, what does it mean in practical terms, Who Does What By How Much: A Practical Guide to Customer- Centric OKRs, it's highly recommended. Just like yourself, I respect Jeff and the sense it's practical and actionable. And any final words for the audience? Darren Wilmshurst Well I think it's tough at the moment, we're seeing a lot of the big organisations, big SIs, laying off a lot of people as well, we're seeing a lot of the consultancy work is discretionary spend, and I think we're seeing a lot of people in the market that have not been engaged, but what I would say is that all these things are cyclical. We've seen it before where, certainly with the pandemic, no one was for six months, things stopped, but then the thing came back a vengeance as well, but if we focus on trying to solve the organisational challenges, if we focus on making sure that we are helping them solve those challenges, and we can demonstrate the value of what we're doing, then we'll be in a good place. Ula Ojiaku Thank you for those wise words Daz. And on that note, where can the audience find you if they want to get in touch with you? Darren Wilmshurst Darren Wilmshurst on LinkedIn is the easiest way to find it, always reach out to me on there as well, message me on LinkedIn as well. Normally what I do is I ask people to convert to email because I'm a bit old fashioned, email is my inbox is my to do list as well, so yeah, Darren Wilmshurst on LinkedIn. I think I've got a profile picture up there, so if you see this picture here, hopefully my profile picture looks something like this, what you're seeing here as well. Ula Ojiaku And if you're listening to the audio version only, the picture on the podcast art cover for this episode, that's the Daz you should be looking for. Well, thank you so much Daz for your time. It's always a great honour and I always learn a lot whenever I speak with you. So thank you for making the time for today's conversation. My pleasure. That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!     

Bio Denise Tilles wrote the recently published book Product Operations. Co-authored with Escaping the Build Trap's Melissa Perri, the book is the must-read guide technology leaders have been missing.  With over a decade of product leadership experience, Denise supports companies like Bloomberg, Sam's Club, and athenahealth by strengthening capabilities around: Product Operations, Product Strategy, and establishing a Product Operating Model.     Interview Highlights 01:00 Background and beginnings 04:00 Product Operations: The book 06:30 Product Operations vs Product Management 07:30 The Three Pillars of Product Operations 08:30 Using Product Operations to Scale 10:20 Leading and Lagging Indicators 12:20 Product Operations in Startups  21:10 Generative AI     Social Media ·         www.denisetilles.com ·         Denise Tilles on Twitter X ·         Denise Tilles on LinkedIn ·         Grocket     Books & Resources ·         Product Operations: How successful companies build better products at scale: Melissa Perri, Denise Tilles ·         Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value, Melissa Perri ·         MasterClass with Denise Tilles: Getting Started with Product Operations — Produx Labs ·         Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value, Terese Torres ·         Lenny's podcast: Lenny's Podcast (lennyspodcast.com) ·         Lenny's Newsletter: Lenny's Newsletter | Lenny Rachitsky | Substack (lennysnewsletter.com) ·         Pivot podcast: Vox Media: Podcast Network | Pivot ·         Melissa Perri's podcast: Product Thinking — Produx Labs     Episode Transcript Intro:  Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener.   Ula Ojiaku   So I have with me here, Denise Tilles, who is the Founder and CPO of Product Consultancy Grocket. She is also a co-author of the book Product Operations, How Successful Companies Build Better Products at Scale. Thank you so much, Denise, for making the time for this conversation. I've been looking forward to this.   Denise Tilles   Thank you. Me too.    Ula Ojiaku   Awesome. So who is Denise, so can you tell us how you've evolved to the Denise we are seeing today?   Denise Tilles   Yeah. So, I have been in product management for probably 12 years now, both on the operating side, as an individual contributor, and then as a leader, working with companies like B2B SaaS companies, Cision, and a media company, Condé Nast. And then for the past two-ish years, I've been a product consultant and working with really great companies like Bloomberg and Sam's Club, Walmart, we're helping them with product maturity assessments, product operations in terms of like, does this make sense for a company? How do we stand it up? What is sort of day one look like, you know, day 366 and then so on, sort of building it to scale. And then also co-authoring this book with Melissa Perri, the Product Operations book, and as we talk about the book, folks, I think naturally might say, well, why you, why should you be writing about the book? I have experience with product operations before we really knew that's what it was called, and I mentioned this in the book that I was working at this B2B SaaS and I had just started and my manager, the SVP said, hey, maybe we should get some people to think about managing the data, maybe thinking about understanding what kinds of experiments we should be doing. I'm like, we can do that, well, wow, yes, that sounds amazing. And we were going to hire an individual contributor, we ended up hiring this amazing VP level person, and then she built a small team, and it really was a great compliment to the product, I had a product team of about 10 folks globally and really great compliment, because they understood the product, but they weren't so close to it that they were myopic in terms of seeing what the potential opportunities or challenges were with the data, so they became a great partner and sort of highlighting here's what we're looking at for the month, X shows us maybe there's a challenge with the funnel, maybe we could do some experiments, maybe tests, and anyway, they had uncovered a potential opportunity. It was this sort of add on product and we ended up making a million dollars the first year, it wasn't even sort of like an advertised product, it was kind of just back pocket offering for clients. So after that, I was like, wow, this is great, I love this, and didn't really know that was product operations. Fast forward a couple of years later, I start working with Melissa Perri at her consultancy Produx Labs, she mentions product operations, I'm like, what's that? And she explains it, I'm like, oh, that's what we were doing, cool. And then really started to dig in more about the theoretical aspect and understanding what it could look like to build it at a scale and helping companies at the scale up stage with a venture capital company we were working with, think about what that looks like for them, and does it make sense to implement? So that's when I really got interested and excited about it, sort of having lived it and then seeing the potential opportunity of the sort of force multiplier it could be. So I was working with Melissa and in 2021, I slacked her and I'm like, what do you think, I'm thinking about writing a book about product operations, I don't think anyone's written this yet and I can't believe it. She's like, yeah, great idea. I'm like, would you like to do it with me? And she was like, yes, I'll do it. She hesitated a little bit because I heard her speaking about her first book, Escaping the Build Trap, and she's like, never, nope, done.  But she's like, well, maybe it'll be different writing it with somebody. So I'm like, how long does it take? She goes, I don't know, as long as it needs to take, maybe a year, two and a half years. So we kept each other honest and it was, I don't know any other way of writing a book, but it was really great to have a partner and like, I've hit a wall here, can you pick this up? Or I map this out, like, here, does this make sense to you? And challenges, wins, whatever, just having someone to feed off of was really great. And it was just a lot of fun to do. So it was really a great excitement and relief to have it published in October of 2023.   Ula Ojiaku   Congratulations, that's a massive achievement, and I couldn't help wondering when you were talking about co-authoring the book with Melissa, whether you applied some of the product operations concepts in getting your book done?    Denise Tilles   That's a great question, we had a lot of qualitative inputs. We had peer reviews from folks that were from like a CPO, Chief Product Officer, all the way to an individual contributor, kind of brand new Product Manager, and the questions that they raised were totally different. So it was really great to sort of get those inputs and balance and think about like, who's the archetype we're creating this book for? And I sort of ignore my own advice when I work with product people, like if you try to serve everybody, you serve no one, but we really were trying to think about like, this could be a book that a product person could hand to their CEO. This is the power, here's some great case studies. Or the individual contributor thinking, I've heard about this. What is this? Would this help our company? So we really wanted to, you know, as well as Chief Product Officers, VPs thinking like, I've heard about this, what does that look like? So that was an important aspect.    Ula Ojiaku     Makes perfect sense. Now I know that some of the viewers or listeners would be wondering, then, we might as well cut to the chase, what exactly is Product Operations? Most of us are conversant with the term Product Management, what is Product Operations and how is it, if it is, different from Product Management, please?   Denise Tilles   Yeah, great question. That was one of the most common questions, that was another reason we wanted to write the book, because we just kept getting the same questions like, here's a book. Product Operations just so quickly put is really increasing the speed and accuracy and quality of decision making, right? It's about surrounding your Product Managers with all of the inputs they need to make really, truly informed decisions. It's about supporting them to execute on the things you hired them for - building value, growing revenue, and not necessarily writing SQL scripts, because at the end of the year, it's like, well, I wrote 10 of those. Great, but you didn't deliver X product, who won, so that's a big piece of it. And the way that we think about Product Operations, it's really three pillars. So business and data insights, which is the quantitative, right? Customer and market insights, the qualitative. And then the third one is the operating model, sort of process and practices, and we like to think of it that way and sort of broke the book up like that as well, to sort of like focus on that, each section and at the end of each pillar, it's like three things to get you started today. If there was like three things to do, and one other aspect of it is that we think about how to implement it, and that's a question that we get a lot. And as we mentioned at the beginning of the book, don't try to do all three pillars, figure out where the biggest challenge and opportunities are, start there and build out. Some companies I've worked with have just stuck with one of those pillars and that's good enough for them. It really looks different everywhere. This is just what it could look like.    Ula Ojiaku   No, that makes sense, and I know that in your book you also talked about, really how Product Operations can help with solving many of the scaling issues companies face right now, because it seems like if we're to go into the agile world, there are some purists or fundamentalists who feel like, oh, it's everything is agile, you know, forget about the money and everything, you just apply agile and everything is all right. But at the end of the day, if you're a for profit business or even if you're not, you have customers, and customers define the value and the only way you stay afloat is you're delivering the value, not that you're following a framework. So could you talk a bit more about how Product Operations can help with companies with, for example, connecting financial metrics to the delivery?    Denise Tilles   That's great. It's really about having all of those inputs available so Product Managers can make the informed decisions, and a lot of companies we have talked to and interviewed with, they tend to look at more of the product metrics, engagement, usage, time spent, but not necessarily the financial and that's a huge miss, right? And that's one area we really hammer home in the book, is making sure that you look at all data and not just your product. You want to make sure you're looking at that, but the financials typically are lagging indicators, but so important, right? And if you're doing all this great stuff and seeing engagement, but the revenue is going down, who cares, right? So if you have all of those together, it's a powerful sort of breadcrumb to understand your product health and sort of the leverage you're pulling and whether you're, you know, doing any harm or hopefully doing good. So yeah, that would be one key takeaway.  Ula Ojiaku  You mentioned financials, for example, revenue and all that, it's a lagging metric, and there is this innovation, accounting body of knowledge that talks about using leading indicators. With the multiple organisations and teams that you've worked with, are you able to, off the top of your head, share examples, maybe give us an example of where a financial metric is tied to hopefully a leading indicator so that you can see, based on the data you're getting right now, to be able to predict how likely we are to hit the financial targets?  Denise Tilles Contract sign can certainly be sort of a leading right indicator, so you're not recognising that revenue yet, but at least it's commitment. Pipeline sometimes can be at least a good indicator. If you've got a nice, robust pipeline and you're comparing it year over year, that's your baseline, that is another indicator. So there's a number of them there, contract value, yield, how much they're purchasing. So there's a lot of indicators, especially with yield. It's like if they were buying seven different product lines and spending, let's say 20 million dollars, I'm making that up, let's say this year they're doing only five product lines, but they're spending 25. What does that mean? Why did they drop those? Where are they spending more money? So there's so much in there that you can be analysing and helping inform what you're doing as a product person.  Ula Ojiaku Thanks for that, Denise. And how would you, because in your story earlier on in this conversation, you mentioned you had your team, your product team of about 10 people globally, and someone at a VP level was brought in and seemed to be providing that complimentary set of services. Now, in your book, you give the readers ideas of how they might want to start off, depending on what is their bottleneck, these are my words, not yours, about how to start implementing Product Operations if they don't have that. Now, imagine I'm in a large complex organisation, we have Product Managers. How would you advise the leader of that organisation to go about structuring this?  Denise Tilles Right. That's a great question, and earlier you asked a really good question that I didn't get to, which I'd like to talk about now that will lead into that. You asked what the difference is between Product Managers and Product Operations folks. The difference is Product Managers make the decisions, Product Operations enables those decisions. It's as simple as that. It's the enablement. If you have buy in, and one of my clients at Sam's Club, amazingly the CPO was like, here's what Product Operations is, here's the value it can bring my team of hundreds of Product Managers. The CEO was like, cool, sounds great, let's do it. It's rarely that easy. And like, let's build a team out of the gate, it's rarely that easy. A lot of times I'll see companies where there's someone interested and they might do a little bit in their quote unquote spare time and then maybe speak to their manager and say, hey, I'm really interested in this enablement piece, could I divide my current role, from maybe 50% products, 50% product or, and then try to get the quick wins to sort of prove the value. And then does it look like this person moves into that role full time? That's how Christine Itwaru from Pendo, she was at Pendo and started Product Operations there, she was a Product Manager, but saw the pains and started trying to solve it for her team, but thought, oh, this could be really interesting to solve for the whole company, I think I want to do that. So she built an entire team, but made the case for that, so that's one way to do it. You can think about making the case for an entire team, partial, existing resource, or maybe starting with a team of one, deciding what's above the line in terms of what's included that this person can include, what's below the line that they're not going to be able to do, and being very intentional about that, and then starting to build out the capability and showing the value hopefully where they could bring on more people if needed.  Ula Ojiaku Thanks for that. So to go back to the three pillars that you mentioned, there is the data and insights, customer and market insights, and the process and governance. Now of the three pillars, which one would you say is fundamental? Are they like a three legged stool?  Denise Tilles I mean, they all sort of work together, but if you can only cover one of them, great. If you only had the need for one of them, great, and companies really differ. In my experience it was like, oh, everyone really is challenged in the data and the business and data insights. Not always. I teach a masterclass for Produx Labs and it's a small group, like 25 people, and before we do, it's a four hour course that we offer quarterly, live on zoom, thinking about how we want to do that and it's really about thinking there's a said value, is this really where we want to go? And a lot of companies don't have that challenge. They may have more capability needs with the qualitative, and that's an area I see that kind of gets ignored or they're like, oh, we have a UX research team, but it doesn't have to originate with Product Operations, it's just about harnessing it and making sure that the Product Managers understand how to access it, how to apply it, and maybe even creating an insights database, could be something that UX research has, great, let's make sure that the Product Managers are aware of that. And the process piece, we've seen sort of hybrid structures where we've got a couple of dedicated people within the quantitative and qualitative, the business insights and customer market insights, and then more of a horizontal across the teams for the more process. So that was an organisational strategy that Blake Samic employed at Uber and Stripe when he set those teams up, thinking about more tactical support where needed, and then more of a horizontal type of program. Ula Ojiaku Thank you. So another thing I'd like to know, because looking at the title of the book, the second half says How Successful Companies Build Better Products at Scale. So does it mean that if I'm a startup, I shouldn't be bothering myself with Product Operations? Denise Tilles Not necessarily. There's one company I can think of that is probably in a series A, maybe a B, and they have a Product Operations person. So you can decide if you've got the resourcing for it, that you dedicate one person, but typically we see Product Operations more with the sort of scale up in enterprise levels. Ula Ojiaku Okay, because typically a Product Manager has a mishmash of all roles and different hats, it's like you're developing the roadmap, you're speaking with the customers, you're making sure that the implementation is going on track, but it seems like it's more about teasing out the operations part and the enablement part and leaving them to focus on the pure product. I'm just trying to get my head around the concept because it's a really interesting thing. Denise Tilles Yeah, we make the point in the book that Product Managers are being asked to do evermore, like be strategic, be tactical, focus on delivery, make sure that you're a great partner with cross functional, apply data, oh, you don't have data, well do it, make sure you learn SQL to pull out the data. So there's just so many things, and you think about it, There's something's going to slip, right? So it ends up being, we have to deliver, but are we delivering right things? Are we delivering as much value as we could be doing? And that's typically where the drop off is - we're delivering, but is it the right type of work to really move the needle? I mean, that's sort of what Escaping The Build Trap talks about, Melissa's first book, but Product Operations helps make sure that we are focusing on the right things and delivering the right things. Ula Ojiaku So what does it look like when Product Operations is operating, in your and Melissa's opinion, as it should be? What could the organisation look like? What would you describe as a day in the life of a well-oiled Product Operations machine? Denise Tilles Oh, that's a good question. I mean, ideally, if I could have anything I wanted, I'd have a few folks thinking about that sort of hybrid model, right? So sort of a horizontal across all of the different teams and verticals, someone thinking about what are the methods, what sort of the systems design we need, not just for the sake of it, but making things easier. This was a challenge that I see a lot where companies and Product Managers spend so much time talking about doing the work rather than doing the work. How do we get rid of that? How can we clear that out, so everyone's aligned, and is there a template we're using for roadmaps, that's always a challenge, great, here we go, people are not usually that wound up about how it should look, just tell me what you want and I'll go, and there's a lot of sort of cycles burned and wasted on things like that. So it's just about helping people understand the rules of engagement and can get going with doing work of value versus talking about it. And then I think in terms of the hybrid and having more dedicated folks, I would love to see maybe a person more focused on data analysis, ideally with each VP, maybe, and I've seen that, or supporting as much as they can, and also that person being able to sort of harness in the qualitative as well to make sure that the Product Managers have a full view of that. So that would be where I would start, but if you can start with a team of one, get a few quick wins and then build out, I think that's what you could get to, but in terms of starting out, I think it would be a team of one understanding where the opportunities are, building out a roadmap, proving those out, and then sort of making yourself redundant in areas that could be automated, moving on to higher value work and so on and so on. Ula Ojiaku So you know that right now AI seems to have come to the forefront of the news with OpenAI's launch of ChatGPT and lots of courses there. So, when you mentioned automating those things that can be automated, it kind of triggered this question. So what are your thoughts on how generative AI could help with making Product Operations smoother? Denise Tilles Yeah. I would think around comms, right? So if we've got release notes that, perhaps Product Operations has put into more, what's in it for me as a salesperson, that's great, the GR521 release, but what does that mean to me? So let's assume that Product Operations has sort of put that into the ‘so what' for the entire organisation, let's say they do this three times a month, you know, maybe you'd be able to use ChatGPT and keep sort of feeding those in and being able to create a digest that could come out and be updated each, however you want, or someone could request that on demand, that would be one way of doing it, in implementing AI. It's interesting you mentioned OpenAI because one of the people we talked to is leading Product Operations at OpenAI, Blake Samic, who introduced Stripe and Uber. So they believe in Product Operations, and in spite of them thinking about building these wonderful tools for all of us, and people think, oh, they're going to replace Product Managers, or, it's not, it's more of a supplement and an enablement type of tool. I haven't seen a lot to really think, oh, wow, that's absolutely revolutionary yet, doesn't mean that's not the case, but I think in terms of what I'm seeing right now, it's still people thinking about manually creating those baselines and then automating data, not necessarily through AI. Any thoughts on your part, where that might sort of play in with AI? Ula Ojiaku So on the Product Management side, I can see that you can use it as your enthusiastic chief kind of researcher, guide, or someone you're bouncing ideas off to kind of produce a first draft of maybe the vision and all that. From an Operations perspective, you would be the experts here, but I'm thinking again, if it's about the processes, then are there things that are repetitive? You mentioned the comms, you know, as it's coming up, is there a way of pulling together all the information sources and knowing how previous ones were, kind of putting it in a template and a format and pushing it out at regular intervals, but that might need some sort of tooling that could help bring it all together without replacing the humans, if that makes sense. So if there's a tooling for that, from an operational perspective, you're knowing, okay, this is the time you need this sort of data and you pull it all together and you help with producing a first view of what it might mean, but then it helps with the conversation, and when it's time for reporting and all that, you just push it out to the right people. So maybe there's a room to get some sort of tool set that kind of interfaces with, yeah, that's my thoughts. I wasn't prepared for this either, but we're just, you kind of sharing opinions. Denise Tilles I know, it's kind of an exciting blue sky moment, right? And I'm all for automating and replacing tasks that can be done just as well and then moving yourself into more strategic things that can't be done by AI or the tool. Ula Ojiaku Exactly, for now it's more of a good assistant, but I don't think humans are going to be replaced anytime soon, and there will still be that need to review the output. I was on a webinar on a Drucker Forum and Marshall Goldsmith is a well known Executive Coach, and he's developing an AI version of himself, kind of feeding it with all his works, the books, the articles, and all that, so that if you ask it a question, it's likely to respond the way he should. So this thing was asked, okay, who is Marshall Goldsmith married to, and it produced the name of someone else. I think she was like, his marriage would have been jeopardised. So you know, you feed it, but it's still hallucinates. So in addition to your Product Operations book, which I would highly, highly recommend to the listeners, please go get your version. The links to the book would be in our show notes. So what other books would you recommend to people? I know that there aren't that many Product Operations books, but what other books would you say have influenced your practice? Denise Tilles Yeah, definitely Escaping the Build Trap, this almost is a continuance of that because Melissa sort of alludes to Product Operations in there, but you know, here we're really going in deep on that. I listen to more podcasts than read. I probably should be reading more, but I love Teresa Torres's Continuous Discovery Habits, that's a great one. I did that as a book club with a client, but I just listen to a lot of podcasts. So Lenny's, Pivot I love, which is an American one that's more about tech and business in general. My husband is not in product or tech or any software or anything, and he loves it, so it's really appealing to a wide audience. I listen to a lot of comedy and as well and the New York times, and Melissa Perri's podcast as well. So those would be my recommendations. And Lenny has a great newsletter too, there's a free version and a paid, the folks that do the paid say they love it so I'm thinking of investing this year. Ula Ojiaku I like that word investing. And would you have any ask of the audience as we wind down? Denise Tilles Oh, I love that, just find out what Product Operations is, and does that make sense for your organisation? Is it something that you might be interested in as sort of a segue from your current role? You don't see a lot of people having years and years of Product Operations roles, so now is kind of a great time to think about. Do I want to get into this? And folks that I think really succeed in this type of position are typically Product Managers. They've done the job. They have that empathy, but I've seen really great sort of segues from customer support. There's that empathy aspect again, right, because in the end, Product Operations is about sort of being the PM for the PMs, but people that are Data Analysts, so that I think is important to think about, what does it mean to me? Do I understand it first? What does it mean to me? Would that have any impact on my company? And what would that look like? Where are we having challenges now and knowing what I've learned about Product Operations from this podcast or the book or whatever you've learned, could it make a difference? And we have notes in the book about how to make the case to your CEO or Manager and typical objections you might hear and how you might counter them. So we wanted to make it as tactical and realistic as possible, because there's a number of books out there in Product Management that are just sort of high level and theoretical and very idealistic, and I think people feel badly when they can't measure up to it or actually function that way. So we wanted to say, here are the challenges people have had, we're going to give it to you straight, here's where they've had wins, you can learn from that. So the idea was to have case studies with real companies and real artifacts that we've included in the book, people love seeing other companies, artifacts, so case studies, sort of a fictitious through line with a company that we made up, and sort of highlighting the typical challenges we see. And then the base, core content about Product Operations. So it's sort of three layers, and we've been really pleased with the feedback we've gotten that people are like, this was me, did you hear me thinking, how is this, but really wanting to make sure that we were truly being realistic about what you can expect and hopefully the benefits that you'll see too. So the challenges and the opportunities. Ula Ojiaku Sounds awesome, and there might be some listeners or viewers who will be thinking this sounds great, I'm excited, I've already ordered the book, I've read the book, and I think I'll need more help. So how can the audience get in touch with you if they wanted to? Denise Tilles Yeah, you can go to denisetilles.com and we'll have a link for that, you can shoot me a note and I'm happy to sort of hear what you're thinking about, challenges. I get emails a lot and sometimes we'll just have a couple of emails back and forth and that's it, or we'll talk about what it would look like to create more support for you. So I do coaching as well with Product Operations leaders, I'm kind of phasing that out, but occasionally I will take on clients, but it's more about Product Operations, how to stand that up, an assessment of whether it even makes sense to your company, assessment of, we'll look at, do you have people there right now that can actually do the work, but where do you have the opportunities and the challenges, and sometimes I'll speak to companies like, oh, it's all about data, and I'll get in there and talk to them like, well, you've got some challenges here, here and here too. Like, oh, great, and sometimes having just that objective viewpoint really helps sort of shine the light on challenges. Ula Ojiaku This has been fantastic, Denise. So, any final words for the audience? Denise Tilles Yeah, hopefully this discussion has peaked your curiosity, and if you're interested you can get a digital version of the book, or people love printed versions as well. If you're not sure you want to commit to that, do some Googling and see what is out there and how people are leveraging Product Operations today. One area, and comments I get a lot, and questions from people, is well, people are tightening their belts, reducing staff, there was probably a lot of over-hiring in software companies, especially during covid, and I have seen a couple of times where people are like, well Product Operations is a cost centre at the end of the day, and it is, you have to be proving your value all the time, that gets cut first, but it's kind of short sighted, because that's when you need Product Operations even more, if you're really hunkering down and making sure that every dollar or euro, or whatever your currency is, is being leveraged and maximised, that's where Product Operations can actually help. We've made these bets in terms of our product roadmap, let's check in, are we actually executing on them, or are we not? Do we need to pivot? If you're just delivering and delivering, you have no sense of that, so we may get back to the Build Trap or delivering things that aren't necessarily creating value for your customers. So I get excited when I hear stories about companies that have had layoffs unfortunately but they have kept their Product Operations teams and to me that's a smart way of thinking about maximising reduced resources. Ula Ojiaku Well thank you so much for that Denise. Again, it's been a pleasure having you as my guest on this podcast, I've learnt a lot, thank you Denise. Denise Tilles Thanks so much. Ula Ojiaku That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!   

Sechs Phasen beschreiben im KI-Reifephasenmodell (hier der Link zum Whitepaper der Haufe Akademie) die Entwicklung des Reifegrads von Unternehmen bei der Einführung und Etablierung der künstlichen Intelligenz in ihrer Organisation. Und nur wer diese Phasen konsequent und erfolgreich durchläuft, schafft den Einsatz von KI-Technologien in unterschiedlichen Geschäftsmodellen und Anwendungsfällen zur Steigerung der eigenen Wettbewerbsfähigkeit. Diese Phasen umfassen dabei: (1) AWARENESS mit dem Bewusstsein, was KI überhaupt ist (beachte hierzu auch die Podcastfolge #66 Künstliche Intelligenz und Data Science) und wo diese helfen kann, (2) STRATEGIE als Ableitung der KI-Strategie aus der Unternehmens- und Digitalstrategie und im Sinne der operational Excellence, Customer Centricity bzw. Employer Engagement, (3) GOVERNANCE mit Datenverfügbarkeit- und Qualität, Aufbau von Kompetenzen und Teams, Unterstützung durch Promotoren (Podcastfolge #71 Innovationshelden), Budgets und Ethik und Sicherheit, (4) EXPERIMENT zur Generierung erster Erfolge mittels Prototypen, MVPs und MWPs (Podcastfolge #41 Lean Innovation) zur Überwindung der üblichen emotionalen Barrieren, (5) INTEGRATION mit dem Fokus auf Interoperabilität und Anpassung an Legacy-Systeme sowie (6) SKALIERUNG dank architektonischer Flexibilität, Robustheit, Automatisierung und Weiterentwicklung der KI-Systeme.  

 Bio: Pete Newell Pete Newell is a nationally recognized innovation expert whose work is transforming how the  government and other large organizations compete and drive growth.  He is the CEO of BMNT, an internationally recognized innovation consultancy and early-stage tech accelerator that helps solve some of the hardest real-world problems in national security, state and local governments, and beyond. Founded in Silicon Valley, BMNT has offices in Palo Alto, Washington DC, Austin, London, and Canberra. BMNT uses a framework, called H4X®, to drive innovation at speed. H4X® is an adaptation of the problem curation techniques honed on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan combined with the best practices employed by successful Silicon Valley startups. The result is a disciplined, evidence-based, data-driven process for connecting innovation activities into an accountable system that delivers solutions and overcome obstacles to innovation. Pete is a founder and co-author, with Lean Startup founder Steve Blank, of Hacking for Defense (H4D)®, an academic program taught at 47+ universities in the U.S., as well as universities in the UK and Australia. H4D® focuses on solving national security problems. It has in turned created a series of sister courses – Hacking for Diplomacy, Hacking for Oceans, Hacking for Sustainability, Hacking for Local and others – that use the H4X® framework to solve critical real-world problems while providing students with a platform to gain crucial problem-solving experience while performing a national service. Pete continues to advise and teach the original H4D® course at Stanford University with Steve Blank. In addition, Pete is Co-Founder and Board Director of The Common Mission Project, the 501c3 non-profit responsible for creating an international network of mission-driven entrepreneurs, including through programs like H4D®. Prior to joining BMNT, Pete served as the Director of the US Army's Rapid Equipping Force (REF).  Reporting directly to the senior leadership of the Army, he was charged with rapidly finding, integrating, and employing solutions to emerging problems faced by Soldiers on the battlefield. From 2010 to 2013 Pete led the REF in the investment of over $1.4B in efforts designed to counter the effects of improvised explosive devices, reduce small units exposure to suicide bombers and rocket attacks and to reduce their reliance on long resupply chains. He was responsible for the Army's first deployment of mobile manufacturing labs as well as the use of smart phones merged with tactical radio networks. Pete retired from the US Army as a Colonel in 2013. During his 32 years in uniform he served as both an enlisted national guardsman and as an active duty officer. He commanded Infantry units at the platoon through brigade level, while performing special operations, combat, and peace support operations in Panama, Kosovo, Egypt, Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan. He is an Army Ranger who has received numerous awards to include the Silver Star and Presidential Unit Citation. Pete holds a BS from Kansas State University, an MS from the US Army Command & General Staff College, an MS from the National Defense University and advanced certificates from the MIT Sloan School and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Bio: Dr Alison Hawks Dr. Alison Hawks is one of the leading experts advancing public sector innovation. A researcher and academic-turned-entrepreneur, she is the co-founder and CEO of BMNT, Ltd., the innovation company that is changing how public sector innovation happens; and Chair of the Common Mission Project UK, BMNT's charitable partner that guides mission-driven entrepreneurial education in the UK. Dr. Hawks co-founded BMNT Ltd with (Ret) Col Pete Newell, the CEO of BMNT, Inc., in 2019 to bring BMNT's proven innovation approach to the UK market. Under her leadership BMNT has become a trusted innovation partner across all single Services of Defence, the Cabinet Office, and the national security community. She has also helped change how real-world government challenges are addressed in the UK, launching the “Hacking for” academic programmes created in the U.S. These courses that teach university students how to use modern entrepreneurial tools and techniques to solve problems alongside government at startup speed. As a result of her efforts, 14 UK universities are offering Hacking for the Ministry of Defence, Hacking for Sustainability and Hacking for Police. More than 480 students have taken these courses, addressing 103 real-world challenges. Dr. Hawks teaches mission-driven entrepreneurship at King's College London, Department of War Studies and at Imperial College London's Institute of Security Science and Technology. She was named the Woman of the Year for Innovation and Creativity at the Women in Defence Awards in 2022. She serves on the Board of Directors of BMNT, leading development of BMNT's innovation education programs while also guiding the integration of BMNT's rapidly expanding international presence. She was previously Director of Research at the Section 809 Panel, a U.S. Congressionally mandated commission tasked with streamlining and codifying defense acquisition. She was also an Assistant Professor at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, as well as King's College London, Department of Defence Studies where she taught strategy, policy and operations in professional military education. Dr. Hawks' doctoral thesis was in military sociology. She received her Ph.D from the Department of War Studies at King's College London, and her MA in Strategic Studies from the University of Leeds. She holds a BA in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego. She has multiple peer reviewed publications on her research. Interview Highlights 03:50 BMNT 06:20 Serendipity 10:00 Saying yes to the uncomfortable 11:20 Leadership 15:00 Developing a thick skin 20:00 Lessons of an entrepreneur 22:00 Stakeholder success 25:00 Solving problems at speed and at scale 28:00 The innovation pipeline 29:30 Resistance is rational 34:00 Problem curation 38:00 Dual use investments 43:00 Accelerating change 47:00 AUKUS 52:20 AI   Contact Information   ·         LinkedIn: Ali Hawks on LinkedIn ·         LinkedIn Peter Newell on LinkedIn ·         Website:  The Common Mission Project UK ·         Website: BMNT US ·         Website: BMNT UK   Books & Resources ·         Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling for Less: Robert Sutton, Robert , Huggy Rao ·         Value Proposition Canvas ·         Business Model Canvas ·         Hacking for Defense ·         Hacking for Allies ·         AUKUS DIN ·         Impromptu : Amplifying Our Humanity Through AI, Reid Hoffman ·         Huberman Lab Podcast ·         Allie K. Miller ·         Wiring the Winning Organization: Liberating Our Collective Greatness through Slowification, Simplification, and Amplification: Gene Kim, Steven Spear ·         The Friction Project - Bob Sutton, Huggy Rao Episode Transcript  Intro: Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. Ula Ojiaku My guests for this episode are Pete Newell and Ali Hawks. Pete Newell is the CEO and Co-founder of BMNT, an innovation consultancy and early stage technology incubator that helps solve some of the hardest problems facing the Department of Defense and Intelligence community. Ali Hawks is CEO of BMNT in the UK and also a Co-founder of BMNT in the UK. In addition to this, she is the Chair of the Board of Trustees at the Common Mission Project, and she Co-founded the Common Mission Project in 2019 and drove its growth as a Startup charity in the UK. Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, my conversation with Pete and Ali, I found it very insightful and I'm sure you would as well. Pete, thank you Ali, thank you so much for being with us on the Agile Innovation Leaders Podcast. It's a great pleasure to have you here.  Pete Newell  Thanks so much for the invite.  Ali Hawks  Yeah. Thank you for having us.  Ula Ojiaku Right, this is the second time ever in the history of my podcast that I'm having two people, two guests. The first time was fun, and I know this one would be as well, and informative. I always start with asking my guests to tell us a bit about themselves. So your background, any memorable happenings that shaped you into the person you are today?  Pete Newell  So I'm a retired army officer. I enlisted when I was 18 and was commissioned when I left college in the mid 80s. I spent most of my career as an Infantryman in tactical units. I spent a great bit of time in the Middle East and other war zones. Towards the end of my career, I ended up as the Director of the Army's Rapid Equipment Force, which is essentially the Skunk Works that was stood up at the start of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to accelerate technology to solve problems that were emerging on the battlefield, that weren't part of something else, somewhere else. And in that three-year journey, it probably exposed me to first and foremost, the speed at which new problems are presenting themselves, not just on the battlefield, but in the rest of the world. It exposed me to the speed at which technology is changing, being adopted and then being adapted for other purposes. So it's almost like chasing technology as it changes is a whole new sport, and it exposed me to  the challenges of large bureaucratic organisations and their inability to keep up with the speed of the changes in order to remain competitive, whether it was on the battlefield or in the commercial markets or something like that. Those epiphanies really drove, first, my decision to retire from the military, because I became addicted to solving that problem, and second, drove the impetus to launch BMNT in 2013. And in fact, you are right square in the middle of our 10th anniversary of being a company. So it really is, I think, a big deal because we started with four people on a driveway in Palo Alto, California, now we're a global company with multiple companies and are grateful, but that's the history of how we got started.  Ula Ojiaku  Congratulations on your 10th anniversary, and it's an impressive background and story. Ali, what about you?  Ali Hawks  So, my background, a little bit different than Pete's, by training I was an academic, so my training and my PhD was in military sociology. I was really interested in understanding people's experiences in the armed forces, both in the US and the UK. That is what my PhD was focused around, my thesis, and I went on to be an academic at King's College London here in the UK. I've also been an Assistant Professor at Georgetown University in the School of Foreign Service. But it wasn't until I then took a job with the US DoD, in something called a Congressional Advisory Panel called the Section 809 Panel, which was tasked with overhauling all of defense acquisition, and that's where Pete and I met. I think one of those formative experiences in my career was meeting Pete and going to the non-profit that Pete started and spun out of BMNT, it's called the Common Mission Project with a really big program, Hacking for Defense, and Steve Blank also Co-founded that as you know, and Joe Felter. I went to an educator course for this program in Fort Belvoir as a part of my job to understand, could we take these types of methods and put them into congressional legislation or DoD regulation as a way to change how people think about problems? And when I met Pete, it was the intersection of all of the things that I really love, academia, entrepreneurship, defense and national security. I went up to Pete and pitched him and said, I want to take this back to the UK and launch it. That was the start of what has been thousands of conversations about the value that we can add both in the US and the UK.  I worked in some law firms before I did my Master's and my PhD, but mainly my career has been in academia.  Ula Ojiaku  Wow. Thanks for sharing. And would you say it was serendipity that made your paths to cross and how are you finding the journey so far?  Ali Hawks  I think, yes, I think it's serendipity. I have a really different life journey than Pete. And I think in my career at the time when I met Pete, I hadn't really found what it is, what I felt like my purpose should be, or hadn't really found passion or joy in my work to that day. I found things I loved, I loved academia and I love teaching, but it just still didn't hit all of those things that you kind of get up every day and are like, this is what I'm meant to do. And I had done a lot of work on reflecting of what that would feel like and what that would look like and the elements it had to have. So by the time I met Pete, it was almost as if someone was flashing a huge sign at me saying, don't miss your turn, this is your turn. So I think serendipity, but also really understanding what it is that I wanted to do and the type of people I wanted to work with and the journey so far. I'll hand over to Pete in a second, but it's been nothing short of incredible. Pete has an amazing reputation, but as a business partner and as a leader, he allows people to truly learn, experiment, make mistakes, and he pulls everyone along by building confidence and empowering people that work for him. So in terms of kind of coming from academia and becoming a researcher turned entrepreneur, it's been the most formative experience of my career. Being able to work along Pete is like being able to work alongside that kind of guide or that guru, and you're like, wow, I can't believe I get to talk to this person every week and learn from them and be in business with them. So that's how it's going for me. Pete, how's it going for you?  Pete Newell You know, Steve Blank and I had a long conversation about serendipity when he and I met 2015 and here's my advice in serendipity. It really is if you have an active curiosity and a willingness to say yes to things that you wouldn't normally, and you're not adverse to taking risk, the chances of serendipity smacking like lightning greatly go up. And then I go back to my first trip to Stanford University in 2011. Well, I was still a military officer and saying yes to a number of things that people asked me to do, and just one conversation after another led to a meeting with two guys who were Stanford graduate school instructors who were writing a book. Those two decided to write a chapter in that book about the work I was doing at the Rapid Equipment Force. Now, when Huggy Rao and Bob Sutton decided to write a book and hire a case study writer who spent six months digging into your life, you learn all kinds of things about yourself and about the world, and when that's followed by a chance coffee with Steve Blank, who had no idea who I was, and I had no idea who he was, that 15-minute coffee turned into a four-hour discussion between the two of us. I typically would not have been at the Fort Belvoir thing that Ali was at, and I think our meeting was very brief, but it was, I think, six months later when I found her in the library at Georgetown University at some social event and we both decided that we wanted her to do something, and we wanted to do something in the UK, and we wanted to see something between allied countries come together. There was no strategy or grand business development, there was nothing that drove those conversations. It was simply in the spur of the moment, the curiosity takes over and you start to say I can see where this might work. Now, Ali will be the first to tell you, it has not been easy, but it has been a privilege to work with her and to continue to work between the two governments and the countries to see absolutely brilliant things done. And so I just say, I come back to, it's that curiosity connected with the desire to, the willingness to accept a little bit of risk, but learning how to say yes to things that you're uncomfortable with and digging just a little bit more. That opens up that opportunity so much more.  Ula Ojiaku I could see, it's evident to me the way Ali was talking about working with you, Pete, and your leadership, I'm wondering, could there have been anything about your military background that has influenced your leadership style as a whole? Pete Newell Yeah, everything in my background does. I can tell you, even growing up as a kid that the way my parents raised me influenced me positively, and negatively in some cases. My military background, I have been fortunate to work for a group of fantastic military leaders, I spent time in the Special Operations community, I spent time working for Stan McChrystal, I spent time in the Pentagon working for brilliant people. I also worked for some of the absolute worst bosses in the entire world, and I rarely say this about people, they were just bad human beings, and I will tell you in many cases what I learned watching a leader in a just really horrible environment influenced me more than watching the really brilliant guys out there. If you think about it, it's really hard to pattern yourself after somebody who is brilliant and driven and successful and kind and they do all that, but I'll tell you what, you can look at somebody who is really a bad boss and say, I don't want to be like them, and it happens in an instant, that I do not ever want to be like that person. That teaches you a lot about the environment that you want to create that people are going to work in. I have some hard areas, and Ali will acknowledge some of them, in the way people are treated in the workplace. Also as a graduate of the Special Operations community, I have strong feelings about how high performing people should be allowed to perform, and also expectations of how they work. I think the military left me with a high degree of not just respect, but you want to hire people, there's a certain degree of dedication to their success, whether they stay in your company or whether they leave, or they go someplace else, whether they're challenged or something else. And I'll tell you, if there was something hard about transitioning from the military to the business world is, in the military, you're given people and you're told to make them successful no matter what. In the business world, you tend to just fire people who are unsuccessful and not invest time and energy in them. I have never been able to make that change, and it's a bit of a struggle sometimes, because in the business world, you can't afford to hang on to people who are subpar performers, if you want to run a high-performance organisation. So if there's one of the things that I have learned is I am challenged in letting somebody go because I see it as a personal failure if somebody fails to thrive in my organisation, that has been built and imprinted by my past. I think Ali has a very different opinion, because she comes from such a great different place. Here's the beauty of it, the work with people like Ali and some of the others, we can argue and disagree and fight like cats and dogs sometimes, but we still love each other, and it is still an absolutely amazing environment to work in. That's really what, if you get it right, that's what life's like.  Ula Ojiaku What's your view, Ali?  Ali Hawks So we clearly have different backgrounds, I think that I was a bit of a late bloomer in terms of leadership style. Being in academia, you're not really in a leadership position because you're responsible for yourself, and in a way, it's a really good test bed for being an entrepreneur, because in academia you have to have such thick skin, because you turn in your peer reviewed journal publications, you turn in your papers and people write back and slash, and no one's trying to make you feel good. In fact, they want to help you, but also they're quite competitive. So that was a really good proving ground for being able to develop the thick skin for critical feedback or any feedback and really all of the knocks that come with being an entrepreneur. What I took into starting BMNT here four years ago was, things that I took from Pete and from the U.S. was really allowing people and high performers to work in the way that they feel best. One of the things I hated when I was younger in certain jobs, and working in law firms is punching your time card at 8 am, and you punch out at 5, and an hour for lunch, and it never felt right that that was the way to measure someone's productivity or to really enhance or empower people. And so the way that I approach it is we consider everyone to be an adult and to do their job, and also to be as curious as possible. So on our Standup this morning, with two new team members coming back into BMNT, one of the things that we agreed on is if no one's asking for time off to be creative or to have a day or two days to read a book that will enhance their knowledge or make them a better BMNTer, then we're failing. If no one has asked for that time by the end of this calendar year. So the way that I really approach leadership is how can I empower, but also invest in every single person, because it's not me delivering the everyday work, it's the people in my company, so they're building it alongside of me. I hire smart young people who will give feedback and we action that feedback. So we change things based on what we get from a 23-year-old, so everyone in the company feels really valued. And I think, learning from Pete, is also being really honest and transparent with everyone in the company when your chips are down and you have to say, guys, this is what's going on, and I found it has built such a strong cohesion in the team that we have now, that this year going into it is the most excited I've ever been about running BMNT. So taking a lot of what I learned from Pete and also my own experiences of feeling really caged, actually, in most of my jobs, and being able to understand that people work in very different ways, and if you allow them to work in the ways that are best for them, you really do get the best of everyone.  Ula Ojiaku That's very inspiring and insightful. Now, there was something Pete said earlier on about you, Ali, walking up to him and sharing the vision that you wanted to take back what BMNT is doing to the UK and so what made you go for it, what pushed you towards that? Ali Hawks Again, it was a lot of work on my part of really understanding what I wanted to do, and when I approached Pete that day, I was really excited and exuberant and I said, I want to take this back to the UK and I want to run it. And Pete is, as you get to know him, he's very calm and he's quiet, and he kind of looked at me and he said, you should talk to some people. And I thought, okay, I'll go talk to people. So I went out and I talked to people and I got Pete on the phone a few weeks later and I said, Pete, this is my dream job, this is what I want to do. And Pete said, prove it, do a Business Model Canvas. So I then hung up the phone, I googled Business Model Canvas, I watched YouTube videos on how to complete it. I was still working at the 809 Panel, so I was getting up really early to talk to people back in the UK, make phone calls, pulling on all of my contacts because I've been in defense and national security for gosh, since 2009, and I was canvassing everyone I knew, I filled out the Business Model Canvas, I sent it to Pete, he was going to be in DC about a week later, and he wrote back saying we should meet. So we then met and had an initial conversation around what it could look like, but it really wasn't until as Pete said in that library at Georgetown for a reception that we came together and having had both time to think and think about what I put down in the Business Model Canvas, but also how we got along, I think, and gelled as business partners, we decided, let's do it. So when we said we didn't have a plan, I had an idea of what we could do, and I have unfailing determination to make things work, and so I just knew, and I think we both knew if we tried it, that something would come of it, and if not, we would learn a lot from it. So we went from there and it took a while before we got a plan, to be honest, but we got there. Ula Ojiaku Well, here you are. Ali Hawks Exactly. Pete Newell You know, if there's one thing I have learned as an entrepreneur is that the plan you thought you were going to have, is never the one you actually execute. So the faster you begin to test it, usually by talking to people and doing things, the faster you will get rid of bad ideas. And it's not about finding the good idea, but it's about creating all the ideas you could possibly have and then killing them off quickly so that you understand the core of the value that you think you're going to deliver. Everything after that is the mechanics of how to build a business. I mean, that's not easy stuff, when you're launching a company, more importantly when you're launching one in a country you haven't been in in a while, but getting there is really about getting the thought process moving and getting people to disabuse you of the notion that every idea you have is brilliant. Ula Ojiaku I mean, I agree setting up a business isn't easy. I can't imagine the additional challenge of setting it up in the defense sector, the Department of Defense in the US, Ministry of Defence here in the UK. What sort of things would you say would be the additional? Do you have to go through hurdles to go through approvals, clearances and all that? Ali Hawks From the MOD experience, it's less about clearances and those types of things, it's more about understanding, winding your way through what feels like a maze, to find the right stakeholders that you can bring together at the right time to make a decision. So while there are individuals that hold budgets and can make decisions, there's a constellation of people around them that need to be aligned in concert with that decision. If you went to a business, of course, you'll have to have a couple of people on board, but the time to sale or the cost to sale is relatively straightforward. When you go into the government, you have a group of highly motivated people, highly mission-driven people who experience the pain of their problems every day, and they are trying to fight just as hard as you are in order to change something for the better. So in the first instance, you have great allyship with your customers, because you have a shared mission, and you're both working towards it, which is fantastic. The second is really trying to understand if that person has the budget and they need to sign off on it, how much do they need to care about it, or is it their chief of staff that needs to really care about it? Or is it their engineer? So I would say the difference is the amount of discovery that you do and doing that stakeholder mapping, is fundamental to success, but also knowing that people change jobs in the civil service and the Armed Forces every few years, that is a critical skill as a business working with the government, that stakeholder mapping and that discovery with your customers, customer development never ends. So I think that that is the longest pole in the tent in terms of finding the right people, and sometimes people say that's the person that has authority, you go talk to them and they say, no, I don't have any authority, so it's really trying to wind your way through the maze to align those key stakeholders. Pete Newell I would add to what Ali said, is that it's like climbing into a very complicated Swiss watch and you need to understand not just how things work, but you need to understand why they work the way they do, and how they work with other things, and then you need to understand who's responsible for making them work and who the beneficiary of the work is, and who possibly might want to make them not work. So, Ali's comment on stakeholder development, it's at the heart of everything you do -- you talk about more sociology and anthropology than it is anything, it truly is understanding why things work the way they do and what drives people to behave one way versus another. Once you figure that out, then you can figure out how to motivate them to behave one way or another, and where you might fit to help them in their daily job or whatever else. But that stakeholder development and understanding who's in charge, who benefits, who doesn't benefit, why something might be counter to something else is so critical in any consulting business, but in particular, if you are trying to get something done inside a government organisation. It, in many cases, it's archaic, but it still operates underneath a very definitive culture that you can map if you've been at it long. Ula Ojiaku So BMNT, you help government organisations to solve hard problems at speed and at scale. Can you expand on this? Pete Newell It's both I think. I go back to my experience, way back in the Rapid Equipping Force and 2010 is first and foremost, there are tens of thousands of problems that prevent the government from doing what it wants to do. The government is challenged, first, in being able to identify those problems; second, in translating those problems into plain English that other people might understand; third, in using that translated thing to find ever bigger groups of people, to then redefine the problem one more time, so that it makes sense for the rest of the world; and fourth, creating the policies and process that will attract people to come to them and work with them to solve those problems fast enough to build a solution before the problem changes so much that the calculus is completely out of whack again. And in all this there's a complicated long answer, but the impedance difference between the speed at which you develop and acknowledge a problem and your ability to get people to work on it, if it's out of sync with the speed at which technology is being adopted and adapted, you will constantly be perfectly solving the wrong problem, and you'll be constantly delivering things that are antiquated before the day they land in somebody's hands, so that's really the speed issue. I go back to what I said about sociology. This is the speed of your ability to get people to come together to work on something, and then the scale is determining, scale how fast, and scale how big. The scale how fast is, I can start to deliver a solution to this, but I know the solution is going to change every 6 months. So I don't need to commit to building tens of thousands of these over a 5-year contract, but I do need to commit to changing what I deliver every 6 months, or this is going to scale to some big end and it goes into a much different system, you have to be ambidextrous about your approach to scale, and unfortunately most procurement laws, both the United States and in the UK are not built to be ambidextrous. They're built to do one thing and one thing very efficiently only. Unfortunately, that's not the way the world works anymore. Ula Ojiaku Any thoughts, Ali? Ali Hawks As Pete said, and as a sociologist, the most often thing, and I think Pete said this a long time ago when we first met, is the government doesn't have a tech adoption problem, it has a people problem, and a lot of our work, a lot of our customers will come and say they have a tech problem, and they have a huge degree of urgency, but the things that get in their way are they have no common language, and they have no repeatable and scalable process in which to think about and work on their problems. And the framework that we developed, the innovation pipeline, is that process for them to do it. It's not complicated, it's methodology agnostic, and so it allows you to develop an entire workforce around a common language of innovating, mission acceleration, agile transformation, whatever you want to do, recognising that people are at the heart of it. The Head of Innovation at UC Berkeley and during one of our Lean Innovators Summit, said something that has stuck with me for several years now, ad he said, and it really hit home with our customers, because sometimes when I first started BMNT here, I was such an evangelist that I forgot to listen to the customer. I was just so convinced that they needed what we had, and I think the customer was telling me something else and I would get frustrated, and when I heard this, it was resistance is rational. When we go into a room with a group of people, we usually have a customer who is an evangelist of ours, or an early adopter, a huge supporter, and they have a couple of other people who feel the same way they do about change and innovation and moving rapidly, and then 70 percent of the team don't feel that same way. So approaching it and really empathising with the customers and understanding resistance is rational, why would they want to change? Things for them work, the way that they have always done, it works, and that is a rational response. So being able to then develop a service where you're connecting with them and saying, I understand that, and that's a rational response, and then using tools, like one of my favourite tools, the Value Proposition Canvas, to really understand, what are the jobs to be done, and the pains and the gains, and when you speak in that type of language, there are so many times that I have seen this kind of aha moment of like, oh, so if I did that, then I wouldn't have to do this anymore, or I would be able to do this different thing. And this is not complicated, these are not complicated tools or processes we're talking about, but the common denominators of it are discipline, consistency, and hard work. And I think, coming off what Pete said, when you want to get pace and speed, you have to be consistent and you have to be disciplined, and people have to understand what you're saying in order to get over that resistance is rational piece. Pete Newell I think Ali's spot on in terms of the problem with the problem. Oftentimes is, we can put a problem in a room and 10 people work on it and get 10 different versions of the problem, and so part of the art that's involved in the process is to get a group of people to agree to a common definition of a problem and use the same words, because many times we're inventing new words. It's new technology, new problem, but the first thing we do is get everybody to say the same thing the same way, and then start to talk to other people about it, because part two of that is you learn that your problem is probably not the right problem, it's a symptom of something else, and that whole process of discovery is a very disciplined, I would say it's a scientific methodology applied to how we communicate with people. You have to get out and test your theory by talking to the right people in a big enough diverse crowd to truly understand that whether you're on the right track or the wrong track. That's hard work, it really is hard work, and it's even harder to get what I would say critical feedback from people in the process who will challenge your assumptions and will challenge your test, who will challenge the outcomes of that. That's what our team does such a great job of, working with customers to teach them how to do that, but listening to them and helping them come together. At the same time, we're looking at the quality of the work and because we're a third party, we can look over the shoulder and say I see the test, and I see the outcome, but I don't think your test was adequate, or I don't think you tested this in an environment that was diverse enough, that you may be headed down the wrong path. The customer can still decide to go with what they learn, but in most cases, at least they're getting honest feedback that should allow them to pause and relook something. Ali Hawks I think for this particular reason, this is why BMNT is a leader in this space, is because the kind of jurisdiction around that front end of the pipeline, of are we making sure that we're choosing from enough problems and we're not stuck with a couple of investments that might be bad, so to speak, really validating that problem to decide, is it worth working on, is this even progressible, does anyone care about it, can it technically be done, does the organisation care about it, before spending any money on investment. Now that front end of the pipeline is gradually becoming a stronger muscle, and I'll speak for the UK, is gradually becoming a stronger muscle because of the work that BMNT has done, and both in the US and the UK, there is incredibly strong muscle memory around experimentation and incubation, which is fantastic. There's a lot of structure around that and frameworks and a lot of common language, which is amazing, because when you have that developed, going back to the beginning to refine before you put into the machine, so to speak, that's where what we call curation, really validating that problem, that's a single most determining factor on whether a problem will transition to an adopted solution. Most of government starts in experimentation and incubation, so they don't get the benefit of de-risking investment in a solution, and they don't necessarily get the benefit of all the learning to expedite that into incubation and experimentation. So I think where BMNT comes out and really owns that area is in that front end of the pipeline, and when you do that front end, you would be amazed at how fast the other part of the pipeline goes through discover incubation experimentation, because you've increased confidence and really de-risked investment in the solution. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for sharing that Ali, would you say you're applying lean innovation amongst other things to the framework you're referring to, or would that be something else? Pete Newell No, I think that it's all part of the process. We use a variety of tools to get to the data we want, and then it's a matter of doing analysis, and this is why Ali's background as an academic is so critical, because she's keen on analysis, and looking at the data and not skewing the data one way or another, and that's an incredibly important skill in this process. Again, this is really the application of a scientific methodology, and you need to be able to do that, but you need to understand how to get the data. So whether it's Lean or it's Scrum or it's some Google tool or something else. We have become really adaptive in the use of the tools and a mixture of the tools to drive a community of people to create the data we need to make an assessment of whether something's going the right direction or not. And that's the beauty of being involved with the Lean Innovation Educators Forum, the beauty of the time we spend with folks like Alex Osterwalder or with Steve Blank or with the folks from the d.school at Stanford or any of those places that are developing tools. It is understanding how to use and adopt the tool to fit the circumstances, but at the end of the day, it's all about creating the data you need to use the analysis that will drive an insight, that will allow you to make a decision. Too often I find people who are just overly enamoured with the tool and they forget that the tool is just a tool. It's about data, insight, and decisions, and you have to get to a decision at some point. Ula Ojiaku Data, insight, decisions. Amazing. So, if we shift gears a little bit and go into your Strategic Innovation Project, SIP, I understand that one of the shifts you're driving in the DoD and MoD respectively is about their approach to involving private investment in defence technology. Could you share a bit more about that? Pete Newell As part of the innovation pipeline, you have to eventually transition out of the discovery phase and at the end of discovery, you should know that you have the right problem. You have a potential solution and you have a potential pathway that will allow you to deliver that solution in time to actually have an impact on the problem. At that point, you start incubating that solution, and if it's a tech or a product, then you're talking about either helping a company build the right thing, or you're talking about starting a new company, and that new company will have to do the thing. Our work in terms of early-stage tech acceleration is really now focused on what we call dual-use technologies. Those technologies that are required to solve a problem in the military, but also have a digital twin in the commercial world. There has to be a commercial reason for the company being built that's actually going to solve the problem, and so as we looked at that, we found really interesting conversations with investors in the United States and then eventually overseas who were looking for a way to help defense get the technologies it wanted, but have portfolios that don't allow them to just invest in a defense technology, and they were looking for an opportunity to engage one, with like-minded investors, but two, in honest conversations about problems that existed in the military and in the commercial world so they can make better decisions about the deployment of their capital to create the right companies. I think it's probably been five years now we've been working on the hypothesis around this. we started to develop a very strong language around dual-use investments in early-stage tech acceleration and adoption, and we started to build new tools inside government programs, as well as new groups of investors and other folks who wanted to be involved. All that was fine in the United States, but then we found it was a slightly different application outside the United States, particularly in Europe, which is not necessarily the most Startup friendly environment in the world in terms of investment, but at the same time, understanding that the United States has an unequalled appetite for technology to the point where that technology doesn't necessarily exist within the United States, nor do the best opportunities to test that technology exist for the United States, so we had to come up with a way that would allow us to do the same type of investigation with our allies, which turns into this incredible opportunity amongst allied nations and companies and vendors and things like that. And I know that from Ali's standpoint, watching NATO DIANA and other programs start, that it is more challenging, it's a different environment in Europe than it is in the United States. Ali Hawks Picking up there and in terms of the way that we think about investment, and what Pete is talking about is a program we run called Hacking 4 Allies. We currently work with Norway and take dual-use Norwegian Startups into our incubator and accelerator called H4XLabs in the US and we help them enter the US defense market and the commercial market, and one of the things that we're starting to see over here is it is a pathway that doesn't really exist in Europe. So when we think about NATO's DIANA, what DIANA is focused on, which is dual-use and deep tech and what they are overly focused on, and I think is correct, is how do you raise investment in the countries themselves to help booster a whole range of effects around being able to raise money within the country? Ultimately, though, and a lot of what DIANA was doing, in terms of the concept and its focus on dual-use and deep tech, was before the invasion of Ukraine, and so at that time before that, I think in terms of the NATO Innovation Fund and thinking about investment and NATO, it wasn't as comfortable with dual-use and investing in dual-use as the US is, not only is the US comfortable, but you have things like we helped a private capital fund, where people feel a great deal of patriotism, or that it's a part of their service to be able to contribute in that way. That feeling doesn't exist, it exists here, but it manifests itself in a different way, and it doesn't manifest itself as let's invest in dual-use technologies to help our defense and national security. So there's different understandings and cultural feelings towards those things. Now, having had the invasion of Ukraine and now the war in Israel and Gaza and now in Yemen, I think that the change is accelerating, insofar as what are the capabilities that we need to rapidly develop within NATO to be able to feel secure on our borders, and what type of investment does that take? Now, US investment in Europe has dropped about 22 percent in 2023, and so they're a little bit nervous about investing in these companies, and so the strength that being able to change the investment paradigm, which is ultimately, the companies that are going to receive the investment from the NATO Innovation Fund and NATO DIANA, they want to develop in the country, but ultimately all of those companies and their investors want them to get to a bigger market, and that bigger market is the US. So, what we are able to do is to connect real dollars, government dollars and commercial dollars, to those companies. We are one of the only pathways outside of export regimes for the Department of International Trade here in the UK. We are one of the only private pathways that has not only been tested and proved, but that we are able to take more companies year on year, take them to the US and prove that model. Now that's really exciting, especially as we see some of the investment declining, because we're able to identify those companies, we're able to connect them to problems that matter that people are trying to solve, develop the use cases, and then help them on the commercialisation side of things in terms of going into a new market. I think that the way that we think about investment in the US from a BMNT perspective, and the US is a little bit different from Europe and the UK, but the exciting thing is now that we have this proven pathway to enhance and accelerate concepts like DIANA and the NATO Innovation Fund. Ula Ojiaku So it sounds to me like it's not just about the localised investment into the innovation, it's also about BMNT building pathways, so European Startups, for example, that want an inroad into the US, maybe vice versa. Pete Newell I think the AUKUS DIN, the Defense Investor Network really is the collection of the US Investor Network, the UK and Australia. All three countries had Defense Investor Networks that had been set up over the last several years and primarily focused on, one, allowing investors to engage other investors about topics that are of common interest when it comes to this dual-use paradigm; and two, being able to engage with people in the government about things the investors were concerned about. I'm very clear when I talk about the Defense Investor Network, it is about defense investors, not about the government's problem. I've had to redefine that multiple times, as this is about enabling investors to be more proactive and participate in building the right kinds of companies, not about the government telling investors what they need to do, or the government telling the investors how they need to do it. It really, it was built from the investor perspective, and then we found is that the investors were prolifically honest about their feedback to senior people in the government, which I think has been hard for people in the government to get that kind of feedback, but when an investor with a portfolio of 30 and 40 companies looks at the government and says, I will never do it the way you just described, and here's why. Until you change that quantity, it makes no sense for us to participate, invest in, do, you'd be amazed. Sometimes it is the first time somebody's been able to articulate why something isn't going to happen, and then people nod their heads, well, I'll quit asking for that, or I'll go back and change something to see what it is we can do. So, we went from Hacking 4 Allies, which started out as a BMNT program with the Norwegians, to Hacking 4 Allies with the UK, Australia, Norway. At the same time, we had set up the Defense Investor Network, but as soon as we started the Allies program in the UK, the UK-based investors raised their hands and said, what you're doing in the United States, we want to do here, and then the same thing happened in Australia. When they made the AUKUS announcement, it just made too much sense to be able to look at, if we really want a free flow of technology and problems across the AUKUS governments, then surely we should be building ecosystems of like-minded people who can help drive those conversations. So it was super, super easy to bring the AUKUS Investor Network together, it was just too easy. The part that I think is not so easy, but we need to do work on is we, those investors need to be fed problems that are of an AUKUS nature, and at the same time, the governments need to listen to the investors when they tell them they have problems investing in companies that aren't allowed to participate in exercise or training or contracting or acquisitions in a different country, and if you really want to make AUKUS a real thing, there are a lot of policies that have to change. There's been a lot of progress made, but I think there's a lot more left to do to, to really get the opportunity to happen. Ula Ojiaku And would you say some of the problems would be related to what government officials would call national security, because if it's a dual-use spec, whilst it has its secular or commercial use, in the military, you wouldn't want other people knowing how you're deploying that technology and the ins and outs of it. So could that be one of the issues here? Pete Newell My definition of national security really touches public safety all the way up to military, so it's both. I think if you dig into it, it touches everything from supply chain, to access, to raw materials, to manufacturing, to education and workforce development, and you name it. There's a paradigm shift that has to happen if we're going to build more things, more often rather than long term ships and things like that, that as allied nations, we have to be able to attack all of the underlying foundational problems, and that's my supply chain, raw materials, manufacturing, and workforce that's necessary for the future. No one country is going to get that fixed all by themselves, and I think, to me, that's the absolute brilliance of what AUKUS should be able to focus on. Ali Hawks I agree, and I think that to being able to co-invest as well, the opportunity for investors to come around and understand what are the opportunities to, not only co-invest and coordinate, but to be able to scan their companies and their deal flow to see where their companies can partner and secure greater work and contracts and scale. So I think that it's a really important initiative in terms of being a steward of an extremely important ecosystem, not only being a steward, but being able to build that ecosystem of support and development. How we look at national security in the UK is really no different than what Pete talked about, and when we think about working with companies and the willingness to work with big tech companies or small tech companies or whatever it is, it's not just simply one transaction where, here's the money and here's your software. So obviously the kind of employment and the skills, but what is the ecosystem around that technology that is necessary? Does it require sensors and chips, and what is it that it requires that's going to bring in multiple different industries to support it, and that's really what the agenda here around prosperity is. How do we invest in these types of technologies and their ecosystems around it to have a more prosperous Britain? So you have a wider spread of skills as opposed to just investing in one thing. I think that's where AUKUS brings three very important allies together to be able to do that individually, but then the option to do it across in terms of the broader strategy and the policy around AUKUS, is a once in a lifetime chance that I think has come up. Ula Ojiaku So I think the key thing here is, this is a space to be watched, there's lots of opportunity and the potential of having the sum being greater than the parts is really huge here. One last question on this topic. So you said deep tech, and with Open AI's launch of ChatGPT earlier on last year, the world seems to have woken up to, generative AI. Do you see any influence this trend would have, or is having, in the military space in the Defense Innovation space. Pete Newell I think the world has woken up and is staring into the sun and is blinded. The challenge with AI in general, and I would say that it's not the challenge, AI has a long way to go, and by and large, folks are really focused on the high end of what AI can do, but people have to learn how to use AI and AI has to learn. What we're not doing is using AI to solve the mundane, boring, time wasting problems that are preventing our workforce from doing the high end work that only a human being can do, and I don't care how many billions of dollars we're pouring into building robots and other things, it's all great, but we still have government people managing spreadsheets of data that, they become data janitors, not analysts, and it is particularly bad in the intelligence world. I quote the Chief Information Officer of a large logistics agency who said data is not a problem, we have tons of data, it's just crappy, it's not tagged, it's not usable, we have data going back to the 1950s, we have no means of getting that data tagged so it's useful. Now, if we put time and energy into building AI products that would correctly tag old data, it'd be amazing what we can do. In the cases that we have helped develop tools with our clients, they'll save anywhere from a million to 300 million dollars a year in finding discrepancies in supply chain stuff, or finding other issues. So imagine if we put that kind of work in place for other people, but free people up to do more, better, smarter things, how much more efficient the use of the government's time and money would be, so that that money and that time could be invested in better things. So when I say, yeah, the AI is out there and people's eyes are open, but they're staring into the sun. They're not looking at the ground in front of them and solving the things that they could be solving at the speed they should be doing it, and unfortunately, I think they're creating a gap where legacy systems are being left further and further behind, but those legacy systems, whether it's finance, personnel, supply chain, discipline, things like that, aren't going to be able to make the transition to actually be useful later on. So I would describe it as an impending train wreck. Ula Ojiaku And what would be, in your view, something that could avert this oncoming train wreck. Pete Newell I think a concerted effort, really just to have the government say we're going to use AI to get rid of as much of the legacy brute force work that our populations are doing so that we can free them up to do other things. Part of this is we're then going to take the money we save and channel that money back into investment in those organisations. Right now, the money just goes away, that's great, you did better, therefore, your budget's reduced. There's no incentive to get better that way, but if you look at an organisation and say, you know, if you can save 10 million dollars a year, we'll give you that 10 million dollars to reinvest back into your organisation to do better and something else. Now, you have some incentive to actually make change happen. Ula Ojiaku Any thoughts, Ali? Ali Hawks I think the exciting thing for us, the way that I look at it in terms of government is that that government enablement to be able to use AI, here they are building large language models for the government based on the data that they have, and there's a lot of excitement around it and there should be. It's a pretty exciting thing to do. I think where we're in a really strong position and what I find really exciting is being able to do what we do best, which is help them understand what is the query and how do you validate that query? So what are the basic skills that you need to be able to interact, and then to be able to retain the skills of critical analysis, so when the answer comes back, you do not take that as the end all be all. It is a tool. So within your decision-making process, it's decreasing the amount of time it takes you to gather a certain amount of information, but just as you would if you were doing a book report, you still have to validate the sources and understanding, and you have to apply your own judgment and your own experience to that packet of information, which is what we all do every day, but it's not really thought about that way. So I think that the way that people are looking at it here is it will be able give us the decision and it will be able to kind of do our job for us, and for some tools, yes, and I completely agree that we need to free up all of the mundane work that hoovers up the time of civil servants here, because it's extraordinary how they're bogged down, and it completely disempowers them and it contributes to low retention rates and recruitment rates. But I think also it's developing the muscle to be able to do that critical thinking in order to leverage human intelligence to engage with artificial intelligence. And I think that's where we are uniquely positioned to do that because that is the bulk of our work on the front end of the pipeline, which is how are you going to validate what you know, how are you going to get the problem statement in order to query what you need to query and then having the judgment and the analysis to be able to look at that answer and make a decision, based on your own human intellect. That's where I see it playing here. I completely agree with Pete, we have people looking into the sun being like LLMs and they're going to solve everything, but you sit, let's say a hundred people down in front of an LLM and tell me how many people know what to ask it, or how to use it and integrate it into their everyday workflow. There's a long way to go, but I feel really excited about it because I feel like we have something so incredible to offer them to be able to enhance their engagement with AI. Ula Ojiaku That sounds excellent, thank you. Just to go to the rapid fire questions. So, Ali, what books have you found yourself recommending to people the most? Ali Hawks So I don't read a lot of work books, in terms of like how to run a company or anything like that, sorry, Pete, but, and I have a 4-year-old and three stepchildren, so I don't actually read as much as I used to, but I have read over in the last few weeks, the book Impromptu by Reid Hoffman about AI, which is great, and I listen to a lot of podcasts on my commute into London, so the Huberman Lab podcast I listen to a lot, but if you're looking for workplace inspiration, I'm afraid I look at Instagram, listen to podcasts, and then I follow Allie K. Miller, who writes a lot about AI, came out of Amazon, and she is fantastic for breaking things down into really bite sized chunks if you're trying to learn about AI, if you don't come from a technical background. Ula Ojiaku Thanks, Ali, we'll put these in the show notes. And Pete, what about you? Pete Newell I will give you two new books. One of them is a fun one, Wiring the Winning Organization written by Gene Kim and Steven Spear. Steve Spear is a good friend of ours, he's been a great mentor and advisor inside BMNT for a long time, I've known Steve since way back in my early days. The other one is by Huggy Rao and Bob Sutton, and it's called The Friction Project, and it's just like you say, it's all about friction in the workplace. I think both of those books tend to lend themselves to how to drive performance in organisations, and I think, knowing all of the authors, that they are phenomenal books, but I think the experience the four of them bring to the dialogue and the discussion of what the future workplace needs to look like and the things we need to solve will all be buried in those books. In terms of podcasts, I'm all over the map, I chase all kinds of things that I don't know. I listen to podcasts about subjects that I'm clueless about that just spark my interest, so I wouldn't venture to pick any one of them except yours, and to make sure that people listen to yours. Ula Ojiaku You're very kind, Pete. Well, because you're on it, they definitely would. Would you both be thinking about writing a book sometime, because I think your story has been fascinating and there are lots of lessons Pete Newell Only if Ali would lead it. So I have picked up and put down multiple proposals to write books around the innovation process within the government and other places, and part of the reason I keep stopping is it keeps changing. I don't think we're done learning yet, and I think the problem writing a book is you're taking a snapshot in time. One of the things that we are very focused on for the military, we talk about doctrine, what is the language of innovation inside the government workplace? It's the thing that we keep picking up, we've helped at least one government organisation write their very first innovation doctrine, the Transportation Security Administration of all places, the very first federal agency to produce a doctrine for innovation that explains what it is, why it is connected to the mission of the organisation, and describes a process by which they'll do it. I think within the Ministry of Defence, Department of Defense, there needs to be a concerted effort to produce a document that connects the outcome of innovation to the mission of the organisation. We call that mission acceleration. We look at innovation as a process, not an end state. The end state is actually mission acceleration. There's probably a really interesting book just to be written about Ali's journey, and I say more Ali's journey than mine because I think as a woman founder of a defence company in the UK, all of the characters in the book are completely unlikely. So somewhere down the road, maybe. Ula Ojiaku Well, I'm on the queue waiting for it, I will definitely buy it. So where can the listeners and viewers find you if, if they want to get in touch? Ali Hawks We're both on LinkedIn, so Pete Newell, Ali Hawks, our emails too are on our various websites, bmnt.com, bmnt.co.uk. Ula Ojiaku Awesome. Any final words for the audience? Pete Newell I'll say thank you again for one, having us. Like I said, it's the first opportunity Ali and I have had to be on a podcast together. Any opportunity I get to engage with the folks and have this conversation is a gift. So thank you for giving us the time. Ula Ojiaku My pleasure. Ali Hawks Yes, Ula, thanks very much for having us on together. It's been great. Ula Ojiaku I've enjoyed this conversation and listening to you both. So thank you so much. The pleasure and the honour is mine. That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless! 

Bio   David is known for his ability to deliver inspiring and thought-provoking presentations that challenge audiences to think differently about innovation and product development. His keynotes and workshops are engaging and interactive, with a focus on real-world examples and case studies. David's message is relevant for entrepreneurs, executives, and organizations of all sizes and industries, and he illustrates concepts live on stage to leave attendees with concrete tools and techniques they can use to drive innovation and growth in their own business.   Interview Highlights 02:00 Early Startups 02:45 Dealing with uncertainty 04:25 Testing Business Ideas 07:35 Shifting mindsets 11:00 Transformational leadership 13:00 Desirable, viable, feasible 14:50 Sustainability 17:00 AI 22:50 Jobs, pains and gains 26:30 Extracting your assumptions 27:30 Mapping and prioritisation 28:10 Running experiments   Social Media   LinkedIn:  David Bland on LinkedIn Website:  davidjbland.com Company Website: Precoil YouTube: David Bland on YouTube     Books & Resources   ·         Testing Business Ideas: A Field Guide for Rapid Experimentation (The Strategyzer Series): David J. Bland, Alex Osterwalder ·         Assumptions Mapping Fundamentals Course: https://precoil.teachable.com/p/assumptions-mapping-fundamentals/ ·         The Invincible Company: How to Constantly Reinvent Your Organization with Inspiration From the World's Best Business Models (The Strategyzer Series): Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Alan Smith, Frederic Etiemble ·         Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want (The Strategyzer Series): Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Gregory Bernarda, Alan Smith, Trish Papadakos ·         The Lean Startup: How Constant Innovation Creates Radically Successful Businesses: Eric Ries ·         Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights- 2nd Edition, Steve Portigal ·         The Mom Test: How to Talk to Customers & Learn If Your Business Is a Good Idea When Everyone Is Lying to You, Rob Fitzpatrick ·         Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers (The Strategyzer Series): Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur ·         The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win: Steve Blank   Episode Transcript Intro: Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. Ula Ojiaku   Hello everyone. I'm really honoured and pleased to introduce David Bland as my guest for this episode. He is the best-selling author of the book, Testing Business Ideas, and he's also the Founder of Precoil, an organisation that's focused on helping companies to find product market fits using Lean Start-up, Design Thinking and Business Model Innovation. He's not a newcomer to the world of Agile as well. So, David, it's an honour to have you on the Agile Innovation Leaders Podcast. Thank you so much for making the time. David Bland   Yeah, thanks for inviting me on, I'm excited to be here. Ula Ojiaku   Right. So, where I usually start with all my guests, because personally, I am interested in the story behind the person - are there any happenings or experiences that have shaped you into who you are today? David Bland   Yeah, I think through childhood, dealing with a lot of uncertainty and then ended up going to school for design. I thought I was going to go a different career path and then at the last moment I was like, I want to really dig into design and I think people were sort of shocked by that, with the people around me, and so I really dove into that and then I came out of school thinking, oh, I might join a startup and retire in my mid 20s, because this is a .com craze, everyone was making all this money. Obviously, that didn't happen, but I learned a lot at the startups and I was introduced to Agile really early on in my career at startups because we had to go really fast and we were in a heavily regulated industry so we couldn't break stuff and we had to have kind of processes and everything. I did that for a while and then I realised, wow, there were some people that could learn from my mistakes, and so we kind of switched coasts. So we were near Washington DC for a while, and then we moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, and I started working with companies there, and I was like, well, let me see if I can just really dig in, help people learn how to apply stuff and coach them through it, and that was around 2010 or 2011 or so, and I've been doing it ever since, and I think why I love it so much is that it kind of helps people deal with uncertainty, gives them a process to deal with uncertainty, and at the same time, I have a hard time with uncertainty. So maybe it's kind of a little bit therapeutic for me to help others deal with uncertainty as well. So yeah, I just love what I do. Ula Ojiaku   And so you mentioned you don't like uncertainty, but helping other people deal with uncertainty helps you, that's interesting. Do you want to expand on that? David Bland   I mean, I very much like my routines and everything, and I feel like I come at it from a process point of view. So when I'm dealing with uncertainties, like, oh, what kind of process can I apply to that? So I feel a little better about things, even though there's a lot of stuff outside my control, at least I can have kind of a process. So I feel as if, when I'm dealing with people, I feel all of this anxiety, they're working on a new idea, they're not sure if it's going to be any good or not, giving them a process to work through it together, I don't really tell them if their idea is going to be good or not because who am I to judge their ideas most of the time? It's more about, well, here's a process you can apply to all that stuff you're working through and maybe you can come up to some sort of investment decision on whether or not you should go forward with that idea. So I feel as if my demeanour and everything comes off as someone that you're like, oh, I can talk to this guy and he's actually going to respect me, and so I feel like my style plus the uncertainty bit fits together really well. So I have a style where I come into orgs and say, you have a lot of uncertainty, here's a process, you're going to be fine, we're going to work through it together and it tends to work out pretty well. Ula Ojiaku   What comes across to me is that you give them tools or a process to help them hopefully come to an evidence-based conclusion without you having to share your opinion, or hopefully they don't have to have personal opinions imposing on whatever conclusion that is.   David Bland   Yeah, it's just a process.   Ula Ojiaku   And so what put you on the path to writing the book Testing Business Ideas, I was one of your students at the masterclass you and Alex Osterwalder ran during the covid lockdown, and you mentioned during that session, I don't know if you remember, that you probably went for a retreat somewhere, or you went on a hike as part of the writing process and that Alex gave you a hard time or something, so can you share your version of the story? David Bland   Oh yeah, I mean it was a joy writing with him. I think one of the difficult times for me writing that book…So first Alex approached me writing it and eventually, I mean initially it was just going to be me and then I mean he needed to be involved and so he played a big role strategically in helping me kind of think about the book writing process because I've never written a book like this and then also had it published and also did the whole four colour landscape style, very visual book. It's not that you just write an outline and then you start putting in words, it's a very different process. So yeah, he pushed me a little bit during that process, I would say, he would challenge some of my ideas and say like, are you explaining this in a way that where people can understand, you know? And so I feel as if it was a very productive process writing the book with him. It took about a year I would say. I think the way it came about was it was pretty much from my coaching, born out of my coaching, because I was helping companies with a lot of uncertainty, early stage ideas and they would say well we're now going to have interviews and we're going to do surveys and we're to build the whole thing. And it's like, well, there's other things you could do that are beyond interviews and surveys. And so he and I were continuously talking about this, and it's like, well, if people are only comfortable doing interviews and surveys they're not going to address all their risk, they're going to address a part of their risk, but not, you know, there's so much more they can do. And so, we started thinking about, well, is there a book that we could put that together and give people a resource guide? So, it's more like a textbook or almost something you would read in a university. My editor, I just spoke to him a couple weeks ago, he's like, this is required reading at Stanford now, and some other places in the university programs. And so it's very much like a textbook, you know, but the reason we wrote it was, you know, to help people find a path forward, to find a way to go and de-risk what they're working on. And so I felt it was very ambitious to put that all into a book, and of course, it has some flaws, but I think for the most part, it does the job, and that's why it's been really successful.   Ula Ojiaku   It is, in my experience, very well laid out. It takes a lot of work to distill these ideas into something that seems simple and easy to follow. So I do concur, it's been very helpful to me as well and the ideas. In your book, in the flap, it says, okay, the number one job as an innovator, entrepreneur, a corporation, is to test your business ideas to reduce the risk of failure. And I think you've alluded it, you've kind of touched on that in explaining how your career has gotten you where you are today. But what, in your experience, do you find leaders and organisations missing the most when it comes to testing ideas? David Bland   I think it's hard to unwind it all, because it goes back to how do you become a leader. And so, at least in Western, in the United States anyway, where I do some of my work, I feel as if it's very egocentric, it's very about what I can do and what I know. So there's a progression of becoming a leader where you grow up in an organisation because you have the answers, or at least you're able to convince people you know the answers, and then you're promoted and keep being promoted. And so when I'm coming in and saying, well, we might not know the answers, or we might need to test our way through and find the answers, it almost goes against that whole kind of almost like worldview you've built up or someone has built up over the years where it's about me. It has to be more than just about you as a person. It's like how do you enable leaders around you and how do you create more leaders around you and all that. And so I think where there's contradiction is this idea of, okay, I'm promoted to where I am because I have the answers, but now I want to enable people to test their way through things and find answers, and you almost need a feedback loop there of somebody that's willing to say, look, do you understand how you've unravelled some of this or how you've undermined things by saying, well, I know this is a good idea, so build it anyway. Or, that's not the test I would have ran, I would have done this other thing. You give people almost the benefit of your opinion, but they take it as marching orders, whether you realise it or not, and then it becomes this core of, why am I running tests at all because my leader is essentially going to tell me what to build. And so I think there's just some unpacking a bit of, well, I searched for the right answer in school and I was rewarded for that, and I went into business and I was rewarded for the right answer, and now we're telling you, there might not be a right answer, there are multiple right answers, and different paths and choices. And I think sometimes leaders have a hard time with that because it almost contradicts everything they've done in the past to be successful. Ula Ojiaku   So, what I'm hearing you say David is that in terms of, even before we get testing the ideas, please correct me if I'm wrong, it's that there needs to be a mindset shift, a paradigm shift of, you know, what leadership is all about, it's no longer going to be about the person who knows the way, who knows all the answers and tells people what to do, but moving from that to saying, hey, I recognise I have limits and I may not have all the answers and I empower you all for us to work together to test our way to find what the right path or direction would be. David Bland   Yeah, it's more about your leadership style and accountability. I think you severely limit what an organisation could do if everyone's relying on you for the answers. It's going to be really tough to scale that because if all answers have to come through you, then how do you scale? But also, it goes from transactional to transformational in a way. So transactional is, it's very much like, well, I want you to do something by this date on time, on budget, and on scope, and then basically hold you accountable to doing that, and then there's a very transactional level of leadership there. It's like, I asked you to do this thing, or told you to do this thing, you did this thing, so therefore I trust you. Where I'm trying get a bit deeper is, you know, well can you say, well, how do I empower a team to go find out what needs to be built, or if there's a real problem there, and then have them give me an account of, oh, we're making progress towards that, or you know what, we shouldn't go forward with this because this isn't worth pursuing, nobody has this problem, et cetera, and respecting their wishes or at least having a conversation about that. And so I think it does require a little bit of leadership. Looking at your style, looking at the words you use, looking at how you lead teams through uncertainty, which could be a little different than ‘I need this thing by this date and keep it under this cost and this scope' It's more about, well, we have an idea, we're not sure there's a market for it, can we go test that and see if there is and if it's viable for us and if we can actually do it? And it's a little different leadership style, and I think if you apply a transactional leadership style to trying to lead people through uncertainty, it just backfires, because it's very much like, run these experiments by this date, it doesn't empower the teams to be able to give an account of how they're addressing the risks. It's sort of a learning moment for leaders to say, oh, this leadership style that's worked really well for me in the past may not actually work really well for me here, it may work against me here in trying to drive out the uncertainty of this thing that we're trying to do. Ula Ojiaku   So if I may just build on your response to the question. What, in your experience, has helped, or could help, a leader who's used to, and has been in the past up until now rewarded for that transactional leadership, to make the switch to a transformational leadership? David Bland   I think asking them what they're worried about. I know people try to project confidence like they have the answers, but they don't, and so being able to be open, even if it's just a one-on-one, to say hey we have this thing where we think it might be a new business line or something that we're working on that's relatively new that we haven't done before, which is a lot of my clients, they're trying to do something that they haven't quite done before. It may not be too far away from what they're good at, but far enough away that they're worried, they're worried that it's not going to work. And so I try to get them and talk about what's keeping you up at night, what is worrying you about this, and then usually in the back of my head I'm saying, okay, what can I map that to? So I love the desirable, viable, feasible framing. I use it a lot from design thinking, user centre design. So if they're worried about the customer or there's not enough, you know, there's not really a job to be done there, I map that back to, okay, he's worried about desirability or she's worried about desirability. And if they're talking about, oh, we don't know if people will pay enough for this, or if we can keep costs low enough, you know, that's like I map it back to viability, right? And then if it's more about, I actually don't know if we're organised well enough as a company to do this and really execute on it and I map it back to feasibility. And then from there, it's more like, well how will we go test that since you're worried about it, rather than just build the whole thing and launch and see what happens. And so I try to kind of, I'd be really careful of the words I'm using and I'm trying to coach them into a moment where it's okay, just let's be open and transparent that it's not just about executing a bunch of things and then we're okay. It's more about, you know, what are we worried about and then how do we go address those worries sooner versus later. And so I try not to come at them with a bunch of canvases and a bunch of mapping tools and a bunch of stuff that would make them feel defensive because one, they probably have not had experience with those, and two, it's like, oh, this consultant's more interested in the tools than helping me, you know. So I try to use words that really kind of get at, what are you worried about and then how can we go test that and then kind of back away into the process from there? Ula Ojiaku   Well, it does seem like you apply quite some psychology to the whole approach, because it's really about meeting people where they're at. And I am, just back to your point about viability, desirability and feasibility. There is a school of knowledge, I mean, you are the expert here, so I'm deferring, but there's a school of knowledge that would add also like the sustainability parts to it. Or do you think it's separate from those attributes when you're looking at ideas? David Bland   Yeah. Well, I work on a lot of sustainable projects at the moment. Well, even over the last several years I've been working on companies trying to be more sustainable. So companies are manufacturing phones, they want their phones to be all recyclable materials, they want fully recyclable phones let's say. So I'm working on very cutting edge sustainability projects, but I still don't introduce it as another circle because I'm trying to keep it very simple. And so I know there are different flavours of it. I know some people add sustainability, some people add adaptability, some people add ethics, usability. Before I know it, it's just, you end up with seven circles and different themes, so I really try to keep it very simple. Even Alex and I talk about adaptability, because that was a theme that didn't quite make it into the book, but he talks about it in The Invincible Company, which is the book he wrote immediately after the one we wrote together. So I have ways of addressing those things, but I don't necessarily want to add a bunch of extra themes, because I feel like it's already challenging people with a bunch of ‘ility' words. I noticed they get confused even with the three. No matter how well I explain it, I'll see things like, things that are about building it, and reframed as desirability, and I'm like no, no, that isn't about the customer. I mean yes, of course we have to build what they need, but building it is more about feasibility. So even with the three I see people get confused so I just try to stick to the three as best I can, but basically we go into sustainability projects, still using those three, with sustainability top of mind. So I don't really call it out as a separate theme but I certainly take it into consideration when we're working on those projects.   Ula Ojiaku   Okay, just keeping it simple. Okay, thanks for that, David. So there are some instances where the people will consider probably are outliers to the known proven principles of design thinking, of product development, customer discovery. And I can't remember, I mean, I would have attributed it to the person, but I was just reading a tweet from someone who is known in the product development world and he was saying that if, he wouldn't have guessed that with the advent of or the popularity of Generative AI, that ChatGPT, according to his books, you know, broke all the rules of products, discovery products, development in the sense that there, and I wasn't aware that they were, Open AI was doing lots of market research to say, hey, what do you want from an AI assistant or Generative AI? But within months of releasing it to the public, they gained millions of users. So what's your thought on this? Would you say it was an outlier or is it that there were some principles working in the background that we are not aware of? David Bland   I imagine there's a lot going on we're not aware of. It reminds me of the older conversations about the iPhone. There was this air of, Steve Jobs had this single brilliant idea about the iPhone and then willed it into being and then everyone, it was wildly successful, right? But I look at, even like the first iPhone as, in a way it was kind of a minimum viable product. I mean, the hardware was pretty solid, but the software, the OS was not. I mean, it didn't have really basic stuff that we would expect that we had on other things like Blackberries at the time. You couldn't copy and paste, there were some things that were missing and people viewed it as a toy and they kind of laughed at it, you know, and then they iterated on it. I would say it was about iPhone three or four, by the time they really started to get market fit with it, and then you see, you know, people you wouldn't expect with iPhones with their iPhone. You're like, wait a second, that person has an iPhone. But that took a while, you know. And I think with Open AI, it's kind of a, we're still in the early stages of a lot of this, I feel, and I'm not really sure how it's going to shake out, but I imagine, you know, they seem to be very iterative about how they're going about it, you know. So I don't know how they went about the creation of it at first, but I feel as if at least now they're taking feedback. They're not just building stuff people are asking for, but they're looking at, well these people are asking for this, but why are they asking for it and what are they trying to achieve and how might we achieve that by releasing something that solves for that. And that's kind of your job, right? It's not just to build what people ask for. It's more about getting to the need behind what they're asking for, and there might be a more elegant way to solve for what they're asking for. But there's also some backlash with AI. So I see some things happening where a lot of my corporate clients have just banned it at the firewall, they don't want their employees even accessing it. They want to keep it within the company walls, so to speak, which is going to be kind of challenging to do, although there are some solutions they're employing to do that. I also see people taking it and, you know, interviewing fake users and saying, I can validate my idea because they asked OpenAI and it said it was a good idea, so I don't have to talk to customers. And it's like, okay, so they're taking some kind of persona from people and kind of building up a thing where you interact with it, and it seems very confident in it. It seems very confident in its statements. Like, that's the thing that I've noticed with OpenAI and a lot of this ChatGPT stuff is that it can be like really confidently wrong, but you find security in that confidence, right? And so I do see people saying, well I don't have to talk to customers, I just typed in ChatGPT and asked them. And I said, this is the kind of customer, what would that customer want? And it can literally generate personas that can generate canvases. It can do a lot that makes you seem like they are good answers. You could also just click regenerate and then it'll come up with really confident, completely different answers. So I think there's still a way where we can use it to augment what we do, I'm still a big believer in that, because I think it's really hard to scale research sometimes, especially if they have a small team, you're in a Startup. I think we can use AI to help scale it in some ways, but I think we just have to be careful about using it as the single source of truth for things because in the end it's still people and we're still, find all the tech problems, still people problems. And so I think we have to be careful of how we use AI in Agile and research and product development in general. Ula Ojiaku   Completely agree, and the thing about being careful, because the AI or the model is still trained at the end of the day by humans who have their blind spots and conscious or unconscious biases. So the output you're going to get is going to be as good as whatever information or data the person or persons who trained the model would have. So what I'm still hearing from you if I may use Steve Blank's words would be still get out of the building and speak to real customers. I mean, that could be a starting point or that could be something you augment with, but the real validation is in the conversation with the people who use or consume your products. David Bland   I think the conversations are still important. I think where it gets misconstrued a bit is that, well people don't know what they want, so we shouldn't talk to them. I think that's an excuse, you should still talk to them. The teams that I work with talk to customers every week quite often, and so we want that constant contact with customers and we want to understand their world, we want to find new insights, we want to find out what they're trying to do and trying to achieve, because sometimes that can unlock completely new ideas and new ways to make money and new ways to help them. I think this idea of, well, we can't talk to customers because we don't have a solution ready or we can't talk to customers because they don't know what they want, I feel as if those aren't really the reasons you should be talking to customers. With discovery, you're trying to figure out the jobs, pains and gains, test value prop with them, continue to understand them better. And if you pay attention to your customers, there's this great Bezos quote, right. If you pay attention to your customers and your competitors are paying attention to you, you're going to be fine because you are, they're getting lagging information, right? You're really deeply connected to your customers, and so I just think we've somehow built this culture over time where we can't bother customers, we can't confuse them, we can't come to them unless we have a polished solution and I think that's becoming less and less relevant as we go to co-creation. We go more to really deeply understanding them. I think we have to be careful of this culture of we can't bother them unless we have a polished solution to put in front of them, I don't think that's where we're headed with modern product management. Ula Ojiaku   And someone might be saying, listening to, whilst I've gone through your masterclass, I've read your book, but someone might say, well, do you mean by jobs, pains and gains with respect to customers? Could you just expand on those, please? David Bland   Yeah, if you look at the, so my co-author Alex Osterwalder, if you go back to the book before Testing Business Ideas, there's a Value Proposition Design book where we have the value prop canvas. If you look at the circle in that book, so the tool kind of has a square and a circle, and we usually start with a circle side, which is a customer profile. And with the profile, you're really trying to think of a role or even a person, you're not trying to do it at the org level, you're trying to think of an actual human being. And in that, we kind of break it down into three sections. One is customer jobs to be done. So you can think about, you know, one of the functional, usually functional jobs that tasks are trying to do, you could also weave in, you know, social jobs, emotional supporting, it can get really complicated, but I try to keep it simple. But one way to find out those jobs is by talking to customers, right? Then next are the pain points. So what are the pain points that customers are experiencing, usually related to the jobs they're trying to do. So if they're trying to do a task, here's all the stuff that's making it really hard to do that task. Some of it's directly related, some of it's tangential, it's there, it's like these impediments that are really, you know, these pains that they're experiencing. And then the third one is gains. So we're looking for what are the gains that can be created if they're able to either do this task really well, or we're able to remove these pains, like what are some things that they would get out of it. And it's not always a one to one to one kind of relationship. Sometimes it's, oh, I want peer recognition, or I want a promotion, or, you know, there are some things that are tangential that are related to gains, so I love that model because when we go and we start doing discovery with customers, we can start to understand, even in Agile right. If we're doing discovery on our stories, you know, we're trying to figure out what are they trying to achieve? And then is this thing we're about to build going to help them achieve that? You know, what are the pains we're experiencing? Can we have characteristics or features that address these big pain points they're experiencing? And then let's just not solely focus on the pains, let's also think about delighters and gains and things we could do that like kind of make them smile and make them have a good day, right? And so what are some things that we could do to help them with that? And so I love that framing because it kind of checks a lot of the boxes of can they do the task, but also, can we move the pains that they're experiencing trying to do it and then can we can we help create these aha moments, these gains for them? Ula Ojiaku   Thank you, and thanks for going into that and the definitions of those terms. Now, let's just look at designing experiments and of course for the listeners or people if you're watching on YouTube, please get the book, Testing Business Ideas, there's a wealth of information there. But at a high level, David, can you share with us what's the process you would advise for one to go through in designing, OK yes, we have an idea, it's going to change the world, but what's the process you would recommend at a high level for testing this out? David Bland   At a high level, it's really three steps. The first is extracting your assumptions. So that's why I like the desirable, viable, feasible framing. If you have other things you want to use, that's fine, but I use desirable, viable, feasible and I extract. So, what's your risk around the market, the customer, their jobs to be done, the value prop, all that. Viability is what's your risk around revenue, cost, can you keep cost low enough, can you make money with this in some way, make it sustained? And then feasibility is much more, can you do it, can you execute it, are there things that prevent you from just executing on it and delivering it? So that step one is just extracting those, because this stuff is usually inside your head, you're worried about it, some of them might be written down, some of them might not be. If you're in a team, it's good to have perspectives, get people that can talk to each theme together and compromise and come together. The second part of the process is mapping and prioritisation. So we want to map and focus on the assumptions that we've extracted that are the most important, where we have the least amount of evidence. So if we're going to focus experimentation, I want to focus on things that make a big difference and not necessarily play in a space that's kind of fun to play in and we can do a bunch of experiments, but it doesn't really pay down our risk. And so I like focusing on what would be called like a leap of faith assumption, which I know Eric Ries uses in Lean Startup, it also goes back to probably like Kierkegaard or something, and then Riskiest Assumption is another way you can frame it, like what are the Riskiest Assumptions, but basically you're trying to say what are the things that are most important, where we have least amount of evidence. So that's step two, prioritisation with mapping. And then step three is running experiments. And so we choose the top right, because we've extracted using the themes, we have desirable, viable, feasible. We can use that to help match experiments that will help us pay down the risk, and so I always look for mismatch things. Like you're not going to pay down your feasibility risk by running customer interviews, that doesn't help you whether or not you can deliver it. So making sure that you're matching your risk, and that's kind of where the book plays in mostly because we have 44 experiments that are all organised by desirable, viable, feasible, and then we have like cost, setup time, runtime, evidence, strength, capabilities. There's like a bunch of kind of information radiators on there to help you choose, and so we basically run experiments to then go and find out, you know, are these things that have to be true, that we don't have a lot of evidence to prove them out, are they true or not? And so we start then using this process to find out and then we come back and update our maps and update our artefacts, but that's kind of the three step process would be extract, map and then test.   Ula Ojiaku   Thank you. Would you say that there is a time when the testing stops? David Bland   I would say it never completely stops, or at least hopefully it doesn't completely stop. Even if you're using discovery and delivery, I find that usually in the beginning there's a lot of discovery and maybe a little bit of delivery or almost no delivery, and then as you de-risk you have kind of like more delivery and then a little bit less discovery. And then maybe if you're in a kind of repeatable mode where you're trying to scale something there's a lot of delivery and a little bit of discovery, but where I get really nervous are teams that kind of have a phase or a switch and they say, okay, we've done all the discovery now we're just going to build and deliver. I feel as if that constant contact with customers, being able to constantly understand them, their needs are going to change over time as you scale, it's going to change things, and so I get really nervous when teams want to just kind of act like it's a phase and we're done with our testing, right, we're done with our discovery. And I feel great organisations are always discovering to an extent. So it's just really finding the balance with your teams and with your orgs, like how much delivery do you have to do? How much discovery do you need to kind of inform that delivery? So ideally it doesn't stop, but the percentage of discovery you're doing in testing will most likely change over time. Ula Ojiaku   So in the world of Agile, Agile with a capital A in terms of the frameworks that originated from software development, the role of the Product Owner/Product Manager is typically associated with ensuring that this sort of continuous exploration and discovery is carried out throughout the product's lifecycle. Do you have any thoughts on this notion or idea? David Bland   I think there's always some level of risk and uncertainty in your backlog and in your roadmaps. So people in charge of product should be helping reduce that uncertainty. Now, it's usually not on their own, they'll pair with a researcher, maybe a designer. They might even be pairing with software developers to take notes during interviews and things like that to socialise how they're paying down the risk. But I think if you look at your backlog, you're kind of looking at middle to bottom and saying, oh, there's a lot of uncertainty here, I'm not really sure if you should even be working on these. So part of that process should be running discovery on it, and so I try to socialise it. So if you're in your Standups, talk about some of the discovery work you're doing, if you're in planning, plan out some of the discovery work you're doing, it's just going to help you build this overall cohesive idea of, well, I'm seeing something come in that I have to work on, but it's not the first time I've seen it, and I kind of understand the why, I understand that we did discovery on it to better understand and inform this thing and shape what I'm about to work on, and so I think it helps create those like touch points with your team. Ula Ojiaku   Thank you for that, David. So let's go on. There is, of course, your really, really helpful book,  personally I have used it and I've taken, I've not done all the experiments there, but definitely some of the experiments I have coached teams or leaders and organisations on how to use that. But apart from Testing Business Ideas, are there other books that you have found yourself recommending to people on this topic? David Bland   Yeah, I think there's some that go deeper, right, on a specific subject. So for example, interviews, that can be a tool book itself, right, and so there's some great books out there. Steve Portigal has some great books on understanding how to conduct interviews. I also like The Mom Test, well I don't like the title of the book, the content is pretty good, which is basically how to really do a customer interview well and not ask like, closed-ended leading bias questions that just get the answers you want so you can just jump to build, you know. So there are some books I keep coming back to as well. And then there's still some older books that, you know, we built on, foundationally as part of Testing Business Ideas, right? So if you look at Business Model Generation from Alex Osterwalder, Value Prop Design, the Testing Business Ideas book fits really well in that framework. And while I reference Business Model Canvas and Value Prop Canvas in Testing Business Ideas, I don't deep dive on it because there's literally two books that dive into that. A lot of the work we've built upon is Steve Blank's work from Four Steps to the Epiphany and I think people think that that book's dated for some reason now, but it's very applicable, especially B2B discovery. And so I constantly with my B2B startups and B2B corporations, I'm constantly referring them back to that book as a model for looking at how you go about this process from customer discovery to customer validation. So yeah, there are some ones I keep coming back to. Some of the newer ones, there are some books on scaling because I don't, I'm usually working up until product market fit, you know, and I don't have a lot of growth experiments in there. So there are some books now starting to come out about scaling, but I think if you're looking at Testing Business Ideas and saying, oh, there's something here and it kind of covers it, but I want to go a lot deeper, then it's finding complimentary books that help you go deeper on a specific thing, because Testing Business Ideas are more like a library and a reference guide and a process of how to go through it. It would have been like two or three times in length if we'd gone really, really deep on everything, so I think 200 pages of experiments was a pretty good quantity there. And so I'm often, I'm referring books that go deeper on a specific thing where people want to learn more.   Ula Ojiaku   Thank you for that. So if the audience, they've listened to what you have to say and they're like, I think I need to speak with David, how can they reach you? David Bland   Yeah, I mean, davidjbland.com is a great place to go, that's me, you can read about me, you can watch videos on me presenting. I have, you know, videos of me presenting at conferences, but also, there's a YouTube channel you can go to where I have some of my webinars that are free to watch as well, and just little coaching videos I make where I'm like, hey, I have a team that's really struggling with this concept and I just kind of make a quick YouTube video helping people out to say this is how I'm addressing this with, you know, with a team. Also Precoil, P-R-E-C-O-I-L, that's my company, and so there's a lot of great content there as well. And then just in general social media, although I have to say I'm pulling back on social media a little bit. So, I would say for the most part LinkedIn is a great place to find me, I'm usually posting memes about customer discovery and videos and things just trying to help people, like make you laugh and educate you, and so LinkedIn, surprisingly, I don't think I'd ever say like, oh, come check me out on LinkedIn, you know, five or ten years ago, but now that's where I spend a lot of my time, and I feel like that's where my customers are and that's where I can help them, so yeah, I end up spending a lot of time on LinkedIn too.   Ula Ojiaku   Yeah, some of your memes there like, I mean, how do I put it, just gets me up in stitches. Yeah, I don't know how you find them or do you commission actors to do some of them, but yeah, it's good. So yeah, so LinkedIn, social media is the main place, and your websites, those would be in the show notes. I also heard you do have a course, an online course. Can you tell us about that? David Bland   Yeah, this summer, I finally found some space to put together my thoughts into an Assumptions Mapping Course. So that is on Teachable. I'm going to be building it out with more courses, but I've just had enough people look at that two by two and read the book and say, I think I know how to facilitate this, but I'm not sure, and so I literally just went like step by step with a with a case study and it has some exercises as well where you can see how to set up the agenda, how to do the pre work for it, who you need in the room for it, how to facilitate it, what traps to look out for because sometimes, you know, you're trying to facilitate this priority sort of exercise and then things go wry. So I talked about some of the things I've learned over the years facilitating it and then what to do a little bit after. So yeah, it's a pretty just like bite-sized hands-on oh, I want to learn this and I want to go try with the team or do it myself. So yeah, I do have a new course that I launched that just walks people step by step like I would be coaching them. Ula Ojiaku OK, and do you mind mentioning out loud the website, is it precoil.teachable.com and they can find your Assumptions Mapping Fundamentals Course there?   David Bland   Correct. It's on precoil.teachable.com   Ula Ojiaku   OK, and search for Assumptions Mapping Fundamentals by David Bland. Right, so are there any final words of wisdom that you have for the audience, David. David Bland   Try to keen an open mind when you're going through a lot of this work. I feel as if the mindset is so important, you know. So if you're taking this checkbox mentality, you're not going to get the results out of following any of these processes, right. So, I think being able this idea of, oh, I'm opening myself to the idea that there's some assumptions here that may not be true, that I should probably test. It shouldn't be an exercise where you're just checking the box saying, yep, I wrote down my assumption and then, yeah, I ran an experiment that validated that and then move on, you know. It's more about the process of trying to, because your uncertainty and risk kind of move around. So, this idea of mindset, I can't stress enough that try and keep an open mind and then be willing to learn things that maybe you weren't expected to learn, and I think all these great businesses we look at over the years, they started off as something else, or some form of something else, and then they happened upon something that was an aha moment during the process, and I think that's, we have to be careful of rewriting history and saying it was somebody, it was a genius and he had a single brilliant idea, and then just built the thing and made millions. Very rarely does that ever occur. And so I think when you start really unwinding and it's about having an open mind, being willing to learn things that maybe you didn't anticipate, and I think just that mindset is so important. Ula Ojiaku   Thanks. I don't mean to detract from what you've said, but what I'm hearing from you as well is that it's not a linear process. So whilst you might have, in the book and the ideas you've shared, you know, kind of simplifying it, there are steps, but sometimes there might be loops to it too, so having an open mind to know that's something that worked today or something you got a positive result from, might not necessarily work tomorrow, it's, there's always more and it's an iterative journey.   David Bland   It's quite iterative.   Ula Ojiaku   Yeah. Well thank you so much David for this, making the time for this conversation. I really learned a lot and I enjoyed the conversation. Many thanks.   David Bland   Thanks for having me. Ula Ojiaku   My pleasure. That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!   

 Bio    Rob is the co-founder of propertyhub.net and the bestselling author of The Price Of Money (Penguin). He co-presents the UK's most popular property podcast, and has a weekly column in The Sunday Times.   Interview Highlights 02:30 Jack of all trades 06:00 Recruiting interested people 07:45 Life as a digital nomad 10:50 Getting into property 12:00 Podcasting – the magic ingredients 17:40 Property investment 20:20 Long term vision 23:10 The Price of Money 26:00 Inflation & interest rates 31:00 Diversified portfolios 34:00 The end game 36:40 Seeking advice 39:40 Systemising property investments 42:30 Sharing strategic decisions 46:20 Goal setting 48:40 Parenting perspectives 59:20 Increasing your own earning power 1:02:40 Consume less, do more   Social Media ·         LinkedIn:  Rob Dix on LinkedIn ·         Instagram: Rob Dix on Instagram ·         Twitter: Rob Dix (@robdix) ·         Website:  Robdix.com ·         Website: propertyhub.net Books & Resources ·         The Price of Money: How to Prosper in a Financial World That's Rigged Against You, Rob Dix ·         How To Be A Landlord: The Definitive Guide to Letting and Managing Your Rental Property, Rob Dix ·         The Complete Guide to Property Investment: How to survive & thrive in the new world of buy-to-let, Rob Dix ·         Property Investment for Beginners, Rob Dix ·         100 Property Investment Tips: Learn from the experts and accelerate your success, Rob Dix, Rob Bence ·         Beyond the Bricks: The inside story of how 9 everyday investors found financial freedom through property, Rob Dix ·         The Property Podcast - YouTube ·         Die With Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life, Bill Perkins ·         How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World: A Handbook for Personal Liberty, Harry Browne ·         Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity, Peter Attia, Bill Gifford ·         The Coming Wave, Mustafa Suleyman, Michael Bhaskar ·         The Exponential Age: How Accelerating Technology is Transforming Business, Politics and Society, Azeem Azhar   Episode Transcript Intro: Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener.  Ula Ojiaku    I'm pleased to have with me here as my guest, Rob Dix, who is the co-founder of Property Hub and he's also an author, investor, entrepreneur extraordinaire, and we'll be learning more about it. So Rob, thank you so much for making the time to be my guest on the Agile Innovation Leaders Podcast.   Rob Dix    It's a pleasure, thank you.   Ula Ojiaku  Yes. I usually start with this question for my guests because personally, I am curious. I love learning about people. So what would you say have shaped you, looking at your background, into the Rob Dix we know and admire today?    Rob Dix    Well, it's a well trodden career path. I studied cognitive neuroscience, went to work in the music industry, obviously, as you do. And then sort of ended up leaving that and going into property. None of that makes any sense, and I think that sort of sums up how I've got here, which is just by following my curiosity and doing whatever seemed like a good idea at the time, and so if something seemed interesting to me, I would do it. And property, which I got into by accident in my early thirties, was probably the first thing that I've really stuck with and it's held my interest for the long term. I'd always just sort of like, wanted to figure out how something works, once I knew how it works I got bored, moved on, but with property it's like you kind of never get to the end, there's so much to it, and then it's also served as a gateway into investing more generally and into economics, ended up writing this book about how the economy works and all this kind of thing, but it's the same old theme of just kind of going with whatever seems interesting.    Ula Ojiaku    A very fascinating background. It sounds to me, and I'm not trying to box you in or label you, but you sound like someone who's multi-passionate and multi-talented, would you call yourself a jack of all trades?    Rob Dix    Absolutely. Yeah. I've written an article actually, in defence of being a jack of all trades, because I think people fixate on the master of none bit, but I think that there's a lot to be said for knowing a little about a lot, and I think it's a natural tendency. I was saying to my wife the other day that I don't think I would be able to, if I had to like knuckle down and it's like if you just do this one thing for three years, then there'll be this incredible payoff at the end of it. I don't think I could do it, even knowing that that payoff was there. I'm just naturally a little bit of like, sort of taking bits from everywhere. So I don't think there's any point in fighting it. I think you kind of skew one way or the other, and so I'm trying to embrace that tendency and use that to pull in ideas from various places into what I'm doing now, and yeah, make the best of it rather than just being completely scattered.    Ula Ojiaku    I feel like I am the same. I tend to get bored with things, I learn things quickly and once I've learned it and it's kind of routine, I get bored, and the only way to keep consistent is just about broadening my horizons, so learning from different fields. I have an engineering background, but I love learning about philosophy, psychology, how can I bring ideas out there into the field? From all outward appearances, you are successful. So what would you say has been the benefit of being a jack of all trades and kind of understanding who you are, embracing it instead of fighting it? How has it benefited you?    Rob Dix    A good question. Not something I've thought about, but I'd say on a purely social level, knowing a little bit about a lot is helpful, because you can end up talking to pretty much anyone about anything, whatever they're interested in, you know something about it and have some kind of a way in, rather than just having your one topic that you can bore on about forever. And I think in general, it just means that I'm always excited to be doing whatever it is that I'm doing, there's never like a, urgh, I'm still in the grind, because even if, you know, everyone has grindy periods of their career, their business or whatever, and I don't think that's necessarily avoidable, which is how it goes. You can't be absolutely delighted with everything all the time, but even when that's happening, there's always something I'm excited about, even if it's just being able to watch a YouTube video about something that evening that I'm looking forward to, like learning about something completely random, there's always something that means that it just never feels mundane.    Ula Ojiaku    And actually what you've said here with the whole buzz about GenAI. Where are we going? How is it impacting us? And it kind of reminds me of the World Economic Forum, their Future of Work publications, they do this annually, and one of the key attributes that would be needed in whatever future roles or responsibilities that you're going to have, is the ability to learn and unlearn. So that curiosity, being able to look out, I think it's something that, well, I am trying to teach my children as well, which is yes, you can learn a subject, you can learn things in school, but what's going to sustain you and keep you relevant is going to be your ability to learn, unlearn, and relearn, so it's really key.    Rob Dix    Totally. When we're hiring people, we always look for people who are interested in something, whatever it is, it doesn't have to be work related, even if it's super weird, better if it's super weird, because people who are interested in something, and people who push themselves in some way and challenge themselves, whether that's in a physical way, like doing an ultra-marathon or just taking something and seeing how far they can push it, I think if you put those two things together, we've found, that those are the traits of the high performers who you want to have around.    Ula Ojiaku    Yes, because there's something in the bias of past performance, but it doesn't necessarily predict the future performance, but the attributes of being excited about something, being able to dig into something of one's own initiative, not relying on external motivators, that is a better predictor of future performance than what one did in the past. I don't know what you think about it?    Rob Dix    Yeah, totally, and that's why we put very little weight on a CV because you can bend your life story in all kinds of different ways, but yeah, I think those internal attributes, like you said, are a better predictor.    Ula Ojiaku    Hmm. Okay, well, I'm glad to hear I have someone who thinks similar in this path. So you did say, just back to your background again, which is fascinating. You studied cognitive neuroscience, then went into music, found that boring, you then lived as a digital nomad for seven years before falling into property. Can you tell us a bit more about that?    Rob Dix   Yeah, so that was another classic example of just doing whatever seems fun at the time, and so that was when I left the music industry, because I'd got to roundabout 30, and when you're into music, as a way to spend your twenties, fantastic, you get to claim it's work, but it's just, if you're out every night, then you're doing a really good job of work, but then I was looking at the people who were 10, 20 years ahead of me and had families and the rest of it and they just didn't seem to be having fun anymore. They didn't really want to be out every night doing all this stuff, and so I thought, well, I'll get out now, while I feel like I'm in a strong position to make a move, not knowing what I was going to do next.  My wife and I went to spend six months in New York, because she loved it, had lived there before, wanted to go back, so we were there and then we discovered, I can't remember how, but we discovered the whole digital nomad thing while we were there, and it was this real moment of, oh yeah, we planned to do six months here and then go back to London and get a job or start something or whatever, but we don't have to. You can just go and work from anywhere, anywhere you've got an internet connection, and now that's obviously mainstream, people work from home, companies have policies where you can go and work from another country, and it's normal, but as recently as sort of like pre-covid 2019 kind of time, I'd almost try to avoid telling people that I was abroad, because they'd think it was strange and whatever, but now it's just become normalised, but back then it was, yeah, it was weird, but it was just super cool, because it gave us an opportunity to just go and live in all kinds of different places, and when you go and live somewhere, even if it's only for a month to three months or something, it's still very different from going up there for a week's holiday. You get to feel like you know a place on a deeper level, and so that was really interesting.    Ula Ojiaku   Right. No, I completely agree. I mean, I wouldn't say I'm at the level you are at as being a digital nomad, but professionally, I've had the privilege of visiting 18 countries and counting and there is that real difference when you stay there for a month or so, being able to soak in the culture, understand the nuances, get to know people, and actually potentially form relationships. During the time you were with your wife in New York for about six months, did you by any chance come across Tim Ferriss' 4 Hour Workweek?    Rob Dix    Oh, of course.    Ula Ojiaku    Could that have influenced you as well, by any chance?    Rob Dix    Yeah, I think that was before we left, and so that was kind of like the conceptual read about it in a book, but then we encountered real people who we met, who we talked to, who were doing it. And so it's like, oh, this isn't just a thing in a book, this is a thing that people are actually doing, and that made it a bit more real, I suppose.    Ula Ojiaku    And then you fell into a property. Could you tell us how you fell?    Rob Dix   Yeah. So by the time I left music, I sort of got to the point where I had some savings.  What's the default UK thing you do when you've got some savings? It's by property. So, I got interested in it and in the process of researching that investment, I just got super into it, and I suppose in the same way as I, and by the sounds of it, you, get into things, it's something new, it's exciting, you want to learn everything there is to learn about it, and there were, back in those days, there weren't all the same resources there are now, but there were message boards that I'd read through and things like that, and so I did all that in the process of buying my first couple of investments, but then, where that would normally I'd hit that point, right onto the next thing now, that never happened, I've retained that interest, and while we were abroad, I thought I want to learn more about this, I want to go deeper, but don't really know how, it's not like I want to go and get a job working property or anything, but I also got interested in podcasts, and so I thought well, I wonder how you create a podcast, and so I started a podcast and a blog talking about property, mainly as an excuse to get other people to talk to me. So if I just call someone and say, I don't really know anything, but would you have a chat with me on property for an hour, of course they're not going to say yes, but if you say it's an interview, and they don't think to ask if anyone listens to this thing, then they're going to say yes, and they did, and so, then it was episode number two or three of that that I recorded, where I met Rob Bence, who went on to become my business partner, and we've been doing a podcast together for about ten years now, but it was purely that. It was just, again, starting something without really knowing what the outcome of it was supposed to be, that then led to this whole career that was never the plan at all.    Ula Ojiaku    You know, the reason why I was laughing is it's similar story, but just different settings. I started my podcast, I was looking to get into a different field or career, and I quite didn't know how, and there was someone I wanted to work with, like you said, just rocking up to the person and saying, give me a job because I'm good, the person probably wouldn't have given me the time of the day, but when I now thought about it, framed it, kind of said, okay, how do I plot my cunning plan, I'll invite him for an interview and I'll say it's about this, I didn't know anything about podcasts, I didn't know how to set it up or anything, I just said well when we get to that bridge we'd cross it. So we had the interview, had conversations, and once I pressed stop on the recording, he said, I want you to work with us.    Rob Dix    Works every time.    Ula Ojiaku    But it's impressive though. 10 years, you and your partner have consistently been recording and releasing your podcast, how do you do this, because it's impressive.    Rob Dix    So I think there are two magic ingredients to this. One is to record at seven o'clock on a Monday morning, because there's not much that's going to stop you. If you try to do it at midday on a Wednesday, who knows what kind of business thing would come up or whatever, so doing that means it just happens. And the other is having a partner, because we both had podcasts previously on our own where the upload schedule was all over the place, because being consistent on your own is so hard, but when there's the accountability of someone else to turn up we just, I guess in those early days when you could easily waver, we were both turning up for each other, and now we've been doing it so long that it's just something you do. It's just inconceivable that you wouldn't turn up and do a podcast, and it's a lot of fun, and so I wouldn't want to miss a week. So yeah, we put out a podcast literally every week for 10 years, including through the births of various children and other family events, and we had episodes go out on Christmas day and New Year's day, not recorded on those days, but we put them out because it's like, it's a Thursday, the podcast comes out, that's how it is, and I think a large amount of the success that we've had has been early mover advantage. We were lucky to be early, definitely far harder today, but also consistency.    Ula Ojiaku    And would you say that you have some sort of administrative help in the background? Because I found that, two years ago I hired an assistant and I have outsourced like the production, it's not my strength, just having people to do that. Do you have that sort of help and has that made any difference?    Rob Dix    It's definitely helped. So we had an editor from the very beginning who would literally just take the files, take out the mistakes and that was it, nothing super high end, but it's just removed another barrier to doing it, and then for probably the last four years or something, we've had a proper producer who sits on the calls with us and does some research and all the rest of it, so there's a bit more to it, but we were doing it for six years before that, but being able to focus on the bit that you're good at and that you enjoy and remove all the stuff around it. I mean, I think I know people who are very successful, who've been doing it for a very long time who still edit their own audio. I don't quite understand it, but they clearly they get something from it. Maybe going back and reviewing the material is helpful to them, but for me that would take it out of the fun zone, I suppose.    Ula Ojiaku    So what have you learned in these 10 years of hosting the Property Podcast with Rob Bence and being in partnership in business with him?    Rob Dix    Well I've learnt an incredible amount, and I think a lot of that learning comes from being forced to talk about it, I think really helps, because I think everyone's learning stuff all the time, but it's very easy to learn stuff, but not be able to, and maybe you internalise it, but you can't verbalise it because you never have, and I like writing because that's how I kind of help develop ideas, but I also develop ideas in conversation, and because I'm forced to take those ideas and put them into a form that other people can understand on the podcast, it means that I've learned a whole lot more than I otherwise would have done because it's just made me it think about things more deeply, I suppose. So that process has been incredibly useful.    Ula Ojiaku    What have you learned about property?    Rob Dix   I think that my view on property has completely shifted over the years. I think I started from the position that most other people start in, which is not wrong, but it's that you sort of see  property as something that, you're looking at it at the level of the property itself, it's all about that particular asset. You're very fixated on the precise layout of that property, location of that property, you're thinking very deeply about that itself, and you're thinking about the rent that it brings in and it makes you a profit and that's great, and none of that is wrong at all, but through being exposed to property at, I suppose, a larger scale and also thinking about the economy a lot more, and how everything fits together, I now think about property not so much at the individual property level, but at the sort of the macro level of well, what is this, what is this as an asset class, where does it fit into everything, where does the ability to buy with debt fit into it, which is a huge, huge thing, and what about the growth of that asset over time, as opposed to just the rental income? So I've kind of gone from one extreme, which is where the majority of people will start, where you're doing everything yourself, you're thinking very hard about what colour paint to use or whatever, to now I'm like the last, however many properties I've bought, I've never seen, I just haven't visited them, I want to make sure it's good, but I'm not fixated on every last detail of it, because I'm more thinking about, well, you know, taking into account the overall economic context, where will this asset be in 10 years, and if I think that's a good place, then the colour you painted the living room doesn't make a big difference in that investment case. So I think I've now ended up at an extreme version of the other end, but being somewhere towards the middle of that spectrum, rather than just looking at the individual property level, I think is helpful. So we try to take people somewhere along that journey through what we do on the podcast.    Ula Ojiaku   And on your podcast, the thing about you and Rob Bence, or Rob B as he is fondly referred to, is that you have this unusual quality or ability to break down typically complex topics into simple step by step, easy to follow concepts. I aspire to communicate like you both do. So  what's your take on the taking a bigger picture approach towards property, kind of looking at your purchase of properties as from a perspective of how they can serve a longer term goal or a bigger vision?    Rob Dix    Yeah, I've come to see property as very much a long term thing and property, it kind of forces you to be long term, because it's such a pain to buy and sell it, and that's one of the drawbacks of property, but I think it's actually one of the hidden advantages, because you could pick any asset class and if you just bought it, held on to it, and didn't mess around with it, then you'd probably do okay, but obviously if you're investing in the stock market, then it's incredibly easy to mess around, like sell when you panic and sell when you shouldn't be, and buy when you shouldn't be, and get carried away, and so you can almost be your own worst enemy. With property, it forces you to think long term, and when you take that perspective, but especially when you consider the fact that if you're buying with debt, then the value of your debt stays static and yet inflation will lift the value of the property itself, so even if property only ever goes up in line with inflation, but your debt is static, then you end up winning just through the natural process of inflation existing. So that makes no difference over a year or two, but over a decade, it makes a big difference. So when you start looking at it through that lens, then you say, oh, well, it's almost rigged in my favour and it's almost, and it's going to play out in this way, and so the details don't matter so much. If you're trying to make money from property, if it's your job, you're flipping properties or you're refurbishing and you want to pull your money back out again, then you need to get everything right, and you need everything to go in your favour and need that to happen quickly, and you can do that. It's hard work, but you can do it, but if, rather than using property to make money, you're using property to store and compound wealth over time, then it just works in such a way that you don't have to worry about so many of the things that you normally would, and you'd have to, after you've been doing it for a decade, you see it and you go, oh yeah, I bought the property for this much, and now it's worth this much, I had 25 percent equity in the property, now I've got 50 percent equity in the property, and you see it. It's hard to see for the first couple of years because it happened so slowly, but then when you believe it happened and you see it happening, then it gets really exciting.    Ula Ojiaku    Gosh, I could take this to several directions, but I will hold myself. So your book, the latest one, I know you're in the process of putting together another one, and I know it's going to be excellent, and of course, if you'd like to tell us about it later on, you can, but in your book, you did mention the thing about inflation, and it's not intuitive, but that's property holding, the value, but I was kind of thinking of the gold standards, because gold, if you were to buy property back then, maybe 50 years ago, 100 years ago, paying in gold, you would probably more or less, you need the same amount of gold to pay today, but it's not the same with fiat currency, like the paper money. Could you explain a bit more about that?    Rob Dix    Yeah, inflation, it's another one of those things that happens slowly. So, obviously, over recent years, everyone's been talking about inflation, and it's been particularly high, but most of the time it's not, and it's not supposed to be, there's this 2 percent target, which is pretty arbitrary, but it's meant to be at a level where you don't notice it happening, no one complains about it that much, but over time, that 2 percent compounding really adds up. So even if inflation were under control, the effect of this is that the same number of pounds or dollars or whatever else will buy you progressively less and less over time, and everyone knows this, but doesn't think about it, in that you're used to the fact that everything costs more now than when you were a child, but why, that doesn't make any sense. If anything, it should have got cheaper, because we found more efficient ways of producing whatever it is, but you're just used to that being the case, and it's not because it has got more expensive to produce everything, it's because the value of the money that you're measuring it in has fallen, and that's what inflation effectively is. So where it comes back to gold is that everyone thinks that property is this asset class that's had runaway growth, but it's incredible, if you go back to the 70s, and you measure it in gold instead of in pounds, then it's pretty much the same. It would take you the same amount of gold to buy a house today as it would have done 50 years ago, and that shows you that it's because, it's not like gold has stayed completely still, so the analogy is not perfect, but what it kind of drives at is that it's not the property that's moved, it's the pound that's moved, that hasn't gone up in value, the pound's fallen in value, and so that's just, so if you own a hard asset, something that there's a limited supply of, of which gold is one, property is another, Bitcoin's a third if you're that way inclined, then over time, that will go up in value compared to the pounds that is shrinking. The next level of that is that if you buy that asset with leverage, with debt, then it means that the debt is measured in pounds, and so over time it has this effect that you might have borrowed £100,000, and 50 years ago, £100,000 would have been a vast amount of money. Now it's just like, yeah, I'll take out a mortgage for that, no big deal, and then another 50 years, well, what's it going to be then? It's going to be not quite pocket change, but getting on for it, and so you get to benefit from the fact that like I say, even if the asset that you own, the property in this case, only goes up at the same pace as everything else, then you win, because the debt that you took out is static. So you could have a property that you bought for £200,000, it goes up to be worth £300,000 purely because of inflation, well that extra £100,000, that's all yours, you still own the same as you did in the first place.    Ula Ojiaku    So is it despite the interest rates, would you say the inflation still, would there be a point in time where it wouldn't make sense?    Rob Dix   It's a great question and it's actually got better now interest rates have normalised because if you could take out a fixed rate mortgage for the entire time that you're going to own the property, which in America you pretty much can, then it's all good, because you know exactly what your outgoing is going to be, and if you're making a monthly profit from that property, then your interest cost is kind of irrelevant, it's been covered by the rent, so the interest that you're paying is never coming out of your own pocket. So that's like, great, sorted. The problem is if interest rates go up dramatically, which of course recently they have, which means that if you bought something that made sense when you're borrowing at 2 percent and now you're borrowing at 5 percent, that can be a painful adjustment, and eventually rents will increase to such an extent that it'll all make sense again, but there could be a number of years in the middle where it just doesn't really work for you, but for the whole time, the whole 14 years, the interest rates were pretty much nothing. We knew that that was unusual, we knew that wasn't supposed to be the case, and one day they would go up again. We didn't expect them to go back up to where they were so quickly, but we knew it was going to happen at some point, and so that made it tricky to go, okay, well, how much of a margin do I need to build into my calculations? What do I need to assume that interest rates could go up to, that'll still be okay, but now it's happened, let's say that you're borrowing at 5 percent today, I'm not saying it's not going to go up further at some point, it could do, it could go up to 6 percent, but interest rates have gone up by about 250 percent over the last couple of years, that's not going to happen again. If you're borrowing at 5 percent today, it's not going to go up to 10 percent. Come back and clip this if it happens and make me look silly, but it's not going to happen, because the world is so indebted that everything will fall apart. So you still need to have a margin, but it's not the same as it was before.  So that's the silver lining view on the fact that interest rates have gone up so fast. It's a painful adjustment, but it means that you can make future decisions with more certainty.    Ula Ojiaku    Is that why you made the statement that investing can be seen as a leveraged bet on inflation?    Rob Dix    Yeah. So the simple way of describing this is if inflation lifts the value of your asset, whatever that asset is, property in this case, by 2 percent a year, which is what inflation is supposed to be, if you've only put in a quarter of the money, then that means that it lifts the value of the money that you've put in by 8 percent, so you're getting an 8 percent growth on your own money based on just inflation being at the rate it was supposed to be, and the way it tends to play out, as we've seen, is that if inflation overshoots, then you say you get more inflation than you're supposed to, yeah, that's not great as a central bank, you'll try and bring it back down, but it's not the end of the world, whereas if inflation goes below 2 percent, they'll pull out all the stops, print money, slash interest rates, do everything they can to get it back up. So the effective rate is, the average over the last 20 years has been 3.8, and it's met, and so even though the target is two, so if that's the case, and your asset keeps up with that, then again, multiply by four, if you put in a quarter of the money, and that's where you get to, and the only assumption you need to make is that inflation continues to exist, and of course it is because it has to, because it's explicit policy, and if you ended up with deflation, then the government is in the same position that you are as an individual, the government has debt and an inflation makes it that more manageable, deflation would make it less manageable. It's still barely manageable as it is, so it just can't be allowed to happen. So that's why if you're pinning your investment on one particular concept, that's the one I'd feel pretty confident about.    Ula Ojiaku    You are an advocate for a having a diversified portfolio. Could you explain or share how you go about doing that and why it's important?    Rob Dix    Yeah, I think that everyone will have their own view when it comes to how much diversification they want or need, and there is an argument that if you deeply understand something, then there's almost more safety in investing 100 percent in something you deeply understand that most people either don't, then sort of diversify across a whole load of things that you don't understand. I've got some sympathy for that view. If someone said to me that they were 100 percent in property on the basis that they had all the right safety measures in place, they weren't over leveraged, they had emergency funds, all this kind of stuff, then I wouldn't be like, you're crazy, and I think it's also, to a large extent, the best investment is the one that you actually make. People are scared of investing in things that they don't understand in many cases, rightfully so. So if there's a particular investment that you're happy with, and it means that the alternative would be doing nothing, then that's fine, but personally, I'm heavily in property, but I also invest in other assets, stocks, bonds, gold, Bitcoin, you name it, but I sort of split my portfolio in two in terms of the way I think about it. I've got property, which is the bit that I'm supposed to know about, and so I'm kind of, I'm not actively making decisions. Everything else I'm going, well, I can't possibly know about all this other stuff as well, it's not possible, there's not enough time. So I split my non property part of my portfolio across everything, on the basis that whatever happens, there'll be times when bits of it are doing well, bits of it are not doing well, and it will all average itself out in the end, and so the important bit there is being truly diversified, because investing in just the UK stock market, if you're just tracking the FTSE 100, you might think, well, great, I'm diversified across a hundred companies, but it's all one geography, right, and if something happens to the country, that affects everything, and it's just one asset class, it's just the stock market. If something affects all stocks, then that affects, so even just being globally diversified across stocks isn't enough, so you need to bring other assets into the mix as well, you want some things that are doing well when other things are doing poorly. So if you're going to go for diversification, then I think most people need to be more diversified than they might assume, because there are times when stock markets across the world all do very, very badly and do for a long time, at which point you want to be owning something else as well.    Ula Ojiaku   I believe I've heard you and Rob Bence (that is, Rob B.) say this, you know, in several of your episodes of your podcast, it's all about your end game, because  it's senseless to go copying people or imitating people indefinitely without knowing the rationale behind why they're doing what they're doing. So if one has that clarity of, this is where I want to be in 10 years, 20 years time, then you work backwards. It might make sense, given the example you gave us, oh, maybe someone having 100 percent of their investments in property, but they have all the stop gaps and the safety measures in place and yourself going into, okay, I have part of my assets in property, but I've also diversified, I think it's all about the end game.    Rob Dix    I think that that's completely true, and it's also the hardest thing to figure out. You can go and research investments for all day long, but then knowing what you actually want is, that's hard, the self-knowledge piece of being able to predict the future and knowing how you'd react to different situations. I think it's very easy to, for example, go oh yeah, well, you know, I'm investing for the long term, so if my aggressive stock market portfolio goes down by 50 percent in a year, that's fine because I know it'll come back again. All right, but how would you really feel if that happened, and actually knowing that in advance is not an easy thing to do.    Ula Ojiaku   So for someone like me, it's not just about me, having children changes your perspective about things, because if it's just me personally, I think I can survive on beans and toast indefinitely, but when you have people you're responsible for, so some of the things I aspire to is for them to still be able to work and do meaningful work and add value, but not to be distracted by unnecessary things. So if it's music or art they want to major in, they can do that, but they have to be productive and bring value to the world through it, and not have to think about the money, but not too much that they wouldn't also know the value of work.  So that's the sort of end goal I am working towards, and of course, to be able to give to causes and create opportunities for people or demographics that are underserved or that typically wouldn't have the sort of opportunities compared to their contemporaries would, so that kind of drives me in terms of the way I choose things. So I'm wondering, though, where does going for expert advice come in? So you are an expert in property by all ramifications. If you talk about the number of hours you've put into it, the practical experience, but for the other parts that you don't have as much hours invested into it or experience, do you think it's a useful thing to seek out the advice and perspective of experts or people who know more about it, but of course keeping your end goal in mind?    Rob Dix    Yeah, I think that I'm unhelpfully independent in that I always want to do things myself, and that's not necessarily the best way. I think it's a good idea to bring in other people with more knowledge than you do, but with two things in mind, and you've mentioned both of these already, but first is knowing what you ultimately want, because any decent advisor is going to start by saying, so what do you want? I can't make a plan for you unless you tell me what the outcome is, and so you need to know that anyway. And then also I think having enough knowledge on your own to understand what you're being told and why you're being told it, and if it makes any sense, and I would personally never be comfortable making an investment, just because somebody with lots of diplomas on the wall or something said to me, I said, yeah, this is what you should be doing, trust me, it works for all my clients. Maybe they're right, but I just wouldn't be able to do it that way, so I think doing enough research and understanding enough about it is something that everyone should do, because no one's going to care about your money more than you do, but that doesn't mean you have to just plough ahead and do everything yourself.    Ula Ojiaku    No, definitely that critical thinking and not switching off your own thinking and analysis and doing one's homework, I completely agree. How much of it do you do when you consider investing in these other set classes?    Rob Dix    I've spoken one-on-one with professionals, but never got to a point where I feel like I want anyone to do anything for me. I feel like I'm investing in such a way that I can do it myself, because there's not much to do, I've deliberately set it up in a way where you just, again, diversify and leave it, but outside the context of speaking to people one on one, I've read vast amounts of other people's thinking on this topic because it's something that I find interesting, and so what I'm trying to do with my books is to come up with something for people who aren't that interested, so they can just read that one book and get sort of like the 80-20 of what they need, because I'm going to go deeper on it because it's fun for me, but I'm not judging, not everyone finds it fun, that is fine, and so yeah, I kind of researched it, all this stuff, but far beyond the point that I need to almost as a hobby, because it's enjoyable, but for everyone else, I don't think you need to take it to that kind of extreme at all.    Ula Ojiaku    Thanks for that, Rob, and it kind of brings me back to the point you made about, you've kind of systemised your, will I say your business, your work, your life, such that you spend less than an hour a week on your portfolio. Can you share the thinking behind it and how did you get to this?    Rob Dix    Yeah, so this is specifically to my property investments and so there's, I'd say three elements to this, and the real secret is in the third one. So the first is in the strategy. So it's a hands off approach. You buy something, you rent it out, you leave it, that's it, so there shouldn't be much to do. The second is, it's about the type of asset you buy. So if my goal is to be in it for a long time, all I want is for time to pass, then I don't want property that's going to be a hassle, because then it's going to take up my time, I'm probably going to give up on the whole thing and sell just out of annoyance, and so I'm buying assets deliberately that are relatively new so they don't need loads of stuff doing to them, and that's quality stuff so I can be very selective about the tenants that we put in there, so they're going to look after it and stay for the long term, and I've got properties where I've had tenants in there for five years, possibly more. It's like, well, that's the dream, that's fantastic. Then the third thing, which is the real secret is having a PA, because that then is like, okay, well, obviously of a portfolio of any size, even if you're using letting agents, things will happen, things will come up, things will need your decision, mortgages will need to be applied for things, just stuff will happen, and so having a PA to handle all that is just incredible because this whole, it's actually an hour a month, I think I put an hour a week, but it's an hour a month, and I tracked this to make sure that I was actually telling the truth, and I am, I tracked my time for a few months, and the only things that I did were transfer funds, sign things and occasionally answer a WhatsApp message from my PA saying, are you okay with me doing this, and that was it, and it's like, that's a position that you can't be at from day one, because it's not worth having the overhead of having that in place if you've just got one or two properties, but when you get to a bit more scale, that's the benefit of getting to scale, because you can put in place things like that that just make life so much easier.    Ula Ojiaku    Well, I definitely aspire to that. You say you run an open book management and profits share. Could you tell us what do you mean by that?    Rob Dix    Yeah, so this is something that we only started doing very recently, within the last six months at the time of recording and what we'd always had previously, so we've got a team of across the business, can I say somewhere between 30 and 40 people, I'm not quite sure, I should probably know that, but we've always had, like before, an executive team at the top, made up of maybe five, six people, and they would have access to the financials, the numbers, so they'd make all the strategic decisions off the back of that, and then go back to everyone else and say, right, this is it, this is how we're going to execute on it. The change that we made was that we gave access to all the financial numbers and everything to the entire business, and the benefit of that is that everyone can then be a part of those strategic decisions, because everyone, of course, knows their own area better than anyone higher up in the business does, because they're in it day to day, and so if they can see the numbers and how what they do can affect those, they can propose better ideas, they could act more effectively. We've had multiple, multiple instances, even just within those six months, of individuals coming up with ideas for people, things we could do better, things we could do cheaper, like cost cutting, and this is the other part of it, because the profit share element means that everyone's extra motivated to run the business better, because they directly benefit. And I thought that the benefit would be there in the longer term, I thought in the short term, it could actually be disruptive because you're almost distracting people from the day to day with all this other stuff, and it's a lot to take in if you don't come from a business background, you're not necessarily going to understand what EBITDA is or something, but now, actually, there was very little of that and we started seeing the benefit immediately. So, I'm not going to say I wish we did it sooner, because I think you need to have a certain type of maturity of team to be able to deal with that, we haven't always, and you need to have the business in a certain state to do that, but I'm very glad that we've done it now.    Ula Ojiaku    Hmm. And when you say you need to get to a certain level of maturity and state, is it more about having operational systems in place or something else?    Rob Dix    I think it's a couple of different things. I think the business needs to be in some form of stability or steady state in that if you're still trying to find your model, you're doing like a startup where you need to get the product market fit or whatever, you can't be led by financial numbers in the same way, you'll be led by data, but it's a different way, running lots of experiments, it's a different thing so you need to get the business to a certain point, and I think there's also a maturity of the people involved, and that's not an age thing with maturity, we've got very, very young people in our business who are sort of super mature. It's just an attitude. We've developed the team over time. We've got better at hiring. We've got better at finding brilliant people and holding onto them, and so we've now ended up with a team that is in age range all over the place, but in attitude wise, very mature and able to, I suppose, deal with this information and treat it the right way. I suppose the stereotypical negative view on this is you're talking about numbers in the millions, and someone's sitting there going, well, I'm only getting paid 40 grand, this isn't fair, but you've got to understand revenue and profit, not the same thing, and all this kind of stuff, and so there needs to be, yeah, you have to have the right mindset to really get it, I suppose.    Ula Ojiaku    Understood, it makes sense. And the thing about you saying, okay, opening up the financial information across the board to your employees, it aligns with this lean agile concept of decentralising the decision making and kind of bringing that decision making closer to people who are actually doing the work. Of course, there would be guardrails, and I'm sure you have that, so that that's a great concept. So how do you go about setting goals business wise, or you can start with personally and then business wise, because it's kind of ties into opening up the numbers to your team and then coming up with ideas, but how do you set goals generally, and how do you measure if you're achieving those outcomes you set out to?    Rob Dix    So I'll start with business wise, because I think it's easier, in that we, in the past, I think we've been guilty, and this comes from the top, it's me and Rob, we've been guilty of biting off too much, trying to do everything that seems like we could do it, and because the podcast has done so well and lots of other things have worked well for us, we've had situations where we could do a lot of things, I think we've had to learn that could do and should do are not the same thing, and there's only so much you can do a really great job at. So we've now got to a point where I think as we've matured as individuals as well, we just set goals that are based around growth, but not crazy growth, not hyper growth, and whenever you've got a financial number, you're balancing it with a service number, so you're not always just going for profit at the cost of anything else, and setting goals that are a stretch, but achievable. So we've again, made the mistake in the past, having super bold goals, which sound motivational, but then when you get half the way through the year, you go, there's no way we're going to do this, then it's actually demotivating for people. That's the business side, on the personal side it's not that different, we can come back to the jack of all trades thing, probably think about goals in the context of different areas of life. So I'm looking at all the different roles that I have and trying to have a, not just having business goals, but having fitness goals and family goals and friend goals and all that sort of thing, and trying to find some kind of balance, and again, I don't know if that's for everyone, I don't know if it's for every stage in life, I'm sure there'll be times when it makes sense to have a complete focus on your business so you can get to a certain point, or have a complete focus on your family and then go back to the business stuff later. There'll be times when that's the right thing to do, but for me, I'm in a position where I can and I want to sort of have a balance across everything.    Ula Ojiaku    And how would you say parenting has changed your perspective, comparing life without children and now?    Rob Dix    That's a really interesting question. I think it's shifted my focus in a way that before, because I enjoy work and things that seem like they could be work, you could argue whether they are at all, so doing more research on something or whatever, it's like, yeah, this is work but is it really work, so there was a tendency for that to just dominate everything, especially because I wanted to achieve, and so I just wanted to work all the way up till bedtime or whatever, because it was kind of fun and I'd tell myself it was necessary. But then when you have to finish at a certain time and you want to finish at a certain time because you want to see your kids, then it means I'm making a far more efficient use of the time that I put in, so in terms of a productivity hack, I think it's a good one, but also I think it's all the stereotypical stuff about being less selfish and more outwardly focused, I think I've become a lot more empathetic. I think I was possibly not massively deficient, but a little bit deficient in that regard before, and it's given me more empathy in general. And again, with the stereotypes, just kind of realising what really matters, and so whenever there's a business setback or challenge or whatever, it's just like, yeah, okay, but it's not the end of the world, is it, still with your family, it's all good, we'll deal with it.    Ula Ojiaku    Puts things in perspective, doesn't it?    Rob Dix    It does, and yeah, that's not an original insight, but it's completely true. So whenever you hear people saying this stuff before you're a parent, it's like, yeah, well, I don't know, maybe, maybe not, I don't know if that would be that way for me, but I didn't feel ready in the same way that, I don't know, some people I think know that they want to be parents or whatever. I probably waited a bit too long because I never felt ready, but then there comes a point where you just, you have to be ready, biology isn't going to wait, and so it's like, ah, yeah, I kind of thought everyone talks about all this stuff, is this going to be true for me? Surely not. But then it was. So there you go.   Ula Ojiaku  Well, thanks for sharing that. It's always a life changing decision, and I don't think it's an original thought, but parenting is like the job you get, and then you can get the experience afterwards. That goes against the natural law of things, at least you, you should have some sort of experience and proof that you're qualified, but parenting, being a parent is something that you typically get it and you learn on the job.    Rob Dix    Yeah. Well we had babysitters and stuff from when our kids were quite young and some of my friends would say like, oh, are you comfortable leaving them with babysitters? Are you kidding me? They actually know about this, I don't have a clue what I'm doing, they're far safer with them than with me.    Ula Ojiaku   I remember having my first child in the hospital, was one day and they were like, okay, yeah, now you can pack the baby and you're ready to go, and I'm like, what, and my husband then, and we're like, what, I mean, you're letting us go with this baby home? Okay. Yeah. Well, 13 years on, he still lives, so I think there's something to say about that. Well, it's been great. So what if we shift gears a bit more and then going to books, it's obvious you're an avid reader, learner, and what books have you found yourself recommending to others? I mean, apart from your very thoughtfully written book, The Price of Money, I can't recommend it enough. You break down economic concepts and kind of bring the whole big picture in, so it's something I've enjoyed going through and I will be referring to again and again, and you've also written books on property, like How to be a Landlord, which I have on my Kindle and others. Are there books that you found yourself recommending or gifting to others, and if so, can you share some of these?   Rob Dix Yeah, well, the thing about parenting, as you'll know, is it reduces your time for reading, so I've read far fewer books over the last six years than I had done previously. I find myself listening to a lot more podcasts than watching YouTube videos and stuff, but in terms of books, the one that I can mention that's made a real impact on me in recent years is called Die With Zero by Bill Perkins, and it really ties back into this whole goal setting slash knowing yourself slash what's the point of it all, and it's very relevant to investing as well, because the basic thesis is that you're always swapping something for money. So you're giving up your time, you're giving up your life energy, your focus, you're swapping something to get money, so if you live the ideal life, then you should be swapping enough of that to get all the money you want, to do to have all the experiences you want to have, and then die with zero. So you have nothing left to do, which means you've got it exactly perfectly right, but what most people do is they get fixated on the money part and always chasing a bigger number, so you end up passing on far more than you need to, dying with all this money in the bank, but you've missed out on having experiences, and there are some experiences you could only have in your 20s. So people talk a lot about how important it is to save from a young age and the compound interest and all the rest of it, and it's true, but it's got to be balanced against the fact that there are some experiences that you'll look back on fondly, later in life, that you can only have in your 20s. You wouldn't want to go clubbing in your 60s, or maybe you would, but I doubt I will, I wouldn't want to do it now, so that book, it's another one of those where it's super obvious when it's put to you in the right way, but he does such a great job of making that idea really connect, and I've made changes as a result of reading this book, and for me, that's the mark of a good self help book, right, does it actually help you?    Ula Ojiaku    The action, what action do you take afterwards? It's not just about, yeah, it's a good idea, I feel good, no action. Wow. Okay. It's definitely on my to read or listen to lists. What other book would you recommend?    Rob Dix   I've got another weird one, which is called How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World (Harry Browne), it's another of these books that kind of make you question your assumptions, I suppose, and the theme of it is about kind of doing what you want to and not doing things purely for other people, and this book does take it to extremes at points, it takes it further than I'd want to, but the point is often, I think people find themselves holding them back or limiting themselves based on either what other people think or what they assume other people want, and often it's just that other people don't really care that much, so you just do what you want to do, and so it's another one of those that gets you thinking in a different way.    Ula Ojiaku    Thanks for sharing, anything else?    Rob Dix   There's a book called Outlive by Dr. Peter Attia. It's about health and fitness, but it's coming at it from the perspective of what do you want to be able to do in the last decade of your life, well do it. So a lot of people, because of modern medicine, can live for a long time, but the quality of life in the last 10 or even more years is pretty shocking. So what do you want to be able to do, and if you get clear about what you want to be able to do, like you want to be able to pick up your grandkids and go for a long walk and all this kind of stuff, then work back from that to what you need to be able to do now, because there's going to be a drop off in terms of what you need to be able to do. So if you want to be able to walk a mile when you're 80, you need to be able to walk a lot more than a mile now I think from looking at it from that way, I found it very motivational compared to, well, yeah, it'd be nice to be able to have a bit more muscle or run a bit faster or whatever, but does it really matter that much, and I've found that quite eye opening.    Ula Ojiaku   Okay, well, and the thing about what you said about the book, Outlive, I haven't read any of the three books you've recommended yet, but I'm going to put them in my to-read list. There is this one I'm currently listening to, which is The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman. It's really talking about technology and he was one of the people that founded what's now the AI arm of Google, but talking about the intersection of AI with biotechnology and the sorts of advancements that this is going to push us into new frontiers, but kind of going back to what you said about thinking about in old age, what would you like to be able to do? The advancement is such that they are looking into how to defer aging, keep us fitter, longer, have a better quality of life, even in old age, and probably pushing our life expectancy even more, but there is that danger as well economically, because it's only those who have that certain level of affluence, or are comfortably financially that probably will be able to afford that, and those who don't the gap would widen. So it's just, you're mentioning it reminded me of the book and just halfway through, but if you've not read it, that is probably something that you might want to look into as well. That's my recommendation.    Rob Dix   Similar to that, that's reminded me of a book by Azeem Azhar called The Exponential Age, which I must admit I haven't actually read, but I interviewed him, so I watched loads of interviews with him in preparation for that, so I feel I've got the general idea, but that's about the accelerating pace of technology and even things like with 3D printing being a great example, like when that first came out, it was rubbish for years, and it was, ah, this will never turn into anything, and then they cracked it, and now it's incredible, and so many more technologies like that and the exciting side of that and the opportunities it brings, but as you highlighted, some of the dangers of that as well, and the challenges that it creates, so that's really interesting.    Ula Ojiaku    Yeah. Well, thanks for that. Any words of advice for the audience? Now, my audience are typically leaders in organisations, you know, entrepreneurs or leaders in large organisations who are usually looking for ideas of how to do better, implement better or live better, so generally, what would you leave the audience with?    Rob Dix    I think I'd hit on a point that I didn't mention earlier, but should have done when it comes to talking about investing and all the rest of it, which is a point that I'm going to be making in my next book, which is that all this investing stuff is great, but the most powerful thing that you have is your own earning power, because there's only so much you can save, based on how much you're earning - you can cut your costs, that's fantastic, but there's a limit, you can't live on zero. There's also a limit to what investments are going to do for you. You're not going to be able to make 100 percent returns every year forever, not possible, but the only thing that is uncapped is your earning power, so you can, if there's nothing stopping you from earning 10 times more than you are now, a hundred times more than you are now, I'm not saying everyone can, but it's theoretically possible, and so I think everyone gets very excited about investing, because it sounds like, oh yeah, I can invest in this thing and make a big return, but the only thing that you can really make a difference with, and the thing that you actually have control over, is your own earning power. So I think that's something that, although I talk about investing a lot, I think investing in learning new skills, taking a conscious approach to your career, I'm sure your audience will be doing this already, but really taking control of your career progression rather than just kind of like bumping along and hoping someone gives you a pay rise or something, that's far more valuable than any investment you can make, and finding something that you want to do, and will enjoy doing for a long time, because people are retiring later than ever, it's getting harder and harder, you're not going to be by default, get to age 65 and have your house paid off and have this pension that's been paid into for you. So obviously you want to do what you can investment wise to get to a point where you are able to retire when you want to, if you want to, but far better to never want to retire, and so if you just find something that you just love doing, so you can just happily, as long as your health permits, do it forever.    Ula Ojiaku    Wow. Increase your earning power, there's no cap to that. I am looking forward to your new book, definitely. Do you have any idea of when that is likely to hit the shelves?    Rob Dix    My publisher's been asking the same thing.    Ula Ojiaku    Okay. Well, no pressure, he or she didn't pay me, but I'm just wondering.    Rob Dix    At some point in 2025, these things I've got the write the thing first, but then even after that, it takes a while until it comes out, but yeah, at some point in 2025 is my hope.    Ula Ojiaku    All the best with the process, I know it's going to be something excellent, and I look forward to it coming out. So how can the audience find you?    Rob Dix    So they could go to robdix.com, that's where you'll find stuff I've written and links to everything else that I do, and there are links there to my social channels that I go through periods of being more active on than others, but that's probably the best place to start.    Ula Ojiaku    Any ask of the audience? For me, my ask is they should go check your website, buy your books if they're interested in property and economics and all that and read your blog, but any other ask of the audience?    Rob Dix    I guess my ask is if you've heard something that has sparked a thought, which I hope is the case if we've done our job, then do something with it because, again this is advice to myself here, but I listen to podcasts as entertainment almost sometimes, and it's really interesting and then you're onto the next one and you never do anything with it so I think consume less and do more with the stuff that you do consume is advice that I'm trying to give myself, and that's what I'll pass on to the audience as well.    Ula Ojiaku    Consume less, do more. Thank you so much, Rob. It's been a pleasure having you on this podcast and I thank you for sharing your wisdom, your insight, and you're as generous in this live virtual session, as you are in your newsletters and your podcast, so thank you again.    Rob Dix    Yeah. Thank you for having me. It's been a fun conversation.    Ula Ojiaku   Yes, I agree. Thank you again. That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!   

Bio Luke Hohmann is Chief Innovation Officer of Applied Frameworks. Applied Frameworks helps companies create more profitable software-enabled solutions. A serial entrepreneur, Luke founded, bootstrapped, and sold the SaaS B2B collaboration software company Conteneo to Scaled Agile, Inc. Conteneo's Weave platform is now part of SAFe Studio. A SAFe® Fellow, prolific author, and trailblazing innovator, Luke's contributions to the global agile community include contributing to SAFe, five books, Profit Streams™, Innovation Games®, Participatory Budgeting at enterprise scale, and a pattern language for market-driven roadmapping. Luke is also co-founder of Every Voice Engaged Foundation, where he partnered with The Kettering Foundation to create Common Ground for Action, the world's first scalable platform for deliberative decision-making. Luke is a former National Junior Pairs Figure Skating Champion and has an M.S.E. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan. Luke loves his wife and four kids, his wife's cooking, and long runs in the California sunshine and Santa Cruz mountains.    Interview Highlights 01:30 Organisational Behaviour & Cognitive Psychology 06:10 Serendipity 09:30 Entrepreneurship 16:15 Applied Frameworks 20:00 Sustainability 20:45 Software Profit Streams 23:00 Business Model Canvas 24:00 Value Proposition Canvas 24:45 Setting the Price 28:45 Customer Benefit Analysis 34:00 Participatory Budgeting 36:00 Value Stream Funding 37:30 The Color of Money 42:00 Private v Public Sector 49:00 ROI Analysis 51:00 Innovation Accounting    Connecting   LinkedIn: Luke Hohmann on LinkedIn Company Website: Applied Frameworks    Books & Resources   ·         Software Profit Streams(TM): A Guide to Designing a Sustainably Profitable Business: Jason Tanner, Luke Hohmann, Federico González ·         Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers (The Strategyzer series): Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur ·         Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want (The Strategyzer Series): Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Gregory Bernarda, Alan Smith, Trish Papadakos ·         Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products Through Collaborative Play: Luke Hohmann ·         The ‘Color of Money' Problem: Additional Guidance on Participatory Budgeting - Scaled Agile Framework ·         The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, Eric Ries ·         Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change 2, Kent Beck, Cynthia Andres ·         The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering: Brooks, Frederick Phillips ·         Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, Scott McCloud ·         Ponyboy: A Novel, Eliot Duncan ·         Lessons in Chemistry: A Novel, Bonnie Garmus, Miranda Raison, Bonnie Garmus, Pandora Sykes ·         What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing, Oprah Winfrey, Bruce D. Perry ·         Training | Applied Frameworks   Episode Transcript Intro: Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener.  Ula Ojiaku   So I have with me Luke Hohmann, who is a four time author, three time founder, serial entrepreneur if I say, a SAFe fellow, so that's a Skilled Agile Framework fellow, keynote speaker and an internationally recognised expert in Agile software development. He is also a proud husband and a father of four. So, Luke, I am very honoured to have you on the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. Thank you for making the time. Luke Hohmann Thank you so much for having me, I'm very happy to be here, and hi everyone who's listening. Ula Ojiaku Yes, I'm sure they're waving back at you as well. I always start my conversations with my guests to find out about them as individuals, you know, so who is Luke? You have a BSc in Computer Science and an MSc in Computer Science and Engineering, but you also studied Cognitive Psychology and Organisational Behaviour in addition to Data Structures and Artificial Intelligence. AI is now making waves and is kind of at the forefront, which is interesting, you had the foresight to also look into these. So my question is, what took you down this path? Luke Hohmann Sure. I had a humble beginning in the world of technology. I worked for a large company, Electronic Data Systems, and it was founded in the mid 60s by a gentleman named Ross Perot, and it became a very, very large company. So my first job at Electronic Data Systems was working in a data centre, and we know what data centres are, but back then, data centres were different because they were predominantly mainframe-based data centres, and I would crawl underneath the floor, cabling the computers and cabling networking equipment. Now, when we think networking, we're really thinking one of two kinds of networking. We think of wireless networking or we think of some form of internet networking, but back in those days, there were varieties of network protocols, literally the standards that we use now weren't invented yet. So it was mainframe networking protocols and dial ups and other forms of networking protocols. From there, I worked my way from beneath the ground up. I had some great managers who saw someone who was worthy of opportunity and they gave me opportunity and it was great. And then eventually I started working in electronic data systems and there was, the first wave of AI came in the mid 80s and that's when we were doing things like building expert systems, and I managed to create with a colleague of mine, who's emerged as my best friend, a very successful implementation of an expert system, an AI-based expert system at EDS, and that motivated me to finish off my college degree, I didn't have my college degree at the time. So EDS supported me in going to the University of Michigan, where as you said, I picked up my Bachelor's and Master's degree, and my advisor at the time was Elliot Soloway, and he was doing research in how programmers program, what are the knowledge structures, what are the ways in which we think when we're programming, and I picked up that research and built programming environments, along with educational material, trying to understand how programmers program and trying to build educational material to teach programming more effectively. That's important because it ignited a lifelong passion for developing education materials, etc. Now the cognitive psychology part was handled through that vein of work, the organisational behaviour work came as I was a student at Michigan. As many of us are when we're in college, we don't make a lot of money, or at university we're not wealthy and I needed a job and so the School of Organisational Behaviour had published some job postings and they needed programmers to program software for their organisational behaviour research, and I answered those ads and I became friends and did the research for many ground-breaking aspects of organisational behaviour and I programmed, and in the process of programming for the professors who were in the School of Organisational Behaviour they would teach me about organisational behaviour and I learned many things that at the time were not entirely clear to me, but then when I graduated from university and I became a manager and I also became more involved in the Agile movement, I had a very deep foundation that has served me very well in terms of what do we mean when we say culture, or what do we mean when we talk about organisational structures, both in the small and in the large, how do we organise effectively, when should we scale, when should we not scale, etc. So that's a bit about my history that I think in terms of the early days helped inform who I am today. Ula Ojiaku Wow, who would have thought, it just reminds me of the word serendipity, you know, I guess a happy coincidence, quote unquote, and would there be examples of where the cognitive psychology part of it also helped you work-wise? Luke Hohmann Yeah, a way to think about cognitive psychology and the branch that, I mean there's, psychology is a huge branch of study, right? So cognitive psychology tends to relate to how do we solve problems, and it tends to focus on problem solving where n = 1 and what I mean by n is the number of participants, and where n is just me as an individual, how do I solve the problems that I'm facing? How do I engage in de-compositional activities or refinement or sense making? Organisational behaviour deals with n > 1. So it can deal with a team of, a para-bond, two people solving problems. It can deal with a small team, and we know through many, many, many decades of research that optimal team structures are eight people or less. I mean, we've known this for, when I say decades I mean millennia. When you look at military structure and military strategy, we know that people need to be organised into much smaller groups to be effective in problem solving and to move quickly. And then in any organisational structure, there's some notion of a team of teams or team engagement. So cognitive psychology, I think, helps leaders understand individuals and their place within the team. And now we talk about, you know, in the Agile community, we talk about things like, I want T-shaped people, I want people with common skills and their area of expertise and by organising enough of the T's, I can create a whole and complete team. I often say I don't want my database designer designing my user interface and I don't want my user interface designer optimising my back end database queries, they're different skills. They're very educated people, they're very sophisticated, but there's also the natural feeling that you and I have about how do I gain a sense of self, how do I gain a sense of accomplishment, a sense of mastery? Part of gaining a sense of mastery is understanding who you are as a person, what you're good at. In Japanese, they would call that Ikigai, right, what are the intersections of, you know, what do I love, what am I good at, what can I make a living at and what do people need, right? All of these intersections occur on an individual level, and then by understanding that we can create more effective teams. Ula Ojiaku Thank you. I've really learned something key here, the relationship between cognitive psychology and organisational behaviour, so thanks for breaking it down. Now, can we go quickly to your entrepreneurship? So there must be three times you started three times a company and you've been successful in that area. What exactly drives you when it comes to establishing businesses and then knowing when to move on? Luke Hohmann Sure. I think it's a combination of reflecting on my childhood and then looking at how that informs someone when they're older, and then opportunities, like you said, serendipity, I think that's a really powerful word that you introduced and it's a really powerful concept because sometimes the serendipity is associated with just allowing yourself to pursue something that presents itself. But when I was young, my father died and my mum had to raise six kids on her own, so my dad died when I was four, my mum raised six kids on her own. We were not a wealthy family, and she was a school teacher and one of the things that happened was, even though she was a very skilled school teacher, there were budget cuts and it was a unionised structure, and even though she was ranked very highly, she lost her job because she was low on the hiring totem pole in terms of how the union worked. It was very hard and of course, it's always hard to make budget cuts and firing but I remember when I was very young making one of those choices saying, I want to work in a field where we are more oriented towards someone's performance and not oriented on when they were hired, or the colour of their skin, or their gender or other things that to me didn't make sense that people were making decisions against. And while it's not a perfect field for sure, and we've got lots of improvement, engineering in general, and of course software engineering and software development spoke to me because I could meet people who were diverse or more diverse than in other fields and I thought that was really good. In terms of being an entrepreneur, that happened serendipitously. I was at the time, before I became an entrepreneur in my last job, was working for an Israeli security firm, and years and years ago, I used to do software anti-piracy and software security through physical dongles. This was made by a company called Aladdin Knowledge Systems in Israel, and I was the head of Engineering and Product Management for the dongle group and then I moved into a role of Business Development for the company. I had a couple of great bosses, but I also learned how to do international management because I had development teams in Israel, I had development teams in Munich, I had development teams in Portland, Oregon, and in the Bay Area, and this was in the 2000s. This is kind of pre-Agile, pre-Salt Lake City, pre-Agile Manifesto, but we were figuring things out and blending and working together. I thought things were going pretty well and I enjoyed working for the Israelis and what we were doing, but then we had the first Gulf War and my wife and I felt that maybe traveling as I was, we weren't sure what was going to happen in the war, I should choose something different. Unfortunately, by that time, we had been through the dot-bomb crisis in Silicon Valley. So it's about 2002 at the time that this was going on, and there really weren't jobs, it was a very weird time in Silicon Valley. So in late 2002, I sent an email to a bunch of friends and I said, hey, I'm going to be a consultant, who wants to hire me, that was my marketing plan, not very clever, and someone called me and said, hey, I've got a problem and this is the kind of thing that you can fix, come consult with us. And I said, great. So I did that, and that started the cleverly named Luke Hohmann Consulting, but then one thing led to another and consulting led to opportunities and growth and I've never looked back. So I think that there is a myth about people who start companies where sometimes you have a plan and you go execute your plan. Sometimes you find the problem and you're solving a problem. Sometimes the problem is your own problem, as in my case I had two small kids and a mortgage and I needed to provide for my family, and so the best way to do that at the time was to become a consultant. Since then I have engaged in building companies, sometimes some with more planning, some with more business tools and of course as you grow as an entrepreneur you learn skills that they didn't teach you in school, like marketing and pricing and business planning etc. And so that's kind of how I got started, and now I have kind of come full circle. The last company, the second last company I started was Conteneo and we ended up selling that to Scaled Agile, and that's how I joined the Scaled Agile team and that was lovely, moving from a position of being a CEO and being responsible for certain things, to being able to be part of a team again, joining the framework team, working with Dean Leffingwell and other members of the framework team to evolve the SAFe framework, that was really lovely. And then of course you get this entrepreneurial itch and you want to do something else, and so I think it comes and goes and you kind of allow yourself those opportunities. Ula Ojiaku Wow, yours is an inspiring story. And so what are you now, so you've talked about your first two Startups which you sold, what are you doing now? Luke Hohmann Yeah, so where I'm at right now is I am the Chief Innovation Officer for a company, Applied Frameworks. Applied Frameworks is a boutique consulting firm that's in a transition to a product company. So if this arm represents our product revenue and this arm represents our services revenue, we're expanding our product and eventually we'll become a product company. And so then the question is, well, what is the product that we're working on? Well, if you look at the Agile community, we've spent a lot of time creating and delivering value, and that's really great. We have had, if you look at the Agile community, we've had amazing support from our business counterparts. They've shovelled literally millions and millions of dollars into Agile training and Agile tooling and Agile transformations, and we've seen a lot of benefit from the Agile community. And when I say Agile, I don't mean SAFe or Scrum or some particular flavour of Agile, I just mean Agile in general. There's been hundreds of millions of dollars to billions of dollars shoved into Agile and we've created a lot of value for that investment. We've got fewer bugs in our software because we've got so many teams doing XP driven practices like Test Driven Development, we've got faster response times because we've learned that we can create smaller releases and we've created infrastructure that lets us do deployments automatically, even if you're doing embedded systems, we figured out how to do over the air updates, we've figured out how to create infrastructure where the cars we're driving are now getting software updates. So we've created for our business leaders lots of value, but there's a problem in that value. Our business leaders now need us to create a profit, and creating value and creating a profit are two different things. And so in the pursuit of value, we have allowed our Agile community to avoid and or atrophy on skills that are vital to product management, and I'm a classically trained Product Manager, so I've done market segmentation and market valuation and market sizing, I've done pricing, I've done licensing, I've done acquisitions, I've done compliance. But when you look at the traditional definition of a Product Owner, it's a very small subset of that, especially in certain Agile methods where Product Owners are team centric, they're internal centric. That's okay, I'm not criticising that structure, but what's happened is we've got people who no longer know how to price, how to package, how to license products, and we're seeing companies fail, investor money wasted, too much time trying to figure things out when if we had simply approached the problem with an analysis of not just what am I providing to you in terms of value, but what is that value worth, and how do I structure an exchange where I give you value and you give me money? And that's how businesses survive, and I think what's really interesting about this in terms of Agile is Agile is very intimately tied to sustainability. One of the drivers of the Agile Movement was way back in the 2000s, we were having very unsustainable practices. People would be working 60, 80, death march weeks of grinding out programmers and grinding out people, and part of the Agile Movement was saying, wait a minute, this isn't sustainable, and even the notion of what is a sustainable pace is really vital, but a company cannot sustain itself without a profit, and if we don't actually evolve the Agile community from value streams into profit streams, we can't help our businesses survive. I sometimes ask developers, I say, raise your hand if you're really embracing the idea that your job is to make more money for your company than they pay you, that's called a profit, and if that's not happening, your company's going to fail. Ula Ojiaku They'll be out of a job. Luke Hohmann You'll be out of a job. So if you want to be self-interested about your future, help your company be successful, help them make a profit, and so where I'm at right now is Applied Frameworks has, with my co-author, Jason Tanner, we have published a bold and breakthrough new book called Software Profit Streams, and it's a book that describes how to do pricing and packaging for software enabled solutions. When we say software enabled solution, we mean a solution that has software in it somehow, could be embedded software in your microwave oven, it could be a hosted solution, it could be an API for a payment processor, it could be the software in your car that I talked about earlier. So software enabled solutions are the foundation, the fabric of our modern lives. As Mark Andreessen says software is eating the world, software is going to be in everything, and we need to know how to take the value that we are creating as engineers, as developers, and convert that into pricing and licensing choices that create sustainable profits. Ula Ojiaku Wow. It's as if you read my mind because I was going to ask you about your book, Software Profit Streams, A Guide to Designing a Sustainably Profitable Business. I also noticed that, you know, there is the Profit Stream Canvas that you and your co-author created. So let's assume I am a Product Manager and I've used this, let's assume I went down the path of using the Business Model Canvas and there is the Customer Value Proposition. So how do they complement? Luke Hohmann How do they all work together? I'm glad you asked that, I think that's a very insightful question and the reason it's so helpful is because, well partly because I'm also friends with Alex Osterwalder, I think he's a dear, he's a wonderful human, he's a dear friend. So let's look at the different elements of the different canvases, if you will, and why we think that this is needed. The Business Model Canvas is kind of how am I structuring my business itself, like what are my partners, my suppliers, my relationships, my channel strategy, my brand strategy with respect to my customer segments, and it includes elements of cost, which we're pretty good at. We're pretty good at knowing our costs and elements of revenue, but the key assumption of revenue, of course, is the selling price and the number of units sold. So, but if you look at the book, Business Model Generation, where the Business Model Canvas comes from, it doesn't actually talk about how to set the price. Is the video game going to be $49? Is it going to be $59, or £49 or £59? Well, there's a lot of thought that goes into that. Then we have the Value Proposition Canvas, which highlights what are the pains the customer is facing? What are the gains that the customer is facing? What are the jobs to be done of the customer? How does my solution relate to the jobs? How does it help solve the pain the customer is feeling? How does it create gain for the customer? But if you read those books, and both of those books are on my shelf because they're fantastic books, it doesn't talk about pricing. So let's say I create a gain for you. Well, how much can I charge you for the gain that I've created? How do I structure that relationship? And how do I know, going back to my Business Model Canvas, that I've got the right market segment, I've got the right investment strategy, I might need to make an investment in the first one or two releases of my software or my product before I start to make a per unit profit because I'm evolving, it's called the J curve and the J curve is how much money am I investing before I well, I have to be able to forecast that, I have to be able to model that, but the key input to that is what is the price, what is the mechanism of packaging that you're using, is it, for example, is it per user in a SAS environment or is it per company in a SAS environment? Is it a meter? Is it like an API transaction using Stripe or a payment processor, Adyen or Stripe or Paypal or any of the others that are out there? Or is it an API call where I'm charging a fraction of a penny for any API call? All of those elements have to be put into an economic model and a forecast has to be created. Now, what's missing about this is that the Business Model Canvas and the Value Proposition Canvas don't give you the insight on how to set the price, they just say there is a price and we're going to use it in our equations. So what we've done is we've said, look, setting the price is itself a complex system, and what I mean by a complex system is that, let's say that I wanted to do an annual license for a new SAS offering, but I offer that in Europe and now my solution is influenced or governed by GDPR compliance, where I have data retention and data privacy laws. So my technical architecture that has to enforce the license, also has to comply with something in terms of the market in which I'm selling. This complex system needs to be organised, and so what canvases do is in all of these cases, they let us take a complex system and put some structure behind the choices that we're making in that complex system so that we can make better choices in terms of system design. I know how I want this to work, I know how I want this to be structured, and therefore I can make system choices so the system is working in a way that benefits the stakeholders. Not just me, right, I'm not the only stakeholder, my customers are in this system, my suppliers are in this system, society itself might be in the system, depending on the system I'm building or the solution I'm building. So the canvases enable us to make system level choices that are hopefully more effective in achieving our goals. And like I said, the Business Model Canvas, the Value Proposition Canvas are fantastic, highly recommended, but they don't cover pricing. So we needed something to cover the actual pricing and packaging and licensing. Ula Ojiaku Well, that's awesome. So it's really more about going, taking a deeper dive into thoughtfully and structurally, if I may use that word, assessing the pricing. Luke Hohmann Yeah, absolutely. Ula Ojiaku Would you say that in doing this there would be some elements of, you know, testing and getting feedback from actual customers to know what price point makes sense? Luke Hohmann Absolutely. There's a number of ways in which customer engagement or customer testing is involved. The very first step that we advocate is a Customer Benefit Analysis, which is what are the actual benefits you're creating and how are your customers experiencing those benefits. Those experiences are both tangible and intangible and that's another one of the challenges that we face in the Agile community. In general, the Agile community spends a little bit more time on tangible or functional value than intangible value. So we, in terms of if I were to look at it in terms of a computer, we used to say speeds and feeds. How fast is the processor? How fast is the network? How much storage is on my disk space? Those are all functional elements. Over time as our computers have become plenty fast or plenty storage wise for most of our personal computing needs, we see elements of design come into play, elements of usability, elements of brand, and we see this in other areas. Cars have improved in quality so much that many of us, the durability of the car is no longer a significant attribute because all cars are pretty durable, they're pretty good, they're pretty well made. So now we look at brand, we look at style, we look at aesthetics, we look at even paying more for a car that aligns with our values in terms of the environment. I want to get an EV, why, because I want to be more environmentally conscious. That's a value driven, that's an intangible factor. And so our first step starts with Customer Benefit Analysis looking at both functional or tangible value and intangible value, and you can't do that, as you can imagine, you can't do that without having customer interaction and awareness with your stakeholders and your customers, and that also feeds throughout the whole pricing process. Eventually, you're going to put your product in a market, and that's a form itself of market research. Did customers buy, and if they didn't buy, why did they not buy? Is it poorly packaged or is it poorly priced? These are all elements that involve customers throughout the process. Ula Ojiaku If I may, I know we've been on the topic of your latest book Software Profit Streams. I'm just wondering, because I can't help but try to connect the dots and I'm wondering if there might be a connection to one of your books, Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products Through Collaborative Play, something like buy a feature in your book, that kind of came to mind, could there be a way of using that as part of the engagement with customers in setting a pricing strategy? I may be wrong, I'm just asking a question. Luke Hohmann I think you're making a great connection. There's two forms of relationship that Innovation Games and the Innovation Games book have with Software Profit Streams. One is, as you correctly noted, just the basics of market research, where do key people have pains or gains and what it might be worth. That work is also included in Alex Osterwalder's books, Value Proposition Design for example, when I've been doing Value Proposition Design and I'm trying to figure out the customer pains, you can use the Innovation Games Speed Boat. And when I want to figure out the gains, I can use the Innovation Game Product Box. Similarly, when I'm figuring out pricing and licensing, a way, and it's a very astute idea, a way to understand price points of individual features is to do certain kinds of market research. One form of market research you can do is Buy-a-Feature, which gives a gauge of what people are willing or might be willing to pay for a feature. It can be a little tricky because the normal construction of Buy-a-Feature is based on cost. However, your insight is correct, you can extend Buy-a-Feature such that you're testing value as opposed to cost, and seeing what, if you take a feature that costs X, but inflate that cost by Y and a Buy-a-Feature game, if people still buy it, it's a strong signal strength that first they want it, and second it may be a feature that you can, when delivered, would motivate you to raise the price of your offering and create a better profit for your company. Ula Ojiaku Okay, well, thank you. I wasn't sure if I was on the right lines. Luke Hohmann It's a great connection. Ula Ojiaku Thanks again. I mean, it's not original. I'm just piggybacking on your ideas. So with respect to, if we, if you don't mind, let's shift gears a bit because I know that, or I'm aware that whilst you were with Scaled Agile Incorporated, you know, you played a key part in developing some of their courses, like the Product POPM, and I think the Portfolio Management, and there was the concept about Participatory Budgeting. Can we talk about that, please? Luke Hohmann I'd love to talk about that, I mean it's a huge passion of mine, absolutely. So in February of 2018, I started working with the framework team and in December of 2018, we talked about the possibility of what an acquisition might look like and the benefits it would create, which would be many. That closed in May of 2019, and in that timeframe, we were working on SAFe 5.0 and so there were a couple of areas in which I was able to make some contributions. One was in Agile product delivery competency, the other was in lean portfolio management. I had a significant hand in restructuring or adding the POPM, APM, and LPM courses, adding things like solutions by horizons to SAFe, taking the existing content on guardrails, expanding it a little bit, and of course, adding Participatory Budgeting, which is just a huge passion of mine. I've done Participatory Budgeting now for 20 years, I've helped organisations make more than five billions of dollars of investment spending choices at all levels of companies, myself and my colleagues at Applied Frameworks, and it just is a better way to make a shared decision. If you think about one of the examples they use about Participatory Budgeting, is my preferred form of fitness is I'm a runner and so, and my wife is also a fit person. So if she goes and buys a new pair of shoes or trainers and I go and buy a new pair of trainers, we don't care, because it's a small purchase. It's frequently made and it's within the pattern of our normal behaviour. However, if I were to go out and buy a new car without involving her, that feels different, right, it's a significant purchase, it requires budgeting and care, and is this car going to meet our needs? Our kids are older than your kids, so we have different needs and different requirements, and so I would be losing trust in my pair bond with my wife if I made a substantial purchase without her involvement. Well, corporations work the same way, because we're still people. So if I'm funding a value stream, I'm funding the consistent and reliable flow of valuable items, that's what value stream funding is supposed to do. However, if there is a significant investment to be made, even if the value stream can afford it, it should be introduced to the portfolio for no other reason than the social structure of healthy organisations says that we do better when we're talking about these things, that we don't go off on our own and make significant decisions without the input of others. That lowers transparency, that lowers trust. So I am a huge advocate of Participatory Budgeting, I'm very happy that it's included in SAFe as a recommended practice, both for market research and Buy-a-Feature in APM, but also more significantly, if you will, at the portfolio level for making investment decisions. And I'm really excited to share that we've just published an article a few weeks ago about Participatory Budgeting and what's called The Color of Money, and The Color of Money is sometimes when you have constraints on how you can spend money, and an example of a constraint is let's say that a government raised taxes to improve transportation infrastructure. Well, the money that they took in is constrained in a certain way. You can't spend it, for example, on education, and so we have to show how Participatory Budgeting can be adapted to have relationships between items like this item requires this item as a precedent or The Color of Money, constraints of funding items, but I'm a big believer, we just published that article and you can get that at the Scaled Agile website, I'm a big believer in the social power of making these financial decisions and the benefits that accrue to people and organisations when they collaborate in this manner. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for going into that, Luke. So, would there be, in your experience, any type of organisation that's participatory? It's not a leading question, it's just genuine, there are typically outliers and I'm wondering in your experience, and in your opinion, if there would be organisations that it might not work for? Luke Hohmann Surprisingly, no, but I want to add a few qualifications to the effective design of a Participatory Budgeting session. When people hear Participatory Budgeting, there's different ways that you would apply Participatory Budgeting in the public and private sector. So I've done citywide Participatory Budgeting in cities and if you're a citizen of a city and you meet the qualifications for voting within that jurisdiction, in the United States, it's typically that you're 18 years old, in some places you have to be a little older, in some places you might have other qualifications, but if you're qualified to participate as a citizen in democratic processes, then you should be able to participate in Participatory Budgeting sessions that are associated with things like how do we spend taxes or how do we make certain investments. In corporations it's not quite the same way. Just because you work at a company doesn't mean you should be included in portfolio management decisions that affect the entire company. You may not have the background, you may not have the training, you may be what my friends sometimes call a fresher. So I do a lot of work overseas, so freshers, they just may not have the experience to participate. So one thing that we look at in Participatory Budgeting and SAFe is who should be involved in the sessions, and that doesn't mean that every single employee should always be included, because their background, I mean, they may be a technical topic and maybe they don't have the right technical background. So we work a little bit harder in corporations to make sure the right people are there. Now, of course, if we're going to make a mistake, we tend to make the mistake of including more people than excluding, partly because in SAFe Participatory Budgeting, it's a group of people who are making a decision, not a one person, one vote, and that's really profoundly important because in a corporation, just like in a para-bond, your opinion matters to me, I want to know what you're thinking. If I'm looking in, I'll use SAFe terminology, if I'm looking at three epics that could advance our portfolio, and I'm a little unsure about two of those epics, like one of those epics, I'm like, yeah, this is a really good thing, I know a little bit about it, this matters, I'm going to fund this, but the other two I'm not so sure about, well, there's no way I can learn through reading alone what the opinions of other people are, because, again, there's these intangible factors. There's these elements that may not be included in an ROI analysis, it's kind of hard to talk about brand and an ROI analysis - we can, but it's hard, so I want to listen to how other people are talking about things, and through that, I can go, yeah, I can see the value, I didn't see it before, I'm going to join you in funding this. So that's among the ways in which Participatory Budgeting is a little different within the private sector and the public sector and within a company. The only other element that I would add is that Participatory Budgeting gives people the permission to stop funding items that are no longer likely to meet the investment or objectives of the company, or to change minds, and so one of the, again, this is a bit of an overhang in the Agile community, Agile teams are optimised for doing things that are small, things that can fit within a two or three week Sprint. That's great, no criticism there, but our customers and our stakeholders want big things that move the market needle, and the big things that move the market needle don't get done in two or three weeks, in general, and they rarely, like they require multiple teams working multiple weeks to create a really profoundly new important thing. And so what happens though, is that we need to make in a sense funding commitments for these big things, but we also have to have a way to change our mind, and so traditional funding processes, they let us make this big commitment, but they're not good at letting us change our mind, meaning they're not Agile. Participatory Budgeting gives us the best of both worlds. I can sit at the table with you and with our colleagues, we can commit to funding something that's big, but six months later, which is the recommended cadence from SAFe, I can come back to that table and reassess and we can all look at each other, because you know those moments, right, you've had that experience in visiting, because you're like looking around the table and you're like, yeah, this isn't working. And then in traditional funding, we keep funding what's not working because there's no built-in mechanism to easily change it, but in SAFe Participatory Budgeting, you and I can sit at the table and we can look at each other with our colleagues and say, yeah, you know, that initiative just, it's not working, well, let's change our mind, okay, what is the new thing that we can fund? What is the new epic? And that permission is so powerful within a corporation. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for sharing that, and whilst you were speaking, because again, me trying to connect the dots and thinking, for an organisation that has adopted SAFe or it's trying to scale Agility, because like you mentioned, Agile teams are optimised to iteratively develop or deliver, you know, small chunks over time, usually two to three weeks, but, like you said, there is a longer time horizon spanning months, even years into the future, sometimes for those worthwhile, meaty things to be delivered that moves the strategic needle if I may use that buzzword. So, let's say we at that lean portfolio level, we're looking at epics, right, and Participatory Budgeting, we are looking at initiatives on an epic to epic basis per se, where would the Lean Startup Cycle come in here? So is it that Participatory Budgeting could be a mechanism that is used for assessing, okay, this is the MVP features that have been developed and all that, the leading indicators we've gotten, that's presented to the group, and on that basis, we make that pivot or persevere or stop decision, would that fit in? Luke Hohmann Yeah, so let's, I mean, you're close, but let me make a few turns and then it'll click better. First, let's acknowledge that the SAFe approach to the Lean Startup Cycle is not the Eric Ries approach, there are some differences, but let's separate how I fund something from how I evaluate something. So if I'm going to engage in the SAFe Lean Startup Cycle, part of that engagement is to fund an MVP, which is going to prove or disprove a given hypothesis. So that's an expenditure of money. Now there's, if you think about the expenditure of money, there's minimally two steps in this process - there's spending enough money to conduct the experiments, and if those experiments are true, making another commitment to spend money again, that I want to spend it. The reason this is important is, let's say I had three experiments running in parallel and I'm going to use easy round numbers for a large corporation. Let's say I want to run three experiments in parallel, and each experiment costs me a million pounds. Okay. So now let's say that the commercialisation of each of those is an additional amount of money. So the portfolio team sits around the table and says, we have the money, we're going to fund all three. Okay, great. Well, it's an unlikely circumstance, but let's say all three are successful. Well, this is like a venture capitalist, and I have a talk that I give that relates the funding cycle of a venture capitalist to the funding cycle of an LPM team. While it's unlikely, you could have all three become successful, and this is what I call an oversubscribed portfolio. I've got three great initiatives, but I can still only fund one or two of them, I still have to make the choice. Now, of course, I'm going to look at my economics and let's say out of the three initiatives that were successfully proven through their hypothesis, let's say one of them is just clearly not as economically attractive, for whatever reason. Okay, we get rid of that one, now, I've got two, and if I can only fund one of them, and the ROI, the hard ROI is roughly the same, that's when Participatory Budgeting really shines, because we can have those leaders come back into the room, and they can say, which choice do we want to make now? So the evaluative aspect of the MVP is the leading indicators and the results of the proving or disproving of the hypotheses. We separate that from the funding choices, which is where Participatory Budgeting and LPM kick in. Ula Ojiaku Okay. So you've separated the proving or disproving the hypothesis of the feature, some of the features that will probably make up an epic. And you're saying the funding, the decision to fund the epic in the first place is a different conversation. And you've likened it to Venture Capital funding rounds. Where do they connect? Because if they're separate, what's the connecting thread between the two? Luke Hohmann The connected thread is the portfolio process, right? The actual process is the mechanism where we're connecting these things. Ula Ojiaku OK, no, thanks for the portfolio process. But there is something you mentioned, ROI - Return On Investment. And sometimes when you're developing new products, you don't know, you have assumptions. And any ROI, sorry to put it this way, but you're really plucking figures from the air, you know, you're modelling, but there is no certainty because you could hit the mark or you could go way off the mark. So where does that innovation accounting coming into place, especially if it's a product that's yet to make contact with, you know, real life users, the customers. Luke Hohmann Well, let's go back to something you said earlier, and what you talked earlier about was the relationship that you have in market researching customer interaction. In making a forecast, let's go ahead and look at the notion of building a new product within a company, and this is again where the Agile community sometimes doesn't want to look at numbers or quote, unquote get dirty, but we have to, because if I'm going to look at building a new idea, or taking a new idea into a product, I have to have a forecast of its viability. Is it economically viable? Is it a good choice? So innovation accounting is a way to look at certain data, but before, I'm going to steal a page, a quote, from one of my friends, Jeff Patton. The most expensive way to figure this out is to actually build the product. So what can I do that's less expensive than building the product itself? I can still do market research, but maybe I wouldn't do an innovation game, maybe I'd do a formal survey and I use a price point testing mechanism like Van Westendorp Price Point Analysis, which is a series of questions that you ask to triangulate on acceptable price ranges. I can do competitive benchmarking for similar products and services. What are people offering right now in the market? Now that again, if the product is completely novel, doing competitive benchmarking can be really hard. Right now, there's so many people doing streaming that we look at the competitive market, but when Netflix first offered streaming and it was the first one, their best approach was what we call reference pricing, which is, I have a reference price for how much I pay for my DVDs that I'm getting in the mail, I'm going to base my streaming service kind of on the reference pricing of entertainment, although that's not entirely clear that that was the best way to go, because you could also base the reference price on what you're paying for a movie ticket and how many, but then you look at consumption, right, because movie tickets are expensive, so I only go to a movie maybe once every other month, whereas streaming is cheap and so I can change my demand curve by lowering my price. But this is why it's such a hard science is because we have this notion of these swirling factors. Getting specifically back to your question about the price point, I do have to do some market research before I go into the market to get some forecasting and some confidence, and research gives me more confidence, and of course, once I'm in the market, I'll know how effective my research matched the market reality. Maybe my research was misleading, and of course, there's some skill in designing research, as you know, to get answers that have high quality signal strength. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for clarifying. That makes perfect sense to me. Luke Hohmann It's kind of like a forecast saying, like there's a group of Agile people who will say, like, you shouldn't make forecasts. Well, I don't understand that because that's like saying, and people will say, well, I can't predict the future. Well, okay, I can't predict when I'm going to retire, but I'm planning to retire. I don't know the date of my exact retirement, but my wife and I are planning our retirement, and we're saving, we're making certain investment choices for our future, because we expect to have a future together. Now our kids are older than yours. My kids are now in university, and so we're closer to retirement. So what I dislike about the Agile community is people will sometimes say, well, I don't know the certainty of the event, therefore, I can't plan for it. But that's really daft, because there are many places in like, you may not for the listeners, her daughter is a little younger than my kids, but they will be going to university one day, and depending on where they go, that's a financial choice. So you could say, well, I don't know when she's going to university, and I can't predict what university she's going to go to, therefore I'm not going to save any money. Really? That doesn't make no sense. So I really get very upset when you have people in the agile community will say things like road mapping or forecasting is not Agile. It's entirely Agile. How you treat it is Agile or not Agile. Like when my child comes up to me and says, hey, you know about that going to university thing, I was thinking of taking a gap year. Okay, wait a minute, that's a change. That doesn't mean no, it means you're laughing, right? But that's a change. And so we respond to change, but we still have a plan. Ula Ojiaku It makes sense. So the reason, and I completely resonate with everything you said, the reason I raised that ROI and it not being known is that in some situations, people might be tempted to use it to game the budget allocation decision making process. That's why I said you would pluck the ROI. Luke Hohmann Okay, let's talk about that. We actually address this in our recent paper, but I'll give you my personal experience. You are vastly more likely to get bad behaviour on ROI analysis when you do not do Participatory Budgeting, because there's no social construct to prevent bad behaviour. If I'm sitting down at a table and that's virtual or physical, it doesn't matter, but let's take a perfect optimum size for a Participatory Budgeting group. Six people, let's say I'm a Director or a Senior Director in a company, and I'm sitting at a table and there's another Senior Director who's a peer, maybe there's a VP, maybe there's a person from engineering, maybe there's a person from sales and we've got this mix of people and I'm sitting at that table. I am not incented to come in with an inflated ROI because those people are really intelligent and given enough time, they're not going to support my initiative because I'm fibbing, I'm lying. And I have a phrase for this, it's when ROI becomes RO-lie that it's dangerous. And so when I'm sitting at that table, what we find consistently, and one of the clients that we did a fair amount of Participatory Budgeting for years ago with Cisco, what we found was the leaders at Cisco were creating tighter, more believable, and more defensible economic projections, precisely because they knew that they were going to be sitting with their peers, and it didn't matter. It can go both ways. Sometimes people will overestimate the ROI or they underestimate the cost. Same outcome, right? I'm going to overestimate the benefit, and people would be like, yeah, I don't think you can build that product with three teams. You're going to need five or six teams and people go, oh, I can get it done with, you know, 20 people. Yeah, I don't think so, because two years ago, we built this product. It's very similar, and, you know, we thought we could get it done with 20 people and we couldn't. We really needed, you know, a bigger group. So you see the social construct creating a more believable set of results because people come to the Participatory Budgeting session knowing that their peers are in the room. And of course, we think we're smart, so our peers are as smart as we are, we're all smart people, and therefore, the social construct of Participatory Budgeting quite literally creates a better input, which creates a better output. Ula Ojiaku That makes sense, definitely. Thanks for sharing that. I've found that very, very insightful and something I can easily apply. The reasoning behind it, the social pressure, quote unquote, knowing that you're not just going to put the paper forward but you'd have to defend it in a credible, believable way make sense. So just to wrap up now, what books have you found yourself recommending to people the most, and why? Luke Hohmann It's so funny, I get yelled at by my wife for how many books I buy. She'll go like “It's Amazon again. Another book. You know, there's this thing called the library.” Ula Ojiaku You should do Participatory Budgeting for your books then sounds like, sorry. Luke Hohmann No, no, I don't, I'd lose. Gosh, I love so many books. So there's a few books that I consider to be my go-to references and my go-to classics, but I also recommend that people re-read books and sometimes I recommend re-reading books is because you're a different person, and as you age and as you grow and you see things differently and in fact, I'm right now re-reading and of course it goes faster, but I'm re-reading the original Extreme Programming Explained by Kent Beck, a fantastic book. I just finished reading a few new books, but let me let me give you a couple of classics that I think everyone in our field should read and why they should read them. I think everyone should read The Mythical Man-Month by Fred Brooks because he really covers some very profound truths that haven't changed, things like Brooks Law, which is adding programmers to a late project, makes it later. He talks about the structure of teams and how to scale before scaling was big and important and cool. He talks about communication and conceptual integrity and the role of the architect. The other book that I'm going to give, which I hope is different than any book that anyone has ever given you, because it's one of my absolute favourite books and I give them away, is a book called Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. Comics or graphic novels are an important medium for communication, and when we talk about storytelling and we talk about how to frame information and how to present information, understanding comics is profoundly insightful in terms of how to present, share, show information. A lot of times I think we make things harder than they should be. So when I'm working with executives and some of the clients that I work with personally, when we talk about our epics, we actually will tell stories about the hero's journey and we actually hire comic book artists to help the executives tell their story in a comic form or in a graphic novel form. So I absolutely love understanding comics. I think that that's really a profound book. Of course you mentioned Alex Osterwalder's books, Business Model Generation, Business Model Canvas. Those are fantastic books for Product Managers. I also, just looking at my own bookshelves, of course, Innovation Games for PMs, of course Software Profit Streams because we have to figure out how to create sustainability, but in reality there's so many books that we love and that we share and that we grow together when we're sharing books and I'll add one thing. Please don't only limit your books to technical books. We're humans too. I recently, this week and what I mean recent I mean literally this weekend I was visiting one of my kids in Vermont all the way across the country, and so on the plane ride I finished two books, one was a very profound and deeply written book called Ponyboy. And then another one was a very famous book on a woman protagonist who's successful in the 60s, Lessons in Chemistry, which is a new book that's out, and it was a super fun light read, some interesting lessons of course, because there's always lessons in books, and now if it's okay if I'm not overstepping my boundaries, what would be a book that you'd like me to read? I love to add books to my list. Ula Ojiaku Oh my gosh, I didn't know. You are the first guest ever who's twisted this on me, but I tend to read multiple books at a time. Luke Hohmann Only two. Ula Ojiaku Yeah, so, and I kind of switch, maybe put some on my bedside and you know there's some on my Kindle and in the car, just depending. So I'm reading multiple books at a time, but based on what you've said the one that comes to mind is the new book by Oprah Winfrey and it's titled What Happened to You? Understanding Trauma, because like you said, it's not just about reading technical books and we're human beings and we find out that people behave probably sometimes in ways that are different to us, and it's not about saying what's wrong with you, because there is a story that we might not have been privy to, you know, in terms of their childhood, how they grew up, which affected their worldview and how they are acting, so things don't just suddenly happen. And the question that we have been asked and we sometimes ask of people, and for me, I'm reading it from a parent's perspective because I understand that even more so that my actions, my choices, they play a huge, you know, part in shaping my children. So it's not saying what's wrong with you? You say, you know, what happened to you? And it traces back to, based on research, because she wrote it with a renowned psychologist, I don't know his field but a renowned psychologist, so neuroscience-based psychological research on human beings, attachment theory and all that, just showing how early childhood experiences, even as early as maybe a few months old, tend to affect people well into adulthood. So that would be my recommendation. Luke Hohmann Thank you so much. That's a gift. Ula Ojiaku Thank you. You're the first person to ask me. So, my pleasure. So, before we go to the final words, where can the audience find you, because you have a wealth of knowledge, a wealth of experience, and I am sure that people would want to get in touch with you, so how can they do this please? Luke Hohmann Yeah, well, they can get me on LinkedIn and they can find me at Applied Frameworks. I tell you, I teach classes that are known to be very profound because we always reserve, myself and the instructors at Applied Frameworks, we have very strong commitments to reserving class time for what we call the parking lot or the ask me anything question, which are many times after I've covered the core material in the class, having the opportunity to really frame how to apply something is really important. So I would definitely encourage people to take one of my classes because you'll not get the material, you'll get the reasons behind the material, which means you can apply it, but you'll also be able to ask us questions and our commitment as a company is you can ask us anything and if we don't know the answer, we'll help you find it. We'll help you find the expert or the person that you need talk to, to help you out and be successful. And then, and I think in terms of final words, I will simply ask people to remember that we get to work in the most amazing field building things for other people and it's joyful work, and we, one of my phrases is you're not doing Agile, if you're not having fun at work, there's something really wrong, there's something missing, yeah we need to retrospect and we need to improve and we need to reflect and all those important things, absolutely, but we should allow ourselves to experience the joy of serving others and being of service and building things that matter. Ula Ojiaku I love the concept of joyful Agile and getting joy in building things that matter, serving people and may I add also working together with amazing people, and for me it's been a joyful conversation with you, Luke, I really appreciate you making the time, I am definitely richer and more enlightened as a result of this conversation, so thank you so much once more. Luke Hohmann Thank you so much for having me here, thank you everyone for listening with us. Ula Ojiaku  My pleasure. That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!   

Bio Brant Cooper is The New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Entrepreneur and his new popular book Disruption Proof. He is the CEO and founder of Moves the Needle. He is a trusted adviser to startups and large enterprises around the world. With more than 25 years of expertise in changing industrial age mindset into digital age opportunity, he blends agile, human-centered design, and lean methodologies to ignite entrepreneurial action from the front lines to the C-suite.  As a sought-after keynote speaker, startup mentor, and executive advisor, he travels the globe sharing his vision for reimagining 21st century organizations. Bringing agility, digital transformation, and a focus on creating value for customers, he helps leaders navigate the uncertainty brought on by increased complexity and endless disruption.   Interview Highlights 01:30 Background 03:40 First startup 05:30 Learning from failure 06:50 The Lean Entrepreneur 07:30 Empowering employees 15:40 Learning through observation 19:00 Disruptions 22:00 Output vs Outcome 30:45 Working in teams 35:30 Aligning priorities 41:00 Disruption Proof 52:00 Take risks   Social Media ·         LinkedIn:  Brant Cooper ·         X/Twitter: @brantcooper ·         Email: brant@brantcooper.com ·         Website: www.brantcooper.com ·         Website: www.movestheneedle.com ·         YouTube: Brant Cooper   Books & Resources ·         Disruption Proof: Empower People, Create Value, Drive Change, Brant Cooper ·         The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development: A cheat sheet to The Four Steps to the Epiphany, Brant Cooper  ·          The Lean Entrepreneur: How Visionaries Create Products, Innovate with New Ventures, and Disrupt Markets, Brant Cooper, Patrick Vlaskovits, Eric Ries ·         The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development: A cheat sheet to The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Brant Cooper, Patrick Vlaskovits ·         Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts, Brené Brown, Brené Brown ·         Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World, General Stanley McChrystal   Episode Transcript Intro: Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. Ula Ojiaku So I have with me Brant Cooper, who is the author of the books Lean Entrepreneur and his latest one, Disruption Proof: Empower People, Create Value, Drive Change. He also is the CEO and Founder of Moves the Needle. Brant, it is a pleasure and an honour to have you as my guest on the Agile Innovation Leaders Podcast. Brant Cooper Thank you so much for having me. I'm glad to be here. Ula Ojiaku Now Brant, as I start with all my guests, we want to know a bit more about you. So could you tell us about yourself growing up, your background, are there any experiences that have made a great impact on you that have led to you becoming the Brant we see today? Brant Cooper Yeah, so born and mostly raised in California, which seems to be somewhat unique these days, but also did travel around a bit. My dad was a Navy man. I don't know, I guess I was always a little bit different. I think a lot of us describe ourselves that way, but when I went away to school for college, most people were focusing on one major or maybe two majors because that was sort of the state of the world. It's kind of, this is a little while ago, but supposedly what you needed to do is go and get narrow expertise and then that was what was going to launch your career. But to me, that was boring. And so I wanted to take a little bit of everything. So chemistry and calculus and sociology and psychology and history and creative writing and literature. So I was sort of all over the map and I guess it's kind of funny, you can look back on your life and find these little threads that weave through everything. When I left college and got my first job, I remember specifically, I was in Washington, D. C. and I was sitting on the stoop of the house that I was living in and I was all like, really, is this it? Is this the rest of my life, is it working 9 to 5 doing, you know, what people are telling me to do. Wow. That doesn't seem like the bargain I thought it was. So I actually dropped out and wrote a novel, which was very sophomoric, because unless you're a genius, most 20-something year olds really don't know that much about the world. But anyway, it was sort of a, this empowering moment when I just sort of had faith in myself that I would always be able to take care of myself and figure things out. And so it's really one of these moments where the moment you feel like you can just leave a job, you get a tremendous amount of power from that. Most people go through their lives feeling like they have to do what their boss says and they have to live that life and it becomes, your choices obviously become quite limited. So I ended up crossing the country back to California, moved up to the Bay Area, worked in a few jobs there, tried unsuccessfully to sell my book, and then I joined my first startup. So this is the, you know, dot com era, the nineties, and it was really there at this startup that I caught wind of the fact that there were actually these jobs where you weren't supposed to just do what you're told, that your responsibility was to figure things out, to exercise your own creativity and your own intelligence, and nobody was going to sit there over your shoulder, that you were going to be held accountable to what you were doing or what you weren't doing. But you are literally sort of on your own and that was, again, sort of the second moment of feeling the sense of empowerment. And it's funny, because up to that point, I really, maybe I wasn't an A player as the startup likes to talk about the startup myths, you know, you have to go hire all those A players. Maybe I just wasn't an A player, but I used to be passed around like a hot potato between all of these managers because nobody really wanted to manage me because I really didn't do what they said. I did what I thought was best. But anyway, so the startup sort of launched this new type of, so then even in the startups, I worked at a bunch of different jobs. So instead of again, specialising, I was in IT, and then I ran the professional services group and then I went into product management and then I took over marketing, you know, sort of helping out salespeople. So I, again, I sort of traverse the whole, all of the different functions inside the company. And I guess I think that that was also a big learning moment for me, and so I lived through that, you know, tried a couple of my own companies that failed and others that succeeded crazily and others that, you know, ramped up their sales, but then they tailed off and I was on the management team trying to figure things out. And it's funny, because I used to, you always learn more from failures, and I think that the last one, the way I talk about it is that the sort of the company strategy was dictated every week by whoever was the best arguer. Like, so it was just like a management team free for all. And whoever won, that would set the strategy. And so I sort of won for, you know, a year and a year and a half, and we grew like crazy and I had, you know, allies on the team and then they kind of changed their mind and got rid of me and got rid of my allies. And then they went back and did whatever they wanted to do, the founders. So it was all again, it's sort of this learning moment where maybe that's not the best way to make decisions, but so the dot com bust happened and I was actually writing and blogging about, well, what makes successful startups better, what makes them successful compared to all of the ones that fail and what is it about, you know, sort of this idea of learning and empowering people to learn rather than just execute. And so I was blogging about that stuff and got turned on to Steve Blank and to Eric Ries and I ended up writing the first book that talked about lean startup and product market fit. And then that kind of launched this whole other career where at first we're focused on startups, but eventually, I wrote The Lean Entrepreneur and formed Moves the Needle to start taking some of these principles to large enterprises over the world. So around the last 10 years we've been helping some of the biggest brands in the world try to adopt some of these principles of exploration, so learning mode and, yeah, that sort of takes us to where we are today. I am still doing that work in addition to some other things, but primarily it's focused on empowering employees to exercise their creativity and their inspiration and to drive impact. And then, you know, helping the leadership understand that they get more out of their people if they enable that, and take a step back, and then they get to be more proactive and more strategic in their own world, and it's sort of empowering to them as well. And I think really, post pandemic, we've sort of seen this shift where that's happening more once people are remote workers, you know, workers being burned out and frustrated with work is when they don't get to do that sort of work. So yeah, it's sort of an interesting time and really the rise of, you know, sort of Agile reaching the next level and Design Thinking reaching the next level and Product Management and all of these things happening because the world is turning digital, makes this a pretty exciting time to apply a lot of these principles. Ula Ojiaku You have a fascinating background, Brant, and there are some things that you said about your background that had me nodding, because I identify with it and maybe in terms of, I love variety. And yes, I studied Engineering, but I also kind of liked to know a bit more about economics, psychology, you know, the other subjects outside my normal domain and someone I was having a conversation with someone I can't remember his name again, I think it was Dr. Steve Morlidge at a conference and he was saying life is all integral really, it's just us as human beings trying to make sense of the different aspects. We've created the disciplines, but in the truest sense, there aren't any distinctive lines, and it's all integral, and it helps, I've noticed, you know, at least for me personally, just knowing a bit about other subjects outside my core area just helps me to be more well-rounded and more strategic, if I, for lack of a better word, in how I approach issues. Brant Cooper I agree with that. It provides a larger context, right? I mean, so if you can understand what the colleagues are doing in the other function, you can also see the bigger picture, which makes a lot of sense. Ula Ojiaku Yeah, yeah. And you mentioned something about not liking to be told what to do. Is that the definition of an entrepreneur or could there be something else? Brant Cooper Well, I mean, I think it is, yes, I think it probably is similar to most early stage entrepreneurs, but, you know, you won't succeed as an entrepreneur if that's the only way you are. And so, you know, we all kind of grew up a little bit and we, you know, we have to mature in a way that we can still hold on to our creativity and all of these, our instinct or whatever it is, but we also have to be able to listen to others and to recognise when ideas are better than ours and change our minds based upon new indications. And so there's a flexibility that has to be built into there as well. It can't just be that you're going to stick to your guns. And as a matter of fact, I get a lot of entrepreneurs saying like, oh, well, it's all about the conviction of your idea. And I go, sure, if you want to fail, that's great. But you know, if you really want to change the world, as opposed to focus on a particular idea, then you have to be flexible. And I think that it's a, you know, people always point to Steve Jobs and his genius and I'm all like, yep, it took him a long time to get out, you know, the product that really was putting a computer in everybody's pocket, which is kind of what his dream was in the beginning. It took him a long time to get to the iPhone, and that what was revolutionary about the iPhone actually was opening up the app store to third party developers because that turned the phone into a platform and yet he opposed it even with all of his advisors telling him he had to do that, he didn't allow it the first year and so it wasn't until the second year when he changed his mind that things really took off and so I think it ends up being Steve Jobs is a great example, but not for the reason you think. Ula Ojiaku We could go into that but I think we would be going off tangent a bit. So what makes a lean entrepreneur? Because one of your books is titled, The Lean Entrepreneur, how visionaries create products, innovate new ventures and disrupt markets. Brant Cooper So I think fundamentally, it's somebody that can admit when they're wrong or when they don't know. I mean, so the lean part of lean entrepreneur is about reducing waste. It's not about being small or not spending money. It's about not wasting money and not wasting time and resources and even your own passion and your own inspiration. And so how can we work to understand our customers more deeply? How can we work to understand the market better? How can we run experiments that bust through our assumptions? How do we even identify assumptions? And then how do we cut through our own biases and all of these things that are very human but could be holding back the success of what we want to build or what we want to bring to the world. And so to me, that's the lean entrepreneur, is you have to be able to admit when you're wrong, admit when you don't know, and go out there and learn and hustle and explore and figure things out before you spend the time and money and resources executing on a particular idea. Ula Ojiaku So what I've heard you says is being willing to change your mind when you are faced with, you know, some evidence that your original assumptions are wrong, and also being mindful about how you use your resources. You're not wasteful, you're using it to learn and discover and learn what your customers want so that you're better able to provide that to them. Brant Cooper That's correct. Yep. And so if you're, you know, if you sit down and you build a product for six months, and then the product's wrong, or even, you know, just a lot wrong, you know, then there's a lot of waste that went into that. And when you're understanding customers, that doesn't mean ask your customers what they want and do what they say. It means understanding why are they saying what they're saying and what is their environment and what are their aspirations and what are their real needs. It's up to you as the, you know, sort of as the product person or the solution provider, to come up with what is the best way for me to address those needs, but the only way you can really truly understand those needs is to dive as deeply as possible in understanding the customer and their environment. Ula Ojiaku Are there any, like, specific examples of how as a lean entrepreneur, I can dive more into knowing what the customer does or needs? Brant Cooper Sure, I mean, I think that, you know, Steve Blank's customer development stuff was always really about understanding customers more. I think it was like, in my opinion, a little bit shallow compared to some of the techniques that are used in human centred design or design thinking, where you're getting down to emotional levels and you're getting down to, you know, empathy and really understanding, and you're kind of zooming in and zooming out. You can zoom in and interview, that's fine, but you can also zoom out in trying to figure out, well, what does it, what would this mean to them if they were successfully doing what they wanted to do? Would they be able to take their family to Italy in the summertime? Is that what they aspire to? Do they want to be a better mother? Do they, like, what is actually driving individuals to make the decisions that they're making? You know, observation is a great way to learn about that. That's, you know, often used in human centred design when you're even in, you know, business to business, business type of solutions, is you go watch people do the work that they're doing in their environment and you can start picking up on all sorts of issues that they're constantly having to overcome or, you know, conflicts or, you know, things don't work in a particular environment or IT does not allow this, you know, I mean, there's all sorts of things that can educate you about what you're trying to, the needs that you're trying to address. Ula Ojiaku Yeah, I completely agree. And for you, would you say that, you know, being a lean entrepreneur, is it just for individuals who set up their own startups or early growth companies? Can it also apply within a large established organisation with, say, thousands of employees already? Brant Cooper Yeah, no, I think that it's a good question. I think that the example that I give is if you look back to Henry Ford's Model T, right? You build a factory and then you build a whole company around this highly optimised, efficient assembly line that can produce the same vehicle, you know, he sort of famously say, you can have a Model T in any colour you want, as long as it's black, right? That's the only thing that he's going to produce. And so he optimises the flow of resources through the manufacturing, and then he builds the rest of the company based upon functions, this whole linear fashion, everybody do what we've already proven needs to be done. Then you can produce a car that the middle class could buy, which was a new thing and opened up this crazy new market. So that's very well understood. Everything is really, there's not a lot of uncertainty, but if you look, fast forward to the digital age, there's tons of uncertainty, right? All of the products and services that are produced have multiple models and multiple options on each model and hundreds of colours. And there's a lot of choices for consumers to choose one over the other. So consumers don't have the same brand loyalty that they used to. They can change their minds overnight. And again, this is true in the business world, not just consumers. But so there's so much uncertainty there, that you actually have to then understand the niche desires of all of these different market segments out there. Well, the only way to do that, so if you imagine that organisation that is only allowed to do what you're told to do based upon how it used to work, then you're the one that's going to miss out on all those opportunities based upon creating exactly the model or the options that the customer wants. How do you know what it is that those customers want. Well, you have to be out and interact with them. So even the biggest companies in the world have to figure out how they're going to start learning from the environment that they're in. So that's number one. Big companies have to do it and they are doing it more and more. Design and product management and all of these things are, these practices are emerging in these companies to do that exactly. And I think that the other point is, is that the world is so interconnected now, and this, again, has been brought upon by the digital revolution, and so what that causes is that all of these disruptions that we've just, you know, experienced here in the last four or five years, things like the pandemic, inflation, supply chain shocks, reverberations from the war, you know, just on and on. All of these things sort of ripple across our economies. They used to be, they could be isolated in different pockets of the world without affecting the rest of the world. Now everything affects everything. It's like the, you know, the butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon or something like this. You know, it creates this chaos. And so what that means is, is that things, disruptions, not as bad as the pandemic, but disruptions like ransomware attacks that cause disruptions, or again, supply chain issues, all of these things ripple across the economy and they actually change the market. So if you worked on your marketing plan and your selling plan the day after the pandemic hit, you're not in execution, you're just flailing. You have to actually be able to readdress, what is our situation currently based upon the current environment? How do we change our work in order to adapt to this new environment? And that is just a skill that everybody needs and everybody has to develop. And those are, startups do it naturally, big companies need to try to figure out how they're going to build that in and this is sort of the, the rise of Agile, right? I mean, so I think that the way I describe Agile, or the way I picture it for people without getting into all of the jargon is like a meerkat. So, a tribe of meerkats, every once in a while, come out of their hole and they pick their heads up and they look around and they take in new information and they're going to decide what to do based upon that new information. So, if you're a big corporation, you need to pause your work, which would be like a Agile sprint. You look up from the work. What has changed? Are we making the right progress? Right? Check within our customers. We check with our stakeholders. How do we improve our work as a team so that our output is better? So you take that moment to pause regularly, you can make your Sprint lengths anything that you want, I really don't care, it depends on the type of business that you're in, but you're pausing the work, you're re-evaluating, you're taking in new information, and maybe the answer is you don't have to change your work at all, you can just go back, but there's likely, sometimes, changes that have to be made so that you're getting to the desired outcome more efficiently, so we can't be like the assembly line, you know, Ford's assembly line, where output was a proxy for outcome, i.e we're going to be successful if we can produce the car at this cost. Now, it's like, we have to focus on efficiency of outcome and not efficiency of output and that means that it's actually more efficient to pause and make changes during the course rather than only after failing at the very end. Ula Ojiaku There's a question, you know, lots of things you've said that I resonate with, and one of my favourite questions to previous guests and you would be the next one I'm asking this, is what would you define as outputs versus outcome? So, what's an output to you versus what's an outcome? Brant Cooper Yeah, so like the Henry Ford example is the easiest. Output is the car is being done, is being produced. So the car has been manufactured. That's output, and for decades, even still today, businesses and economists using old antiquated models like Larry Summers does, are focused on the efficiency of output and what those are serving to do is being proxies for outcome. So if you, outcome would be, we've successfully sold those cars to happy customers, so they're going to buy again from us, and maybe they're going to get service from us, and maybe they're going to get financing from us, right? So, we want to keep them satisfied, and also we get to generate income and we pay our workers and we actually pay our shareholders. So, everybody gets sort of these outcomes or these desired results from successfully selling the car, which is dependent upon the sufficient production of output. But now, again, today, if you buy all of what else I've said, you can't, output is not a proxy of outcome. So output is, still could be the number of cars that are produced, but if they're not sold and the customers aren't happy, then you're not going to be able to pay your shareholders and you're not going to keep loyal customers, and you're not going to pay your workers, and so we have to now look at the efficiency of outcomes because the world is so complex. So that applies to, I think, any product. Obviously, when you go into the nuances of a corporate hierarchy, not everybody is focused on the final outcome, and so they actually have to have their own outcomes. But even in that regard, you know, outcome is increased user satisfaction. Output is, you've built X by a certain date. Outcome is, you know, a thousand people have opened your newsletter, you know, 75 percent of people opened your newsletter, output is we sent the out the newsletter to 10,000 people. So, the output is very focused on ourselves and the tasks that we're doing, usually over time period. outcome is, what are we getting out of those tasks? And it's best to measure that actually from who the beneficiary's experience. So if I'm producing a, you know, just a super simple example, if I'm producing this newsletter and people are opening it and spending time reading it, then that is a desired outcome. If nobody opens it, then that's sort of a, you know, there's a variety of issues that might be involved there, but you haven't achieved the outcome despite your output. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for that explanation. And somebody else said something that stuck with me as well, which is that, you know, outcome would signify some sort of change in behaviour, or in noticeable behaviour from the perspective of whoever the customer is, or who's consuming the results of your work. Brant Cooper Totally agree with that, and way more succinct than what I said. And the focus really is, it's on, that's what I sort of refer to as the beneficiary, because sort of inside of an organisation, your beneficiary of the work that you're doing are maybe internal people, not directly to the customer. So customer, sort of in scare quotes. But I love the fact that they, that person mentioned behaviour, because that's what actually allows us to measure it. And so even in The Lean Entrepreneur book, there's a section called the value stream discovery, which is focused on, what is the behaviour that I'm trying to get from my customer for everything that I'm doing as a business, and how do I measure that that behaviour is happening? And one of the benefits, of course, of the digital world is that you can measure a lot of that stuff. And so if you're trying to measure whether people are satisfied with your product, one proxy for that might be not just running surveys, but how often are they using the product? What are they actually doing with the product? It's not that they downloaded the app, it's that they downloaded the app, they installed it, they create an account, and they come in and they look at, you know, these different screens and interact with them four times every week. Okay, that's what a satisfied customer looks like. How many do we have? What's the growth of satisfied customers year over year or month over month? So it gives us all of this way of starting to measure what the behaviour side is, that becomes very powerful whenever we're doing our work. Ula Ojiaku And it's all about evidence based, it helps with evidence-based decisions, so that helps you because back to your explanation or, well, I say your talk about Agile and how it should help with, you know, organisations and leaders with just periodically you do a bit of work in a Sprint, but you look up and look around and know, okay, what we're doing, is it really moving us? Is it moving the needle? No pun intended. Is it moving the needle or is it pushing us closer to where we want? Are we likely to achieve those outcomes instead of focusing on how many widgets or gadgets we've produced within a Sprint? So based on that, what are the things, can you give examples of, you know, challenges you've observed, maybe in organisations or startups with being able to apply this sort of iterative development mindset, and still managing it with the needs to plan in, you know, longer time, across longer time horizons, because some organisations, especially if you're, for example, publicly traded, you still have to have a long term, you know, mid-term and short term view. So how can you, what are the challenges you've experienced with them, balancing all these? Brant Cooper I think that, yeah, I think it's, you're planning outcomes and so I think that the difficulty is that when people look at the outcomes, like, well, we need to grow 5%, you know, quarter over quarter, or something like that, the difficulty ends up being when they have to translate those outcomes into what is the work that people need to do. And so we, at some point in that progression from the top leadership down to the to the ground floor, those outcomes get translated into output. And so we lose this connection between, is what we're working on actually going to achieve the desired outcomes? And this is what causes all the reorganisations that happen every couple of years, because they don't, they don't match up, and then the Board or the C-Suite needs to do a reorganisation because it's sort of their admission, their tacit admission that they failed in organising the output to match the outcome. And so they get to have a reset. And so they fire a bunch of people and they reorganise and then they go do it again. So, I think the biggest challenge is that it's really a ground up type of change that has to happen. And so a lot of the, I'm sure you're very familiar with a lot of the, you know, the corporate implementations of Agile tend to be very process-heavy and very, you must do it this way, and you've lost all of the Agile principles and the ethos that got you to want to do it in the first place. And instead it has to be very ground up and it's really around, in my opinion, putting people on teams, so I don't think there's any individual inside of a company that should not be on a team. The team sort of will hold people socially accountable to their work. And if not, then there's still HR that can deal with it, but rather than have managers kind of leaning over and trying to get everybody to figure it out, you know, sort of the, the classic Agile self-organised team, where those teams have to be held accountable to the outcomes, but are empowered to figure out the work in order to achieve those outcomes. And then you practice that behaviour. That behaviour has to be practiced. It's not about, like, giving an order that now you have to work self organised, you actually have to practice that behaviour and you build in some of these other empathy techniques as well as running experimentation and you create an environment where, like, as a leader, you admit when you don't know, and when you've made a mistake, so you're kind of demonstrating vulnerability and that we're actually living in this complex, uncertain world so that you are empowering individuals to also behave the same way. And so you're starting to create this learning exploration balanced with execution type of organisation, and I think inevitably you start seeing impact of that type of work, and that's really, I think, how you can start driving the longer term change that has to happen. It's really by taking pockets of the organisation, teaching the behaviour and practicing it. And then it's teaching and practicing leaders how to manage people that are working that way, which is different as well. I sort of view it as perhaps a little bit idealistically or even utopian is, it's sort of cascading missions. And so the very top mission statements are around those things that you're promising Wall Street. Here's what our growth is going to be, here's what we're going to achieve next quarter and two quarters from that. And then in order to achieve that, here's the different things that our business unit must achieve, the outcomes. And that drips all the way down in terms of outcomes, to the point that you're assigning teams, here is your outcome and you know how to do the work or we'll help you figure out to do the work or you could figure it out yourself. I mean, depends on kind of the quality and the nature of those teams, but it's a way of organising work where I think, in the end, the company doesn't necessarily look that differently than it does now, but it's just not built sort of arbitrarily on function like it is now. And so, by building sort of this mission-oriented way, whenever there's uncertainty, you can put people on that mission that can help overcome the uncertainty. And so you get sort of the cross functional and interdisciplinary nature, when it's required. If it's not required, that's fine. You know, all manufacturers, they're working on that team. That's great. They know what their outcome is and they're going to produce that outcome. But if it's uncertainty, how are we going to go into this new market? Okay, well, there's a lot of things that we know, but we should test those things that we don't know. It's a different, it's a different makeup of that team. Whereas now, if you're trying to do exploration work, when the teams are organised by function, you have to sort of force that cross functionality, and it's very difficult and it doesn't last long. If you don't keep the pressure on, everything kind of falls back into whatever their functional role is, as opposed to continuing to adopt and apply missions to these teams, then they get the resources that they need in order to accomplish a particular mission and then that should rise up to the level of whatever the company objectives are. Ula Ojiaku It's really interesting, and it seems like you're a mind reader because you did say initially, you know, it has to start from the ground up. And I was going to ask you if there was any place at all for, you know, the bigger North Star vision mission to trickle down and influence what they, the people on the shop floor are doing in the coalface, as some people would use the term. And you've kind of answered it. So it's more of trickling down the mission such that it gets, once it gets down to the teams actually doing the work, they understand what they're doing and how it's helping in their own way, how they're helping to achieve the bigger objective of the organisation. Brant Cooper Yeah, exactly. And I think that that's what, again, going back to sort of the big quit and workers being burned out, I think that a lot of them, like whatever survey I've seen, even those produced by the big consultant firms, pretty much say that workers don't feel aligned. They don't feel aligned with what the priorities are, like they don't even know what they are, and they don't feel like they're driving an impact, and then that makes human beings feel like they're not making an impact in their own life, and it starts this downward spiral, whereas we can create a fortuitous spiral if we actually allow these people to see the impact that they are making. Ula Ojiaku And the benefit of working in an Agile manner. Now, I do have my reservations about some people who have peddled Agile as you know, like an elixir, you have a headache, Agile will cure it, or you have a tummy ache, Agile will cure it. Actually, it has its purpose, it has its remit and it has, just like you'd have multiple tools in a toolbox, Agile is really about, you know, you sense, you respond, you know, you build, you put it out there, you get feedback, quick feedback, and then you make adjustments as required, and then move, you know, take the next step. So, from that perspective, taking an Agile approach to, will I say developing or building on, or implementing strategy. How can, do you have any thoughts on how organisations can be more effective at it? I know you've talked about the ideal of cascading missions and then building up. But what else do you think organisations or leaders and organisations can take into account? Brant Cooper Yeah, I think that the, I agree with you, it's not, it's just, you know, one view into it. And so I think that there's, I'm sure there's other ways of tackling it. I think that, I guess I think that it's this idea of teams, like, I think that there's everybody could start forming a team now, and it doesn't have to be permanent. Like, if there's a bunch of things that need to be done, find one part of uncertainty and form a team and give them the responsibility of solving that uncertainty. And so I think that it's, it ends up then being well, they don't need to necessarily learn Agile or Design Thinking. I really think that if we measured the right things, human beings sort of know how to optimise what they're being measured for. And so I think that if you were to sit down with a group of your people, and you were to say, listen, this is some, here's a business challenge that we have, I would really like you four or five people to go figure it out, I'm here to give you whatever help you need along the way, I'm here to mentor you, give you my own advice, do whatever. But I need you all to try to figure this out. And here's what the outcome is that we want to get from that, what do you think? And, you know, maybe there's a little bit back and forth, but I think that that's actually more important than any of the frameworks that, you know, even I talk about a lot, and so I think Agile was originally developed sort of around that concept, just very specifically for software development teams. And so I think that it's thinking about the principles that can apply pretty much anywhere as opposed to the actual practices. I just also happen to think that there's a bunch of practices that can be beneficial. Things like the idea of what is the length of time you're going to put your head down versus, you know, when you look up or how you're going to share your work or all of those type of things. But I think that it's essentially if we just gave a group of people a business, a challenge, and said, I'd really like you to help me figure this out, that you would see them rally around that idea. And I think that that's kind of the nugget of what we're trying to create here, and then hopefully spread because it makes those people happier, and when they solve something, that's impact that can be shared with other people. And I think that you see in companies that really have been successfully innovative are those that actually have inspired that to the point that the core business is then, you know, want some of that energy, like, we want that here, because we know that we have to be faster and move quicker and adapt and all of those type of things. We know we have to be truly customer centric and not just, you know, sitting around a conference room table, imagining we're the customer, so it's really kind of really more about finding that and it also may vary, you know, based upon company culture, even positive company cultures. And it's like, what is that little nugget that actually empowers people to, as a team, let's work together and figure something out. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for that very, very insightful response, and there's something you said about uncertainty. You know, it's really about trying to make sense of the unknown, and this brings me to your book, your latest book, Disruption Proof, full title Disruption Proof: Empower People, Create Value, Drive Change. What led you to writing that book and what is it all about? Brant Cooper Yeah, so I think it really is, it's really all about what we've just been talking about the last few minutes, where it really is sort of looking at how the organisation can structure people and work, such that the natural output of it is  more, it's actually the way I put it is more efficient execution based upon exploration work, and so how do you build that into the organisation, so it doesn't feel like it's a cannibalisation, you know, sort of the whole old school Clayton Christensen stuff. I know everybody's going to be like, what do you mean old school, but it's like, it's not about disrupting yourself, it's not about this other organisation is going to come in and disrupt you. It's not that you actually have to eat your own tail as a snake. It's about finding this emerging behaviour that then will sort of flower from within and takes over the organisation because that's what the circumstances require. And so I think that the, I don't know, I guess I think that the book was trying to show examples of businesses that have done that, either large scale, or pockets within these organisations that have brought people together, cross-functional where necessary, interdisciplinary. Hey, this is a new opportunity, how do we actually engage the business units as opposed to, to me what that old school way of doing it is like, here's your little innovations, you know, silo over here, you guys go figure out what's going to happen in 10 years. I think that's like, largely failed. And I think that what we need to do, is figure out how there's, from the beginning there's buy-in from these other parts of the organisation. So that's really what the last book is about, really all of these things that we've been talking about. Ula Ojiaku And I believe it's available on Amazon and other major book sellers. Brant Cooper Anywhere you can buy a book. Ula Ojiaku Awesome. Well, I haven't read it yet, but I have made a note, it's on my reading list, definitely. Brant Cooper Well, thank you for that. Ula Ojiaku Definitely. No, my pleasure, I look forward to digging into it to learn a bit more about the concepts you've just shared and the insights as well as the examples with organisations that might have failed or succeeded in some aspects of the concepts. Brant Cooper Yeah, that kind of describes everybody to a certain level. Ula Ojiaku Do you have anyone you could share at this point? You know, maybe an example from your book? You don't have to name names. Is there anyone that comes to mind? Brant Cooper Well, I think in terms of, I guess what I would call lean innovation transformation, I think ING is a really good example, the bank in Europe, they did a full on Agile transformation as well, like organising the whole company based upon really more like based upon missions than functions, and I think that that always has its challenges, but I think that what, in the end, they kind of brought these two different endeavours together. One being this Agile transformation and this other being what we call lean innovation. And so they really started practicing the empathy and the exploration work and the experiments. And those things ended up sort of combining. And I think it's always interesting when, you can theorise about this stuff, but when do you actually get to see the results? And so a lot of this, most of this work was all done pre-pandemic. And then some of the stories that came out of different pockets of the organisation during the pandemic were really quite extraordinary in ways that they were able to adapt to, you know, finding yourself suddenly in this world, that they could point back to these lean innovation practices, being the, you know, being the impetus for being able to change like that. So I love those stories where you're actually able to see that, okay, we applied all of this. Here's like this major, you know, environmental change brought on by the pandemic, how did the company respond. And so that's a, I wrote a couple of stories about that stuff in the book Disruption Proof. And so there's a couple of other examples in there, but that's the one that really comes to mind because they just committed to it at a larger level than I've seen other organisations do. Ula Ojiaku Sounds awesome. So in addition to your books, The Lean Entrepreneur, The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development, Disruption Proof, what other books have you found yourself recommending to people who want to know more about, you know, Lean Innovation, Agile, or maybe it doesn't have to be on the subject of Lean Innovation or Agile, but just generally because you felt they were impactful to your life. What other books have you recommended to people and why? Brant Cooper Yeah. So I think that, you know, people have recognised change in the world quite a bit over the last, you know, 10 years or so, or five or six years, pandemic is making me lose all track of time. But, so the ones that I keep coming back to are not specifically Agile or lean innovation. So I would say Brené Brown's Dare to Lead, and I think that this is a just an example of what we mean by empathy, you know, you don't really have to go hug your customers, you don't have to hug your employees. It's not, you know, but it's understanding how you apply those principles in a business environment and the ability, like I mentioned earlier, for leaders to demonstrate vulnerability by admitting when they don't know and when they're wrong, that this is really important in changing. The other thing I'll throw out there that I love that Brené Brown talks about is this idea of rumbling. Again, we're not talking about some, you know, kind of kumbaya moment here. It's really around bringing evidence to the table and having forceful discussions about what is actually happening and what you need to do next, but it's based upon this evidence and I kind of call it respectful rumbling, because rather than like my startup example I gave in the beginning of just arguing, it's really around, you know, as a team of leaders even, it's great to respect each other, but we also have to be direct and honest and have real conversations and not just sort of let everything go hunky dory and then go back to your office and whine about stuff. So it's, I think that there's this, I don't know, I sort of enjoy this ability to sit around with people and, you know, kind of debate ideas and really try to get to the crux of things. And I think that we need that, and Brené Brown writes about that in Dare to Lead. I think that the other one, it's General McChrystal Team of Teams. And I think that, I'm not sure he ever realised it, but I think he was writing about Agile. But what he describes, of course, is the US military in Iraq, and the difference between facing a traditional force versus a, you know, sort of this ad hoc network, new, modern military force and Al Qaeda, and the changes that he then needed to do to the military to be able to respond to that. And I think that it's really quite extraordinary in the sense that, you know, unfortunately, in my opinion, the military is often the first thing for an organisation to learn about all of these things happening in the world. But it is a result of the digital revolution that now what you have are this interconnectedness that never existed before that allow little ad hoc network entities to pop up everywhere. And this is the same thing that's happening in business, and it's the same thing that happens in the market and Agile actually is a response to that, and so then we have to go back to how do we implement Agile so that that's actually part of the organisation. It's this interconnectedness and this ad hoc nature of forming teams and missions to accomplish goals, whether they're long term or short term. And so it's really super, an interesting analogy to, I think, what business requires. Ula Ojiaku So you've mentioned two books, Dare to Lead by Brené Brown and Team of Teams by General McChrystal. Okay, well, thank you. Brant Cooper They almost seem like polar opposites, but it's sort of interesting. Ula Ojiaku Well, they are interesting. I haven't read Brené Brown's Dare to Lead, but I have listened to the audio version of Team of Teams, and I do agree there are some interesting insights, which one can, basically, something that you said about principles, again, that principles, you know, you can draw from General McChrystal's narration of their experience in Iraq and how they had to adapt and all that, which you can apply to the commercial world or, yeah, so I completely agree was a very interesting book for me. So can the audience engage with you, and if so, how? Brant Cooper Yeah, so I'm Brant Cooper on all social media, really, but, you know, maybe primarily LinkedIn and I encourage people to reach out. I'm brant@brantcooper.com is my email and I respond to, you know, I respond to everybody. My company's website is movestheneedle.com and we're launching some online courses that hopefully make learning some of these new behaviours a little bit more scalable. So I invite people to check that out, but yeah, you know, happy to engage with any of your listeners. Ula Ojiaku Sounds great. Well, thank you for sharing those, and this would also be in the show notes. And would you have any final words for the audience, any ask? Brant Cooper I don't really have, I don't think any ask. I think that, I don't know, I guess one other little story that that summarises part of my life was this idea that I forget every once in a while that change happens because you as an individual decides to make a change. And I think that, like, some people, I think that just comes naturally to it and they live their whole life that way. I'm not that way, I'll sit back for a while and kind of look around and go like, well, who's going to fix this? And then I realise, oh, well, you have to do it. And so I encourage other people to maybe actually look at themselves in that way, and sort of that own self awareness goes like, oh, well, guess it's me. And, you know, I think that it's easy to be scared of the risks supposedly, but I also think that generally the risk is in doing nothing. And so you might as well go for it. Ula Ojiaku  Go for it, take risks. Thank you for those words. Brant Cooper Based upon evidence. Ula Ojiaku Okay, go for it, take evidence-based, calculated risks. How does that sound? Kind of made it very clinical. I think I've rephrased it in a way that takes off the oomph, but thank you so much, Brant. It's been a pleasure meeting you and recording this episode with you. So thank you again for your time. Brant Cooper Thanks for having me. Fun, fun discussion. Thank you. Ula Ojiaku That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!   

Bio  Fabiola is a pioneer and thought leader in Agile HR and Co-Founder of Just Leading Solutions, a global transformation consultancy for HR and Business Agility. As a seasoned Management Consultant and Executive Advisor, she works with key players around the globe and across the private, corporate, and social sectors. She helps them become more adaptive and innovative by maximizing the potential of their people function. Fabiola is a Switzerland native living in New York. She is an avid New York Rangers fan.   Interview Highlights 03:20 Business Agility 04:35 The Impact of Technology 07:45 How HR Fits into Business Agility 10:35 Making the Change 13:50 Sustainable Initiatives 16:25 Agile HR vs Agility in HR 18:35 Workforce Planning Sessions 30:15 The Agile HR Course   Links ·         JLS Website: www.justleadingsolutions.com ·         Training Overview: Agile HR Training ·         Agile HR Explorer: Agile HR Explorer Training ·         LinkedIn Fabiola Eyholzer   Books & Resources ·         The Connected Company, Dave Gray ·         Thinking in Systems, Donella Meadows ·         The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth, Amy Edmondson   ·         The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups, Daniel Coyle   Episode Transcript Intro: Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. Ula Ojiaku So I have with me here Fabiola Eyholzer, she is the Co-Founder and CEO of Just Leading Solutions, a New York based consultancy for Lean Agile People Operations. Fabiola, it's a massive honour and pleasure to have you on this show. Thank you for being my guest on the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. Fabiola Eyholzer Thank you, Ula, the pleasure is all mine. Ula Ojiaku So how did you get into this, you know, Lean Agile space? Fabiola Eyholzer So it's actually quite an interesting story. It's now 13 years ago when I was running the Swiss market for a European HR consultancy, and we were looking for a new leadership model for our career starters. And I met some Agile coaches and they're like, oh, you have to do Scrum, and I'm like, well, did you hear me say that we are an HR consultancy, we're not a software developer. She's like, trust me, it's the right thing to do, so we did a test run. So we introduced Scrum, which is the predominant Agile practice with our career starters, and it was such an eye opener to see what actually happens when we work in this new way that I knew this is the future, and I decided there and then to quit my job and dedicate the next phase of my career to Agile HR. Ula Ojiaku Wow. And since then, what sorts of organisations or projects or initiatives have you worked on? Fabiola Eyholzer So we've worked on so many different initiatives and with so many different companies and I actually had to look it up, I was in over 21 countries with the topic of HR Agility, and in that time I worked with companies across all industries, across all sectors, from profit, to non-profit, to education. And something that is really interesting is that at the end of the day, it doesn't matter that much what your corporate culture is, what your social culture is, when it comes to the people function, we want to make sure how do we maximise the people function, how do we leverage what we are doing in HR in a way that is highly beneficial for our employees, and with that, highly beneficial for our organisations. And of course, right now we are in that situation that the world of work around us is changing massively, you know, it's just being turned upside down. And this is, on the one hand, really scary, on the other hand, it's a massive chance to really reinvent HR, and really do things differently. Ula Ojiaku Something that stands out to me is you're saying it's an opportunity to reinvent HR and we will get back to that, but before we do, what does business agility mean to you? Fabiola Eyholzer So for me, business agility is really ensuring that our companies are engaging and adaptive and innovative so that they can thrive in that fast paced and constantly changing, highly dynamic environment. And at the core, what it means is that organisations and institutions are shifting away from being well oiled machines to being thriving ecosystems, because adaptability means exploring change, enabling change and being able to be change ready and to manage change to flex their muscles, to explore opportunities very quickly, to act on opportunities and not be scared, not be afraid to pivot and to course correct. And that's what we are seeing right now, that companies have to shift away from a model that served us really well for 150 years to a new system that is always at the edge of chaos, but that's the only way to continue to thrive and be adaptive in that fast paced, highly dynamic environment. Ula Ojiaku And would you say, I've, this is the first time I'm hearing that phrase, edge of chaos, but I do agree, and would you say that in this day and age, because the nature of the work we do, compared to 150 years ago, or even some years ago, it's for the most part getting to be knowledge-based, especially in technology. Is that one of the considerations for the change we need in the way we organise and run our companies or groups or teams? Fabiola Eyholzer Yes, technology is definitely a massive game changer for us, but it's not just about changing the way we work or changing the way our processes work. And quite often when we talk about technology in the HR space, people think about, you know, putting our HR process onto new, fancier digital process, but that's not just what it's about. It's more about understanding how much is technology and everything else that goes hand in hand with that, how is it changing the way that we work, and it leaves us with that very fundamental question, what type of work is left for us humans? If everything around us is being automated, and you know when we think about automation, a lot of people think about assembly line work going away, you know, routine work going away. And that was true 20 years ago. But today, work is being automated in every single field imaginable. And it's not just routine work that is being automated, and that leaves us with that question, what type of work is left for us? The answer is, it's the type of work that requires our passion and our potential for collaboration, ideation, our social and emotional intelligence. And of course, we are solving problems we never had to solve before, so there is no script, and that means we need to organise our companies in a different way. We need to organise work in a different way so that we can manage that ongoing fast paced change and that we can continue to solve problems we haven't solved before. And that's why we need to shift away from being a well oiled machine that has everything already figured out and written into job descriptions and competency models and objectives and KPIs to a company that can create and respond to change very quickly. Ula Ojiaku So given your definition of what business agility means to you and the case you've made for change, in the sense that we're at the edge of chaos and the sorts of work we need to do right now because technology, almost everything can be and will be automated in one way or the other, so where does HR fit in into this, in the light of business agility? Fabiola Eyholzer I can give you a very straightforward, simple answer. The role of HR in business agility is that HR is the secret to business agility, because if we don't align our people approach, and if we don't align our HR practices to the new realities and new demands, we're not going to be successful. So if we don't engage in talent scouting and talent enablement and performance acceleration in a way that is aligned with the new way of working, we cannot achieve business agility. Ula Ojiaku And how ready would you say the HR function is for this sort of transformation? Fabiola Eyholzer So the companies that we work with, or that I have the pleasure of working with, they are ready, or at least they're not scared to try. So they're courageous enough to try. As an industry in human resources, I think we have a long way to go. On the one hand, we see that things are changing and we're trying super hard to change with the times, but quite often we don't have that fundamental understanding that the entire mindset, the entire DNA of the organisation is going to change, and unless we understand that new mindset, that new DNA, we will not be able to change or maximise the people function in a way that is most beneficial for Agile enterprise. So we have a long way to go. Ula Ojiaku How would you know if an organisation's HR function is ready? Are there some indicators that they're ready to go on this journey if they haven't started already? Fabiola Eyholzer One of the indicators is if they have more questions than answers, they're probably there. So, because the companies are just saying, oh, we've done this, we've done that, tick, tick, tick. They're probably not the ones with that growth mindset that Agile organisations need. Okay, so that's one indicator. The other indicator is that they're not satisfied with the status quo and at the same time they are willing to do something about it. So I sometimes say, we have a gut feeling that tells us there must be a better way out there to engage with people, to create a learning organisation, to inspire people. And if we listen to that gut feeling, then we need to be gutsy about it, to change it, to do something about it. And these are some of the things that we see in organisations that we work with, they are not afraid to challenge the status quo. They realise we need to change and we need to change now. Ula Ojiaku And okay, when they have identified, yes, we need to change, we need to change now, what's your typical direction or steer or guidance to these organisations and their leaders in terms of where to start? Would you say, let's take a big bang approach and overhaul everything? Or would it be small iterative steps towards the change? What's your typical approach? How would you advise them? Fabiola Eyholzer So I'm going to give you the consultant answer, it depends. So it depends on the change readiness and change willingness of the company. We have a lot of companies where we have amazing success, when we took one part of the organisation, typically around 500 to 2500 people, where we changed the entire HR approach. We had some companies where we have had amazing success with a big bang where we really transformed the entire HR organisation, but it really depends on how ready are you to explore and also how willing are you, how much do you want to put in, how much energy and passion and resources are you willing to put into that transformation? But one thing that we always do is, we start with training and inspiring people, because we talk about a new world of work. And while this is easy to say, you know, people initially envisioned this is about virtual work, or working from home. Well that's a tiny part of what we're talking about when it comes to this new world of work, and because this new world of work is rooted in such a fundamentally different mindset, we first need to understand that mindset, and we need to speak the same language, because quite often we're using words that have a very different meaning in the Agile space versus the traditional corporate environment. And I can give you an example, for instance, if we talk about hiring for potential, you know, what are we looking for? In the traditional way of looking at potential, it's, does someone have the potential to thrive in that particular role, and does someone have the potential to take the next step in a predefined career trajectory? But that's not what we're talking about when we talk about hiring for potential in the agile space. We are talking about hiring for potential to thrive in an uncertain, complex, ambiguous, volatile world. Does someone feel comfortable with uncertainty, not knowing what their job is going to look like 12 months from now? Does someone feel comfortable with flexing their muscles, with learning and unlearning new things? So it's a very different understanding of a simple work word ‘hiring for potential'. So that's what we're doing, is speaking that new language, understanding why and how this new world is so fundamentally different. Ula Ojiaku Well, that's very, very thought provoking and some of the things in my little experience that I would expect leaders of such organisations to say like, yes, well and good, you know, you inspire us, there's a case for change, but how can we make sure this isn't one of those multiple failed large change initiatives with engagement? How would we know we will make this sustainable? Fabiola Eyholzer So you will never have a guarantee, but what is a massive game changer, and what's crucial to the success of any transformation is your commitment, okay? So you have to stick with it, even, or especially, when the going gets tough. And since we are working in such a different way, it's super easy to fall back into old patterns of behaviour when there are problems that come up, when we need to reprioritise, when something unforeseen happens, it's super easy to fall back, and that's when you have to keep going. And I think that dedication is one of the key aspects. And also what's interesting about agility is when you learn about Agile and how it works, and what the values are, it resonates with us. Of course it does, because it was created for the human economy, so it taps into what we bring to the table. So it sounds super easy and straightforward, let's talk about empowering people, who doesn't want to feel empowered, but then it's, we have to figure out what does that mean for us in an organisation, what does empowerment mean? How do we share that empowerment? How do we allow the teams to explore, to learn, to stumble, to fail, to course correct? It's not always that easy to then actually follow through. And I always say the devil is in the detail when it comes to Agile. You know, it sounds super easy on the surface, but when you dig in deeper, it gets more challenging. Ula Ojiaku It's almost like learning to play a game of chess. Yes, you might know how the different pieces move on the board, but actually the getting into it, it's a lifelong pursuit to become a grandmaster, almost anyway. I really enjoyed going through your course, the Agile HR Explorer course that's on the Scaled Agile platform open to SBCs, but there was something that you mentioned in that course, Agile HR versus Agility in HR. Can you explain for the benefit of the audience, you know, what these two terms mean and how they differ? Fabiola Eyholzer Yes, so the word HR has two meanings. So when people talk about HR, they can either mean the HR department, your compensation specialist, your learning expert, your grading instructor. So all these HR professions, so the entire HR department and that. Or they can mean HR as a discipline, as a function, where we talk about talent acquisition and performance management and learning and development, workforce planning and so on. And because there is that duality to it, we also have a different approach to agility. And that's when you hear those words, Agile for HR, so meaning what can Agile do for the HR department or HR for Agile, meaning what does HR do for the Agile teams, for the Agile organisation, and the approach is slightly different. So when we bring Agile to the HR department, it's all about how do we work in a different way? How do we organise around value? How do we deliver value faster, in a better way? So it's implementing all these Agile practices, the natural practices and ceremonies and artifacts within the HR department. Whereas the other side is really, how do we align all our HR practices to this new way of working, and that's really where the magic happens. So if we shift from recruiting to talent scouting, if we shift from learning and development to talent enablement, if we shift from performance management to performance acceleration, that's when we help the organisation become and stay Agile, that's when we bring business, or enable business agility across the organisation. Ula Ojiaku And there's something you said about workforce planning, you know, so in terms of the function, if I may just go slightly off tangent, it's a question that's been on my mind in the sense that, is there a way that one could approach workforce planning that would undermine the agility of the organisation? So I'm going to give a hypothetical example. So there are some organisations who might be saying, do you know what, in this economy, we need to balance out our talent mix, and we want new, fresh talent who, maybe fresh graduates who are, they will cost cheaper, they probably are up to date with new technologies versus, you know, existing talent who might be more expensive. So is there a way that one might approach workforce planning that could be detrimental, because there are pros and cons to every approach potentially, but in your experience, in the multiple organisations you've supported and continue to support, could there be things we could watch out for that might undermine our agility in that space? Fabiola Eyholzer Yes, so the way that we look at it is when we look at talent and what talent brings to the table, we don't look at it from, is this talent expensive or cheap? It's about how much value does this talent add to the organisation? Okay, so it's a value based way of looking at it, rather than a cost based, right. So that's the first part. The other part is that we, what we want to do with adaptive workforce planning is that we can explore opportunities very quickly, so it has to be a way where it's easy for us to say, hey, we have new initiatives come up that require new skills that we are very proactive about it, that, let's say we need more AI experience or Blockchain experience or whatever it is in the future, if we know that today that there is a high chance that we need it, let's look at the organisation. Do we already have people who have experience or skills in that particular field? Can they train others? Do we have to start building, putting up a training program ourselves? Do we have to get external talent in that can give us a leg up? Can we work with exploratory assignments to get people that experience? So there's so many things that we can do, and the focus with anything that we do in agility is always about now and the future, whereas in the traditional workforce planning, it's more about the past and today. And if you think about it, workforce planners, they don't have a full overview of what are the initiatives the teams are going to be working on six months from now, but we think it's going to be 12 months from now. And that's what we do with the active workforce planning in the Agile space. We have that forward looking approach. We look at our talent pool and say, what's the strength of our talent pool, not just compared to the initiatives that we're doing today, but to the initiatives that we think are coming up. And the beauty about this is, and here you see that we're really applying systems thinking, is that this is then opening up growth opportunities for our employees, because if we want to be an Agile organisation, we need to be a learning organisation first. Ula Ojiaku I do like what you're saying about the adaptive workforce planning and it does align with that, you know, responding to change over just sticking to a plan. How often would you recommend or how often in your view would it be practical to be having these sorts of workforce planning sessions? Fabiola Eyholzer We do it once a quarter with our clients, because that allows you to then also collaborate, because this is about talent management, you know, where do we see things that people need to learn, what they want to focus on, do we need to open up exploratory assignments, do we need to assign people to different teams, all of these things we need to know before we go into our quarterly planning. So if we talk in SAFe terminologies, you want that to happen before your PI planning so that you can make sure that those people topics are part of the backlog. So we work with capacity allocation, all of that, to make sure that we have people topics on that, so that's why we do it once a quarter. Ula Ojiaku Okay. And I would assume, you know, once a quarter, those people topics, because there's also the respect for the individual or the people involved, there would be some factoring in that there will be conversations with the individuals to say, hey, this is what we think is going to happen, what's your opinion? Do you want to go instead of just shifting them into positions and maybe them learning on the day of the PI Planning your team has changed. Fabiola Eyholzer Yes, and, you know, in the Agile space, we talk a good game about empowerment and we know how it works when it comes to work, but of course, empowerment also means empowering people when it comes to their learning and growth journey. So, hey, the people manager, people developer and HR are there to open up opportunities for them, but at the end of the day, they have to be on that journey by themselves, they have to make those steps, they have to go through that door, they have to go out and learn and explore and bring themselves into play. So it's, what's empowerment when it comes to their own growth and learning. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for that Fabiola. Would you say that when you do this adaptive workforce planning, does it make sense for one area or team or division or department to be compared with another? And I'll tie it back, I'll just give you some context, because I've heard of organisations, you know, doing it based on, oh, we want to make sure our cost base is, you know, our overheads, we're cutting it, I know everyone is doing a good job but we want to cut it, can we start measuring this department with that department in terms of workforce planning. I do resonate with that value base, instead of looking at how much they cost, what's the value these people, these talents are bringing? What's your view on, in the process of doing this, comparing one unit or department with another in their workforce planning approach? Fabiola Eyholzer So there are two aspects to it. One is, what data do we measure? And the second part is what do we do with the data? So for instance, when it comes to adaptive workforce planning, for instance, one of the important KPIs that we have is looking at the talent pool strength. So how strong is the talent pool compared to what we're working on right now? What we're going to work on in the next one or two quarters and three to four quarters out. But we're measuring that just so that we have a data point to get us talking. So this is not about comparing my team to your team and my team is better than your team, that's not what this is about. It's more about having a data point that allows us to have a conversation, that allows us to see, are we moving into the right direction? So, and I think that's important to all the KPIs. Why are we measuring them? And what are we doing with the data? And also the question, are we measuring the right things? And something that we often see is that people don't differentiate between leading and lagging indicators. So, for instance, a simple example in HR, we often look at retention rates, which is a great measure to have. But here's the thing, a retention rate is a lagging indicator, a lot of stuff has already happened, you know, and people did that quiet quitting probably long before they actually handed in their notice. So while we want to have that data point, there are other data points that are probably going to be better for us to be proactive, to do things about it. So always think about why are we measuring something? Are we measuring the right things? Are we measuring the things that are easy to measure? And for instance, cost is a data point that is easy to measure, but it doesn't say anything about the value. If someone used a hundred percent of their budget, well, did they do well? We don't know. Maybe they could have done the same thing with 70% of the budget, or maybe they should have gone to 120 and created something amazing for the future. So, really think about why are we measuring things and what are we doing with the data? Ula Ojiaku It just reminds me of a conversation I had and I said, what if we don't look at the cost and what if we also asked, are they meeting the targets that you set for them, the objectives that you set for them, and could they be setting up your organisation to make, you know, quantum leaps of progress by the work they're doing right now. So, and some of these things we can't see into the future, it's only retrospective, and that's where the leading indicators you talked about, although you talked about it differently from, you know, measuring attrition and people leaving and retention and all that, but there are ways of knowing in advance whether our guess is most likely to be correct, and sometimes measuring money or the cost isn't always the best metric, so I really like what you said about that. Thank you. Fabiola Eyholzer And also when you think about it, so many organisations, they want to be innovative and adaptive. At the same time, they focus so much on efficiency and, you know, following a script, following a plan, you know, hitting certain numbers that are set in stone, that they actually lose agility and adaptability and innovation, but they don't see the connection between the two, they don't see the connection between their leadership approach and their HR and finance and legal processes and how that is impacting one way or another how innovative they are, how creative they are. Ula Ojiaku I do recognise we're kind of teetering whenever we talk about the cost, we're teetering between, you know, finance, but they are all intertwined, like you just pointed out, it's all intertwined and it's a delicate ecosystem where you're always going to have to be doing something to stay in balance. What you did yesterday might not necessarily work today, so it's all about sensing and responding and I do appreciate what you've said so far. So what led to your developing the Agile HR course, which is now on the Scaled Agile platform? Fabiola Eyholzer Yes, I co-created or co-founded JLS, I think, nine years ago, and we very early on realised that we need to have a training to sort of do that level setting, get people that foundation, foundational knowledge to succeed in their transformation efforts. And that's when we created a series of different courses, and one of them is the Explore course that you mentioned. It's a one day course, it's great for anyone who's new or fairly new to Agile, Agile HR, you know, someone who wants to know more about it, and this is really an important first step to a longer learning and growth journey. But if you're new to Agile and you're in HR, this is definitely a great training. It's a one day training that gives you, starts out with the new world of work, you know, why is it so different? Why do we have so much pressure on performance management and career models and so on and so forth? Then what is Agile? And we explain Agile, not using technology based examples, but HR examples, you know, what does good design mean in the HR space? So we really explain the Agile manifesto and Agile values and principles from a HR perspective, and then we bring these worlds together and we talk about what is Agile HR and how do we apply that to different HR practices? So it's going to give you a well-rounded introduction to the field of HR Agility. Ula Ojiaku And is this available on the JLS website? Fabiola Eyholzer Yes, so all our trainings are available on our website and also our partner companies offer Agile HR training, you can go to an open enrolment class or you can bring it to your own organisation to train either an entire department or a team. And it's especially valuable when you start out on a new initiative, you know, it doesn't matter whether your company is already Agile or planning to become more Agile, if you're tasked with reinventing performance management or, you know, doing a new initiative, a new project, this is always a good way to get into it and say, okay, how can we make Agile work for us before we then help the organisation be more Agile? Ula Ojiaku We'll definitely have the link to your website in the show notes with your episode. So what I'm hearing is it's available, there are some partners as well that offer this training, which you and your team have curated. But if someone says, no, I want you, Fabiola, to come to do this for us, is that possible as well? Fabiola Eyholzer Absolutely. You can go to our website and contact me or you can hunt me down on LinkedIn, I'm the only one with my name, so you should be able to find me and just send me a message and we can definitely collaborate. Ula Ojiaku Okay. Well, what excites you about what you do currently? Fabiola Eyholzer Oh, I tell people I have the best job in the world because I get to work with amazing people, amazing companies, you know, people and companies who are not afraid to push the status quo, you know, who are courageous to do things differently and who are not afraid to push boundaries, because we're getting into uncharted territory. When you think about human resources, the term HR was first used in 1893 by J. R. Commons. So HR is this year, 120 years old, and of course we've evolved, you know, we changed from personnel management to modern HR and everything, but we're at the cusp of a new era that is going to be fundamentally different from anything else that we've done in the past. And if you think about it, it's never been this exciting to be in HR. We get to reinvent and shape the future of HR, or the people function, whether you call it talent and culture, or employee success or people and culture, whatever term you're using, we are reinventing it, and I'm in the middle of it, so I get to help organisations do this. Ula Ojiaku That's exciting. I can sense the passion and the enthusiasm there. Would you be writing a book on this topic anytime soon? Fabiola Eyholzer Maybe one day. Ula Ojiaku Maybe, okay. Whilst we will be eagerly waiting for your book, what books would you recommend to people who might be wondering, okay, what else could I read to, to get abreast on this, or generally any books that you would recommend that have made an impact or impression on you? Fabiola Eyholzer So one book that had a really big impact on me was The Connected Company. So it talks about the company being more like a city, rather than an engine, and even though it doesn't talk about agility, it doesn't talk about human resources, there is so much food for thought in there, you just have to put that thought in to make that translation into HR, but I thought that was a fantastic book. Then obviously Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows. I'm a systems thinker myself, so that definitely resonated a lot. And of course there are other books like The Culture Code, Fearless Organization, books like that, that can, you know, really give you a lot of food for thought. Ula Ojiaku Thank you very much. These would be in the show notes. And would there be any ask before we round up that you would have for the audience? Fabiola Eyholzer So don't be afraid to push boundaries and to challenge the status quo. As I said earlier, every time you have that gut feeling there is a better way out there, well, chance is that there actually is. So don't be afraid to push boundaries. Don't be afraid to try. And I know everyone sometimes feels that they're in that hamster wheel, that they have so many things to do already that they can't take on something else, but I tell you from personal experience and from my experience working in that field for, for 10 years, it is a game changer. And if you're willing to put in the work, the results are going to be amazing. Yes, actually it's hard work, but it really delivers what it promises. Don't be scared, be courageous, do it. Ula Ojiaku Thank you very much Fabiola for those words of wisdom. It's been a pleasure. I've thoroughly enjoyed this conversation and I hope, you know, we would have some follow up sometime in future. Many thanks Fabiola. Fabiola Eyholzer Anytime. Thank you so much. Pleasure was all mine. Ula Ojiaku That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!   

Bio   Victor is a Lean/AGILE Strategy and Transformation Consultant, helping organisations in emergent environments navigate the path to a successful future via "Agile Ways Of Working". This usually involves developing and implementing Lean/Agile Strategies for these organisations, coaching & mentoring Senior Leaders, Managers and Teams in attaining the Agile Mindset that allows them to achieve high performance. Experiencing this evolutionary journey with clients from traditional ways of working to successfully achieving full Agility is his career passion. With a career path spanning over 30 years, starting as an accountant and Business Analyst, Scrum Master to being an Agile Coach today. His best skill amongst many is as a motivator and his work ethic is all around making work fun. Other passion outside work include helping Africa as a whole achieve Agility – Victor is the creator of the A.P.I.A.M-R.A.T.S Agile Culture Model and also an amateur chef, gastronome and suffering Chelsea FC fan. Victor lives in England with his family, 3 dogs and 12 fish. Interview Highlights 01:40 & 08:00 Childhood bereavement 04:00 The importance of adapting 09:45 A.P.I.A.M-R.A.T.S model 14:50 Using local language 20:00 WakandAGILITY 22:25 Sustainable transformation 29:00 Transformation buzzword 32:15 The importance of timing   Social Media   ·         LinkedIn: Victor NWADU | LinkedIn ·         Email: victor@wakandagility.com ·         Medium: Victor Nwadu – Medium ·         Twitter: @wakandagility   Books & Resources ·         The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt: The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement: Goldratt, Eliyahu M ·         Turn the Ship Around! by L. David Marquet: Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders L. David Marquet ·         The Wisdom of the Crowds by James Surowiecki: The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations: James Surowiecki, Erik Singer ·         WakandAGILITY.com: Enabling Agility for Africa: Agile Training, Support and Networking | Wakandagility ·         The A.P.I.A.M. – R.A.T.S. MODEL | LinkedIn Episode Transcript Intro: Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. Ula Ojiaku So I have with me here Victor Nwadu, who is an agility strategist, Agile coach, everything-in-between, maestro. Victor, it's an honour to have you on the Agile Innovation Leaders Podcast. Thank you so much. Victor Nwadu Thank you, Ula, thank you for having me. Thank you. Ula Ojiaku So let, just tell us, Victor, about your background. What are the things that you've experienced, that have shaped you into who you are today and how you've ended up to where you are professionally? Victor Nwadu I mean, just cutting to the flow, I'm from Nigeria. I'm also, like all Nigerians, educated in Nigeria and then for some, you know, reason found myself here in the UK. If I wanted to pick on anything that has, you know, brought me to where I am and what has driven me to who I am today, I think it's just, it's my childhood, right. I was born to working class parents that, you know, Catholic people that worked hard for everything they've got. And as a Nigerian, you are told, it's instilled in you from a very young age, what the benefit of hard work is. Unfortunately, I was traumatised at the age of 13 by the death of my mum. So, and yeah, left with five siblings and my dad was broken by the course of events, but, you know, at that young age getting to where I am, having to, you know, do what I had to do to get to school and all that and still have these five siblings with me as well. Ula Ojiaku Because you're the first. Victor Nwadu Yes, I'm the first. You know how it is, especially when you're Igbo, right, you're expected to be strong and do it. Ula Ojiaku Di-Okpara (First Born) Victor Nwadu Di-Okpara, you say, that kind of thing, you know, so, yeah. But thank God for today and I find myself here today talking to powerful people like yourself. And I mean, I think that that has made me stronger, and I miss my mum terribly, but if I look back, to be honest with you, the course of events in one's life really defines, helps one define one's destiny. And that's how, you know, so I believe that what I went through in life has made me stronger, you know? So, yeah. I came to the UK, became an accountant, funnily enough, I did what we need to do. Then I find myself being a BA then a, after systems accounting, because I loved computers and all that, you know, then find myself doing, I don't know if you know what SAP is, so I did that for a while. Met a chap, a BA guy that I was doing his invoice, I saw how much was earning and I said, what, Jesus, I mean, tell me what to do, man. I then became a BA from that, then became, at that time, luckily, Scrum was just coming into the industry and, you know, we, I found myself doing something called an Agile BA, that's how I got into Agile. Then became a Scrum Master, became an Agile coach, and the rest is history. So that's basically it in a nutshell. Ula Ojiaku That's interesting, that you started off as an accountant and now you're an agile coach. I mean, I'm not throwing stones. I started off as an Electronic Engineer and I'm an agile coach, but yeah, it's all about, what I'm trying to also tell young people, including my children, that what you start off with doesn't necessarily mean that that's the career you're going to have for your whole life, you know, there is a whole lot of options, but it's just about starting somewhere. Victor Nwadu Especially now, I say the same thing to my kids, especially my son. You need to be in a state of mind where you need to adapt. A lot of paradigm shifts are happening underneath us and, you know, you need to be ready, and you need to be ready to go and adapt to the present circumstances. Otherwise, you know, and this is why we do what we do. Ula Ojiaku Yeah, and I think it starts with a mindset as well, you know, just having that Agile mindset, not to flog it, but agility starts first with the mind. What's your take on it? Because things are changing to be able to adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing world. Victor Nwadu Exactly. I mean, so we are living in exciting times, like you know already, agility was born out of the times that we're living in. It all started with the internet and outsourcing and all that, the world becoming a small village and all that. Then, we then have this digital thing going on and the information age and that brought yourselves all sorts of fantastic things. Things are, because we are utilising and leveraging the power of technology, we find out that we don't need to do certain things. Unfortunately, some jobs have to go, but then new ones are coming in. So all these things started happening, and again, it's affecting generations right now. If you were Generation X like me, you would've seen at least three more generations in your time when these changes are happening. It's crazy. So we now have, how do we survive? You know, you survive by adapting. If you don't adapt, you become obsolete, extinct, and that has tailored it to the industry, and the way we work. And even now talking to you, I'm working from home, I have a home office, you know, and that makes it even more fantastic because I can work anywhere in the world. Right. So what it does now is that it creates a bigger competition, right, where anybody can apply for any job anywhere in the world. It also helps the earth, and I don't want to go into that working from home debate, but that's all these things that are happening are as the consequences of the various paradigm shifts that are happening. So we need to adapt, like you said, in the mind, our mind needs to be open to change. And we need to put ourself in a place where we leverage all the advantages of those changes for our own benefits and so yeah. Ula Ojiaku Well said Victor. I mean, I completely associate with what you've said so far and the changes that are happening, especially with technology. For example, the recent one that's making waves is like AI, you know, so we're now in, someone said we're in the knowledge, information age, but now it's something like augmented age. So it's not just about the information, but it's also about being able to leverage, you know, technology like AI to still do productive work. But it still ties back with being adaptable, being able to learn and unlearn, to remain creative because machines are not taking over anytime soon. Victor Nwadu They can't take over the creative aspect and we need to automate and become, the competitive edge now is about who does things quicker, who gets to the market quicker and who get to the customer quicker? Who satisfies the customer in terms of the value threshold. So yeah, that's what we are, you know, we're creative, but we'll still be the same, but if you don't have creative guys in your design and engineering design, or software design, you're still going to fall back into that obsolete group of people that don't change or are not changing as quickly as it should. So yeah, I agree totally with that. Yeah. Ula Ojiaku Thank you. I know we went off into a rabbit hole, but I did want to just take you a little bit back to what you said earlier when you were talking about the things that happened to you that shaped you into who you are. And you mentioned your mum's death at 13, you know, I'm really sorry about that, and I can't imagine how tough it would be because my son just turned 13 and I can't imagine the difficulty it must be, well, you did say it must have been for you. You said events in one's life defines one's destiny. Can I, so my twist would be, because the same thing could happen to two different people and you have two different outcomes. So could there be something about how they react to it as well? Victor Nwadu Yeah, obviously. I mean, the way people react is the key, right. Yeah. So one person could react, have reacted, okay, fine. You hit the ground, I mean, you fall and you cry, and you get traumatised. Then you kind of rebuild yourself and stand up and keep going. And some people, it's just like a tough man's thing, right? It's a storming it and all that. So people stay in that trough, they never, some teams just stay there, they never rise above, you know, so some people, not because it's their fault, maybe their environment, maybe because resources that are not there to guide them, to help them stand up, you know? Yeah. We're not the same. So, yeah, I just happened to be who I'm hopefully strong enough to have been able to lead myself from that trough. Ula Ojiaku Well, you inspire me and I know that you are an inspiration to many other people as well, so thank you for sharing your story. So you did put together this model, agile culture model A.P.I.A.M-R.A.T.S. Can you tell us a bit about that? Victor Nwadu Actually, I have a little of pause on that. So it's something that, you know, that's been on my mind, the pet project, purely because, you know, some people are saying, are you trying to create another agile, and no, it's not. It's just like a clarion call to people that are coming to Africa and the Middle East to engage in a transformation process. We're looking at the way Agile is, when the forefathers of agile went to Utah to dream up this fantastic thing. I'm sorry, they were not thinking about Africa, they were thinking from their own Western perspective, right. And then we Africans, Agilists and change leaders from Africa, we know that things we've learned from what the manifesto and the principles have taught us, are not that straightforward in from where we come from. So it manifests itself with many of my colleagues in the West that have gone to Africa and met these challenges and have complained. And I say, yes, it's because we are totally different, mindset is different, the Western mindset is totally different. So I've kind of modelled it more to Africa and the Middle East, and mainly to Nigeria and South Africa because that's where I got most of my data from. And it's A.P.I.A.M-R.A.T.S it's actually Agile Practice in Africa and the Middle East. Okay. And the R.A.T.S, I get lots of stick from my friends, the R.A.T.S is just when I kind of listed out the main things, main factors, some of them not that bad, some of them, the bad ones, it just, the best way I could figure it out to make, to create a soundbite was, it came out as R.A.T.S. So you have your religious intrusion, the R is religious intrusion, the A is an age respect paradox, and the T, obviously time. The other one is secrecy cults, and the fifth one, which I've added on later on was language, the leverage language and that kind of stuff, right? So the religious one is the effect of religion in the way we work. If you go to any African or if you go to Nigeria today now, you will see, say for example, people doing their standup. The standup, daily standup is, that's supposed to take an average of 15 minutes. They will give an average of five minutes for prayers and, you know, the way we pray, evangelistic sometimes things more than that. And imagine a Muslim guy in that scene. You know, imagine a Western guy, a Western agile coach and like woah, really? You know, so you have that aspect of it. You also have the age respect paradox. So it's a paradox because yes, while people in the West understand age and respect, in Africa and in the Middle East we take it up a notch or two. You know, where sometimes actually the negative aspect is that somebody that is older than you now thinks because he's older, you cannot allocate well as part of a member of the team, you feel, oh, it's an insult for you to tell them what to do, which is wrong and very crude, but it happens, it happens. So we have that and we also have the African Time, so it's not fair to call it African because the French do it. It's not labelled an such connotative when the French do it… Ula Ojiaku I've been to different countries. They do it. I'm not going to name it, name them. Victor Nwadu Yeah. So, exactly. So the way it's been made to feel as if some kind of, like we, Nigerians and Africans started it. I don't really like it, but, you know, that has become something that of note and something that has kind of embedded itself in our culture and our behaviours. Yes, the French do it, but is in social circles, however, we've kind of brought it into professional, our professional lives, where we lack that discipline for some reason of keeping exactly to time. And that itself, obviously as you and I know, has an effect on cost of delay and all that kind of stuff. Ula Ojiaku And morale as well. Victor Nwadu The fourth one is secrecy cult. For some reason, we don't share knowledge. And I'm happy, agile is, has brought the fact that we need, when we bring transformation into an organisation, part of it is making the organisation at the end of the day, a learning organisation, where we collaborate and collaboration means we have to share knowledge, we have to share, you know, for us to win. Okay? So, yes, so for some reason in Africa, that doesn't take place as much as we would love to see that. The last I've put there is language, so this one is very important for me because, and Sophie Oluwole that's one of the, she's late now, but she's one of the people that have kind of been evangelising the need for us Africans to get rid of the Western language, like English or French. We should start teaching our kids chemistry, maths and everything, the academic learning journeys should start with our local language. It's easier on the brain, it's less stressful, and they learn. Then we can learn English later on, or however, we shouldn't waste time to learn a foreign language, then start learning the basics of academia, right. So if you look at it, it's timeframe itself is a waste in terms of agile thinking, right? So for me, I brought it into an agile space because you find out that, I have worked across global teams, right? And when, as an agile coach, you give teams freedom to please, create and design within yourself with your local language. Only come to me when you, you know, when you need to, when you need me. And then you'll normally find a language champion that will do the translation or whatever. And so you find out that it's easy, the engagement is easier, and they're loving you for giving them that freedom. So I've been bringing it to Africa to be the way we work in Africa so that we as teams are, we don't become too stressed or thinking of how we sound when we speak English. When we are designing, we are talking about, and when we are in an agile space, we are talking about and discussing with our local language, we are free, and you find out the mind is less stressed. So these ideas just keep flowing, the brainstorming session is fantastic, lively, because you don't have to, oh, let me think of how I'm going to put, structure this, my idea in English before I have to speak, it just comes out, like it's easier. So I think we have more benefits if we trace ourselves back into our local language, especially if the team is regional and everybody there is speaking the same language. Ula Ojiaku I was going to get there, so it seemed like you read my mind. I was going to say, but what if the team, because in Nigeria there are over 200 languages or 200 ethnic groups, since we've started off with Nigeria, you know, what happens? Because you might still have to go to a shared common language. Victor Nwadu That's a very good question. So, but the thing is, like most African, especially in India, places like India and even in the Middle East, we have a kind of broken English, we have a local slang anyway, that's a kind of, it's mixed with English, like in Africa, Pidgin, we call it Pidgin, it's a mixture of Creole and Hausa, Wazobia, that kind of thing going on there with English, everybody already speaks that language. Why don't we use that? So that's a tie breaker anyway, that, why don't we use that, you know? So yeah. So, but basically, when you go to places like Enugu or Kaduna, you tend to be of that particular region. But if we have a thought person there that's from other place, let's use our local vernacular to break that ice in terms of the way we speak and communicate. So that's my answer to that. Ula Ojiaku Okay. And where you have someone, if there's only maybe one person who's not of the culture, not from that country, doesn't know it, where does inclusion come in here? Victor Nwadu It's highly unlikely, but however if it happens, because in the small village that we have now, the global village that we have, I normally would have a language champion, somebody that's, you know, you should be able to find some kind of, somebody within the, just like your Agile champion, the team. You find somebody that can translate, right? Otherwise, I've developed all sorts of apps right now, where you can use something as Google translates. So when you, when you want to give important meetings and you want to write, you just do the one in English, then translate it to their local language and just send it out. Everybody will understand and they'll come back to you. So, yeah. But it's very rare, very, very rare, to find a place where the English language and French has not touched on this planet, or Spanish. So when that happens, you just, we just use tools that, simple tools are available to us, Google translate, use an Agile champion to kind of leverage and that, kind of make that disability or handicap a non-existence or minimise the impact of it in the way we communicate. Ula Ojiaku On a slightly off tangent point in terms of languages, Mandarin is also like going up there,  you can't ignore that.  So what have you been working on lately as you've talked about the A.P.I.A.M-R.A.T.S model, why you came up with it and how, in a little way, how it could be used, but what else have you been working on lately that you'd like to share with the world? Victor Nwadu Apart from work and all that, I give a lot to my people. I have tried to empower a lot of people, so I've created this WakandAGILITY group where we, it's a global support thing where we kind of give masterclasses to people that are coming into the industries from masters and Agile coaches already there, but want to, you know, so I kind of hold these master classes for free actually, because, I am looking at the scope of how we can kind of create, make sure that as Africa develops and becomes more hungry, resource hungry, we have the resources on the ground to accommodate those requests, right? Ula Ojiaku So skilled manpower, you mean? Victor Nwadu Exactly. We don't have it. So, and now to train up, agile training is expensive. So that's my own way of giving back. But apart from that, I've been working with people, great people, great change analysts, internationally based people like, I don't know if you know her, Mary Laniyan, she's based in the UK and we have a lovely woman that did African something sometime ago that invited me to Lagos Abiodun Osoba. We also, in fact, I think we have somebody, her name is Anu Gopal, she's even a powerhouse in agile affairs, I think one of those, yeah. I also have Etopa Suley from Canada. You know, all these guys who come together in the last Agile 20 something, we came off with the whole government manifesto for Nigeria. That was our presentation, it's fantastic, right? It is there on the internet right now, so yeah, so it's people like this I'm working with, we came up with the manifesto for good governance for Nigeria and many other projects like that. So yeah, that's what I spend my time doing behind the scenes, apart from work and spending time with my family. Ula Ojiaku That's really awesome, and I'm sure some of the listeners would want to know more about it. So we'll make sure the links are in the chat. Do you still do run these sessions? Victor Nwadu Yes, I do. It's keeping with the requests. I have a lot of requests, and you know. Ula Ojiaku So there is a question I have for you with respect to transformation, because as an Agile coach, I would expect that you've been involved in a number of transformation efforts with organisations in involving leaders and teams. Can there be a sustainable transformation without vision or strategy? Victor Nwadu So, it's possible for you to have a transformation, well a transformation, it's possible for that to just happen once, right? So it's like a rider, you know, you are told to ride through one end of the Serengeti to the other with dangerous animals and valleys and all that. With a horse, no compass. And you don't have a compass, you have a map or maybe don't have a map, you just know just face there, you get to the end, right? And you don't have a compass. You don't know the health of the horse and you just got on that horse. And yet, it is probable that you may be able to get to the end. But how sustainable is that? That is why the word sustainable that you use is very important. How sustainable is that for us to now create some kind of tourist pamphlet for other people to come behind us to use? It's exactly the same way. So it's probably, it's very, very probable for you to run this kind of transformation rather than just win with one team or whatever, then where's the playbook for those coming behind you, if you want to kind of multiply that, accelerate it within the organisation. So that's why sustainability is important. You know, how sustainable is that? How can we we create a model, or a playbook for us to use as an organisation for our own peculiar transformation, right? That's why it's important for us to have vision. I mean, you know, we need to have a strategy, you know, so the vision itself, first of all is the what and the why we are doing it, and all that kind of stuff. Then the strategy, the Agile strategy is very important. The Agile strategy itself is the vision plus how we're going to do it. Under it, in a timeframe, and how we're going to fulfil the objective required to actualise that vision, right? And with regard to the scope, timeline, course and the organisational culture. So that's the strategy. We need to have all that. When you have that and you place it, and you can start to kind of base it under the kind of, your playbook of entry, the change itself and the exit, then you have something to go with, you know? So, yeah, that's basically how it works. You cannot have a sustainable transformation without a clear vision, without a realistic strategy that kind of makes sure that all these aspects of the scope itself, the objective, the goals, and then taking into consideration the culture I dealt with, you know, you cannot have a, what is known as transformation, a sustainable one without having a transformation strategy. So that's it. Ula Ojiaku You may have touched on this, but I'll say, just going back to your Serengeti Crossing analogy. I mean if you are crossing, or the person has been assigned a horse cross, that it's important to say why are we crossing the Serengeti? Because it might be that if you evaluate the why it might be better for you to stay where you are and don't put yourself and other people in danger and waste resources crossing, just for crossing's sake. Victor Nwadu Yeah. I mean, all these things will come in when we are laying out the strategy and, you know, we will have the vision, somebody comes, you know. I have to say transformation is sexy nowadays. So the metaphor is dealing with the, the Serengeti itself is the transformation, what we assume to be all the wahala inside the transformation. Ula Ojiaku What is wahala? Beause not everyone understands what wahala is? Victor Nwadu Wahala means all the troubles in life, all the challenges you meet in everything. So we need to first of all understand that nowadays transformation is sexy. Where many organisations, I heard a rumour that many leaders engaged in these big companies engaged transformation purely for the benefit of their PE ratio in the stock exchange. It's a rumour, I haven't confirmed it, but I don't know how to confirm it, but I do know that it's very sexy to say your organisation is carrying out its transformation. Everybody wants to be a saviour, that's what we're doing. So that is part of the big problem and the challenges that we face as change leaders in the transformation, because the success of the transformation depends on the leaders and the person at the top. How committed they are to it. So the commitment of that leader is tasked from the top. If they don't have the buy in, if they're not convinced about it, they're just doing it for show, when push comes to shove, and it will happen, the challenges will come and hit you. Cultural challenges, personality challenges, the ego of leaders or middle managers, and you'll hit them as you already know. How committed is the leader at the top to come down and say guys, and create that space for us to be able to make this transformation happen? Because as the ultimate impediment remover, that person should be able to have the time, to have the commitment to come down to the team level, to the whatever program level, whatever, and be able to remove that impediment for that to happen. So if this leader or sets of leaders or whoever is given the mandate to commission a transformation doesn't have total commitment or is not bought in, is not doing it for some show or for some reason, it's not going to work. Ula Ojiaku Very true. Do you have any anonymised stories of your experience in guiding organisations in enterprise agility or transformation journey. Because one thing you've said, you know, transformation is sexy, it's really a buzzword. And if you ask two people, and they could be in the same leadership team, you know, C-suite team, what is transformation? And they'll give you different answers. It's just a buzzword, which means different things to different people. But do you have any story underpinning, you know, what you have said about leadership being key? Victor Nwadu If I give you all the stories, you're not going to leave here, right. However, I want to make a few things very, very clear that just standing in most organisations, that starts their transformation journey with a few teams, as you would expect. When they succeed in that they then call it an enterprise wide transformation. Where you take a few teams to delivering some funky, sexy, innovative products, that is not enterprise wide transformation, that's not business transformation or business agility, right. It is you showing that, and delivering a particular product as quickly to the customer, whatever works using agile ways of working. So there's that misconception there, that's the number one misconception that people think, oh, when we succeed with a few teams, yeah, we have, no, we haven't, because you still need to scale it, you know, to the entire enterprise, to non-IT enterprise to both upstream and downstream and all that. It is when your organisation as a whole, no matter how tall it is, can have a transparent view of where everything is, when an organisation can adapt to news in the market very quickly, when an organisation can innovate, it has the people they have been enabled to, to have a different idea, different mindset towards failure and seeing failure as a learning bridge, all those kind of mindset things, but happening in very large scale so that the organisation becomes a learning organisation, everybody's learning, we have a lot of COPs (Community of Practices), you know, that's when you say a transformation has been successful, that's when you can actually say the organisation has transisted from a traditional stoic, siloed set up to where we have open collaboration, and the cultures, mindsets and the culture have been changed in that the mindset of people that lead and those that make things happen is one, and they have this adaptive way of behaving. When something happens in the market, nothing shocks them. Even when it does, you have some, I understand some people even have an anti-disruptive, you know, when you come up with an idea in your organisation and you go back and you go out to the market and sell it, you become disruptive, you disrupt the market. However, some organisations as well are having anti-disruption strategies. If somebody else comes, how quickly can we respond? So those are the kind of things that shows that organisation has actually transisted from those traditional ways of working to an agile way of working. However, the other aspect I want to draw to our attention is about timing, when we are thinking of transformation. So for me, my advice is first of all, number one, to get the top person involved in it. Timing is very, very important. You need to have time for this transformation, to start this transformation. The time when you start transformation is very important. You don't want to start it when you have disruption in the market, things will not happen normal way, and it's better for you to do transformation in peace time, what I call peace time, before some major disruption, so that you can leverage what you've learned from that transformation in that, when that disruption happens. Timing is very important when you're carrying out a major transformation in your organisation, okay? You need to have committed leaders, leaders that are really committed to the cause, they're not just doing it for show and leaders should be able to come down and do Gemba walks, and see that what is actually happening in the kitchen is what their executive information system is relayed to them, right? There needs to be complete transparency from the top to bottom. So that we are sure that what the developers and the guys creating all our products are doing is exactly tied to the revision and objective of the executive. So that's part of it. And for me it's common sensical things that we already know. However, when we have transparency, this transparency increases trust. And it needs to start with the leader, he needs to show transparency by example, right? So it increases trust, and trust enables organisation-wide collaboration, right? So when teams start collaborating, teams that were locked in silos start collaborating, we start seeing silo breaking, and when you start breaking the silo, you start seeing aggregates, paradigm shifts happening. And that is when you now then see that almighty cultural change emerge. So it comes from, and transparency, it comes from transparency leading to trust, and trust leading to collaboration that breaks down silos. And when that thing happens, you start having all this shift because we now trust each other. There are no more silos, then the cultural shift that people say is hard to do, it is, however, if you follow this, if you allow this thing to flow the way I just listed, it'll flow in its normal cadence, right, without having to have unnecessary, you know It's not easy to have a cultural, don't get me wrong, when we are as change analysts and change agents, it's not easy for cultural change. No matter where we are in the world, people don't like change as a result. However, it starts with common sensical things like the leader taking the first step, the leader coming into, sometimes when you have a Gemba walk, you come into a meeting and you, like, for example, in some recent, not recent, about two years ago, where the leader came into a meeting or for an impediment that had been there, so kind of a Scrum of Scrum meeting, that had been a feature type impediment, and had been there for quite a while. And he came in and after they've had the conversation, he just raised his hand and everybody was surprised to see him and just said, what is it? And he kind of listed back to him, you know, this impediment that I've been there for roughly about almost a month was dealt with within two days. That is one of the major advantages where you have the leader there, and you need to ask yourself a question, what was causing the impediment delay? The verification of the impediments and the delay of the action of impediments before the leader came in. Middle management, also cultural things, bureaucracy, my space, your space, so the person at the top comes in and slashes through. If you have leaders that are prepared to do that, that have the time to do that, transformation will take its normal course without unfortunate circumstances happening. Ula Ojiaku You've said a lot of things in this time and space and they make sense to me, but is it possible, because you said transformation is ideal when done in peace time. How can you, it's almost like saying you time the markets. Because there are other people, many organisations that have admitted, for example, the Covid, the pandemic accelerated their transformation per se. Victor Nwadu Accelerated, but many of them died. You know, yes we have unforeseen circumstances that you cannot help that, right? Aliens landing on the planet and disrupting the world, you cannot help that, right? But I was saying that if you are given a time to select, so it's better for you to do it now before any, covid is part of it, but you also have market disruptions as well, right? So the best time would be when you think just kind of stability, because it starts from a small team, then expand. So you want to make sure that team is not distracted by bigger factors that may be beyond the help, the beyond the reach of the remediating powers of the leaders in the organisations, right. So that's given, if you are given, you know, if you can help it. If you can't help it, start it as quickly as possible, but you know, it's better to have it started in peace time. Ula Ojiaku Awesome, thanks Victor. I can see that you are quite passionate about what you are saying. So what books have you recommended to people about this topic or anything else and why? Victor Nwadu I have many books. The main book, that for me has kind of created powerful insights in the way I do my work, the way I even see life. One of them, the top one is The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt. Then the other one is Turn the…. Turn the Ship Around! by David Marquet. We'll put it in the links. You know, I use that a lot. And it's just leadership should be, you know, it should be about enabling, self-managing, self-organising team. I mean, in the way we work nowadays, you can't know everything. And that was what the point he was trying to say that as a captain, yeah, he's supposed to know how they work, but the details, there are experts that is within his reach, there are the guys that are the experts, so enable them to do the thing and you just deal with it. And the third one will be this one. I just read this book, it's called The Wisdom of the Crowds by James Surowiecki. He was saying that data shows that if you take, if you ask people to solve a problem and a group of people from just non-experts, and you get the experts to predict that same problem, the crowd will be, the answer will be closer to the reality than the experts themselves. Why, I don't know, maybe it aggregates knowledge of the crowd coming together rather than experts, and the other point he was making also, is how the HiPPO opinion (HiPPO: Highest Paid Personality), like when you have a team of engineers and the manager comes in that meeting and you ask a question of how do you think we can do this and he gives his opinion first, his opinion is going to skew the answers of everybody else. So this is why it's important, where you have a meeting and some HiPPOs are there, let them be still, let us hear the opinions of the team, the ordinary members of the team before if they need to give their opinion, right? Otherwise we just have a skewed opinion and that opinion will not be the best for that particular question. So that is another very good book. Ula Ojiaku Thank you. So there are three books. The Goal, Turn That Ship Around, The Wisdom of the Crowds. So how can the audience find you or contact you? Victor Nwadu You can get me at wakandagility.com, you can get me at victor@wakandagility.com. You can get me at LinkedIn, Victor Nwadu, you just type it there, you'll see m there. Ula Ojiaku Any ask for the audience, or any final words, Victor? Victor Nwadu Final last words, yes, Agile is real. Agile is here. And so be inspired, be prepared, be Agile. First of all, you be inspired to change, to have that mindset to adapt to your present circumstances. You know, be prepared for future disruptions, for anything, and be Agile, right? That's it. Then you will definitely succeed. You will definitely live longer. You will definitely transcend all the challenges, all the Covid 19 time, even aliens coming to this world or whatnot. Ula Ojiaku So can we hold you to, to account for it? Can we take it to the bank and say Victor said if we're inspired, prepared, and agile… Victor Nwadu It will help. I mean, from my experience in life, it'll help if you're inspired, you have to be inspired. People that are not driven cannot achieve much. You need to be passionate about what you do. And then you need to be prepared. You need to be prepared by having the skillset, challenge yourself to learn, constantly learning. Then be agile, all those things that we do, your mindset, the way you think, you know, having agile ways of doing things, you know, having a different mindset towards failure. When you fail, it doesn't mean you have, you know, you've done anything bad or the end of the world, failure is a sign that that option is not going to work and you've learned something new, you pivot and try a new one. So if we have that kind of mindset, we'll be innovating every year, every six months, every three months. If we have a different attitude towards failure, so be inspired, be prepared, be Agile. Ula Ojiaku Thank you so much, Victor. It's been a pleasure having this conversation Victor Nwadu It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much, Ula. Ula Ojiaku The pleasure is mine. That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!   

Bio   Bryan is a seasoned Enterprise Transformation Strategist, Coach and Trainer specialising in the practical implementation of Business Agility practices within all types of organisations. He brings a balance of business, technical and leadership expertise to his clients with a focus on how to achieve immediate gains in productivity, efficiency, visibility and flow. Bryan is a key contributor in the development of the AgilityHealth platform, AgileVideos.com and the Enterprise Business Agility strategy model and continues to train, speak and write about leading Business Agility topics.   Interview Highlights 02:40 Driving strategy forwards 03:05 Aligning OKRs 06:00 Value-based prioritisation 07:25 An outcome-driven approach 09:30 Enterprise transformation 13:20 The ten elephants in the business agility room 14:10 Misaligned incentives 15:40 Top heavy management 18:50 Being open to change 19:40 Process for improving process 25:15 Being a learning organisation 26:45 Leaders drive cultural change 29:50 Capacity and employee burnout   Social Media   ·         LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/bryantew ·         Twitter: @B2Agile ·         Email: bryan@agilityhealthradar.com ·         Website: www.agilityhealthradar.com    Books & Resources   ·         The Compound Effect The Compound Effect: Amazon.co.uk: Perseus: 9781593157241: Books by Darren Hardy ·         The Trillion Dollar Coach Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Handbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell: Amazon.co.uk: Schmidt, Eric, Rosenberg, Jonathan, Eagle, Alan: 9781473675964: Books by Eric Schmidt and co ·         Project to Product Project to Product: How Value Stream Networks Will Transform IT and Business: How to Survive and Thrive in the Age of Digital Disruption with the Flow Framework: Amazon.co.uk: Mik Kersten: 9781942788393: Books by Mik Kirsten ·         EBA strategy model: https://agilityhealthradar.com/enterprise-business-agility-model/   Episode Transcript Intro: Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. Ula Ojiaku Hello again everyone, welcome back to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. My guest today is Bryan Tew, and this episode is going to be covering the second half of the conversation I had with Bryan on all things enterprise and business agility. So in part one, if you've listened to it already, or if you haven't, please go to that first, I'd really, really recommend, because Bryan talked about how to overcome failed deliveries, meeting teams where they're at, establishing and driving strategy forward. Now for this part two, we went into the topic of OKRs, Objectives and Key Results, and how to align these with strategy. He also talked about the ten elephants in the business agility room, and the importance of being open to change and being a learning organisation and how leaders are critical to driving culture change. Without further ado, part two of my conversation with Bryan Tew. There are some things you've said about what leaders need to do and some of them include, you know, looking at the lean portfolio management, taking an outcome-based approach to defining the strategy at all levels and making sure that, you know, it kind of flows, not in a cascaded manner, but in a way that each layer would know how it's feeding into delivering the ultimate strategy of the organisation. Now, how, from a practical perspective, I mean, yes, you use OKRs, or objectives and key results, you know, that's one way of doing that. But how, are you suggesting then that the leaders would have to write the OKRs for every layer? Or is it just about being clear on the intent and direction of travel and letting each area define it within their context, but with some input from them? Bryan Tew No, it's a great question and I'll try to visualise as much as I can, but when you think about it this way, when you start at the top, and let's say that we're coming up with some enterprise level three year OKRs. So where are we going for the next three years? And you know what, things can change, so that's why we check in on those, you know, at least every six months, if not every quarter, because we're learning a lot and we want to adjust. But the thing is, if we have that level of strategy clarified, and not only that, but we're aligned across our leadership group, that means that the priorities that we're focusing on should align as well, and that's the important thing here. So now as we start to move from the enterprise down to maybe a division or portfolio level, all of the OKRs at that level should in some way align up to our enterprise, right? Whether it's around certain objectives that we're trying to accomplish from a financial perspective, or customer goals, or people goals, whatever it is, but now there's something that we can connect to as a foundation. So those senior leaders, although they can provide support and help, typically now it's your portfolio leaders that are taking the lead on building their OKRs that are aligned, and then down to maybe your program or train or whatever level you'd call it, what those OKRs will look like, all the way down to where every single team, which in reality, every single person in the organisation, sees how they fit in driving strategy. Now, I might be in facilities, I might be in HR, I might be in marketing, but I know that what I do is making a difference in making our strategy move forward, even though it's my small part. And I love that, that's where everyone feels connected. Now, what I see more often, and this is really unfortunate, and some people try OKRs and have a bad experience because leaders will just say, okay, everyone go out and do your own OKRs, but they're not aligned to anything. They're aligned to the local priorities, which may or may not be the right things to be working on at all. And so that's where I would say senior leaders need to take the initiative, and they can have help, that's why coaches are there, that's why their directs are there, they can even pull in people that might have expertise in certain areas to craft the OKRs, but even internally, you're going to have great expertise, but the idea is that, let's craft an OKR, even if it's not the senior leaders writing it, but it's actually showing the right message. Here's what we believe we need to do, and these are the outcomes we need to achieve in order for us to actually accomplish a goal. Like, what does that look like for us? And then I love to just press on leaders and ask, how would you know that we're successful? What would you be looking for? And that's a great start to your key results. So we have a really great framework, a very simple framework to build out OKRs, without just putting it into a template to start out, because I just want those main thoughts, like, why are we doing this? What is it going to accomplish for us? Who's going to be involved and what customer is this going to impact? And what's the best way to measure progress, and measure success? Like, those are the things I would start with, which makes OKRs a lot easier. But then from there, I have to have leaders come together to actually look at the work, and which of those items that, maybe, there may be many, which of those are actually going to be the most valuable to move forward with your strategy? You do not want your lower-level people who don't understand the strategy like you do, making those decisions. What are the best things for us to do? And then from there, that's where we can actually bring in the prioritisation, the value-based prioritisation, which we recommend, and starting to build more of your outcome alignment across your organisation. So yeah, there's so many great things that can be done. It's not a ton of work if you start to build a cadence and just a nice process for, how would you do that every quarter? Ula Ojiaku And that's a great starting point, because that reduces the risk of, like you said earlier, you know, the teams working on the wrong thing, you know, executing perfectly, but it's the wrong thing. Now, in terms of the process, because you've talked about how the role leaders need to play, you've given examples of how, what they could do to encourage agility in the enterprise or in the business. Now, would it be the same for a functionary division in an organisation that's going through their, let's call it, for lack of a better term, you know, an agile transformation, quote unquote, would you expect the process and the practices to be the same for each division, say finance versus IT versus procurement? Bryan Tew Well, so that's a great question and I would say yes and no. So, the process is probably going to be similar. For instance, I would always suggest starting with an outcome driven approach where we have some transformation outcomes that we're trying to achieve. You know, without that, how do you know that you've actually made it or that you're actually getting there? So I would suggest that for any type of organisation, regardless of type of work, but the practices will probably look a little bit different. You know, what you start with might look a little bit different. In fact, maybe I'll share a specific example here for a transformation. In fact, this was more around what leaders need to own around business agility, but this was a large financial services organisation with nine different divisions, and they all recognised that there were gaps in how they were delivering and they needed help, you know, and many of them had tried Agile, but when it came to actually applying OKRs and customer seed and organisational design and all these different ideas, especially things around our culture and leadership, there's always going to be some level of resistance, you know, so we need to really clarify what are the benefits that this will provide for us, why is this going to help us, what specific problems will this solve? And I would suggest that's where you start every time, like what are the biggest challenges you as leaders are trying to solve for? Like, what's keeping you up at night? What are you thinking about? That's why the practices are going to be different. Maybe my biggest problem is I have capacity issues, or maybe my people are feeling burned out, or maybe we're just not getting enough done for our customers, or we have changing needs all the time, or we're getting disrupted, whatever it might be, that's where we want to start. And so, in some cases that might mean, well, we need some portfolio management practices and others it might be, well, we need more customer centricity practices. And others it might be, we need to really focus on our teams. So that's why it changed a little bit. So in this organisation, there was one group who had been pretty successful with Agile and they said, you know what, sign us up, we want to do this, you know, we're ready for this leadership level of agility, so sign us up. And it was a good idea, because it's not going to fail. When you have leaders that are super excited about it, they're willing to put in the effort, and that can at least prove that it can work. And so we believe in what we call quarterly Sprints, we're familiar with a Sprint cycle, two, three weeks, whatever it might be, when you're looking at enterprise transformation, we believe in quarterly Sprints, where you have specific goals you're trying to accomplish for the quarter, and a laid out process, a roadmap to get there. So, we built a quarterly process, kind of the first quarter for this group. We had specific milestones we were trying to meet and the reality is they did an excellent job. You know, there were some learnings along the way and there's always some growing pains, but they did an excellent job to the point where, after the quarter, we came back to the leadership group and they were able to describe, you know, some of the real successes and wins they'd had. Now at that point, we have eight other groups who are kind of on the fence or trying to, you know, is this really going to work for us? And this was a brilliant decision by the senior leader. They said, why don't we go next with our most problematic group, the biggest risk group, in fact, this was the biggest PnL. We basically said, if it can work with this group, first of all, it'll drive some excellent change for us, but it'll prove that it can work for anybody. If it can work for you, it can work for anybody. And that's what we did. And luckily we had some leaders that, you know, weren't necessarily super excited about it, but were at least willing to give it a try and willing to put it in the effort to make it a successful trial, or at least a real trial. And it was great, we had great conversations, we started to implement OKRs, we started to look at their strategy, we started to bring teams in to start to build out some of their agility practices. But the leadership would meet together regularly to talk about what's the next step in our process. We had learning sessions, but all of those were hands-on doing. So, for instance, let's build out our three-year OKRs, let's build out our one-year OKRs, let's bring the work in and let's prioritise on a big board to see where things fit and are aligned, let's start to think about our capacity constraints and all of those things. And yeah, we had a lot of lessons learned, a lot of things that we had to adjust, but overall it was pretty successful. And after that quarter of work, we went back to that same group of leaders and every single leader said, sign me up, I'm ready because if it can work for this group and we're seeing benefits there, then I want to try it here as well. And I love that, because ultimately we want to prove out some success that certain practices can work, or let's learn that they're not working and not be married to something that's just not going to help us. But then let's have leaders engaged from start to finish where they know what they're responsible for, and ultimately what I love to see is when a leader says, you know, at the beginning of this quarter or the beginning of the six months from now, we had these three main problems, and those aren't our biggest problems anymore. We've solved those to a point where we can manage, now we have other problems we need to solve for, and that's what you want, right? And the nice thing is if you've solved the biggest problem, or at least you have a good handle on it, now the next biggest problem maybe isn't as big as that first one was, and we can start to make more progress, and maybe new practices become more evident. So, and that's what we try to do with any transformation. If you're just going through the motions to transform your group because it's what everyone else is doing or it's  what we were recommended to do or whatever other reason, it's not going to be nearly as impactful as if it's actually solving the things that you know need to be solved for. And that's where you get leaders' attention. Instead of it just being a side project while I focus on my real work, we're saying, this is solving your real work, and that's where they get really excited about, you know, being involved and seeing the day-to-day progress. Ula Ojiaku No, that's awesome. So in terms of, you've already mentioned some of it in terms of what leaders should watch out for, one of it is definitely not being passive, you know, go ye be agile whilst we do the real work. Anything else they should be watching out for? Bryan Tew Well, you know, that may be a good transition to something I like to share sometimes at conferences. This is what I call the 10 elephants in the business agility room, I mentioned one earlier, but these are things really geared towards leaders. So, I hope that our audience here, if you're struggling with any of these that I describe, gosh, there are real solutions, absolutely, but here's the biggest message. Don't ignore these, because they will eventually bite you and potentially even cause a derailment of your transformation efforts. So I'll just walk through these. Certainly, I'm available for more of a deep dive if anyone wants to reach out, but these are what I call the 10 elephants in the business agility room because no one wants to talk about them, right, they're hard topics, they're difficult topics, but you cannot be truly successful from a business agility perspective all around if you ignore these. So the first one, and this is probably one of the biggest ones that we see, is when we see misaligned incentives, so that's number one. And friends, the idea behind this is sometimes you have these transformation goals and you want these to work, but in reality you have incentives that are very much misaligned to those transformation goals, even some of your product level goals, I'll sometimes see, for instance, product managers who part of their compensation package has maybe an incentive goal around how many projects you start or how many products that we deliver. It's like, all about outputs. Nothing to say about how effective they are or what the actual outcomes from those products might be, it's just as long as we get a project started, well, that's very anti-Agile in reality, you know, especially when we're thinking about true value. So you need to really look at your incentives. Now, leadership incentives we could talk all day about, right, sometimes it's around specific financial goals, sometimes about people goals. What I would always suggest is rethink your incentives to become more outcome-oriented, not necessarily tied directly to an OKR or key result, but related, okay, aligned to those, because what your incentives should actually be around would be your business vision, and the business outcomes you're trying to accomplish, why would it make sense to have anything else? So that's one thing that we see oftentimes has to be discussed at some point, right? Ula Ojiaku Definitely, because incentives would determine the behaviour, which leads to the results we get. Bryan Tew So, the second one is kind of related and, and this is around sometimes we see a lot of, especially in large organisations, top heavy management, we see a lot of leaders, and not enough doers, and the reality is I get this, because in large organisations we want to reward people for a great job, and so we continue to promote, but we just add more leaders that are sometimes not necessary. And remember, those are highly paid people who now maybe don't have a lot of responsibility. I've seen, some directors, for instance, with like three direct reports and they don't really do a lot, and it's just unfortunate that we're trying to reward people in a way that actually hurts our business. So, I know it's a hard thing to talk about, but at a certain point I would always suggest that let's take a look at what leaders are necessary and what balance do we need between the leaders and the doers, the people in the trenches doing the work. And we've seen lots of, of managers and supervisors and directors and general managers and operations managers and VPs and senior VPs, and some of them are absolutely needed and they do incredible work, but sometimes there are others that just aren't needed, we just don't know how to handle that. So that's something that would be part of a true transformation, is to think about what's the right balance for us, okay, and make small steps to get there. Now, kind of related though is sometimes we see that they're just bad managers, and that's number three, okay, bad managers, where we are promoting people, let's say they were an excellent developer, as an example, okay, or QA leader, or it could be any type of role, and we promote them to be a manager. They don't have good management skills yet, they have never done this before, what they're still good at is what they were doing before. So they like to solve problems, they like to fight fires, they like to do all of the tactical things. And they, some of them, are just really bad with relationships, and so they become almost despised by their people because they're just very abrasive, sometimes they just don't treat their people well, and you have to watch for that. Now, I'll say this as well. Sometimes you have these great performers who don't even want to be managers, but it's the only opportunity they have in the organisation to progress or get a pay raise or promotion. And so, we find that in, especially large organisations, there are so many other needs that these people can move into, you know, for instance, we need, internally we need coaches, like technical coaches or DevOps coaches or architecture coaches, or even people coaches that these people could start to do some work in, we might have some technical roles, or project management roles or whatever it might be, that these people might move into, RTE roles, or continuous improvement champion roles, and sometimes that's a much better fit, or potentially even managing a process or service or operational area instead of managing people, that can sometimes be a great fit. So that's one thing to watch out for, because not everyone is well equipped to become a manager, and you might lose some of your most talented doers because they're sick of their manager, they're tired of being treated the way they have been, so watch for that. Which leads me to number four, and this is where it goes back to leaders. Sometimes we'll see leaders that say they want change, but they don't want change in my area. Change everywhere else, but don't change me, right, because I'm comfortable with what we're doing and I own it and it's my fiefdom. And friends, if you want true enterprise transformation, and really enterprise delivery that is aligned to your strategy, we all have to be open to what changes make sense. Now, we're not trying to force fit any change, I would never suggest that, and if you have vendors or coaches that are trying to just force fit change for the sake of change, then you need to ask questions about that. But how do we actually improve our process so we can deliver more effectively? And this is where I'll just, I hope that this will be a nugget of wisdom for people. But I would say this, the important thing is not your process. Okay, you can have an agile process, you could have a waterfall process, you could have any process. The important thing is your process for improving your process. How are you continually optimising? How are you looking at what's working or what's not working, more importantly, and really take action to fix those things that are not working to improve and optimise. That is a continual thing, and it never ends, especially with the way that technology advancements are taking place. We are always going to get disrupted in different ways, customer changing needs and so forth, that's always going to change the way we work. So let's continually optimise by improving the way that we improve our process. So, kind of with that, leaders need to really own that yes, we are open to change, but let's make sure it makes sense, let's look at what our needs are and how we can actually improve the way that we deliver. Now, the next one, number five, this is maybe the hardest one, and this is where sometimes we have rigid funding models that are just not allowing for agility and adaptability, and I think every organisation struggles with this. And I'll just tell you, I'll just give you one example of an organisation where we actually went through the work to build OKRs, you know, these really great OKRs that all the leadership team was aligned on, and when we actually went to, okay, what are we going to do about it? They said, well, all of our projects are funded for the year, so we can't do anything about it. And when that realisation came that the work that they were actually having their teams do day-to-day was not the work that would actually drive their most important outcomes, it was like this slap in the face, like, we've got to change this, we've got to do something different. And so, having the conversation, starting out with your finance folks, with your product folks, I find personally in my experience, that it is not hard to have a conversation with finance, bring in your CFO, bring in their staff, it's not hard to have the conversation because in reality, any good CFO would be looking at how can we, as a finance organisation, better support our delivery in product organisation. Like, that's what we should always be thinking about. So I find that they're usually open to ideas, they just don't know what they don't know. And so I'll sometimes talk to IT folks, IT leaders, and they'll say, well, you know, our finance group will never go for this. Have you brought it to them to really consider on, because I would be surprised if they would be that resistant, if this is the way the business is going, right? So I don't find that that's such a hard conversation. Now, making the actual changes needs to be a little incremental. Ula Ojiaku Can I ask a question about that though? And I do agree that, you know, most people, they come to work, wanting to do their best for the organisation and to move things forward, and that includes finance, legal, whatever, you know, division. Now what if it's a publicly traded organisation, you know, they have regulatory, you know, reporting needs, and so how do you navigate through that? Bryan Tew So, in reality, most of the regulatory aspects of your financials are not going to need to change all that much, it's how is the money being used? So for instance, instead of funding projects, which it's easy to see a start and an end date for a project, we're going to adjust this, and that's one of the reasons why using increments like program increments, PIs, is helpful, or even quarterly increments, and saying, we're going to fund teams within a structure, like a value stream potentially, and then we can leave it to the local leaders, the product folks, the product managers, to determine based on our outcomes, what should the teams focus on now. I mean, the reality is we're paying for those people whether they're part of a project or not, right? So if you move the money to fund a backlog of work, rather, that can change and be prioritised based on what we're learning, instead of just a project from start to finish, you'll see tremendous gains in how we can adapt and truly work on the right things in the moment. Now, I will say that maybe that doesn't work for everyone to start out for sure, and that usually is an incremental process to get there, but when you think about it that way, can we still have the same controls in place for how we check in on how the money is being spent? Absolutely. In fact, I would suggest that you're probably going to see a lot more physical evidence that you're providing value as you have Sprint demos and system demos and PI demos to actually see how the work is actually being delivered. And then getting feedback from customers much more effectively. Now it's just a matter of how do we actually look at where our people are, where is the time going? And sometimes that's not even that important when you realise that it's really about how the solutions, the products and solutions, are actually being accomplished. So that, to me, is not the big constraint here, and it's certainly not the problem that I would start with, but it is something that we need to be thinking about. Does that change, and do we have specific nuances based on our regulatory environment, our country, whatever it is, that we have to really consider. And I would say the same thing goes through for Agile capitalisation. So many groups are not capitalising to the maximum benefit that they should be because they're scared that maybe we're going to go off the rails. Friends, there is absolute integrity in doing capitalisation for agile projects or agile buckets of work that you are probably able to really benefit from, and you're probably not, there's a lot of work there that you can actually bring in then for some of your spending around transformation work because of the gains. The sixth one is more at a people level, but can be helped by your leaders. This is an unwillingness to share knowledge and do cross training. Now, sometimes people just don't want to learn new things, maybe we have a fixed mindset. More often, people don't want to share what they know because I feel like I'm the indispensable tiger and that makes me more valuable, or sometimes it's a bigger problem than that, that leadership can manage. It's, I don't have time to do this. I want to share, because I need help, or I want to learn, because this will help my team, but we have so many priorities day to day and deadlines that we're trying to meet, we're working the midnight oil anyway, I don't have time for cross training, I don't have time to teach someone a skill that will actually benefit us for years going forward. So leaders need to actually build time and space and capacity for knowledge sharing, cross training, learning. If you're not a learning organisation, friends, then you are falling behind. And this is the time where we believe that learning may be the only competitive advantage that you'll have, you know, the way that you can learn fast and implement your learning into your delivery system. Ula Ojiaku I came across this material, and well, basically it just said we're no longer in the information era, we're now in the augmented era. So before it's like, you know, you're learning right now, it has to be embedded into how you are working, you are learning as you go, and that's the expected norm moving forward. Bryan Tew So seven is avoiding the cultural impacts of transformation, right, and I think we're kind of overcoming that hump, but the reality is that leaders drive culture change. It's not just a grassroots culture that we're looking at, you know, teams can have their own culture, even a train can have their own culture, but when you're looking at an organisational culture, leaders drive the culture through example, through their behaviours, through the values that we articulate and share and reinforce, but it's also about how do we work and what are we trying to accomplish? And so that's why in our EBA model, we actually have a leadership and culture pillar specifically that leaders need to own, because in reality, culture is one of those top most important things that will actually establish lasting change. Ula Ojiaku And by EBA you mean Enterprise Business Agility. Awesome. Bryan Tew Yeah, which leads us to number eight. And this is where, kind of back to another one, leaders will say something but not really mean it. For instance, leaders will say that they need to prioritise better. Yes, we need better prioritisation. Yes, a value-based scoring system sounds amazing. But then in reality, they'll go and pull the trump cards and they'll escalate and they'll pull things out of the hat because we need this done now instead of actually looking at the value, the business value of the priorities that we should have in place. So it takes some discipline, and yes, we need some level of money to account for those rapid changes or rapid things that come in that we don't want to miss out on. That's why the ability to have adaptive funding is so important. You know, how often can you ask yourselves, have we had an opportunity where if we don't hit this right now, we're going to miss the window of opportunity? And it's shameful when an organisation says, well, we have to approve that in our budgeting process, so that's going to take months. Well, okay, I guess you don't want that opportunity, right? So all of that makes a difference. So how do we prioritise and how do we adjust and look at priorities constantly? We're always reprioritising based on value, and based on what we're seeing in our marketplace, in our industry, with our people. All that matters. But when I see leaders that, you know, they'll kind of say from a word perspective only, yes, I agree, these are the priorities, and then they'll do their very different own thing for their people, that's a problem, right, that's a problem. Ula Ojiaku And where I've seen this happen as well, it kind of ties in with your number one, which is misaligned incentives, but sometimes it's really, okay, yes, this is the right thing to do, but my target says X, so we're not going to do Y because I need to hit my targets and get my bonus. But anyway, so that's number eight. Sorry, go on. Bryan Tew And so Ula, maybe this sounds familiar, but sometimes I'll hear a leader that will be part of our kind of portfolio or enterprise strategy, and then they'll go back to the people and say, you know, don't worry, those are the priorities for the business, but I'll tell you your real priorities. Really? You mean you're not aligned with your business? Because that's a problem. So anyway, that leads us to number nine, which is putting a blind eye to capacity and employee burnout. Sometimes we just don't want to talk about it, right? We don't want to think about it, we know that our people are, you know, probably burning out. We're asking them to work weekends and late nights, but, you know, they'll figure it out. Or sometimes we'll have leaders that will push more work to the teams that are already over capacity, because in their minds they'll think, well, if they feel the pressure, they'll just start to do more, they'll somehow produce more and we'll force them to kind of get these deadlines made. Friends, you're going to lose people that way. You're going to lose quality. Lots of problems from that perspective. And I will tell you this, that there was one organisation where they wanted to bring in business agility and they said their number one problem was that their best people had been burned out and were all leaving. And when your best people leave, that puts you in a really terrible situation, doesn't it? So they realised they had to stop that, and this was year after year of, you know, it's going to get better, just get this project done, it's going to get better, and it never does. So, which leads us to our 10th elephant in the room. And this one I am, I give you kind of as a bonus because it's not really an elephant anymore. It's more of just something that should be part of our initial conversation. It's not having an outcome-oriented measurement strategy for your teams and transformation. So we kind of briefly touched on that earlier, but starting out any kind of change work or transformation work with specific outcomes that will actually help you to know that you're getting the business value or the needs met that you have in mind, that's so important, whether they're OKRs or other type of format, you know, that's not as important for me, but do you have a plan for how you're driving the right results? That's important. And one of the things that, that we do at AgilityHealth is we build a measurement strategy in place for your teams. You know, how healthy are they, how are they maturing, how are they performing? But also, I would say not just your teams, but your individuals. How do you know your individuals are doing well? But also, how about performance level, whether it's a train, a program, and as well as your portfolio and enterprise. If you don't know how you're doing in each of those areas, you know, that's actually what we try to help organisations with. So that's been really exciting for us to be able to work in. And those are the 10 elephants. Ula Ojiaku They're all very thought provoking elephants, if I may say so myself. And this is really great in terms of, and I have attended one of your courses, you took us through the Enterprise Business Agility Strategist course. That was excellent, life changing, I'm saying it not just because you're here, but it's true, it did make me think, it opened my eyes and it gave me a more joined up perspective of, you know, what a true transformation should look like and what are the key principles and pillars that one needs to consider to ensure that their transformation effort is sustainable. And you also have, you know, the tool that you have, you know, the AgilityHealth Radars and the tools, they are quite useful as well. Yeah, so great. Bryan Tew Yeah, absolutely. And I'm glad to hear you say that because ultimately the Enterprise Business Agility Model is really for leaders. It's a strategy model for leaders, you know, leaders, coaches, transformation folks who are really leading transformations, that's the intention, so you can have everything in place so your teams can actually be successful and deliver most effectively. Agile only gets you part of the way, right, and Agile is part of the model for sure, but it's not what leaders focus most on, right? It's what teams will do. Leaders need to do the other things will actually allow your teams to be successful. If anyone's interested in looking at the model, you can actually go to agilityhealthradar.com and that's where you can see our radars, that's where you can also go to the EBA model, and all of that is there. Ula Ojiaku So what books have you recommended most to people, and why? Bryan Tew Yeah, great question. So, you know, one that I've recommended for years that I really have enjoyed, I mean this was lifechanging for me, is called The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy, and the reason for that is this will really help you as an individual, a leader, a coach, whatever role, to really build in excellent habits, and there are many self-help books around how to build good habits. This was by far the best one that I've read, and it really kind of goes through a step by step - here's how you start from your morning routine to how you start to build in the right practices day to day, you know, how you influence others, like it's been tremendous. I'll give two others as well. I really loved the Trillion Dollar Coach, and this was written by some of the Google guys talking about a coach that really helped Silicon Valley organisations think more strategically and become real excellent leaders. So it's called the Trillion Dollar Coach, Eric Schmidt is one of the co-authors there, and he happened to be my CEO at Novell back in the day, so that was kind of exciting, and I recommend that for any type of leadership role or coach role. And then another one that is more recent, but I've just really loved is called Project to Product by Mik Kersten, many of you have heard of this one. I see a lot of organisations right now trying to move from projects to more product-oriented organisations, and he has a great way of thinking about that through his flow model to talk about how do you practically do that, so I highly recommend that one as well. Ula Ojiaku So where can the audience find you? Bryan Tew Well, I am on LinkedIn. I am one of the only Bryan Tews, T-E-W, Bryan with a Y, but I'd be happy to take any emails at bryan@agilityhealthradar.com. I do use Twitter, I don't use it a lot, but you can find me there as well, at B2Agile. Okay. And you know what, I just love having these conversations. So if any of you are interested in whether it's our strategy model or our EBA Radar or our AgilityHealth Radars, we have actually an OKR or outcome dashboard that if you're getting into OKRs, that might be a great thing to try out and utilise, that's been really helpful, we use it internally. And those are all things that we're real excited about. And sometimes I'll be at different conferences, speaking here and there, and I always love to do that, but to certainly reach out, I'd love to share any thoughts and ideas with you, and certainly help in what problems you're trying to solve. Ula Ojiaku Thank you so much, Bryan, these would be in the show notes as well. Any final words for the audience? Bryan Tew You know, I'm just excited that this has been such a big part of our community now, thinking about business agility, enterprise agility, it's a different feel than when we were just talking about Scrum and Kanban and some of these more specific frameworks. Business agility truly is opening up organisations doors to a new level of possibility. So I would say if you're just starting out on your business agility, learning and journey, keep that up, look at the resources that will help you learn what's going to solve your biggest challenge, it's an exciting place to be and I love that there are so many getting into this space because it's kind of the next level of really organisational optimisation, regardless of what kind of organisation you are. And what I love about business agility is it applies to any type of team, any type of group, because there are always things that we can do to improve the way that we either support our business, work in the business, or provide services for our customers. So I'll kind of leave it at that. Ula Ojiaku Well, thank you so much, Bryan. It's been an absolute pleasure and I've also gained insights speaking with you, so thank you for making the time. Bryan Tew Absolutely my pleasure, Ula. Ula Ojiaku That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!     

Bio   Bryan is a seasoned Enterprise Transformation Strategist, Coach and Trainer specialising in the practical implementation of Business Agility practices within all types of organisations. He brings a balance of business, technical and leadership expertise to his clients with a focus on how to achieve immediate gains in productivity, efficiency, visibility and flow. Bryan is a key contributor in the development of the AgilityHealth platform, AgileVideos.com and the Enterprise Business Agility strategy model and continues to train, speak and write about leading Business Agility topics.   Interview Highlights    04:15 Interrogating KGB agents 06:00 Now that I see it – overcoming failed deliveries 07:15 Agile ways of working 09:00 Meeting teams where they are at 11:50 AgilityHealth 14:10 Business Agility vs Enterprise Agility 17:30 Establishing a Strategy  21:25 Driving Strategy forward   Social Media   LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/bryantew Twitter: @B2Agile Email: bryan@agilityhealthradar.com Website: www.agilityhealthradar.com  Episode Transcript Intro: Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. Ula Ojiaku  Hi everyone, my guest for this episode, actually, we're going to have a two part episode, is Bryan Tew. Bryan is a seasoned Enterprise Transformation Strategist, a coach and a trainer that specialises in the practical implementation of business agility practices within all types of organisations. I first came across Bryan when I did the Agility Health Enterprise Business Agility Strategist Course. I was mind boggled, my mind opened to possibilities, and I thought this is someone I would really like to speak with. In this episode, Bryan and I, for part one anyway, we talk about overcoming failed deliveries, or overcoming failed transformations, the importance of meeting teams where they're at. We also looked at the term Business Agility versus Enterprise Agility and Bryan explained his view on what that is all about. We also talked about strategy and how to establish that and drive that forward. I hope you enjoy listening to Bryan Tew's episode, as much as I enjoyed having this conversation and recording it with him. So part one, Bryan Tew. So I have with me Bryan Tew, who is a seasoned Business Agility Strategist, coach, trainer extraordinaire. He is just an all-round awesome expert in the Business Enterprise Agility space, and he works with AgilityHealth. Bryan, thank you so much for making time out of your busy schedule to have this conversation with me as my guest on the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast.   Bryan Tew   It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me on, Ula.   Ula Ojiaku   Awesome. Thank you again. So, growing up, can you tell us a bit about your experience, your background, and how you wound up to where you are today?   Bryan Tew Sure, absolutely! So I grew up in the state of Utah, in the United States. It's a wonderful area, there's lots of mountains, and many outdoor things to do, so I love the outdoors. I grew up skiing and snowboarding and playing outside, hiking, I do a lot of canyoneering and rock climbing and all kinds of outdoors, sometimes extreme sports, I just love those kinds of things, it helps me connect with nature. I had a great growing up, great schooling, but I'll tell you the thing that really changed my life, what's most influential for me is when I was 19 years old, I decided to serve a two year mission for my church, and I was called to St. Petersburg, Russia. You don't get to choose where to go, and that was actually a very interesting area for me. As you can imagine, this was in the early nineties, so a lot of different things changing in that area. And I had the most amazing experience, you know, two years where I wasn't focused on myself at all. It was all about serving others, and we would do things from helping kids in just these terrible orphanages, helping people on the streets, working with youth to try to help change their lives, teaching about God, helping families, it was just such an amazing experience and that really changed me and made me into a person that really was not so much about me, and kind of the selfish environment that we typically are in, but more about what can I do to maybe better myself so I can help others, and that was phenomenal. Now, as part of that, you know, obviously I was able to speak Russian every day, every day, all day, and so I became pretty fluent in the Russian language. And so following my mission, I came back, and as part of my schooling, I decided to use that, and I, just as a part-time National Guardsman, I joined the US Military Intelligence as an interrogator. So I actually was able to use my language to interrogate former KGB agents, Russian scientists, you know, different things to get information, and that was tremendous. And that just helped me through school. I didn't do a lot with that other than, you know, those six years where I was in the Guard. But that was a really influential time as well, and you know, as it came time for a real career, I actually started out in Washington DC, that's where my wife and I, after we were married, we moved there. She was working in congress, as a staffer, and so I started working for a lobbying firm, and that was really cool, you know, in fact, my interrogation skills helped a lot. Ula Ojiaku I can imagine. Bryan Tew Right? But you know, the reality is that it's a sleazy industry, and we saw some things, even just day to day, some things that I just didn't approve of. So I knew that that wasn't going to be a career for me. So, I actually decided to pursue an MBA, a Master's in Business (Administration), and we moved back to the state of Utah where I went to BYU for a Master's degree. And we thought, you know, while we're having our first child, it'd be nice to be close to grandparents. We just loved it back being home, so we've actually been there ever since. And from there, after my Master's degree, I actually started my technology career, that's where I became a Project Manager at Novell, which does infrastructure and networking software… Had a great experience there working waterfall projects. But the problem was we had many failed deliveries. And I remember hearing sometimes these five little words that I've come to dread, which is now that I see it, and maybe you've heard those words, maybe audience you've heard or maybe even said those words, right, usually something bad follows like, now that I see it, I don't think you understood my requirements. Or now that I see it, we have to go back and really fix a lot of things, or now that I see it, we completely missed the boat. And we had some of those experiences. And so it was multiple projects later where we were working on an enterprise service bus and my team had a real need for some expert consulting help. So we had this great gentleman from Australia, can't even remember his name, but he had some expertise in that area, but he also had some ideas on our broken process. So he would talk to our team and he said, you know, because this is such a large and complex project, I recommend that every day, let's just come together as a team, we can invite any of our key stakeholders who want to be part of it, but let's just stand up and talk about who's working on what and what our daily needs are, and how we can resolve some of these dependencies and just try to get on the same page as far as a daily plan. So we started doing that. He didn't call it a daily Standup or anything, it's just, this is something that can work. And so that was helping us for sure. He also said, you know, because we need to be on the same page as a team, I suggest that every couple of weeks or so, let's get together and let's talk about what's working and what's not working and what we can do to improve maybe the next couple of weeks. And again, that was just a really, just great idea to get us starting to think more collaboratively as a team. And he said, you know, because this is such a complex project with lots of moving parts and lots of different stakeholders, let's actually bring them all together. Let's try to help them understand and collectively build out a vision for where this is going. Let's think about how, what some of those customer needs are, and let's start to build a backlog of prioritised work that they can engage with us on. And let's start to deliver that maybe every couple of weeks to show our progress. I mean, as you can tell, just bringing in some of these Agile concepts without calling it a certain methodology. I mean, this was back in 2002, I didn't know anything about the Agile Manifesto at the time. He just said these are some practices that can work. Now having gone through that project, implementing some of those ideas, we just thought, wow, this is such a better way to work. And that's when I started to really start researching, what is this called? What is this all about? And so I got a little bit of agile experience there, and it just so happened that at the time in this area in Utah, we call this area the Silicon Slopes, because it's kind of like Silicon Valley in terms of technical experts here, lots of great developers and that understanding. So there were a lot of technical firms and there was one organisation that was actually looking for some Agile help, so this was about 2005 now, and I was one of the only ones that had Agile experience. And so I was hired on to help lead some of the effort there, and it was tremendous. In fact, I loved going from team to team, helping to introduce Agile concepts and kind of looking at a strategy. We had some software teams, and this was at ancestry.com, but we had software teams and operations teams and all kinds of different types of teams. And that's when I realised that, you know, there are so many different methods and what works for one team may not work for another. And so we have to be very particular about what kind of work do you do? What kind of customers do you have? What type of team are you? And then the methods will fit what you're trying to accomplish from an outcomes perspective. And that was super exciting to me, to implement Scrum for some teams and then others, you know, we had some Kanban methods and maybe a blend with Scrumban. That was exciting. Ula Ojiaku On that point in terms of, you know, what works for one team might not necessarily work exactly, and the fact that you're taking the time to understand their context, their work, what are outcomes they're trying to achieve, and then help them navigate, you know, find the best practice that would help them and processes that would help them get to where they're going to. Did you find out, I mean, that maybe some teams, they might start with a practice and then later on that practice doesn't necessarily work for them and they'll change? Bryan Tew Over the years I found that there are certain agility practices that can work for any kind of team. And at the time I didn't know that, and so we would start them on certain things, you know, let's try at least to prioritise your work or let's try to just put your work in some kind of visual place where you can see how it's moving. Like, just simple things like that. Let's try to think about what your vision is from your customer's perspective and which later became more of an outcome-driven approach. But at the time we knew nothing about this, this was very new. And so we would try certain things, but one thing that I heard over and over was, for instance, like an infrastructure team. An operations team, a support team, like we're not software, so don't try to force fit what they're doing with us. And we still hear that today, don't we? And so just understanding, okay, let's learn about what you do day to day. How does your work flow? What do you focus on each day? And how much of your work is rapid response work? How much of your work is more around projects that you can plan out? And then based on that, that's where we can recommend certain practices. So that was super-exciting and we get a lot of success from that. And to this day I continue to recommend to leaders, if you have different types of teams that are unique or do different work than maybe your traditional Scrum teams, listen to them, don't force fit things that will potentially not work or potentially make them very cynical about the process. Listen first, and meet them where they are. And it just so happened that, you know, after a while, that kind of work was, is super exciting, but now that we were all agile and kind of moving that in that direction, like, well, now I need more, right? And that's when I started consulting. And so I was lucky to have joined Steve Davis with Davisbase. I was, in fact, it was just he and I for a while, and we did some training, we did a little bit of coaching and we started to build that business, and that's where I started traveling all around doing training classes, and it was just really fun, just such a fun time early on. This was about 2008, 2009, and very exciting. After a while I realised that, you know, our goals weren't exactly aligned and I was starting to look at, you know, maybe I just form my own company and start working through things. And it was right around Christmas time. In fact, it was like right after Christmas, and I just got this LinkedIn message out of the blue. And it was from Sally Elatta, who was just starting up a company herself called Agile Transformation, and she said, you know, you come recommended, I'm looking for a partner to start to build this business. And it just was such a perfect time for me as I was looking for, you know, how do we actually build transformations? How do we help organisations from start to finish instead of just doing quick hit training classes? And so she and I hit it off right away and I started working with her back in about 2011 and, you know, it's been just a match made in heaven, I've been working with her ever since. It was about, a few years later when we realised it's more than just transformation work, it's more than just training and coaching. We had a lot of organisations, especially leaders, asking us questions like, how do I know that this transformation is working? How do I know the ROI of the work that we're doing? How do I know how my teams are doing? How do I even know if they're better than when they were doing waterfall? We were trying to do some different flow charts to look at how teams were producing, but it was just not sustainable, it wasn't scalable, and it wasn't answering the right questions. And so that's where Sally's ingenuity to build the AgilityHealth platform came into play and really, we did it for our own clients, but what we found out is this is much bigger than us, so that's when we actually changed our name to AgilityHealth, and since then we've been more of an enablement company, really helping not only our clients, but partners and anyone who's interested in the enablement services that we provide, which include kind of the health and measurement platform and the outcomes dashboard and so forth. But also our Business Agility services. Ula Ojiaku Oh, wow! That's an inspiring story and it's just amazing how things seem to have aligned, hindsight is 20-20, isn't it? And you've nicely segued into, you know, one of the topics we were to discuss, which is Enterprise Agility versus Business Agility. Are they one and the same, or are there differences to the terms? Bryan Tew Well, although there are similarities, they're actually very different things and I'll try my best to describe this, but first of all, Business Agility is really the ability to adapt to change, to be able to learn and pivot as you see disruption. And that's really important to understand, because that can apply at any level in an organisation. I can have one division, or even a single release train, or even team that are adopting some of those practices, and so that would include things like customer centricity and your lean portfolio management and a focus on outcomes and how we prioritise, and our organisational design, and all those different practices, right, which are super important. But that can be done in a small scale, that can be done in a single group or division. When I think about enterprise agility, that's where we're actually applying those practices and those concepts and mindsets to the entire enterprise. That's where you get to see true flow from an outcomes perspective at a company level and where all different leaders are talking the same language. They're collaborating well together, they have the same outcomes, we know what we're trying to accomplish from a vision and purpose perspective. And you can't do that when you're just looking at many moving parts that are all doing their own thing. Now I will also say that when I talk to leaders, I like them to think of business agility as agile for leaders. I mean, we know a lot about Agile for teams, and certainly the support that is needed from leaders, but business agility is what leaders have to own, and their job is to provide the right environment so that teams can actually be successful and provide the most valuable work to customers. Ula Ojiaku And what are those sorts of things that leaders can do? Because what I'm getting from you is there are some things that they would need to influence or change in the environment, what sort of things? Bryan Tew Well I'll kind of frame it this way because you're familiar with our Enterprise Business Agility Strategy model, and I'll just kind of talk about a couple of points from there, because this is what we share with leaders, this is what you need to own. So for instance, how do we take a more customer-focused strategy? And that's where we build in a process for how we can validate that we're actually solving the right customer problems. So leaders, you need to engage your product people, your marketing people, your support people, those who are hearing customer problems and understanding how do we validate that we're solving the right ones? Not just guessing, not just hearing from those who think they know, but actually validating that. And that's where many of the practices around journey mapping and so forth can come in. But then the second part is, how do we validate then that we're actually solving those problems the right way? I mean, if you're solving the right problem, but you have a terrible solution or a solution that doesn't really fit the need, then you're still not winning. So that's where discovery work, and there's so many great approaches now on how to do discovery, which is part of that whole customer solution, okay. So, leaders can help drive that. But then of course there's the lean portfolio management side. How do we establish a strategy? And if there's one thing that I would have leaders start with, it's you need to define and get aligned with your fellow leaders on what your strategy is, and that's an enterprise strategy, but also a division, or portfolio strategy. We need to make sure that that is not only clear, but then the second part of that is how do you communicate that strategy to your people? Not just through a chain of command, but through specifically clarifying what the strategy means and how that applies to each of your groups that are working to move forward on your strategy. So that's really important. And I would say part of that is to build an outcome-based strategy. So we like to use OKRs to do that, and, you know, the way that we suggest building OKRs is a little bit different, where you actually have a hypothesis statement that ties together what you expect to do and the outcomes you expect achieve, and then the key results can help you really measure that. So that's the thing that we ask leaders to do, and not just, give that to your people to try to accomplish, or to try to do for you, but actually think about what are our enterprise and maybe longer term, like three year OKRs, and then from there, how do you align the work there? How do you align the outputs, the projects, the initiatives to your outcomes, and break that down into the prioritised items that you need your groups to own. Like that is something that the teams can't do for themselves, they can guess, but they'll probably get it wrong when it comes to actually looking at strategy. So those are all things that happen. And then one of the things we'll certainly get into is funding models. You've got to be thinking about how do you fund your work? And I know that that's what we call an elephant in the business agility room, because it's hard to talk about. And it's something that's not just a thing that you implement on your first day of moving to business agility, but it needs to be discussed early on, to start getting the balls rolling. So we'll talk through that. And then your org structure and your design of your teams, like that's something that leaders have to own, what is the optimal org structure? Do we look at value streams? What kind of value streams? Is it product focused? Is it journey focused? Is it more around your capabilities? Like, that matters because that's how you start to bring the right people to work together. And then of course, your leadership and culture, you know, you need to be thinking about the culture transformation along with any kind of agile or business agility transformation. So, all of those things are what leaders should be thinking about, including their technology agility, like, how are we potentially providing the right technical environment, and tools and systems, and everything else we need that might need to be modernised, or maybe looking at digital transformation work to support our teams actually providing the best products to our customers. Ula Ojiaku That's amazing. So there are some things you've said about what leaders need to do and some of them include, you know, looking at the lean portfolio management, taking an outcome-based approach to defining the strategy at all levels and making sure that, you know, it kind of flows, not in a cascaded manner, but in a way that each layer would know how it's feeding into delivering the ultimate strategy of the organisation. Now, how, from a practical perspective, I mean, yes, you use OKRs, or objectives and key results, you know, that's one way of doing that. But how, are you suggesting then that the leaders would have to write the OKRs for every layer? Or is it just about being clear on the intent and direction of travel and letting each area define it within their context, but with some input from them? Bryan Tew No, it's a great question and I'll try to visualise as much as I can, but when you think about it this way, when you start at the top, and let's say that we're coming up with some enterprise level three year OKRs. So where are we going for the next three years? And you know what, things can change, so that's why we check in on those, you know, at least every six months, if not every quarter, because we're learning a lot and we want to adjust. But the thing is, if we have that level of strategy clarified, and not only that, but we're aligned across our leadership group, that means that the priorities that we're focusing on should align as well, and that's the important thing here. So now as we start to move from the enterprise down to maybe a division or portfolio level, all of the OKRs at that level should in some way align up to our enterprise, right? Whether it's around certain objectives that we're trying to accomplish from a financial perspective, or customer goals, or people goals, whatever it is, but now there's something that we can connect to as a foundation. So those senior leaders, although they can provide support and help, typically now it's your portfolio leaders that are taking the lead on building their OKRs that are aligned, and then down to maybe your program or train or whatever level you'd call it, what those OKRs will look like, all the way down to where every single team, which in reality, every single person in the organisation, sees how they fit in driving strategy. Ula Ojiaku That was a very, very insightful conversation with Bryan, and this is only part one. In part two of my conversation, Bryan gets to talk about aligning OKRs, that's Objectives and Key Results, the ten elephants in the business agility room, what are those? And the importance for leaders to take the driver's seat in cultural changes and many other things as well. That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless.

Bio Marsha is the founder and CEO of TeamCatapult, a respected and sought-after leadership   development firm that equips leaders, at all levels, to facilitate and lead sustainable behavioural change.  She partners with leaders and leadership teams to clarify their desired change, develop communicative competence and think together - accessing their collective intelligence to bring about change. TeamCatapult is a partner to mid-size start-ups and global fortune 500 companies across sectors like entertainment, game development, banking, insurance, healthcare, communications, government, information technology, consumer goods, and retail. Clients have included Microsoft, Riot Games, Epic Games, Capital One, Blizzard Entertainment, Starbucks, Liberty Mutual, Fidelity, and Chef. Marsha Acker is an executive & leadership team coach, author, speaker, facilitator, and the host of Defining Moments of Leadership Podcast. Marsha's unparalleled at helping leaders identify and break through stuck patterns of communication  that  get  in  their  way  of  high  performance.  She is known internationally as a facilitator of meaningful conversations, a host of dialogue and a passionate agilist. She is the author of Build Your Model for Leading Change: A guided workbook to catalyse clarity and confidence in leading yourself and others.  Interview Highlights 04:15 Having effective conversations 04:45 Move-follow-bystand-oppose 09:30 Functional self-awareness 15:50 Build Your Model for Leading Change 18:00 Articulating your own model for change 26:00 Collective alignment 27:20 Getting messy 30:00 Making space for open conversations 35:40 TeamCatapult    Social Media  ·         LinkedIn: Marsha on LinkedIn ·         Website:  www.teamcatapult.com ·         Twitter: Marsha on Twitter    Books & Resources ·         The World of Visual Facilitation ·         The Art & Science of Facilitation, Marsha Acker ·         Build Your Model for Leading Change, Marsha Acker ·         Reading the Room: Group Dynamics for Coaches and Leaders, David Kantor ·         Where Did You Learn To Behave Like That? (Second Edition), Sarah Hill ·         Coaching Agility From Within: Masterful Agile Team Coaching ·         Making Behavioral Change Happen - Team Catapult ·         Changing Behavior in High Stakes - Team Catapult   Episode Transcript Intro: Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. Ula Ojiaku Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Agile Innovation Leaders Podcast. In this episode, I have Marsha Acker, the CEO and founder of TeamCatapult. Marsha is a respected and sought after leadership development expert and her team, or her company organisation, TeamCatapult, focuses on equipping leaders at all levels to facilitate and lead sustainable behavioural change. So this is the second part of my conversation, the second and the last part of my conversation with Marsha. And in this conversation, in this part of the episode, we talk about, or Marsha talks about having effective conversations, functional self awareness, what does that mean? She also talked about how one can articulate one's own model for change, and the need for getting collective alignments and the fact that it's not easy, sometimes it gets messy, but it's important to make space for open conversations. I found both the part one and this conversation, which is the final part of my conversation with Marsha, very insightful, and I hope you get something useful out of it as well. So without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, Marsha Acker. Marsha Acker I'm very focused on behavioural-led change at the moment. And so in that behavioural-led change, what I place at the centre of any change is how are people communicating with one another? Are they able to actually have the real conversation? Is there enough awareness in the system that they can kind of catch sight of when the real conversation starts to go underground? And can they actually have the muscle, the range in their leadership to catch sight of it and then bring it back in the room? Change doesn't happen until people feel heard and understood. I think one of the biggest questions that I think we help leadership teams look at is how do we work with difference, and actually welcome it rather than try to minimise it, because I think that's the rub where, if we don't have skills to work with it, we tend to minimise it or send it out of the room or suppress it. Like we say, you know, we don't have enough time for that, or, gosh, we've got this deadline, so we've become super deadline driven, and I think sometimes at the expense of having a real conversation with one another. And I don't know that I could find you an example of any organisation that I've worked in, including my own TeamCatapult, where something that we're trying to do or accomplish or move forward doesn't meet a roadblock when some aspect of our conversation isn't fully online or we're not fully having the conversation that we need to have. So you asked how would I do so how, one of the ways that I would do that today is, first, whenever I'm engaging with a leadership team or any other team that's really trying to bring about change and just noticing like they're trying to level up or there's something that they're wanting that they feel like they're kind of capped at is I just start to help them look at the way they engage in conversation, because I think in the conversation there are lots of indicators about how that conversation plays out and are people really able to say what they're thinking or do we get stuck in some common dysfunctional patterns that can show up? So one example of that would be, we use a sort of a technology for looking at conversation and there are four actions that happen in all effective conversations, a move, a follow, an oppose, and a bystand. So a move sets direction, a follow supports it, an oppose offers really clear correction. It says, no, hang on, wait a minute. A bystand offers a morally neutral perspective, so one way is to help a team onboard that, but there are common patterns and one of the common patterns that will come out, particularly in tech teams where there's pace and we need to move things forward, is that they can get into this pattern of someone makes a move, and everyone else just sort of remains silent or, so something to the effect might voice ‘sure, you know, that sounds good.' So they start to fall into this pattern of move and lots of follow. And what's missing often is the voice of bystand, which says, hey, I'm wondering what's going on, or I'm wondering what we're not saying. And then really clear opposition. So the ability to bring pushback, constraint into the conversation. So if you go back to that original leadership team that I was telling you about, you know, way back when, I think one of the things that was going on in that team is they weren't, no one was able to say, this is an incredibly difficult decision, and I don't think I can make it unless I have these things answered. So they kept making it about the process and it wasn't really about the process at all. It was really, it had a very personal component to it that wasn't being discussed, and so the inability to discuss that really created the drag. So the way that I think about helping any team work through any change is, helping them onboard the skills of being able to have, we call it bringing, it's a principle that we hold about bringing the real conversation in the room. Can you bring the conversation online versus offline? So the other flag that you might have for when your conversations are going offline is, if you feel, I often think about if I leave a conversation with you and I, for example, if I left this conversation and I went off and I felt the need, or I was compelled to one of vent or complain about it to someone else, that's my kind hazard flag. But, there was something that I was holding back from in this conversation that I didn't say, and that's my signal to actually circle back around. And so maybe, maybe I need to check in with myself, maybe there's something that I left unsaid. Ula Ojiaku That's so insightful. I've been making notes, but the question I have, one of the key ones I have right now is based on what you've said, you know, if one is to go out from a conversation and realise, oh, there's something I'm needing to vent, which I didn't say, you know, in front of the people or the person involved, as a facilitator or coach for that team, how can you help them to, because there could be several factors. It could be that they don't feel safe, they feel that they might be punished for actually saying what they have in mind. So what would be the process for addressing it, such that people can actually say what they actually feel without feeling that they would be punished or side-tracked or ostracised for it? Marsha Acker Yeah. I think there's two things that will be happening, and so when we are working with leadership teams, we're often helping them onboard these skills collectively. And that does take a process, right? So I think there's a piece around helping them build a container. So when I say container, I mean we're talking about the four actions, we're talking about the value of the four actions, we're talking about kind of normalising that oppose can feel really scary or difficult, but that'll very much be based on the individual. So we're working at both that whole team or system level, but also at the individual level, because for me, you know, in my own behavioural profile, oppose can be low, and there are really good reasons for that. Like I grew up in a household where it was rude to oppose an adult, so I've got that, you know, childhood story about why I would not want to oppose. I've got other stories that have happened along the way that sort of started to build this kind of old internal narrative for me about, ooh, it can be dangerous to oppose. So I think there's some individual work that all of us, you know, when we're ready to engage in, can do around noticing when I might hesitate to do that, what's the story? What's sort of the old narrative that I'm telling myself about that action, and what has me hold back in the current space today. So there's that individual component of growing what David Kantor calls functional self-awareness, so the ability to sort of catch sight of my own behaviour to also be able to grow my own behavioural range. But then Ula, you've, like, you very much are naming, there's also a system level component to that. So if I'm on that team and if I'm sort of in a positional leadership role where I might hold some kind of authority over people get paid and I'm responsible for those performance reviews that we seem to do only once a year, like I need to be really aware of where I might be, even unintentionally, really closing off those conversations. So how willing am I to put out an idea and have someone offer an oppose? Or am I not comfortable with that? Like, I don't like it when someone opposes, and so how might I be consciously or unconsciously kind of squelching that? So there will be that role and then there will also be the role of the team. Teams that have this, I call it sort of the foot tapping, like we need to get things moving or rolling or we only have a 30 minute time box for this meeting. It's not that you'd never have 30 minute meetings, but if 30 minute meetings are all you ever use to meet, you are really missing an opportunity, like there are places where I think we have to slow conversations down in order to create the space for people to really be able to think together and to take risk. But if there's never any space for me to take risk, I'm just not, you know, it can be scary enough to do it, so I think there are multiple things that you have to attend to at multiple levels. I think there's an individual level, I think there's a whole team level, a system, I think there's the positional leader or whoever's in authority or sort of whose voice carries a lot of weight in that team. All those things will be playing a part in whether that conversation can fully come online, and I do think it takes work. So I'm just a big advocate of work on how we communicate, because if we can equip everyone in a team to be paying attention to how we're communicating and we sort of have that range in our behavioural ability and our communicative competence to kind of bring all those things online, then I would hold that there aren't many things that we can't work through. But when we just attend to the process first, without having some of the skills about how to engage in the conversation, I think that's where we get really stuck and then we just start searching for other process, right. It becomes hard to have a conversation and I know I need to have a conversation, so I go looking for the new facilitation tool or I go get my, you know, bag of stickies and markers and I'm like, we're going to, and I just, I think sometimes we can become sort of over-reliant on facilitation processes and look, I'm the first proponent of facilitation processes, but sometimes I think they actually, we lean so heavily on them that they actually might be hindering the real conversation coming in the room. Ula Ojiaku What you've said so far, Marsha reminds me of, you know, the values in the Agile Manifesto sets people and individuals over the processes and tools. It doesn't mean the process and the tools aren't important, but we're dealing with human beings first and foremost. And my philosophy as well is about winning hearts and minds, because that way you can go further with people once they, like to use your words earlier on, they feel heard and listened to, rather than imposing something on them and what you've said so far as well, reminds me of in your book, The Art and Science of Facilitation, this is gold dust. Yes, I refer to it almost every quarter since I got it. I refer to it in, you know, to just sharpen my myself. And you said something on page four, in other words, facilitation is not just about what tool or technique you're applying, it just as much, if not more, it's about what you believe. So you did mention something about the self-awareness and functional self-awareness and proposed by David Kantor. So it's not just about what you, you know, it's about what you believe, who you are being in the moment, and what you see and sense in the group. We could go into this, but I am also mindful of time and I'd really like to dive into this book, your latest book, Build Your Model for Leading Change. I thought, like you may have mentioned before we started recording, it's not something you'd read over a weekend. I opened the first page and I was like, no, I have to slow down and think about it. So what got you on the journey to writing this book? What was the intention? Marsha Acker You know, so I was mentioning earlier, I did several coach trainings, individual coach training, systems coach training, and then I got introduced to David Kantor's work. So he wrote a book called Reading the Room, and it was through my introduction to his work and meeting Sarah Hill and Tony Melville, who run an organisation in the UK called Dialogix. But it was through meeting them and David and really starting to understand structural dynamics that I got introduced to the concept of model building. And that does come from David's research around face-to-face communication and what it looks like for leaders to be able to bring clarity to their work. And I remember along the way, one of my first conversations with Sarah Hill, you know, I had, so I had a whole background in facilitation, what it looked like to facilitate groups, and at that moment I was really kind of struggling with what's the difference between team coaching and facilitating, and I was having this kind of personal, what I realise now, I was deep in building my own model for what team coaching would look like for me. But at the time it felt like a bit of an existential crisis or a midlife crisis, or something that I, because I saw difference between the two, but I was really confused as I onboarded all of the different tools and models for how to coach about the difference between the two. And I remember one day Sarah looked at me and I had shared with her a perspective that someone else had shared with me about what happens in team coaching, and I was really confused because it really conflicted with what she was saying to me, and so I went up to her after we'd done a session and I just said, so I really want to talk about this. You said this, and then someone else said this and it just makes no sense to me, and she just looked at me and she said, well, they have a different model. And I thought, okay, well, which one is right? And she was like, neither. You know, neither right nor wrong, just different. And boy, I walked away and I just couldn't, I don't know how many years, it's probably been at least 10 years since we had that conversation, but it really stuck with me and I think in my own journey I've gotten so clear about the value of being able to articulate your model for leading change, your model for looking at behaviour, your model for leadership. And boy, you know, one of the things that I value the most about that is David's stance that we all have our own, and that is some of our work to do, is to define our model and that there will likely be a phase where I am taking in other people's models and I'm learning how they talk about it and I'm learning the language and so there is a version of that where I'm kind of imitating others like, you do it and I'm going to do it just like you did it and I'm going to follow the language. It's one of the reasons that I published the first book around facilitation, like, that is how I think about facilitation and the facilitation stance, but I also hold that at some point, it's intended as a guide, and, you know, there are a couple of ways of thinking about just getting started and then developing and then mastering, but it's when we get to mastery that essentially the job becomes to build your own model. So there will be parts about even that facilitation book where you might find along the way, Ula, you're going yes, that's my, like, that's totally in my model too. And then, hey Marsha, you know, this thing where you talk about this, like, I don't know, it's just, it's not for me. So, I'm going to discard that, it's not here. And then there's this new place, like I do this really differently, so I'm going to start to invent, you know, this is a place where I'm going to do some model building of my own, where this is going to look like a new part that very specifically becomes mine. And David would've said that models are our picture of the world, and our map of how we intend to go about working in the world, and so much of what I see when it comes to change is that I just think we're not really uber intentional and thoughtful about how we want to go about change. And if you go on LinkedIn at any given day and just search on Agile and you can find all kinds of social media debates about, this is the way it needs to be done, and someone else will chime in, and I think that's baloney, this is the way I think it should be done. And what I would love to say to all those people is it just means there's difference, right? And I think the work to do is to be really, really clear about what is it that you are trying to change. So you've heard me say like I'm about changing behaviour first, like really focused in on using conversation as a way for that behaviour change to happen. And then I hold and trust and I've seen years of evidence of once that gets ironed out, once we're able to have more of that communicative competence in a team, that the other things become less of an issue and we're able to navigate that, but that's me, and that's my model. That doesn't mean, that doesn't make me right or wrong. It doesn't make me the only way to go about change. I think there's so many other different ways. So others listening to this podcast might have a place where they put process in the centre, and that is their focus, and that gets to be okay. So I'm just a real advocate of being clear about what is it that you're trying to change and how do you go about making that change happen in the world. Ula Ojiaku What struck me is you're saying the need to be clear about what you're trying to change, what you're trying to, if I may use the word, achieve as a result of the transformation. Would there be a place for the why? Because you might, and if so, how does that weave into the whole picture? Marsha Acker Well, I think in the process of building a model, you get clear first about how do I believe change happens? And then it becomes, okay, so what would I do to bring about change? So even if you think about leadership, what do I think about how leadership should, in my world, you know, should behave or act? How would I grow leadership? How would I grow leadership in others? And then what are some of the things that I would do? Where might I take action? And then why would I take action in those places? The same thing with change. I'm really clear about conversation and behaviour and helping people look at that. And so there are certain things that I would do in the room with a leadership team, and there's certain things that I would not do. And I'm really clear about why, like, because I hold, like what you'll hear is that phrase, because change doesn't happen until people feel seen and heard. And that's a real key, becomes a guiding North Star and I think it helps me navigate difference. So when I run across someone else who has a really different model than me, there's a version of myself years ago who, you know, it's kind of like the example that I gave of saying to Sarah, well, let's, you know, let's debate this out about which one of us is, you know, right or wrong. I don't actually think that's our work to do, but I do think our work to do is to just be really clear. So can you name what's in your model? Can you name what it is that you're trying to change? And then you and I could engage in a, what we would call, kind of a cross model conversation where it's not about beating the other down or making either of us wrong, but we can be really clear about, oh, well I would do this because this is why, this is what I believe about how change happens and this is how I'm helping the team change. And you could say, actually, I see, you know, my focus is a little bit different and here's why, and here's what I would do. And now, gosh, that's a learning conversation to have, that's not a debate. In leadership teams as leaders are trying to lead change in an organisation, I think this is the conversation that doesn't get had almost ever is how do we believe change will happen, and what are we going to do to bring about change? And even if there are ten people in that team and we each might have a slightly different personal view about how change happens, we have got to come to some alignment around how we are collectively going to look to bring about change, because if we don't, it's going to feel really dispersed and really challenging as we try to move forward in a large scale change, if we've all got ten different versions, we've got ten different models on how change happens. Ula Ojiaku What I think I'm hearing you say, Marsha, is, as a leadership team, it's really about taking the time to be aligned on what you're trying to do and also, presenting a united front, because the whole organisation will be looking up to you, so you need to be saying the same thing. But this is now me extending, extrapolating, not that you said this, but within, you should also be able, within yourself as a team to have those difficult conversations. You know, you could make your move, or follow, or oppose yourselves, but come to a conclusion which you present as a united front to the organisation in charging it forward. And there's something else you said in your, well, it's a quote in your book, Build Your Model for Leading Change, which said that leadership is being in the mess and being comfortable with being uncomfortable. Do you want to expand on that please? Marsha Acker I think it's so true. There's, it's in the space between us that I think gets messy and having, we were just wrapping up a cohort program for a group of internal leaders, just recently and I watched sort of the thinking and the shift in mindset happen over time. Like I said, I have a lot of compassion for leaders that there's a ton of pressure and expectations, you know, from bottom side, up, across and I think in those moments, some days it can be just really challenging to navigate which end is up. How do I manage through that? And I'm responsible for all of this out in front of me, and yet the propensity, like the compelling, I think, reaction is to just keep moving things forward, like the go faster. Just go faster, get through the meeting faster, get the things done, delegate it more, and that, it's not that that's wrong, and it's really helpful, but there just sometimes needs to be space where they slow it down and they actually create space, and I think that's the messy part. Like if I were to, you know, if I were to even channel what I would describe if things get tense or if I feel like somebody's possibly going to be disagreeing or not cooperate in the way that I want them to, I sometimes think the propensity to just keep moving forward and step over it or go past it is what often plagues us and the path of like, let me just slow down, I think it feels messy, I think it feels uncertain. It lacks a little bit of clarity about how, okay, so if I open this up, if I give voice, or I allow someone to give voice to a different point of view or a different perspective, am I going to be able to clean it up and move us forward? And for me, that's part of what I mean by the messy part. Like, it's unpredictable and yet I watch, I've been in a room to watch it, I've experienced it myself, there's such a gift when you do just slow down a little bit. Like, there's misunderstandings get cleared up, assumptions that are not correct, get corrected. They, people who are just really charged up and have a, they're making up all kinds of stories about why things are happening, like the pressure valve gets released off of that and then, and the anxiety comes down, like I've just watched it happen over and over again. So I just, I think there is the things that we tend to want to stay away from because they're not comfortable, I think, are the things to find a way to make space for. So it's messy, it's uncomfortable, it's feels like it's going to take more time. It all the kind of negative talk that I hear leaders say or navel gazing, that's my favourite one, it's going to feel like navel gazing, but yeah, I think we have to create space for some of it. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for that, Marsha. And there might be some listeners who, like me, are saying, okay, so in practice, how do we create the space? How do we go slow? Because in my area, in my field, I'm just quoting, you know, things seem to be going at break neck speed and there's never, things are never going to slow down for me. So how do I intentionally slow down or create the space to be able to do this? What are the practices, should we go on a retreat? Marsha Acker Yeah, well, I'll give you an example of at TeamCatapult. So, while we recommend this to all leadership teams that we work with, back during the pandemic, we, early on in the pandemic, I started to notice that we had grown, things had changed even for us internally. And so I made the decision to actually, even though we're all coaches, we brought coaches in to help us for about a year. And one of the things that we started to do for ourselves that we often recommend to others is carving out time once a month to create space where we would work on how we worked together. So, I don't, I'm not a huge, I think offsites and retreats are great, we do them, we have one coming up, we're all ridiculously excited to go to it, but we can't accomplish everything that we need to accomplish once or twice a year. And so we started to, given our size and our pace and kind of how we work together, the once a month really made sense for us. So we carve it out, it's the first Thursday of every month, it's for three and a half hours. We worked with a coach in that time night, right now we're not working with a coach and it's agenda-less. It's really an open space. It's not open space, the technology of open space, it's just an open conversation without an agenda. It's an invitation into dialogue and it is the place that we, I know that it's on my calendar, it's reserved, I don't have to, we can go at a pace in other meetings, but I know that we have that space and it's the place where we just show up, we all show up differently, we give time to actually surface the, sometimes maybe the things that did get stepped over intentionally or unintentionally across, you know, the last couple of weeks. And we have some of the most difficult, challenging, real, honest conversations in that space that I've ever experienced in my professional career, so it definitely also I've learned to try to block my calendar off after those calls to, you know, just to create a bit of processing time. So that's how we do it. I just recently, a couple months ago, interviewed someone on my podcast and he talked about, I loved this idea, of two week sprints and a one week retro. And so that was his way of really, intentionally carving out reflection time and really placing the value on catching sight of things, slowing down. So I think we need places where we're creating variability in the kind of meeting we're having, and I think when we're working at a really fast pace, just having, for me, I love knowing that it's on my calendar. I preserve the time, there's very little that will take precedence over it other than, you know, being on vacation or something, but, yeah, I really value it. So I think it will look different for every team, depending on the frequency and how often you meet and how much work is being done. Ula Ojiaku And would you say, because you know the one about blocking out the time in people's calendars as a team. What about as individuals, people as individuals also taking the time to do that for themselves? Marsha Acker Yeah. We are, you know, so in TeamCatapult, I think most people also work with individual coaches, so I think we all have a practice of doing that. When we're working with leadership teams, we often recommend both so that there's a carved out space on a monthly basis to come together collectively, and that they're each getting individual coaching as a way to help work through those things. Like I was saying, I notice when I show up in that space, my oppose goes silent, or I don't always bring my voice in, working one-on-one sometimes to help become more aware of why we're doing those things really helps us show up differently in the collective space. So yes, whether you're working with a coach or whether you're just carving out the time to do it yourself. And you asked me, you know, why I wrote the book, the Build Your Model book. It's partly that just wanting, it's a guided reflection workbook, and I really wanted to find a way to help people do this work on their own, with some handholds or some guidance around what it might look like. Ula Ojiaku Thank you. And is there, on TeamCatapult, is there any program that could be, for example, I want someone to guide me through the process, is that available? Marsha Acker Yeah. We have two public programs, where we lay down kind of the technology that I've been describing and help you think about your own model for how, so there's two versions of that, there's one path that will lead you to thinking about your model as an agile coach. And there's a second path that will lead you to thinking about your model as a leader, as an interventionist. So, kind of two different programs. So the Path for Agile Coaching falls under a program we call Coaching Agility From Within, and that's a cohort program. It's about building your own model for agile coaching. And then, if that's not of interest, we have two other programs. One's called Making Behavioural Change Happen, which is part one where you sort of onboard the technology of structural dynamics. And then the second part is called Changing Behaviour in High Stakes, and that's where we go a bit deeper into helping you think about how you would intervene in behaviour and in conversation, both at an individual level, but also at a system level, so how you might map the system. So two different paths, and very complimentary in our Coaching Agility From Within program. There's also a thread of structural dynamics, it's underneath of that and how to coach a team using structure. So yes, a couple of different ways. Ula Ojiaku Thank you. And what, I mean in addition to your fantastic books, and I'm not saying it just because you're here, what other books do you find yourself recommending to leaders? Marsha Acker Yeah. Well, I referenced one a little while ago Reading The Room by David Kantor. So all of our work really is informed greatly by that book. And my book Build Your Model for Leading Change, is based off of a lot of some of the concepts that David introduced and his book captures kind of in a narrative format, the story around it. And I would say mine is much more the workbook of how to onboard the technology of looking at behaviour and then the guided reflection of creating your model. The other thing that I am super excited, so my colleague Sarah, just re-released version two of her book. She has a book called, Where Did You Learn to Behave Like that? And I am deep into reading the new version. So it's top of mind for me. It further takes you down the path, like if you're hearing me talk about my childhood story and why I hesitate to oppose, Sarah's sort of the expert in that space around childhood story work and doing it with leaders. So her book is all about some stories around leaders who have done the work on childhood story, how it's really impacted their leadership, how they make space for difference and where they notice some of the kind of high stakes behaviours they may have as leaders. So yeah, if that's of interest, that's a really great resource to check out. Ula Ojiaku Thank you for that. It'll be in the show notes and so that the audience can get it. And any ask of the audience before we wrap up. Marsha Acker Yeah. You know, we've covered a lot of topics today and I think what I would just say in summary is an invitation to anybody to kind of be on a really intentional journey about what do you think about leadership? How do you go about leading in the world? How do you believe change happens? You've heard me share some examples today, but I think there's a calling for all of us to do some of the work because I think in the doing the work, and getting clear for ourselves, I do think that's the place of clarity and competence. I think that's where we learn to kind of find our feet when the pull, the gravitational pull of the real world kind of gets in our way. And we're all dealing with that in many ways. So that's what I want people to think about and whatever shape or form that looks like for folks, that's the big thing. Ula Ojiaku Thank you for that, Marsha. And if one wants to get in touch with you, how can they reach out to you? Marsha Acker A couple of ways. The best way to just connect with me will be on LinkedIn, so you can find me at Marsha Acker, and just, you know, when you send me them, I get tons and I don't say yes to everybody, so it's just really helpful if when people connect, they just tell me a little bit about how they're connecting. How they managed to get there, so that helps me do the sort and sift that I know we're all doing these days. The other place would be buildyourmodel.com so you can find kind of a free download there about model building, so if you're curious about that. And then our programs, you can find at teamcatapult.com. So the Making Behavioural Change Happen starts this fall and there's a Changing Behaviour in High Stakes program that starts in February, and the Coaching Agility From Within program starts in January next year. Ula Ojiaku Thank you. So the programs you mentioned that can be found on TeamCatapult, the one starting this Autumn is Autumn 2023 and the February and March dates are in 2024, just for the audience clarity. Thank you so much, Marsha. I wish we had more time, but I do respect your time and for me it's been really enriching and enlightening. And I do want to say thank you again for making the time to share and impart your knowledge, your wisdom, your experience with us. Marsha Acker Yeah, thanks a lot. I really appreciate being here. Ula Ojiaku Likewise. Thank you again. That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless! 

Bio Marsha is the founder and CEO of TeamCatapult, a respected and sought-after leadership   development firm that equips leaders, at all levels, to facilitate and lead sustainable behavioural change.  She partners with leaders and leadership teams to clarify their desired change, develop communicative competence and think together - accessing their collective intelligence to bring about change. TeamCatapult is a partner to mid-size start-ups and global fortune 500 companies across sectors like entertainment, game development, banking, insurance, healthcare, communications, government, information technology, consumer goods, and retail. Clients have included Microsoft, Riot Games, Epic Games, Capital One, Blizzard Entertainment, Starbucks, Liberty Mutual, Fidelity, and Chef. Marsha Acker is an executive & leadership team coach, author, speaker, facilitator, and the host of Defining Moments of Leadership Podcast. Marsha's unparalleled at helping leaders identify and break through stuck patterns of communication  that  get  in  their  way  of  high  performance.  She is known internationally as a facilitator of meaningful conversations, a host of dialogue and a passionate agilist. She is the author of Build Your Model for Leading Change: A guided workbook to catalyse clarity and confidence in leading yourself and others. Interview Highlights 02:30 Background and beginnings 03:35 Reaching a cap 08:50 Working with difference 10:45 Process-centred focus vs people-centred focus 15:50 Behavioural-led change 17:25 Having effective conversations Social Media LinkedIn: Marsha on LinkedIn Website:  www.teamcatapult.com Twitter: Marsha on Twitter  Books & Resources Making Behavioral Change Happen - Team Catapult Changing Behavior in High Stakes - Team Catapult Episode Transcript Intro: Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. Ula Ojiaku Hi everyone. My guest for this episode is Marsha Acker. Marsha is the Founder and CEO of TeamCatapult, and she is a respected and sought after leadership development expert, and her firm works to equip leaders at all levels to facilitate and lead sustainable behavioural change. This episode is the first of a two part series, because there were just a lot of nuggets to get from Marsha and in part one, we talked about Marsha's background and beginning, how she got to a cap and she knew that she needed to break through a certain ceiling to get to more, to achieve her potential. She also talked about process-centred versus people-centred transformation and the differences and where each one might be considered. Of course, there is a bias for, and I am biased as well towards the people-centred focus, but there is a place for process and how you might go about implementing a behavioural led change. Without further ado, Part One of my conversation with Marsha Acker. I hope you find this as insightful as I did. I have with me the very one and only Marsha Acker, who is the founder of TeamCatapult and a coach, facilitator, much, much known in the Agile coaching discipline and beyond. Marsha, it is a big pleasure and an honour to have you on the Agile Innovation Leaders Podcast. Thank you. Marsha Acker Thanks a lot. I'm super excited to be here with you today, so thanks for inviting me. Ula Ojiaku Awesome. So, Marsha, could you tell us a bit about yourself? Marsha Acker Yeah, well, I often say my first career was, you know, two degrees in software engineering and I spent some time working with developers, sort of bridging the gap between end users and developers. And so that was my first start, it's actually where I learned about facilitation, was trying to bring whole groups of users together to align on what they wanted in terms of requirements. So it was back before we talked about Agile, it was back before any of those methods and processes had made their way. But that's really where I got my start in facilitation. And then, yes, towards what I call my own retooling around my career, was when I, I actually went to look for professional coaching as a way to up my leadership. I didn't have a desire originally to become a coach. I wanted to do and learn coaching because I wanted to up my leadership, I just, I had reached a point where I was really challenged in my own leadership and so the very short version of that much longer circuitous path was, I found that I did go through coactive coaching. So I started in that space. CTI (Coach Training Institute) had a huge impact on me personally, it's responsible for many life decisions that I made coming out of that program. But that was where I got my certification in professional coaching with individuals, and then I went on to do ORSC from CRR Global, and then I went on to do structural dynamics and that's where I met the work of David Kantor, where I met David Kantor. And we can talk more about that, but that's certainly changed my whole view of how we enter interpersonal relationships, how we have conversations with one another, it gave me a lens for sort of looking at even some of the previous coach training that I did. So yes, I have, I often say I sort of have two backgrounds that I think the tech side helps me just stay connected to a, you know, I have a soft spot in my heart for techies and people who have a lot of technical and scientific knowledge. And then I often say I learned a lot about process improvement and automation and making things effective and efficient, but I think one of the things that I really lacked in the first part of my career was the human skills, like how to work with other human beings. And I would say the second half of my professional career has been, yeah, how to work with others. It's a big thing. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for sharing that, Marsha. Something you said about the second part of your career has been focused on working with humans. Well, I have a technical background in Electronic Engineering, Bachelor's degree, a Master's in Computer Science. And at the beginning of my career, it was more of, okay, what could you do? You know, what's your technical understanding? But as you move on, it's really more about how, you know, work well with people and get people to do the best work together. Would you say that's a general trend that you've also observed apart from your own personal experience? Marsha Acker Yeah. I don't know if it's, sometimes I wonder, you know, it's maybe just the lens that I look through or it's the organisations and the kinds of leaders that I somehow attract into my sphere. But I do find myself working a lot with technical leaders and I think one of the things that happens, technical and scientific tracks, you know, we move forward in our careers, we get rewarded for knowledge, for having the answer, for being able to connect and do things quickly. And I think in that career progression, we get really good at knowing the answer, having the answer, you know, we're working with things that we feel like are discreet, you know, we can own them in some way, but as we move up, and I think many, you know, I've talked to many a developer, engineer who, you know, sometimes reached that cap, and then the next step is to lead people, to lead others, and to, you know, to be the senior architect, to be the senior engineer, the Vice President or the Director. And you know, it's that famous saying, what got us here won't get us to the next level, and so I think there are those moments, I certainly experienced that, that was one of the reasons I went off to coach training was I just, the metaphor I use often is that I was out over my skis. I knew something was, like I was trying to make something happen or I was trying to get things to happen, and my only model for that was because I said, so, like, please do this, because, I think this is the way. And I just, I really, I started to realise, I felt like I was running on a hamster wheel some days, and I'm like, this isn't working and I feel like I'm missing something. So I often do find myself working with leaders or leadership teams who are, it's not that they're underperforming, it's just that they've reached a cap. The place where all that they know and all that they have, have served them really well, up until this point, and then like what's required to go to that next level or to be effective and efficient in a different kind of way. It's sort of when our focus starts to come off of the very discreet task and it becomes more about how do we create an environment, a space, a container for others to be their best, so it's no longer going to be, you know, me making all the decisions or me moving something forward, it's that we need to work together. And boy that we space is tricky. Yeah, we are going to see things differently and there's going to be conflict and there's going to be difference of opinion. And then, you know, ooh, how do I work with that in a way that's, I just, you know, I think one of the biggest questions that I think we help leadership teams look at is how do we work with difference, and actually welcome it rather than try to minimise it, because I think that's the rub where if we don't have skills to work with it, we tend to minimise it or send it out of the room or suppress it. Like we say, you know, we don't have enough time for that, or, gosh, we've got this deadline. So we've become super deadline driven, and I think sometimes at the expense of having a real conversation with one another. Ula Ojiaku Gosh, I have so many questions. I don't know which one to ask, but I'll just go with the last, based on what you've said, the last few sentences in terms of not having time, you suppress the conflict or the differences or the disagreements, because we're always like on a deadline or we don't have the time for this. So how would you get these leadership teams to step back and say, you know what, we have to deal with this elephant in the room, otherwise it's going to get bigger, fester, if we were to use an analogy of the wound on it, you know, if you just cover it up with a band-aid, it's not going to get better, sometimes you have to treat the wound, get the scab off so that it can heal wholesomely and you move forward. So what's your approach for this, please? Marsha Acker So I can tell you how I would've approached it early in my career, in a version of myself that really led with process. So at that time, I had a model for change that was very focused on ‘know the process', like document the process, define the new process, get people to follow the process. And I definitely, I kind of laugh about it now, but I, you know, it's not wrong, I mean, it worked, but this is very early in my career, early 2000, because I just began to work with agility. I had left one space where I was a part of a small startup and I was heading up all of our programs and we had really started to use extreme programming. So I'm sort of fresh on this, on this thinking of, okay, so there's different ways we can begin to work. And I'd gone into a smaller organisation, it was a consulting firm. We were leading process led change, and we were working with a leadership team who was really charged with a huge internal transformation effort. And at that time, working directly with that leadership team, I would've said we took a very process-centred focus to that, we documented the current process, we helped them. It was  over a year of working with this one leadership team, and then we started to help them craft, okay, so what's your desired change and what would the process under that look like? And as we got towards the end of that transformation, one of the things that I started to notice is that the process-led decisions that the leadership team was being asked to really make some decisions about, had a huge impact on people, both them and the staff and the people that they were managing, they cared greatly about their culture and the people, and they reached a place where they just, to describe it, they just dug in their heels and progress wasn't moving forward. And I remember thinking, we'd been on retreats with them multiple times, and it was in that moment, that was the moment where I learned and had the insight, that there was way more to change than just the process. And what I can tell you now that I couldn't quite articulate back then was that we were missing the people part of this equation. And what was starting to happen is that as the pressure increased and the leadership team was being asked to make decisions that were truly going to impact not only them personally, like where they lived, where their children went to school, you know, family impacts, but that was also going to have an impact across all the folks that they managed. And so they were reaching a place where they just couldn't make that decision kind of collectively. I think one of the biggest mistakes in that particular process was that we were so process led. And what was missing from it was a coaching perspective and a way to help them have the real conversation because the real conversation actually started to go out of the room. And I was certainly playing a part in, potentially a little unaware at the moment that in favour of wanting to push things forward and get things done in my process-led change model, they were really needing to have a different kind of conversation that wasn't about the process at all, but that had since become the undiscussable topic and it didn't get brought into the room. So we sort of, we left it out. So that's an example of an earlier model for change that I had, and I didn't have a way of bringing that conversation on mind or really even paying attention to it. Now you asked for how would I do it today? Ula Ojiaku Yes, because you've said the process-led model for change, I'm excited to know what the next one is. Marsha Acker Well I want to be really clear, I don't think that that's a wrong model. But I think for me, I learned that it was missing something, and I can reflect back now and tell you that, but I don't want your listeners to draw any wrong conclusions. That wasn't an overnight insight, that definitely took a little bit of time. But what I would say now is I have, you know, in my model for leading change, I think process is important, but it's really not at the core of how I think about change at all. I think in my model, it's definitely a sub-task, but I would say I'm very focused on behavioural-led change at the moment. And so in that behavioural-led change, what I place at the centre of any change is, how are people communicating with one another? Are they able to actually have the real conversation? Is there enough awareness in the system that they can kind of catch sight of when the real conversation starts to go underground? And can they actually have the muscle, the range in their leadership to catch sight of it and then bring it back in the room? And so, I place conversations and behaviour kind of at the core of change, and I hold a perspective that change, that no one will change, change doesn't happen until people feel heard and understood.  And I don't know that I could find you an example of any organisation that I've worked in, including my own TeamCatapult, where something that we're trying to do or accomplish or move forward doesn't meet a roadblock when some aspect of our conversation isn't fully online or we're not fully having the conversation that we need to have. So one of the ways that I would do that today is, first, whenever I'm engaging with a leadership team or any other team that's really trying to bring about change and just noticing like they're trying to level up or there's something that they're wanting that they feel like they're kind of capped at is I just start to help them look at the way they engage in conversation, because I think in the conversation there are lots of indicators about how that conversation plays out and are people really able to say what they're thinking or do we get stuck in some common dysfunctional patterns that can show up? So one example of that would be, we use a sort of a technology for looking at conversation and there are four actions that happen in all effective conversations, a move, a follow, an oppose, and a bystand. So a move sets direction, a follow supports it, an oppose offers really clear correction. It says, no, hang on, wait a minute. A bystand offers a morally neutral perspective, so one way is to help a team onboard that, but there are common patterns and one of the common patterns that will come out, particularly in tech teams where there's pace and we need to move things forward, is that they can get into this pattern of someone makes a move, and everyone else just sort of remains silent or, says something to the effect might voice ‘sure, you know, that sounds good.' So they start to fall into this pattern of move and lots of follow. And what's missing often is the voice of bystand, which says, hey, I'm wondering what's going on, or I'm wondering what we're not saying. And then really clear opposition. So the ability to bring pushback, constraint into the conversation. So if you go back to that original leadership team that I was telling you about, you know, way back when, I think one of the things that was going on in that team is they weren't, no one was able to say, this is an incredibly difficult decision, and I don't think I can make it unless I have these things answered. So they kept making it about the process and it wasn't really about the process at all. It was really, it had a very personal component to it that wasn't being discussed, and so the inability to discuss that really created the drag. So the way that I think about helping any team work through any change is, helping them onboard the skills of being able to have, we call it bringing, it's a principle that we hold about bringing the real conversation in the room. Can you bring the conversation online versus offline? So the other flag that you might have for when your conversations are going offline is, if you feel, I often think about if I leave a conversation with you and I, for example, if I left this conversation and I went off and I felt the need, or I was compelled to one of vent or complain about it to someone else, that's my kind hazard flag. But, there was something that I was holding back from in this conversation that I didn't say, and that's my signal to actually circle back around. And so maybe, maybe I need to check in with myself, maybe there's something that I left unsaid.   Ula Ojiaku So there we are, this is the end of part one of the conversation with Marsha. In part two of this conversation, which is the final one where we are going to talk about having effective conversations, what functional self awareness means, why it is important to slow down conversations in order to get results, as counter-intuitive as this might be, and many other things, so stay tuned and watch out for part two of my conversation with Marsha. That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!     

Ula's Social Media/Websites: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/uloakuojiaku/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/uloakuojiaku Website: www.agileinnovationleaders.com   Episode Transcript Ula Ojiaku: Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. Hello wonderful listeners, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, if there are any of them, which will be very impressive. But I'm recording this special episode of the Agile Innovation Leaders Podcast to one, announce that we've come to the end of Season 3, and two, there is a special milestone that we hit yesterday, which I'd love to share with you and a huge kudos and thank you to all of you out there who helped us reach the incredible milestone of having a hundred, no, 1-0-0 subscribers on our YouTube channel, me doing the Happy Dance. It is a milestone for me. It's hard to believe that it's been about two and a half years since the first episode of the Agile Innovation Leaders Podcast was released. From the very first episode we've been on a mission to explore the world of agile innovation, you know, lean, and the practices, the principles, and these disciplines. And in the process, I've had wonderful guests who have brought us inspiring stories and invaluable insights and practical advice around these topics. So right now, today, as I'm sitting here, I am filled with gratitude as we celebrate this incredible achievement. And actually, I'd like to give the tributes and a shout out to my children, Ife and Kiki, they were the ones who suggested that I start a YouTube video, I mean a YouTube channel, so that there could be a video version of the podcast, and this was when they were ages 8 and 10 respectively. So it's never, one big lesson here is that you can always learn from anyone, people younger than you included. And as I mentioned earlier, today marks also the end of an amazing season, Season 3 of the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I hope each episode has left you inspired, informed, and empowered, just like they have left me, each and every one of them. It's been a transformative journey and it continues to be so. So before we move on, I just again, want to say a huge thank you to you, my audience, my wonderful guests, past, present, future, and last, but not the least, my wonderful team. Thank you. We wouldn't have made it to this point without you. I'm also thrilled to announce that we have lots of exciting announcements that will be coming up in future, sometime in future. We are also, my team and I, are also planning, working right behind the scenes, working hard on an interesting and inspiring line-up for Season 4. So stay tuned, because big things are coming your way. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on any of our future episodes and announcements, and also share with friends. Let's continue pushing boundaries, embracing change, leading the way, and demonstrating the change that we wish to see. And of course, fostering that culture of innovation and creativity. So, my amazing agile innovation leaders, thank you again for being a part of this great occasion. We've come so far, we're not where we started, even though we're not where we are meant to be yet, our adventure is just beginning. Until we meet again in Season 4, stay agile, stay innovative, and keep leading the way. I believe in you. Thank you. That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!   

Bio Mahesh Jade is an esteemed agile evangelist and thought leader dedicated to the noble cause of fostering winning teams and products. His expertise lies in coaching teams, companies, and departments to implement Scrum and Agile methodologies, instigating profound improvements and transformative changes in their work processes and value delivery. Beyond coaching, Mahesh frequently conducts enlightening workshops and sessions on various topics including Scrum, agile leadership, facilitation, team dynamics, and experimentation, providing firsthand experiences in the realm of agility. Notably, Mahesh serves as the esteemed organizer of the India Community of 'The Liberators', further showcasing his dedication to fostering a vibrant and thriving agile community. With a multifaceted background encompassing roles as a developer, project manager, Scrum Master, and Agile Coach, Mahesh possesses a comprehensive understanding of both technical and organizational challenges. Leveraging strong visual acuity and an unwaveringly innovative outlook, he continuously discovers ways to infuse agility tailored to the unique shape and structures of teams, products, and practices. Mahesh's outstanding achievements have garnered recognition and widespread acclaim. His work has been featured in renowned platforms such as the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, research papers in the International Journal of Trend in Research and Development, and their YouTube channel, which hosts captivating recordings from a series of their talks at conferences, agile festivals, and workshops. Interview Highlights 04:25 The Agile Manifesto and Choosing 07:35 Research Paper Findings 08:25 Facilitation over “Facipulation” 09:40 Done over Doing 13:35 Now over Then 17:30 Visual Scrum 28:16 A, B, c, d way of managing Self 30:00 A.R.B Formula to Stay Present 33:15 Business Glossary of Agility for Presenting a Change Social Media          LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/iammaheshjade/          Medium https://medium.com/@maheshjade/about          YouTube https://www.youtube.com/c/MaheshJade         Medium Article on Visual Scrum Experiment https://medium.com/@maheshjade/visual-scrum-reach-goals-every-iteration-fefb86c1aa35  Books           Mahesh's paper Title: The Weakest Link: Towards Making An Organisation More Agile Link: http://www.ijtrd.com/ViewFullText.aspx?Id=25113           Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy Eat That Frog!: Get More Of The Important Things Done Today: Amazon.co.uk: Tracy, Brian: 9781444765427: Books           Fixing Your Scrum by Ryan Ripley and Todd Miller https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fixing-Your-Scrum-Ryan-Ripley/dp/1680506978          Evolvagility by Michael Hamman Evolvagility Explorer Series — MichaelHamman           The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli https://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Thinking-Clearly-Better-Decisions/dp/1444759566           Movie - 3 Idiots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_Idiots  Episode Transcript Intro: Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. Ula Ojiaku Hi Mahesh. Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of the Agile Innovation Leaders Podcast. Mahesh Jade Thank you Ula, thank you so much. I'm completely excited. Ula Ojiaku I'm excited as well and I'm looking forward to our conversation. So you currently work for PwC, and we understand that everything you say is your own opinion, you're not representing your employer. So we acknowledge that. So on that note, can you share with us your journey so far and how you've gotten to where you are right now? Mahesh Jade Mm-hmm, yeah I follow metaphors pretty much in my life, so today I have really this metaphor in my mind of a story, of a book of short stories where we have got plenty of short stories, and at the end of each story there is some wisdom, some cool things, some good thing to remember. I mean, if I try to summarise my growing up and becoming what I am today, it was a journey of trying to be meaningful, because of the simple reason that when I started off as a software developer, I was doing development, pretty well, but then internally within me, I don't think I enjoyed that completely. Then I thought, okay, I find a lot of passion towards creativity, so let's do UI and UX. I did that, did it pretty well, and again, noticed that, okay, again, this is not something that I completely like that I, where I completely find my character, and then I got introduced to Scrum and Agility, and it was around 2016 end, and I know that there have been no moments after that where I have looked back. It's like I have found my passion, found my energy, found my character. And then there are a couple of small instances into my journey which really map to what we do in Scrum and Agility. So I can share them. So, it's like, I was third day of my career when I was in office, a small office where we used to sit just together, my CEO will be just next to me, and it was just third day in my office and I went into his cabin telling him that, you know, we have a potential to build this feature. It is very much there, but we do not see that on our website, and people just thought, okay, you are just doing crazy, it's your third day in office and you are directly getting into conversation with your leader and suggesting something, which is a change into the product. So I think my career, and my journey have been, on a very similar note, it has been fearless. It has been about making some change happen. It has been about trying out something different, that excites me. So, while I was working into softwares, I'll just connect these dots together. So, at one point of time, because I was not enjoying things completely, I thought, okay, I'll try filmmaking and I will get into the field of creative copywriting. So I tried that at a certain moment, but I could not go further into that. And then there was this moment when I decided that, okay, whatever I do in my career now, whichever field I get into, I'll make sure that I put my creative into my field. And Scrum was that point, I found Scrum to be the perfect ground to apply creativity, to work with people, to really circle around changes and improvements. I really enjoy that and I find it to be the perfect ground to apply creativity at work. Ula Ojiaku That's interesting you saying something like a journey, you want it to be meaningful and you tried different things until you hit on what seemed to be, you know, the thing for you that taps into your creativity, your enthusiasm, your passion. And so you said something before I hit the record button to me, you know, in terms of what, a parallel you've made between the Agile Manifesto and for the listeners, if you're not aware of the Agile Manifesto, it's more of a, you know, a set of values and principles that govern the ways of working that have come to be termed as Agile, which originated in software development. But back to you, Mahesh, you know, something in the power in the Agile Manifesto and the power of choosing. Can you tell us about this? Mahesh Jade Absolutely, Ula. I think I'm really fascinated by this word ‘over', which is used into Agile Manifesto. As an example, when we say individuals and interactions over processes and tools, I find power into it because, it gives us a choice to make. It is not a directive, a sentence that you do this and you do not do that, because I feel we, as humans, are wired to given choices and act into the zone of freedom. And there we come into our character more, more often  than not. So if we tell a small kid that don't look at the red pen or just don't do something, they are, they're prone to do the same thing again and again. And as we grow up, I think that that innate behaviour stays within us, where if we are told to not do something, we might actually do that, and we may not enjoy that. So this notion of something over the other, like more valuable over less valuable, I feel that to be very powerful. When I wrote my research paper, probably my second research paper on IJTRD, which is the International Journal of Trend in Research and Development, I was reading through materials and then I found everything that was getting discovered, landing into a theme that was around something over the other. So I would like to talk about that as well, the research paper ended into six different themes, about something over the other. And this paper is for leaders to really have the right goals into their minds. And when they are getting into a new ways of working where things are not straightforward, things are complex, and we have to be adaptive. So how do we set up the right goals? Like a highly valuable goal over a less valuable goal. Ula Ojiaku That's interesting, the power of choosing, you know, what's more valuable, and it also aligns with, you know, Agile, the heartbeat of Agile, you can't do everything at once, so you prioritise. And as human beings, the way we work is we thrive in environments where we feel like we have a say instead of being compelled to do something. So you are pulling or drawing out that motivation that's already inside people when they feel like they have a choice and they can, you know, have that say in terms of the direction of things. So tell me more about the findings of your paper. Mahesh Jade Yeah. So the first chapter in this paper was about unleashing the voices, and it was because, it is based on the premise that the organisational structures, they have got(ten) upended. When we say upended, I mean to say, the people who used to be vertically downwards in hierarchy somewhere, now they are actually customer facing. So if we take example of a Scrum team, the members of the team, they get a chance to meet the stakeholders or the customers, or the representative of customers, every two weeks. And that's really different than what it used to be earlier in a traditional way of operating. So at that point of time, I believe that leaders stepping into the new agile leadership journey, they should really choose facilitation over ‘facipulation'. So ‘facipulation' is a mix of manipulated facilitation where the outcome is already conceived into someone's mind and they're trying to just get to that point. Now that does not work into the new ways of working where people are facing customers, they should be empowered, they should be given a chance to be just facilitated, to make the right decisions themself. Like again, getting into a metaphorical way of looking at things, that I'm holding a torch as a leader, as a facilitator, and I throw the light on the right people, or I throw the light on the people who are not speaking up in the moment, or I throw the light on the right problem and I just ask them, okay, what is your opinion about that? So that kind of leadership is really expected in the new ways of working, at the end of the day it's about empowering the people. So that's about it. In a new upended organisational structure, a leader should choose facilitation over facipulation. Ula Ojiaku And what's the next one? Mahesh Jade The next one is probably, it was about performance. But the second finding of my paper was about done over doing, so choose done over doing. It means to say, rather than putting a lot of focus on what are we doing back to back and just getting into a loop of doing, focus on what is getting done by certain period and really have that mindset of creating value on a periodic basis. Now that value could mean a product, a finished product, or an outcome, or it could even mean a good feedback. It is again, good to have an outcome, good to have a win. And I propose that, looking at done is more important than looking at doing all the work again and again and again. Ula Ojiaku Yeah. It reminds me of the saying ‘stop starting, start finishing'. Just looking at what can we push to the finishing, start finishing instead of having so many things open and in progress you've talked about, you know, giving people a voice, and I'm paraphrasing that first one, facilitation over ‘facipulation', I love that new word. Anything else from your research in terms of the themes? Mahesh Jade Absolutely. So it was discovery of six themes and I would take maybe couple of more into them. So the next one it was about taking a leap of faith and it came about when I was doing a Scrum.org class about professional agile leadership. And we were talking about the different maturity levels in the teams, both in terms of the leadership in the team and the people in the team. And there was an interesting insight I got during the class where we get into the system not only to interact at the current maturity level, but we actually want to go to the next maturity level, both as any person in the team, be it the Scrum Master or be it the product owner, or be it your team members, everyone. It's a journey to go to the next level of maturity. And then I propose this theme to be, I call it as elevate over delegate. So, choose elevation, elevate over delegation, I'll give an example. So I'm big fan of Ron Eringa's works where he puts a label of maturity and he names it such as Scrum Master gets started as a clerk probably, and then he becomes an organiser. Slowly, he becomes a coach to the team, and then he becomes advisor. When it comes to the team, they are more likely to follow the, probably directed ideas and slowly people will influence them to do something. The next level could be they're just advised and then they're doing something and the highest possible level can be they're just self organising around, around the world. So the idea in this chapter or in this finding, is really to, if we are thinking that this is a moment to direct a team member, go for influencing probably, like, take the next step, take the next step of delegation if possible. So, operate at your current level of maturity, but also do try to go to the next level. So again, if you think there is a need to influence somebody, just try to advise them and see if they can still do it. If, if you feel that right now, this team needs advice, let's just allow them to self-organise. Probably they'll be able to do it because I feel, we do not only want to address the current maturity of the team members and the leadership, but we also want to go to the next level. So I propose this as a theme that whenever you have a chance, elevate over delegation. So elevate over delegate is the next theme. Ula Ojiaku Awesome. Elevate over delegate. Yes well here's for the next theme on your research from your research. Mahesh Jade Yeah, we'll cover one more and I guess it is about dependencies and creating focus and I have got a small story to share about that as well. So I'll first maybe share the story and then we come to the outcomes of this chapter and what is it? If I have to go to a doctor and just get a medicine and let's say it takes me eight days, I called up the hospital and they gave me the appointment after three days and I went ahead and then, so it took some time. So we never say that it took me eight days to get a medicine. We always say that, okay, I went to the doctor, I took the medicine. When it comes to work, people just put it all together and they get an impression that even if it is moving, or even if it is waiting, they think that we are doing something, which is not true. We should just separate where, when we are doing and when the item is in to wait. So it is very important to create that notion where people focus on now, that what is now and what is really afterwards. So a lot of times people get an impression that because we are waiting, we are doing something, and as a leader, we should develop that focus where people stay in the moment, people stay in now, people don't think too much of the next part in the future, but really focus on what is possible to do right now? And if something is not possible, how do we really park that and get started with another valuable thing if we have into our queue? Can we really work on that? So I think a lot of teams face this challenge where it has got developed as a belief that, probably, and I will talk more about it in the into the next part where people just feel that everything starts on the day one of the Sprint and everything finishes on the last day of the Sprint, which is not true. There are a lot of waits in between, and if we really manage them well, if we stay into the moment, chances are that we will do pretty much well. So this actually, this finding ends up into, again, another couple, of words, into the same notion now over then creating focus and looking at dependency in a different way. Staying into the moment and doing what is possible. So now over then is the next theme that I found it to be, while discovering and working around dependencies and creating focus. Ula Ojiaku So what I'm hearing you say is this, it's about the teams, because there are always going to be things outside our control, whether it's as individuals, as teams, when we're, you know, working towards something. So it's about saying, okay, we plan to do one thing, but something beyond our control is keeping us, let's reassess and know, okay, what is within our control that, at this point in time, that we can still do to help us work towards the original goal? Mahesh Jade Absolutely, absolutely Ula. Ula Ojiaku Okay. Please go on then with your next point, Mahesh. Mahesh Jade Yeah. So I'm done with the finding, sharing findings from the paper. I'll probably touch upon the experiment part. So, I call it a big derail in any of the Scrum teams, or for that matter, agile team, when people have the feeling or the notion that everything starts on the first day of the iteration and it ends on the last day of the iteration, which is completely not true. So, because of this, people just end up splitting the work at the last day of the iteration, or probably they will not call out a need for, probably just stopping some work and choosing something else. Those decisions do not happen in real time. So we started off with a small experiment and we named it as Visual Scrum. So I think I learned about it somewhere in one of the forum where people were sharing experiments and I do not exactly recall that, but then we built on that and we created a Mural visual board, which I have got a few stickers with me where  it's a small printout of how that went. So those who are just listening to the podcast, I can make it easy for them it's just a simple way to represent when work starts and when it is supposed to finish in a iteration. So it's like a long strip of sticky note, which represents that, okay, this work starts on Monday and it finishes on Thursday, something like that. So the experiment was simple. We wanted to make sure that people get the understanding that not everything starts on the first day and not everything finishes on the last day, and as soon as we started this, we started concluding our Sprint planning where people visually said that, okay, we have our eight stories. Three of them start on day one. Five of them are actually dependent, we'll just look at them after three to four days, and then people started changing the size of that rectangle about when it starts and when it finishes. And that itself was very powerful for people where they felt that, okay, we are not engaged full-time, we have a good buffer right now. Only two stories are important and the whole team can support that work. It is not that only the primary owner of the story will work on that. Slowly, what we started discovering was that, at a particular point in the second week, people are noticing that, OK, half of the stories are somehow done because we have developed a habit that let's keep the batch size or the sides of the story to be lesser than a week or so. So there are larger chances of completing that, and slowly we started discovering in this experiment, which was very visual to understand that we got started with eight stories or nine stories, but right now half of them are partially completed. Now we have a focus of only this left over part and then if the pin on that story, on that visual board is not moving for a particular story for a couple of days, that was getting highlighted very quickly, where people thought, okay, this story is blocked from last three days, something is wrong. Either we have to stop it completely and take it into the next Sprint, or we can just split it and probably look at a new acceptance criteria. So I know I'm covering it in pretty fast detail, but I can share a blog post that I'm intending to write on this experiment so people can get deeper into it and just look at it in a step by step way. But the point I'm trying to make here is that this derail can be avoided if people make the system visual. People should look at a notion where, as I said, not everything starts on the day one, not everything finishes on the last day, making sure that people understand that what is currently in progress and what is now, what is then, and then really focusing on the current stories, finishing them probably, and then making sure that if something is not moving into the system, call it out at the right time, rather than waiting until the end of the iteration. I think people found it very good and they improved their, I mean, velocity is not really a good measure to measure agility, but this team was completely, this set of teams were completely at a different level of operating when they felt that, okay, we used to take, earlier, we used to take some eight to nine stories into the Sprint. Now we can take even more than that, or even if we do not take too many of them currently, we have a very good control over completing these stories and achieving the Sprint goals. So visual, making the system visual, has a lot of potential to make sure that we achieve goals iteration after iteration, and I think that was valuable when we understood this. Ula Ojiaku So in Lean you would have the concept of the flow of the work and the throughputs you are getting things, you know, from started to done within that time box. And when would you typically, as you mentioned, you know, if the team is not moving, then the team can note, okay, or have a conversation around do we continue with this story? Do we split it? Do we put it back in the backlog? What sort of instances would they have to, or opportunities would they have to actually make this assessment? Mahesh Jade Yeah, so we have just made this complete experience , a creative experience for people where if the pin is not moving for two days, whenever the pin is stuck, we will make sure we will add a black sticky note at the end of that rectangle, calling out the dependency, that what needs to happen in order to move this pin from this day to the next day. And if that pin is not moving for a couple of days, that black sticker keeps on getting highlighted in every check-in event that we have in every daily Scrum. And probably after two days or so, we'll decide, okay, this is not moving. Let's take some decision, let's not wait until the end of the Sprint, let's take a decision right now that either we park it and we pick up something from our buffer, from the top of the backlog or we just split it and look at a different acceptance criteria, and it was pretty good. Ula Ojiaku Okay. So thanks for clarifying. So just to, you know, delve a bit more, especially on, with respect to the audience so that it's clearer, more explicit, assuming this is a Scrum team, would the Daily Standup be a good opportunity for them to actually make these evaluations, or would there be something or maybe the meet after? Mahesh Jade I would say, I mean, we intend to make the right decisions about splitting a story or probably making them, breaking them into parts, or sometimes we just want to make sure that we look at the top of the backlog if we do not have enough work in our hands. And by making the system visual, if I got your question correctly, I think making the system as visual as possible and putting some creative majors around it, if team can take the right decision at the right point, rather than waiting until the end of the Sprint, we are more likely to achieve the Sprint goals, is what we achieved through this experience, and we named it as Visual Scrum, and it was just simple. Whatever we are doing, just let's just represent it on a whiteboard in a very clear cut way, okay? Where we are currently, what is in progress, and what is already done, and what is remaining. So creating that complete bifurcation, that was powerful for people because otherwise everyone always felt that we are in an iteration. We have got, let's say eight to ten stories and all of them are in progress, that was an unconscious understanding that we were able to break by making the system visual. Ula Ojiaku And how is it different from a Kanban board because you know, a Kanban board you, again, that's borrowing from, has its origins in the Toyota production system, but as we use it nowadays, we know about, you know, you have columns to do, in progress, done, in the simplest form. So your visual representation, how is it different from, or how does it build on the normal timeline? Mahesh Jade Absolutely. So we did not do away with the current boards that we had into JIRA at that instance, but I'll put this on screen. But if you look at this closely, this gives a lot of information in a very quick way. Right now, what I see is that I'm into the middle of the Sprint, half of the stories are already finished. The story that is remaining, that is also, there is just a partial part, which is remaining. And I also have a story parked into my backlog at the top of the backlog. So the team comes to know that okay, a lot of work has already finished one work that is in progress, it is not much, it is trivial. So now I have power to pick up what is at the top of the backlog. So we did not do away with the Kanban board, they were still helping us, but we wanted to create a visual representation of what is done and what is in progress. So yeah, I think that was about the experiment. Ula Ojiaku Okay. And one more question because, again, it's really about wrapping my head around how one would apply it. So would it be the Scrum Master that would be checking this and then congregating the team to have a conversation, or anybody in on the team can do this? Mahesh Jade Yeah. So, the Scrum Masters of these teams, when we introduce them to this experiment, they started managing this board completely in the beginning. And slowly when the team matured, they were like, so there was somebody who would nominate to move the pins on the board. It could be the Scrum Master and sometime later some team members started facilitating that. But yeah, in the beginning it was the Scrum Master who tried to become a custodian of this visual presentation. Later, they just hand it over to the people. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for clarifying. Is there anything else about your experiments, any key learnings then? Mahesh Jade I think there was a moment of resistance when people were like, okay, why are we doing this? Should we do it? And I recall we were just adding it as a visual, creative visualisation of our system. And we said, you know, folks, there are two parts to this experiment, and let's just give it a try for the first part. If that works, we'll get into the second, but let's just try, make a nimble start. And I know in my mind that there was never a second part to the experiment. It was only this small experiment that we wanted to do. So I think that is a learning from that experiment that sometimes people want to be nimble into the experiment, people want to make a small start. So we can sometimes just look at the change as if it's really small and we can actually keep the size of the change very small so that it is easy for people to consume. And even if there are no second part to the change, it is okay. Simple changes are always good changes, no big deal. Ula Ojiaku So keeping it simple and just, because we as human beings would cope better when, you know, things are changed in an incremental manner, in small increments rather than big, massive changes. Now, in your experience and in your practice, what tips would you have for the audience? Mahesh Jade This is interesting. I think I have got a very small set of tips. They look very simple at times, but because they have worked for me again and again, I am really inspired to share them with the people so that probably it'll also work for them. So the first tip is like organising around your day in following the notion of A, B, c, d, where the A and B are capital, c and d are really small. And what I really mean by that is that, throughout the day, whatever work that we have, the coaching interventions or the items from our coaching backlog, if you really pick up two high priority item that are going to take some time and two trivial items, small items, which are really like smaller in nature, but they will create some way for next day, they could be like small activities focusing on two big things and two small things in a particular day, in a way limiting the work in progress for us, is really powerful. And we all know that limiting work in progress is powerful, I just put it in my cover of A, B and c d. So, A and B are really two important big things, and c and d are really trivial and it looks pretty simple, but it works again and again. Whenever we, I try to organise my day around, okay, what is this least possible thing I can do to go to the next part that I want to achieve or to help this team to go to the next level of maturity. Ula Ojiaku A and B and c and d, it reminds me of Brian Tracy's book, Eat That Frog and he said, if you know you had to do something that you're dreading, you know, and what could be more horrible than eating a frog, it's better to do that thing first, especially if it's the most valuable thing. So your A and B, you know, big A and B, and c and d reminds me of that. And was there any other tip? Mahesh Jade I think, since I started as a Scrum Master and then I started working with more teams and started getting into a mode where we are trying to bring a change at a larger scale, something which was very internal, not really related to agility, probably as a human, but it still worked, it still gave me some essence to hold onto, and I call it as ARB, A for attitude, R for Routine, and B for Blessing. And what I mean by that, where I have seen sometimes, things can really overwhelm us, sometimes some things are into our hands, sometimes it is just not into our hands, and sometimes the challenges are really very tricky to address. So in those times, I try to make sure that sometimes I try to focus on really the attitude part of the self, where even if things are going in the direction where we don't want them to be, we really keep track on the attitude, okay, are we in the right attitude? But it is not always easy to keep, to stay in the top possible way and, stay at the top of the attitude sometimes. So I discovered that when that does not happen, getting into the right routine, getting into the movement or doing something really helps. So I think there is a point when we are moving and suddenly something happens and then we get into a point when, okay, we can really, we are into back into the shape and we can again get into that situation where we are, we are seeing some light ahead. And the third part is really blessing, which I feel that sometimes we should keep some buffer for blessings to happen, for surprises to take place, because not everything that we do will have the desired result. And if we really keep a very tight boundary around the definition of our success, or a very tight boundary around what I am doing and what I will achieve, that really does not work, keeping a safe buffer for blessings to come and surprises to happen, it really works. And that is why I try to keep shuffling between A, R and B, sometimes focusing on attitude, sometimes focusing on the routine that I have in general, and sometimes, if nothing else, waiting for surprise to happen, and they do happen, and that is how I think I look at a flow of creating value over and over again by probably following a simple formula that is, that works for me from my experience, attitude, routine and blessing. Ula Ojiaku Wow. Attitude, Routine and Blessing, it sounds like a formula that would help with, you know, being less stressed and more, at peace and mindful, for me, having gone through, you know, near death experiences, I know that life is fragile and nothing is, you know, you can't take anything for granted. You can plan, but the only thing you can control, you know, when things are happening around you is your attitude, so how you tune it. And it's also good to, like you said, make space for surprises or things that can change and that's why we need to have some margin instead of always being on the go, go, go, go. So thanks for those tips, Mahesh. So, Mahesh, you started off as a Scrum Master as you mentioned earlier, and now you are working with multiple teams, you know, coaching. Can you share a bit of your experience coaching multiple teams? Mahesh Jade Yeah, you know, it's very interesting Ula that I found out that while working in a Scrum team as a Scrum Master, it sometimes helps to use the glossary of Scrum and working around that and building around the practices and making sure that ceremonies are taking place in a good way. So, a lot of Scrum glossary words. When I got into an environment when it was about multiple teams and working with leadership, I noticed that using the language of Scrum directly, that does not help, but we have to really tie the things that we can do with the problems that will get solved. So that, I think that was an important learning and I noticed that every time I used a second set of words to explain them something about, okay, we are doing this, but it is going to solve this problem, we had an immediate buy-in and I tell it, I always tell it to my colleagues as well, that getting a buy-in on what you can try and what you can introduce, tying up that with the problem that we'll solve is very important. So the way I approach this process with the leadership is sometimes I will tell them that, no matter if you are doing adapting to Scrum or you are taking practices from Kanban, I'm going to give you some goals where you will be able to exhibit agility and they would solve your problems where you consider that you start to visualise the work more powerfully, or probably you just become better at mitigating the dependencies, or, as example, you will become better at prioritising the work, or you'll become better at prioritising the kind of improvements that you want to have. And there could be more. It's like, I'll help you reduce your context switching, I'll help you do the planning in a more adaptive way, and I have seen that it really works, it really works for people because people really don't want to do, and adapt to a framework or a methodology for the sake of it, people do want to solve the problems, people do want to achieve value and really approaching the process, looking at the outcome that they want to have and then joining the dots is really a helpful practice. And it really helps. So it's kind of like developing a secondary dictionary for your Scrum and Kanban words and be able to talk about the changes that you can bring to the team in a way that, how it is going to solve the end problem. I think that secondary dictionary really helps. Ula Ojiaku That's a fantastic point, Mahesh, and I completely agree based on, you know, some recent work that I'm doing as well. The key thing is these teams aren't necessarily software development teams and for leaders, they're not developing software and there's no need to expect them to adhere to the framework, to the letter. It's really about speaking to their problems, what is it going to do for them, and putting it in the language that they understand instead of expecting them to learn a new language before solving the problem. So that's a fantastic point. Mahesh Jade Absolutely. Yes. One more thing, as I could relate, in this conversation is where I noticed that these assessments that we use for assessing the teams on their agile maturity could not be perfect at times. And people just think that, okay, I have done this assessment and I'm scored at somewhere. In my experience, I have always seen teams to be doing much, much lesser than what the assessment would tell. So I have started looking at it in a different way where I do not propose doing an assessment at the beginning of the quarter and the end of the quarter or something. But I give them small goals to attain, and I probably call it as a plus five activity that, forget about the assessment that you would do, so we do it, and we get some inputs from them, but then we just do not wait until the end of, let's say, quarter or half year to do that again. But we try to purposefully put small objectives in the middle, and we tell people that this is the objective and this is the quick start that you can get started with. You just do it. And then on top of it, we'll just provide you, we'll fill up the training gaps, and then you discover your own ideas of how you want to go ahead about it. So it's like creating iterative improvements by adding a small plus five into the process rather than starting with an assessment and doing the assessment at the end of the year or middle of the year. I think that does not help, but putting small quick starters activities that will actually make some change happen and celebrating that change on the go, I think that that really works with the people. Ula Ojiaku Oh yeah. So the small incremental changes they add up over time instead of waiting for that big bang end of, you know, a certain time box. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Great points, Mahesh, thanks again for sharing those. Can you share with us any books that have greatly shaped your thinking or impacted you that you find yourself recommending to others? Mahesh Jade I see Fixing your Scrum to be one of the book that I got a signed copy from Ryan Ripley, that's my all time favourite. I have another favourite would be a book called Evolvagility, where I'm a proud student of Michael Hamman, and he has written this book where we really get deeper into our meaning making abilities, in a way that, so we have grown into certain ways from our beliefs system and probably our way of living, and then how do we look at them again and challenge our own thinking and remove, or probably hold that belief outside of us and objectively look at things and pick up the path. So I think that's another favourite book of mine, but like apart from the books about Agility or the Agile leadership, or how do we fix the processes into Scrum and Kanban, I think there is this one book called The Art of Thinking Clearly and it is really a very powerful book that has changed my way of thinking. It just lists down small chapters with a lot of fallacies and biases that we have developed into our mind. It has got historical examples that how things have unfolded, and then it just tells us that how are we really bound by a lot of biases and fallacies and it just helps us to come out of them and look at things in a very clean and clear way. So that's probably a book that is not really about Agility, but it cleans up the mind in a very clear way, and I think it again leads to become more agile into our thinking. So that's my favourite book, I think the author's name is Rolf Dobelli. Ula Ojiaku So any final words for the audience? Mahesh Jade Yeah, I mean, I wanted to share this during my introduction as well, but my journey, it has got empowered by this app called Meetup, and what I mean by that is, ever since I got started into Agility and Scrum and works around that I found that, when compared to other,  mediums of works and stream of work, this place of Scrum and Agility has got a very powerful community where the meetups are happening weeks after weeks, and a lot of prominent members of this community just come and join these communities and they're sharing the knowledge really at free. So, there is this famous Indian movie called Three Idiots, and there is, if somebody have not watched it, they should really watch it, it's a beautiful movie. And, one of the thing into that movie is where the character in the movie, he would say the knowledge, when the knowledge is getting distributed freely, just go and attend and seek it, don't wait for permission to get into the room to get the knowledge. And these Meetups into the space of Agile and Scrum and related frameworks are really powerfully, equipped to share that knowledge at free. And it's just happening, all over the place. So my advice would be to the people that the community into Agile and Scrum is so strong that we should really leverage it. I have been into some of the Meetup groups where prominent speakers and authors were talking, and the group was just about 15 or 16. So that's something where I feel that people, maybe they do not know that it is happening, or probably they do not think that it'll be so much valuable. But I assert that if we start building real conversations and start getting to meet a lot of people week after week, and every possible opportunity we can just imagine the kind of difference that we can create by learning from those real conversations. As a matter of fact, when I started, I would generally attend a Meetup on every week, and I did it for around more than one year, and that was super, super cool. So right now as well, I try to attend every possible Meetup that I can attend, but then I have seen a lot of people really do not show up. So if you look at a number, 50 to 60 people, if they sign up for a particular Meetup, probably five to six or close to 10 people will show up. And I feel that people should really leverage this free knowledge that is getting distributed all over the places and people are really eager in this particular community to share the knowledge and people should really leverage that. There's no dirth of opportunity to learn from the real conversations. And they're just mostly free all over the places. Ula Ojiaku So are you on social media, Mahesh? Mahesh Jade I make use of LinkedIn quite prominently, I keep sharing over LinkedIn. So that is one area where I'm active. Twitter is another medium that I make good use of. I'm intending to start writing more regularly. So last two years I was writing more from a research paper point of view. Now I'm trying to get into a part where I'm writing short articles and publish them. So probably I'll start writing more on Medium as well very soon. Ula Ojiaku Awesome. So LinkedIn and Medium, which was to be resumed soon. So thank you so much. This has been an insightful conversation. Thank you for again, being my guest, Mahesh. Mahesh Jade Thank you so much. It has been a great experience that I will remember throughout my journey to Agility. Ula Ojiaku My pleasure. That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!   

Guest Bio : Michael Hamman Michael Hamman is dedicated to the possibility that the workplace be a site for personal, professional and social transformation. Trained in the 1980s in coaching and large group facilitation, Michael went on to train in systems thinking and methods, group dynamics and facilitation, professional and executive coaching, and in human and organization development. He is a decades-long student of the nature of human transformation, in himself, in others, and in organizations.  Over the course of the last 20 years, Michael has brought together these various strands into a unique approach to coaching, consulting, and teaching Agility within large organizational settings. Along the way, he has coached dozens of Fortune 500 companies and teams, and hundreds of leaders and coaches toward greater holistic team and enterprise-level agility.  He is recognized as a highly effective workshop leader, and for his skill in creating deep learning environments which leave participants feeling inspired by the insights and inner shifts they experience. His book, Evolvagility: Growing an Agile Leadership Culture from the Inside Out provides a blueprint for what it means to be an agile leader in today's complex world, and offers a practical roadmap for getting there. Guest Bio: Lyssa Adkins  Lyssa Adkins is an internationally-recognized thought leader in the Agile community. She is deeply trained and experienced  in human systems coaching and facilitation and she is a frequent keynote speaker. Her content expertise is agile coaching, adult human development, and working with change and complexity. She is the author of Coaching Agile Teams which is still a Top 10 book a dozen years after publication. Her current focus is improving the performance of top leadership teams through insightful facilitation and organization systems coaching to help leaders take up the individual and collective transformation that is theirs to do. Episode Highlights 05:15 Vertical Learning 09:40 Upgrading our Operating System 12:20 Inner versus Outer Agility 16:30 Three Types of Learning 19:20 Disorienting Dilemmas 21:15 Vertical Facilitation 30:00 Heat Experiences 38:45 Building Trust 42:00 Stretch Practices Websites ·         https://www.theverticalfacilitator.com Social media ·         LinkedIn: Michael Hamman ·         Twitter: Michael Hamman  @docHamman ·         LinkedIn: Lyssa Adkins ·         Twitter: Lyssa Adkins @lyssaadkins   Guest Intro (Ula Ojiaku) Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. This episode is a special one to me. I am humbled and honoured to be in the virtual presence of giants and pioneers who have shaped the Agile Coaching discipline into what we know it as today. I have with me Lyssa Adkins and Michael Hamman. Not just one, but two, so this is like, I won the lottery today, and I'm so excited to have you both on the Agile Innovation Leaders Podcast for this episode. Welcome. Now Lyssa, I had the honour of interviewing just you for an earlier episode and for the benefit of the audience, who, you know, some, I mean, for most people, Michael wouldn't be a stranger. They would be well acquainted with him, but for some of my audience who may not be familiar with, you know, your background. Michael, would you mind telling us about yourself? Michael Hamman Hmm, where do I even start? Ula Ojiaku I understand you used to be a music composer, software engineer, or developer, you know, how did that trajectory lead you to here? Michael Hamman Well actually it, you know, for those years when I was a composer and a scholar, I had a dual life. One life was this sort of creative life of the artist and the writer. But the other life was that I actually was working with people, and I got exposed to transformational learning in 1985 when I took a course. In fact, even before then, I got exposed to it because other people had taken this course. It was called the Est training, and so I got trained to lead seminars back in the eighties and the early nineties, and I brought all of that into my work with software teams. And at first I was a technical, you know, advisor. And then I got into like, well, you know, how do we make these teams work better? And that just, you know, one thing led to the next, and you know, I studied human systems and systems thinking and coaching, I was trained in professional coaching. I brought all that into the agile world when I started consulting in 2004, specifically in Corporate Enterprise, Agile Coaching, probably one of the earlier people to be doing that, and, but I was really known for bringing this sort of transformative angle to it, you know, so there was always a, some people thought it was a bit odd, like I was kind of like the weird uncle in the room, but people really liked it because they found something shifting in themselves while they were learning to do this thing called Agile and Scrum and XP and all that kind of stuff. And so it sort of has just grown, you know, my work has really grown from there. And maybe just to add one last piece that I regard my own personal transformation as part of the work that I do with other people and with the organisations, for me, they're inseparable and, to the degree that I myself am evolving and developing, then I can become an authentic conduit for others to do the same. Ula Ojiaku Wow, that's very inspirational. Thank you, Michael, for that great overview. Lyssa, I'd love to hear your crack at it. Lyssa Adkins Yeah. What I want to say about Michael is that you brought in a word Ula, that I want to just reprise here, which is pioneer. So Michael's talked about his trajectory with transformational learning, and he is indeed a pioneer in that and sort of making the implicit explicit, you know, and that's exactly what he was doing with computer music as a composer, and it was at the very early dawn of computers making sounds. That's where Michael Hamman composed his works, right, and so it's the confluence of a couple of different worlds coming together that he was able to bring forth into a new composition. And that's exactly what's happening here now with bringing these different worlds and experiences and lived experiences together in this new composition called Vertical Facilitation. Ula Ojiaku Wow, well, thank you Lyssa. That brings us nicely, segues nicely into, in terms of what you've been working on lately. So you mentioned Vertical Facilitation, but before we get to Vertical Facilitation, so Michael, I was looking at your website earlier on, michaelhamman.com and you said something about vertical learning being a process by which we evolve the psychological and emotional structuring process that determine how we think, understand and emotionally grasp our work. Do you want to expand on that, please? Vertical learning before we get to Vertical Facilitation… Michael Hamman Yeah, I think what I would say about that is that, at any given moment, there are the things that we're doing. So at any given moment, we are in action and we have a sense of where we're going in our action. So we have a sense of maybe a sense of direction, maybe even a goal, we might even have a vision, right? And so there's this, the world of our action. And at the same time, there's that world, there's that which informs our action at any given moment, there's a sort of sense making that's going on that informs our action, that informs what action we'll take. What's the appropriate action? How might we act? And it also determines the competency with which we act. So there's this sense making that's going on. And you could say that it's an individual sense making, a kind of a psychological layer, but it's also something that happens with us collectively. And so it's this realm that's happening, of which we are for the most part, unaware. And so what vertical learning is about, is to bring awareness to that realm, that dimension, which informs our capacity for effective action, and to the degree we become aware of that realm, we become better able at crafting action that is truly effective, that is action, that is truly congruent with what it is that we are committed to, what it is that we intend. Ula Ojiaku What comes out to me is, you know, that vertical learning is about bringing awareness to the realm that informs how we, you know, act when we've made sense of our environment. That's powerful. Lyssa, do you want to add anything to that? Lyssa Adkins Well, I think I'll add the dimension of why this is even important right now. I mean, there's, you know, for a long time sort of just getting more and more skills, more and more competencies sort of, as a collection, as a basket of things we were now capable of doing. For a long time, that was really sufficient for the context that most of us were in. And, you know, you probably know Ula, and maybe everyone listening that we're in this age of acceleration where everything is speeding up, almost every graph looks like a hockey stick. And, you know, and things are not straightforward anymore. In fact, the complexity of the situations that get served up to us, and especially those ones we don't want to have on our plates, you know, that complexity is beyond most of our meaning making right now. So that's what this is about. It's about closing that gap between the complexity of the situations we're in and the complexity of our own meaning making so that we can be more of a match for the confounding, you know, ever-changing, constantly anxiety-producing situations that we find ourselves in, in our whole life, and especially in business these days. So there's a really important thing pulling us forward to help to, and wanting us to be more capable for the environment we're actually in. And so I think that's why it's up for us and up for other people. Ula Ojiaku Michael, do you have any more, anything else to add to that? Michael Hamman Well, no, what you're saying, Lyssa, just it makes me think of this metaphor that I often use that it's that meaning making, that Lyssa was just referring to, that, which we need to bring to a higher level of complexity to meet the complexity of the world. It's a bit like, you could think of it analogically as a kind of operating system, like an operating system metaphor that, you know, I noticed on my phone, you know, that there are a lot of apps that won't install on my phone because I have to upgrade the operating system. And similarly, in the world of the complex world, the world, I love what you just said, the hockey stick, all the graphs are hockey sticks. Now in the world in which all the graphs are hockey sticks, right, we need, we need new apps. Apps are our behaviours, the actions that we take, and in order to take the kinds of actions that we need to take in this world of hockey stick graphs, we need to upgrade the operating system that informs those actions, and that's what vertical learning is all about. Ula Ojiaku Hmm. And to just explore that metaphor of the operating system, would it have any relationship with, you know, our mindset, our attitudes, or worldview? Michael Hamman I would say absolutely. In fact, oftentimes we use the word mindset as a kind of shortcut term to point to this realm. But unfortunately, for the most part we don't, you know, we're pretty good at, in the agile world at eliciting ways of understanding things that have to do with engineering and basic management and you know, product management and so we've gotten very good, like business agility has taught us a lot about how to bring a kind of agile competency, agile capacity for action, I guess you could say. The thing we haven't gotten very good at, and that's what the work we're up to here is to, what's the nature of mindset? What's the science and the research behind mindset, which has a comparable depth, a comparable legacy to the various engineering and complexity science lineage that informs other aspects of Agile, and so this is really about bringing those sort of human technology, the lineage of human technology to bear, to help us grow that inner operating system. So this is, in many ways, it's a research-based and science-based sort of set of practices as much as an art. Ula Ojiaku That's great. So based on what you've said, that would bring me to the concept of inner versus outer agility. You know, because you said business, we've learned a lot, agile, you know, business agility. But to an extent, and this is me summarising what I think I've heard from you, Michael, you know, it's kind of, we've kind of focused on the engineering of products and services, but there is the inner work we need to do to be able to operate more effectively in a world of hockey stick graphs or some other people will call it VUCA in a volatile, uncertain, complex… I forgot what the A means… Lyssa Adkins Ambiguous. Ula Ojiaku Ambiguous, thank you so much, Lyssa. So can you, how would this tie in with the concept of outer versus inner agility? Michael Hamman It brings to mind, you know, young children learn programming, you know, like young nine year olds and ten year olds. But it's unlikely that they'll ever be able to build huge, the kinds of huge software systems that professional software engineers are able to build. And it's, and it's partly due to skill, but at some point that young child, you could teach them more and more advanced programming skills, but they're, at some point they're not going to be able to absorb it. And that points to their inner meaning making. And it's similar in organisations that we could teach them, you know, agile frameworks, but they may get better and better at it at first, you know, but then at some point they hit a ceiling, and that ceiling is defined by their capacity for inner agility. And so when we hit the ceiling, we could see that as a signal, wow, we need to start to do some work on both our individual and our collectively held sense making frames if we're going to actually get past that ceiling. We will not get past that ceiling, I think we all know that by now, unless something shifts in the area of inner agility, or you could say mindset. But I use the word mindset somewhat reluctantly because it's become a buzzword and we really, for the most part, we really don't know what it means. Ula Ojiaku I didn't mean to impose that word on you, that was me trying to make sense (of the concepts)... Michael Hamman The word is so out there and so I kind of want to, whenever I have an opportunity to do a little bit of violence to that word, I would rather talk to it. Ula Ojiaku No worries at all. And something you said about, you know, individuals and teams hitting the ceiling, getting to a limit with applying the Agile frameworks, due to their operating systems needing an upgrade. It reminds me of, I believe it's the writing of John Maxwell. He's a known leadership expert and he has something called, you know, the Leadership Law of the Lid. You can only lead effectively to a certain extent, and it kind of ties in with what you're saying about you'd have to do the work, because once you've hit that limit, you have a choice either to remain at that level or you upgrade yourself, you expand your capacity by learning, by being coached by, you know, being willing to learn, or, I mean, unlearn and relearn or, you know, learn new things, but change the way you do things to get to the next level. Now, how can one upgrade their operating system? Michael Hamman Well, that's what vertical learning really ultimately points to, and it's a different kind of learning. So you could say that there are three different kinds of learning. The first is informational learning, where we, you know, basically teach concepts and we give information. And the idea is, is that then people take that information or those concepts and apply it, you know, into their life and, you know, into their work, and so that's one form of learning perfectly valid and legitimate for certain kinds of learning needs, I guess you could say. The second kind of learning or the second sort of method of learning is behavioural, where we teach skills and competencies to people, with the idea that they will then take those skills and competencies out into their world and exercise those skills and competencies. The problem is, is that what we often find is that both with, in terms of informational learning and behavioural learning, is that there's a missing ingredient. Oftentimes, for instance, people don't know when it's appropriate to bring a certain information to bear in a given moment, or, for people who have learned particular skills, they find themselves unable to exercise those skills when it really matters, when the heat gets high. And this is where the third quality of learning comes in, which is called transformational learning. And transformational learning doesn't happen in the same realm as informational and behavioural learning. It can't, it's not taught by telling people. It's not even taught, you know, through behavioural practice, although that can be part of it. It has to be taught in a very different way, and this is where Vertical Facilitation builds because you can only bring about transformational learning through the design of a learning environment. And it can only be done by creating situations in which people experience a kind of inner dilemma between what, how the categories with which they already make sense and the category that is likely to be necessary to make sense of the current situation being presented to them. Ula Ojiaku Lyssa, do you have anything to add to that? Lyssa Adkins Well, just that it is so much fun to present a group of people with a disorienting dilemma, and to watch them reach the edge of their known meaning making, and to find out that it's actually not the edge of the world, they're not going to fall off the world. They can say, oh, wow, now I see that that frame of reference I was holding, it's just a frame of reference, it's actually not how the world is. You know, now I can look at it, I can take it off of me and look at it as an object and say, okay, well how has this frame of reference served me in the past? And do I still need it now? What pieces am I bringing forward as I expand into other frames of reference that can inform me more completely about the situation I'm in? And so it's just, you know, for about a decade, I suppose. Michael Hamman and I were involved, this guy right here, with others, were involved in conducting these transformational learning environments in our agile coaching work. And it is such a joy, it is such a joy to see people break through this concrete, calcified way that they were viewing the world and to realise, ah, there's like a field out here with flowers and butterflies and there's all kinds of other options now available to me, and you know, we have a lot of lived experience in those kinds of transformational education environments. And that builds on training that we've all had, but also on Michael's really long history with transformational education environments and I think the modern need for us to help others increase their vertical capabilities. Ula Ojiaku I know that some of my audience, or people who are listening or watching, would be wondering, what Vertical Facilitation is, and they also would be wondering if you have any stories. And of course, I'm here as your student, maybe there would be a demonstration, but before we all, you know, go to the stories and all that, what's Vertical Facilitation? Because you've already defined for us what vertical learning is. Lyssa Adkins I want to set the stage for Michael to say what it is because this is where Michael's thought leadership is really coming to bear in the world. He's creating a new composition for us to live in because he's taking what was once implicit about Vertical Facilitation, learning environments, and making it explicit. And so many people have components of this in their leadership development programs, in their agile coach training in their, whatever they're doing, but to make it more explicit and usable for them would really amp up the results they're getting from whatever program they're in. And so that's, those are the people who we're trying to reach and I just want to say this is a new composition. Ula Ojiaku Thank you, Lyssa. Michael, please. Michael Hamman I feel incredibly humbled by what you've been saying, Lyssa. Thank you. Yeah, I would say that Vertical Facilitation is a way of working with groups leaderfully. So it's a leaderful way of working with groups. So it's not, you know, the typical sort of neutrality of facilitation that we ordinarily think of it. So there's a leaderful intention, but the leaderful intention has to do with being able to be attentive to what's the quality of the sense making that's going on in this moment with this individual, in the interactions between these two  individuals or the interactions among the individuals within a group, and the group energy. So it's a, so Vertical Facilitation is about paying attention to all of these things with an ear for what's going on here developmentally and developmentally is just another word for vertically. What is the sense making that's going on? And Vertical Facilitation is about creating moments, creating situational moments in which people experience what Lyssa just termed a moment ago, a disorienting dilemma, and it could be a, and a disorienting dilemma, again, is the recognition that something about the way that I'm making sense of this situation is insufficient to be able to successfully manage myself in that situation. So it's a kind of an ‘aha' and sometimes it's a moment of fear or anxiety, right? And so Vertical Facilitation includes having this sort of loving manner that allows for people to come face to face with whatever emotional emotions they're experiencing as they encounter a particular disorienting dilemma. And just to say one more thing about that, the disorienting dilemma can be experienced within an individual or within a group, and Vertical Facilitation is simply about surfacing moments in which that disorienting dilemma becomes present for people, whether individuals or the whole group, such that they can make a choice. So the important thing here is awareness and choice, and I called it an existential choice because it's a choice in how to exist in relation to this situation. And when people can make that choice toward a more complex way of making sense, not only does it alter the way they relate to this particular situation, but in that very alteration, it alters the sort of neural connections by which they make sense of other similar situations. And so that's what we mean by transformation. A transformation occurs when there's the, an alteration through the exercise of this existential choice of those that the kind of neural network by which we've come to make sense of a given situation or set of situations. So that's about the shortest way I could say it was. Lyssa Adkins Well, and let me just highlight how incredibly powerful this fulcrum is, because once we can get up underneath the unexamined lenses that people are looking at the world through, and once we can help them encounter this thing that used to be like perfectly fine and it's somehow limiting now, then it's not only the situation that they're presented with right now that has different outcomes and maybe more success, but it's everything like this and everything in the future that is related that gets a lift. I mean, so like the leverage capability is really, really high with this kind of development and this kind of transformational experience. Michael Hamman Yeah, and at the expense of elongating this, this part, but I just want to build on something that Lyssa said here that part of what happens when vertical learning happens, or when transformational learning happens, is that people have a state, have state experiences, and so a state experience, we've all had them, it's a moment, it's a kind of an ‘aha' moment, so it's a sort of cognitive insight, which is combined with an emotion. It's a certain emotion. And you could say that at those moments, something in us gets connected to something much deeper. It's like we have a moment where we're drilling down into some deeper part of ourselves and being able to pull up a kind of wisdom. Now we've all had these, you know, these moments of, we call them state experiences and oftentimes we pooh-pooh state experiences because, well, you know, that was so, you know, last week because quote unquote state experiences fade. Now part of what happens with deliberate Vertical Facilitation is that we stage sequences of moments in which people experience state experiences. And what the research shows is that when people can repeat state experiences, it tightens up the new neural connections that get created during any given state experience. And so there are many pieces to the art of Vertical Facilitation, and one of them is this kind of engineering of situations that bring about these state experiences where people have an ‘aha' by virtue of having gotten to the other side of some sort of disorienting dilemma. Ula Ojiaku Right. Wow. Are there any stories that you could share highlighting, you know, like where you facilitated or you implemented Vertical Facilitation, created a situation or scenario where people were put into, you know, where they experienced dilemmas and then you were able to facilitate them to get to that state experience, are there any stories that you could share just to give some of, myself included, you know, a kind of example that we could identify with? Michael Hamman Yeah, I think I would like for us to offer a couple of examples, maybe one that's, maybe from when we were doing the Coaching Agile Teams classes. And then I'd like to offer an example from something that's a little bit more personal in tone. So, I don't know, do you want to speak to the first one, Lyssa? Lyssa Adkins Well, what I'd love us to do is for you to offer the example and then let me help you make it clear how that example created heat experiences, connected to the bigger game, like the different aspects of Vertical Facilitation that you are now exposing for the world. Does that sound good? Michael Hamman Yeah, that sounds good. So, the first example used to happen a lot when we were teaching this class Coaching Agile Teams. And a lot of our listeners probably took it years ago. And there's a moment in that class, this is just one example of many such moments, but there's a moment in this class where we teach a skill that we called Level Two Listening, and the distinction between Level One and Level Two Listening and Level One, just to say something about that distinction to get the example across, Level One Listening is listening to my own thoughts and paying attention to my own thoughts, I'm with this other person, but I'm really not with them, whereas Level Two Listening is as I'm really with them, and I'm not only hearing what they're saying, but I'm actually,  I'm not only listening to what they're saying, but I'm listening for who this person is. So there's a quality of genuine relationship in this moment. And I'm not trying to take this person anywhere, I'm not trying to get them, you know, I'm not trying to figure anything out with them. And so then we invite people to practice this and what happens invariably is that people have this, first of all, it's very uncomfortable initially, that they have this disorienting dilemma because they're so used to like having to figure out, okay, well how can I help this person, or what can I say, or, you know, I'm not really understanding what this person's saying, or, you know, all the stuff that goes on when we're in that Level One Listening. So there's a disorienting dilemma. But then there's the ‘aha' that happens when something shifts in the way that the other person is expressing themselves. You know, like they suddenly become more, maybe coherent or they become more self-expressive, or maybe authentic. And so they have the experience of that connection and it becomes possible for them to make that existential choice. Wow. That was really amazing. You know, typically we have those kinds of experiences when we're falling in love, but not when I'm talking with somebody that I just met earlier today. So that would be one example. Ula Ojiaku Would you say Level Two Listening again, and this is me trying to make sense of the terminology, would that equate to what, well, I know as active listening, because that is really about just listening, not just for the words that are being said, but what's the, you know, are there any emotions being conveyed with it? What's the body language, can you read in between the lines, but just focusing on what they're saying without thinking about what your response is going to be or what your counter-argument is going to be. Michael Hamman Yeah I would say that Level Two Listening, how I would really clearly differentiate is that it's me being silent, you know? So I'm not trying to establish camaraderie with this other person, quote unquote, camaraderie. I'm simply being present and hearing what they're saying and listening to what they're saying and being attentive to who they're being. And what I understand about active listening is that sometimes you want to say things to indicate to the person that you're following them, that you're with them. And, you know, we find that to be actually, counterintuitively perhaps, a bit distracting, whereas Level Two Listening is just, it's actually more uncomfortable, because we're not really saying and to clarify Level Two Listening there. Lyssa Adkins Yeah. And for people who are more interested in that language level of listening comes from the Coactive Coaching School, it's often also called focused listening or listening for, those are and active listening is an adjacent and related topic, but has been, has the history that Michael just talked about that sometimes is counterproductive. Okay, so Michael, for that situation that you just talked about, which used to happen every single time and every single Coaching Agile Team's class, we could rely on this being a disorienting dilemma for people, right. So, just to be clear about the four perspectives, heat experiences, stretch practices, social container, and bigger game. So how does that situation, how is it an example of heat experience? Michael Hamman So a disorienting dilemma is a heat experience. And by a heat experience we mean it's an experience in which something in us gets challenged, some known category gets challenged, and we often feel it at first as anxiety. Sometimes we feel it as a sense of excitement, oftentimes it's a mix of feelings. But it's always this sense that something is getting challenged, some category. I don't mean us as a person's getting challenged, but the way in which we are making sense of something is getting challenged in the moment in which that sense making is occurring. So it can't happen, you know, retroactively, it can't happen with respect to something that I did or said yesterday. It has to be elicited in this moment and that's the key to creating a heat experience. And there are lots of different ways to create heat experiences. But that's one of them, that's the most classic way. Lyssa Adkins Yeah. And I would say that people did experience that heat experience as very confronting. We would often ask, so what was that like? And they'd be like, I hated it, oh my God, I felt so weird. You know, it was like this whole mix, and then there would also be the person who would say like, oh, I found it so relieving, right. Like, so there's a whole mix of how people are dealing with it. And I think that moves to the second of the four that we could talk about now, which is social container. So like how in that situation was there a social container, Michael, that helped make this a Vertical Facilitation moment? Michael Hamman Yeah, great. So this was toward the end of the first day of Coaching Agile Teams. And by that point we had, there's a way in which, Lyssa, Michael Spayd and myself, the three of us who led these courses, there was a way in which we held the space, we use that term holding the space, which is paying attention to not only what's happening with individuals, so we might be interacting with an individual, but also scanning, we're constantly scanning the space to see what's happening. How is this landing? You know, does the space feel stuck, and from time to time, giving feedback to the group or to the class, you know, wow, the space, the energy feels stuck, what's happening. And so inviting people to get involved, to elicit their own awareness of the space or the group, or the emotional energy, which oftentimes, you know, we don't pay attention, as human beings we are aware of these things, but we have so long ago lost our ability to have our awareness of that awareness. And so part of what happens is we elicit this awareness of group energy and what that does in combined with, you know, the fact that we're bringing people to these disorienting dilemmas is a certain kind of bondedness happens. There's a unique quality of bondedness and this is something that people always remarked about these courses and in other courses that both Lyssa and I do, the quality of social bondedness creates an environment of safety, right? So we talk about, you know, emotional safety, right? But it makes it possible for us then to challenge each other, it makes it possible for the environment to be challenging. So it's both safe and challenging. So in that moment, it was, that environment was really starting to come alive. Ula Ojiaku On that point about the social container and, you know, saying you create a state where, well not state, but you create a situation where there's a social bond with the group. Would you say that what something that would help with that bonding is trust, an element of trust that I can be vulnerable is there? Lyssa Adkins So trust is a tricky one, because everyone's got a different definition of it. And so one of the things that we would do, and that I would suggest everyone do in a transformational learning environment is to just consciously and explicitly design the alliance of how this is going to go between all of us together. And the purpose for doing that is to put the participants in the driver's seat in terms of being responsible for their own experience, but also to empower the course leaders to lead people through these experiences. And so when someone would say, well, we would say something like, so what do we need in this environment for you to really get the most out of it? Oh, I need it to be, I need to trust it. Okay, great. What do you mean by trust? So once we get below sort of the easy word, then we get to what people really need in the container. And the most important thing then, as the chorus or as the program or as the leadership development longitudinal thing goes on, whatever thing you're doing, as it goes on, what the most important thing is, is for the leaders to constantly be affirming of, bringing in Vertical Facilitation to whatever program you're doing, and the other two are stretch practices and bigger game. Michael Hamman So stretch practice is a practice that requires that somebody stretch some known category. So it's very much related to, by the way, all four of these qualities, we call them design elements, overlap, and they, you know, they synchronistically, you know, interact with one another, so they're not really to be seen in isolation. So stretch practice is one that, the practice of which requires that something in my way of understanding things has to shift. So for instance, in this case, you know, inviting people to practice Level Two Listening, which by the time they did it for the third time, they were starting to get it. You know, there was that shift from awareness of the disorienting dilemma to an existential choice, wow, this is really a profound way to work with other people. And so the stretch practice here was a very simple one, which is this thing of Level Two Listening. So, you know, oftentimes, in fact, almost always transformational learning happens through the introduction of some sort of stretch practice, that the stretch practice is a kind of vehicle, a kind of catalyst for creating a situational moment in which transformational learning becomes possible, because I want us to keep in mind that this is not about reflecting on things that happened yesterday or last week. This is about bringing situations present in the moment,  and there's a whole psychological research called memory reconsolidation that's in the background of all of this. We're not going to get into that right now, but it's an important technology and this is why it's important to make these situations that are happening in the now. And so that would be an example of a stretch practice, the practice of which something has to shift in the way that somebody makes sense of something. Lyssa Adkins And to just be really clear about what the stretch practice was, like the first stretch practice was so simple on its face. It was basically this. Now that you have heard about Level One Listening, which is all about you, your ideas, how you want to be valuable, how you want to be smart, how you want to show this person you're listening. Shift to Level Two, which is you being focused on what they're saying, what's behind the words, and as you said earlier, Ula, what's the emotional content that's going on there? So here's the instruction. You're going to listen to this person talk about something real and something that is on their mind for three minutes, and you're not going to say anything. And the reason you're not going to say anything is because you want some space in your mind to notice, ah, when am I with them at Level Two? And when do I fall back to Level One? No big deal, just come back to Level Two. So it created a new, on the face of it, very simple practice, but it confronted people's as yet unexamined beliefs about how they bring value. Ula Ojiaku That's powerful, powerful. Michael Hamman And again, keep in mind that this is a synergy. So we need all four of these, right? So we've just related our thinking to three of these design elements: heat experiences, social container best practices, and so now there's a fourth one. You can kind of think of this as, you know, the legs of a table. You know, the table will stand up with, may stand up with three legs, but it's going to be very wobbly, you need all four of these to create a solidly transformative learning environment, and the fourth of these is what we call a bigger game and a bigger game is that we relate to what we're doing with a commitment to our own growth. So for instance, in this example, many people came into this course with a commitment to growing themselves as an natural coach, and because of the way we open and start the class, people start to confront what does it really mean to be an agile coach? And people realise that the commitment is ultimately to their own inner growth,  they don't necessarily know exactly what that means, and it's a shared commitment, there's a quality, so this is, the bigger game has to be a shared commitment, it can't just be, you know, I've got this commitment, and maybe you do, but we're clear we're kind of in the same boat together, and what holds us together is this shared commitment. It's what gets us through those moments, say, of conflict, you know, when it's hard, or when, you know, I'm having kind of a really tough moment, right here, and what gets me through it is this commitment to, maybe even to other people, but certainly for myself. Ula Ojiaku It's a bigger game, shared commitment to a common goal. Lyssa, what do you want to add anything? Lyssa Adkins I would say so common goal makes it sound like we all want exactly the same thing, and that's not necessarily, so I like what Michael says, like, we're all in the same boat together. This boat is going in one direction, right? There's a lot of variability between people's bigger games and how they think about those and how that pulls them forward to get them through these heat experiences and all of that. And so that's, I think, another function of the bigger game that is really important is oftentimes people will come to a transformational learning experience thinking, I'm going to get some more tools and techniques, and fair enough, certainly they will along the way, but those tools and techniques, that sort of content, that knowledge that's getting transferred to people is happening in the context of those people confronting the lenses, the glasses they had on, they didn't know they had on, confronting the fact that they're just sort of maybe bobbing through life and they're not connected to a bigger game. You know, so all of that is happening at the same time. And so I would say that the, in a Vertical Facilitation, from a Vertical Facilitation perspective, the content that you are trying to convey as a leader of, let's say it's a leadership development program, or a five day transformational learning experience, whatever it is, that content is a peer to the transformational learning experience itself. They go together, and that's what makes it transformational. Otherwise, we could just, you know, record a video and say, download this information to your brain, operate here, and that would work fine as long as the world weren't getting more complex, but it is. Michael Hamman You know, so for people to get a real genuine taste for this, we are starting what we call a learning journey, a Vertical Facilitation Learning Journey. And the journey actually has two parts: the first part is a free series of webinars, emails, us providing resources so that people can get a strong foundational orientation around what Vertical Facilitation is, both conceptually, but also they will get an experience of it because it's very, very hard to demo it unless you're actually doing something with a group, so people who would like to see this at work, we invite you to go to https://www.theverticalfacilitator.com and sign up and join the learning journey. The first part is free, the first three months is free, and then if it's something that is truly compelling, the second part, which is the paid part, takes you on a very deep dive into developing yourself in terms of skills and leadership stances as a vertical facilitator. So I think that's what I would invite people to do. Ula Ojiaku Okay. You said that if there's a learning journey, three part experience, there's the webinar, and the part one is on, you know, the intro to Vertical Facilitation per se, and the second one is paid. I don't know if I got the third part, what would be part three? Michael Hamman The third part is for people who do the deep dive, the paid deep dive portion, and it's a set of follow up emails and other resources that help people to integrate what they learn, because what happens during the deep dive, among other things is that people actually design and hopefully facilitate a small either workshop or intervention of some sort where they actually practice the skills and distinctions that they have learned, both in that free orientation part, but also in the deep dive. So that's the third part. The name of the course is the Vertical Facilitator. Ula Ojiaku And there is something on, you know, the latest post you made on LinkedIn, about something starting in August. Is this related to that course or is it different? Lyssa Adkins It is, that's the deep dive portion. So between now and August are going to be the webinars, the free resources, but basically getting us into this new composition together. Ula Ojiaku And would it be in person, or virtual, the August dive? Michael Hamman It will be virtual. Lyssa Adkins Because that's the hardest, so virtual's the hardest, we figure we might as well go ahead and go there since that's going to be people's context, not all the time, but more of the time. Michael Hamman Yeah. So at a future time, probably the second time we do it, we will do the deep dive portion or part of the deep dive portion as a live event. Ula Ojiaku Okay, and then one last thing, any final words for the audience in terms of what we've covered so far? Michael Hamman The only thing that comes to mind is that join us on this learning journey so you can get a taste of this. So, you know, we've, the best we've been able to do is sort of maybe elicit a little bit of the quality that's present when Vertical Facilitation is happening and, people may have noticed perhaps the way of being a way of Lyssa and I working together, and Lyssa and I are both very skilled vertical facilitators and so we would invite you to come and join us. Ula Ojiaku Thank you, Lyssa, anything? Lyssa Adkins No, I think we have said so much and I've so appreciated the richness of this and also that Ula, I'm so appreciative that this podcast gets to be part of the kick-off of what's truly a new thing. Michael Hamman Yeah, I also want to express my appreciation for you, because this is, you know, you have a certain grace in your manner, and I felt like this has just been a really wonderful podcast experience for me, thank you. Ula Ojiaku Thanks, both of you are very kind and very gracious, and the honour is mine and (it's been) a great experience for me. That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!     

In this week's show, I'll explore the powerful synergy between growth mindset and lean innovation.   I'll share how to create a culture that fosters creativity, resilience, and efficiency, empowering your business to innovate effectively and stay ahead of the curve.   Here's what I'll cover:   Growth Mindset

Bio Jeff helps organizations build better products and executives build the cultures that build better products. He is the co-author of the award-winning book Lean UX (now in it's 3rd edition) and the Harvard Business Review Press book Sense & Respond. Starting off as a software designer, Jeff now works as a coach, consultant and keynote speaker helping companies bridge the gaps between business agility, digital transformation, product management and human-centred design. His most recent book, Forever Employable, was published in June 2020. Social Media ·         LinkedIn ·         Jeff Gothelf - coaching, consulting, training & keynotes ·         OKR-book.com ·         Twitter ·         Instagram ·         Jeff Gothelf - YouTube    Interview Highlights 04:50 Early career 16:00 Thought leadership 19:10 Outsource the work you hate, it shows 23:00 Defining a product 24:35 Product Managers as navigators of uncertainty 28:15 Succeeding as a Product Manager 37:25 Strategy, vision and mission 42:00 OKRs 48:00 Leading and lagging indicators 54:10 Do less, more often    Books and resources ·         Forever Employable - how to stop looking for work - Jeff Gothelf      ·         Best product management books - Lean UX, Sense & Respond... (jeffgothelf.com) ·         Lean vs. Agile vs. Design Thinking: What You Really Need to Know to Build High-Performing Digital Product Teams: Gothelf, Jeff ·         Sense and Respond: How Successful Organizations Listen to Customers and Create New Products Continuously: Gothelf, Jeff, Seiden, Josh ·         The role of a Product Manager: Product Managers are Navigators of Uncertainty https://jeffgothelf.com/blog/product-managers-navigate-uncertainty/ ·         Information Architecture, Louis Rosenfeld, Peter Morville, Jorge Arango ·         The Lean Startup | The Movement That Is Transforming How New Products Are Built And Launched ·         Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making, Tony Fadell ·         The Creative Act: A Way of Being: Rubin, Rick Episode Transcript Ula Ojiaku Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. So I have with me the legend, Jeff Gothelf, who is an entrepreneur, keynote speaker, highly sought after keynote speaker I must add, coach and much more. So Jeff, really honoured to have you on the Agile Innovation Leaders Podcast, thank you. Jeff Gothelf It's my pleasure, Ula, thanks so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. Ula Ojiaku Oh, good. Well, I usually start with a question for my guests to find out more about themselves as individuals. And during our pre-recording session, you mentioned something that was intriguing to me, that you actually played piano and you were part of a touring musical band, could you tell us about that? Jeff Gothelf Absolutely. I've played piano my whole life, my dad plays piano, there was always a piano in the house, and I had pretty big rockstar dreams as I was a kid growing up. It's really all I wanted to do. I can remember in high school everybody's like, what are you going to go to college for? I was like, I'm going to be a rockstar, figure that out. And, you know, I played in bands in high school, I played in bands in college, and towards the end of college I started playing in a couple of relatively serious bands, serious in the sense that they were decent bands, in my opinion. They were touring bands and they, you know, they made enough money to sustain themselves. They weren't jobs, they didn't sustain us as individuals, but they sustained the band system. And it's fascinating because, you know, at the time I was 19 and 20, I did this really until just about the time I met my wife, which, I was 25. And so I did it until about, I was about 25, and, you know, in hindsight you don't see it when you're in it, especially if you've never really done anything else. I'd always had jobs, but the jobs were always, you know, I delivered newspapers and I made sandwiches and I was a, you know, worked for a moving company, whatever, right? But in hindsight now it's clear to me that I was being entrepreneurial. In those days, the bands, each of them, especially the touring bands, were startups, you know, it's a bunch of folks getting together with a crazy idea, thinking that everyone in the world will love it, it's going to change the world, and doing everything they can and putting everything into helping folks realise that, and building that vision and, and executing on it. And, you know, scraping by and hacking things together and hustling and doing what you can to build a successful, in this case it was a musical group, but it was essentially a startup. And these days, not only do I look back fondly on those days and all those, all those guys that I played music with are my best friends to this day, we still talk almost every day, but I learned so many skills about being entrepreneurial, about experimenting, about learning, about failure, about iteration, about, you know, what's good, what's good enough, when do you call it quits, that's a really tough thing to do, you know, letting something go that you love is really difficult. And I know now, you know, 20 years later, that so much of that experience figures into my day-to-day work today. You know, even to this day, like if I get a new speech to give, if I get, a new client or a new, you know, assignment, I call them gigs. You know, I got a new speaking gig, I got a new consulting gig, I got a new coaching gig, that type of thing. It's impossible to remove that. And it's, it's amazing to me really, because at the time, you know, I could not have told you what I just said to you and, but in hindsight it's super clear to me what I was doing and what I was learning because I've put it to use over and over and over again in my life. Ula Ojiaku That's fascinating. It reminds me of what one of my mentors said to me, and he said, whenever you are given an opportunity to learn versus, you know, get more money doing what you already know, always choose to learn because there's no wasted knowledge. So it's more of tying it back to your days that, you know, as a musician, as a part of a touring band, you were learning and you're now using those transferrable skills, right? Jeff Gothelf Yes. Ula Ojiaku And would you, well, I don't play any instruments, but I used to be part of, you know, different choirs and my daughter also now does that, you know, kind of sings. But there are times when, you know, things would go wrong and you're finding yourself having to improvise so that the audience wouldn't know, okay, this isn't part of the script. Would you say that has also played a part in your experience as a band member did such? Jeff Gothelf I mean, the thing that comes immediately to mind is just comfort on a stage, right? Comfort in front of people and being able, you know, being comfortable in front of a room and performing to some extent or another. I think that that's, that came from that, the ability to, you know, hide or improvise, mistakes that happened. You know, I remember I was, we did this as a band all the time, and nobody ever knew really, unless they knew a particular song of ours very, very well. And you know, some things like that happen all the time when you're, giving a speech or teaching a class or whatever it is. I mean, I remember giving a speech in Budapest one time at Craft Conference in front of 2000 people, and the screen kept going out, my slides are up there in front of, and they kept flickering and, and going out. And it was just a question of, you know, what do you do? Do you just sort of collapse and be like, well, the slides are gone, I can't do anything, or do you keep going? And I think a lot of that drive and that ability to land on my feet in those situations came from being in that band and putting on so many shows. Ula Ojiaku And I'll say it helps that you knew your content as well, because if you had just read it 10 minutes before and you got on the stage, then it would be a different thing. Jeff Gothelf It would not have gone well. Ula Ojiaku Yes. Okay, now I understand you have a BA in Mass Communication and you also went on to do a Masters in Human Factors in Information Design, and in your previous life you used to be a software designer. Jeff Gothelf Correct. Ula Ojiaku How did the winding road go from band member, you know, through the academics, to Jeff we know today, I mean from software designer to now. Jeff Gothelf Yeah, it's interesting, it's a great question. The, look, the rockstar thing didn't work out, you know, there's a thousand reasons, but I think the bottom line is we just weren't good enough, that's, that's probably where it netted out, but… Ula Ojiaku  And you were getting married, you said you met your wife. Jeff Gothelf I was getting married, yeah. You know, and having no money doesn't, those two things don't really play well together, you know, and so the band thing was ending and, you know, the web was starting, so we're looking at the late nineties at this point, just to kind of date myself a little bit, we're looking at the late nineties and in the late nineties as the band was, the last band that I was in, was winding down, the internet was coming up and I'd always been prone, you know, to computers and a little bit of computer programming, just very basic stuff, you know, and I started building websites, basic, you know, brochure websites for my band and for other bands, and I taught myself HTML to be able to do that. And then as the band was winding down, web 1.0 was happening and, you know, back in 1999, if you could spell HTML, you could get a job, you know, and I could do a little bit more than that, I did a little bit of graphic design, a little bit of, of HTML, and so I got a job, I got a job because it was easy to get a job back then, they took a lot of risks on people, and we learned on the job and that's what kicked things off, that got me doing web design and shortly thereafter I moved into Information Architecture, which was a brand new term and a brand new field as defined in a book by Lou Rosenfeld and Peter Morville called Information Architecture for the Worldwide Web. And that book really changed my life because it gave me a sense that I, instead of just doing kind of the last step in the process, which was the markup and the design portion, I could move further up the waterfall, if you will, in the website creation process and do a lot of the Information Architecture, and that was great, and that was really, that really spoke to me and having sort of landed in that position, as the web evolved and became more interactive and Information Architecture expanded into, well, more fields showed up in interaction design, UI design, UX design, I expanded my skillset into that world. And then that really began the trajectory of starting to build design teams and then going into product management, eventually launching our own studio, our own firm, and then finally after selling that studio, going out on my own and teaching all this stuff. But that's, that's sort of like how I went from band, to the web and everything, and there's, you know, there's a lot, I skipped a lot of steps there, but that's the story in general. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for that, Jeff, and I think you also told part of your story in your book Forever Employable, How to Stop Looking for Work and Let your Next Job Find You. Since we're already on this topic, could we just delve into that? So you said something in that book about, you know, in your job as a software designer, you know, Information Architect, I can't remember the exact role you had, but you had an aha moment where you felt you, quoting this in my own words, I'm not quoting your book exactly, but you felt like you could always be replaced in that role and you wanted to carve out a niche where you are always in demand. Do you want to tell that story in your words so that I stop butchering it. Jeff Gothelf Yeah, I mean, look, it was interesting, you know, I progressed in my career in the same way that, you know, most people progress in their career, the way that my parents told me the world works, you know, you go to college, you get a job. It took me, and there was a little, you know, band break in there for me, but, you know, I got my first job, and then you work hard for a few years and you get a promotion, and then you, maybe you move to another company and you get a raise and, you know, you just kind of move your way, you climb your way up the corporate ladder. And that's what I did, I did that for a decade and I, you know, I clawed my way up into middle management like everybody does, or like most folks do. And when I turned 35, on the morning, in fact, of my 35th birthday is how the story goes in the book, I kind of woke up in a panic. I was concerned, like you said, that this wasn't going to last. I was going to become more expensive, the number of opportunities available to me as you climb, available to anyone, as you climb the corporate ladder gets smaller and smaller and smaller. Right? Exactly. Right. That's by design, right? You want fewer managers and more people doing the work. And I was genuinely concerned that I was going to run out of, I was going to get fired, I was, there's, I was hiring people at the time and the people that we were hiring were younger than me, they were smarter than me, faster than me, they were better than me, and they cost a lot less than me. And so I was really worried, and I saw this with my friends too, I had friends who were maybe five years older than me who were struggling with this very thing. They were struggling to find a job or stay employed, and stay relevant. And I was terrified. I was terrified I wasn't going to be able to feed my kids, you know, that was the big thing for me. And so I made an explicit decision when I turned 35 that I was going to stop chasing jobs. Like, as the subtitle of the book says, How to Stop Looking for Work and Let Your Next Job Find You, I was going to stop looking for work, and I was going to create a situation where jobs were constantly finding me, where opportunities were finding me, because that way if something happens to my current job, well there's a stream of inbound opportunities available to me. And to kind of cut to the chase here, the way that I decided to do that, and the way that I write about it in the book, is through thought leadership. That's it. Like, that's the, you know, recognised expertise, personal branding, right, becoming somebody who people know and somebody who can help solve specific problems, and that's what I did. And look, it took me years, a lot of years, to really build up my reputation and my profile, and I've done it to an extent, and it's impressive to me today to see how many people are doing it so much faster than me. Now, you can credit it to the tools that's available to them, the nature of conversation online these days that's fundamentally different than it was 10 or 15 years ago, and these folks have just kind of nailed, nailed the system here. But it's thought leadership is what's worked for me to do that. Ula Ojiaku And I'll say, I mean, yes, there are people who might have done it faster than you did, but there is this saying that people are able, if I'm able to see as far as I did, it's because I'm standing on the shoulders of giants. I'm just saying it's credit to you for sharing your experience because it's helping us to know what to do moving forward. Jeff Gothelf Look, and that's, I think that that's the benefit here, right? I think I talk about this in the book, right? About sharing generously, giving back to the community, helping people avoid the mistakes that you made, helping them skip a step. And to me that's, you know, a lot of folks would see that as, well, aren't you enabling the competition? No, I'm helping the community get collectively better. And eventually I hope that if I get to a position of need, the community will help me, that's what I hope. I don't expect it, but that's what I hope happens. Ula Ojiaku So how, how did you go about setting up the systems then? Because you, you got this realisation, oh my gosh, I am going to be, I may be obsolete in my current role faster than I'd rather admit, so you said you now went, you said, okay, you're going to be a thought leader. How did you decide on what area to start from and how did you then go about setting up the systems and the structure you have right now that are helping you? Jeff Gothelf The first thing was really to decide what I wanted to be known for. You know, in the book we call it planting your flag, but it's a question of what is, if I'm going to be a thought leader, if I'm going to build a personal brand of some kind, if I'm going to be known for something, what is that thing? And, and you know, our natural tendency is to go for professional things. What do I know best at work? What do I do best? I'm a Project Manager, a Product Manager, I'm an agile coach, I'm a software developer, I'm a designer, but doesn't have to be professional. Could be personal, right? I told you I play piano and I happen to really love old vintage electric pianos. And I used to have a fairly large collection of vintage electric pianos. I could have built my thought leadership around vintage electric pianos, right, and it's viable to an extent, but the target audience here, so this is where kind of the product management hat comes on, right? The target audience is tiny. It's tiny. Like, even if you took all the keyboard players in the world, right? And, and then all those keyboard players who play vintage electric pianos, which is a subset, and all the people who care about this kind of stuff. I mean, it's still an infinitely smaller audience than say, web design, or product management, or even agile software development or things like that where I ultimately ended up. And so I chose that I wanted to be known for User Experience Design, and more importantly, UX design with Agile, because that's the problem that I was solving at the time, or solving for at the time, and nobody had a really good answer for it when we started solving for it, and that to me felt like an opportunity. And then that was what I, so then I started doubling down on that. And what that meant was starting to write, starting to share generously, speaking at conferences, getting on podcasts, things like that. And really starting to, at the very least, tell the story of the work that we were doing at the time, as I was the Director of UX at TheLadders in New York City at the time, and we were working on a daily basis, on a Sprintly basis, to tackle the challenge of good user experience design and agile together. So that's what I was writing about. And that eventually led to Lean UX, the book. But that's how it all started and that's where the focus was. Ula Ojiaku Okay. And how have you then set up the structure? Do you have a team currently or do you work in a lean manner? Jeff Gothelf So these days there is a system and there is a team. It's interesting, years ago I did a gig in the UK, see I said gig, comes out naturally like I told you. I did a gig in the UK for rentalcars.com in Manchester. And at the time, their Head of Product or Chief Product Officer, was this fascinating woman named Supriya Uchil. And she was a fantastic client. I really enjoyed working with her. And when the gig was over, she emailed me, she said, hey, would you like to hear some feedback about what it's like to work with you? No client has ever done that, by the way, not before, and not since. And I said, absolutely. I would love to get some feedback about what it was like to work with me. And she gave me a bunch of feedback, a lot of the work. And I took a lot of notes and I took a lot of post-it notes. One of those post-it notes has stuck with me for years now. It still sits here on my whiteboard, I still have it here, and it says outsource the work you hate, it shows. Right. And that's what she said to me. And she said, look, it's obvious to me that you hate doing sales. She goes, every time we had to have a sales conversation, you were clearly uncomfortable and not really into it. Right. She was right. I hate doing sales, I really do, and so over the years, as I've built this business, as it's grown, as it's become a, you know, a viable, successful business, you know, business of one per se. I have built a team of outsourced professionals to support a lot of the work that I do today. So, for example, I have a content marketing team. Now that team takes content that I create and they repurpose it across multiple channels, and they help me build, you know, my email newsletter and they help me build my LinkedIn presence and other things like that. It's my content, but they do all of that work. In addition to that, I've outsourced all my accounting. I have a fantastic accountant who works with businesses, only with businesses like mine, and so they understand my business and my way of working, everything's online, everything's digital, and that's super helpful. There is a woman that works for me part-time who basically handles the entire logistics of my business, scheduling, calendaring, travel. And then on top of that, she also handles BusDev and sales for me. And so that, to me, all that does is it removes all the things out of my way that I hate doing, and it leaves me with a tremendous amount of free time to do the things that I love doing, which is content creation and delivery. And that has made the ability to generate that content and distribute that content far more efficient and successful. And I'm super grateful to be able to, you know, to be in a position to be able to do that. And it supports the lifestyle that I'm trying to create and it allows me to, again, to focus on the things that I truly enjoy doing. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for sharing that, that's really insightful. Now, going back to something you said earlier about putting on your Product Management hat, there are some people in the audience who might be wondering, okay, what would you define a product as? Is it always something tangible or could we expand that word to mean anything that someone consumes, which might also be intangible, for example, going to a show, would a show be called a product? Jeff Gothelf That's a great question. The simplest definition that I've used and that I like for product is the way an organisation delivers and captures value. To me, that's a product. Now, that product could be a service, right? And I don't want to open up that can of worms. So if you're a band and you deliver a show, you cap you. that's how you deliver value. And if you capture value, like you sell tickets to that show, and merchandise, and maybe streaming revenue, then your product is the music and the show. So, yeah, absolutely, right, that's the way that you capture value. And so to me that's the simplest definition, the way an organisation delivers and captures value. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for that definition, and this leads me to my next question, which is, so how does it relate to the discipline of product management? What does a Product Manager do then? Jeff Gothelf I believe that Product Managers are navigators of uncertainty. So a Product Manager's job is to take an idea, right, or, you know, the way an organisation delivers value, and to take it from concept, to market, to successful business. Now, the challenge with that is that we live in a continuously changing world. The pace of that change is increasingly faster, and this idea that you can confidently predict exactly what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and be right all the time is false. There's just too much change in the world. I mean, think back three years ago, right? The world was radically different three years ago than it is today. Radically different from 10 years ago, we could, we could not have predicted the things. I mean, I started my job at TheLadders in New York City, I talk about this, in October of 2008. Everything was going great in October, in the early part of October 2008. Right, we had a roadmap, we had plans, you know, in three weeks after I started my brand new job as Director of User Experience, Lehman Brothers melts down, and the financial crisis ensues, right, and we, you know, we're a job market site and all of a sudden the whole ecosystem's upside down. And so, and so I believe that the Product Manager is a navigator of uncertainty. They take a specific set of skills, a specific set of qualities, like curiosity and humility, and they build a process for de-risking the product idea and maximizing its chances for success. That's what I believe Product Managers do at a very high level. How that manifests will vary from Google, to Bank of America, to Boeing, to whatever, to, you know, I'm thinking, I'm trying to think of something like Cisco, the food service people or whatever, right? Like every organisation is going to do Product Management differently for a variety of reasons. You know, domain, industry context, corporate politics, blah, blah, blah, you know, technology stack, whatever. But at the end of the day, I think if you're looking at sort of fundamentally what a Product Manager does is they help a team navigate the uncertainty of product development. That's their job. Ula Ojiaku I dare say that even within a sector, even an industry, the way it's carried out could also vary from company to company, would you? Jeff Gothelf A hundred percent, yeah, I mean, a hundred percent. I mean, it's absolutely true. And so I think to say like, oh, I did Product Management at Google, so I'm a great Product Manager. Well, you might have been a great Product Manager at Google, congratulations, right? Does that mean that you're going to be a great Product Manager at, you know, Barclays, I don't know. You're going to bring that skillset to bear in a completely different environment, in a completely different industry. So I think if you've got the fundamentals in place, you'll do great. But trying to sort of copy and paste what you did at Google very tactically into a different environment, I don't think it's going to work. I mean, happy to be proven wrong, but I don't think it's going to work. Ula Ojiaku So what are the fundamentals then that a Product Manager would have that would give them a higher chance of success? You know, transferrable success from one area to one another. Jeff Gothelf I'm going talk about two qualities that are, I believe are fundamental to the success of a Product Manager, and then kind of four things to keep in mind. And I think those are, I think that to me, those are the fundamentals. I think that the two qualities that a Product Manager needs to have is humility and curiosity. I think all successful Product Managers are humble and curious. And those are really two sides of the same coin, let's be honest, okay. There's really, there are two different ways to describe a very similar quality in a person. Now, humility simply means, people misunderstand humility. People think humility is a lack of vision or a lack of conviction or a lack of ideas. Or being a doormat. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. And it's not, humility simply says that, look, I have, uh, I'm going to use my expertise and my experience to come up with a strong opinion about what we should do. However, in the face of evidence that contradicts my strong opinion, I'm willing to change course. That's humility. That's saying, you know what? I was wrong about this. The evidence proves that I was wrong, so we're going to change course. The curiosity side of the story is the excitement in finding out if you were right or wrong, and to me, those two fundamental qualities of a person make for excellent Product Managers. Somebody who's willing to admit that they were wrong about their strong opinion, and somebody who's excited to find out if they're right or wrong about their strong opinion, and curious to see if maybe there's a better way, right? I think this is a good idea, but there's got to be a better way, no, let's go find it. To me, that makes for excellent Product Managers. So those are the fundamental sort of personality qualities. I think those are really hard to teach. I think you can train people to some extent but, you know, ego's tough and humility challenges the ego a lot. And so do the facts for that matter, facts challenge the ego a lot, the evidence you collect from the market. So then there's that. And I think the four sort of things to keep in mind for excellent sort of transferrable product management are customer centricity, agility, evidence-based decision making, and continuous learning and improvement. So a lot of agile concepts in there, you'll hear sort of a lot of agile concepts. You can argue all of them are agile concepts, although not exactly how all agile is implemented these days, but nevertheless, so customer centricity first and foremost, right? As a curious and humble Product Manager, your primary focus is making the customer successful, not shipping features, making the customer successful. That means understanding the customer, understanding the problem that you're solving for them, understanding what's getting in their way, understanding what they're doing today, understanding how the competition is solving this problem for people, understanding technology and how you might apply it to better solve this problem, understanding where the market is going so that you get ahead of it, you don't get caught behind, right? But it's all about understanding the customer. What are customers looking for? What are they trying to achieve? What's getting in their way? And really knowing them, not just quantitatively, but qualitatively, meeting them, talking to them, having regular conversations. To me, that's the first sort of key quality of a successful Product Manager. The second is agility, and that stems directly from those qualities of humility and curiosity. Agility is the ability to change course, it's the willingness to change course. It's the flexibility to say, you know, we started going down this path and I know we've spent a couple of Sprints heading down this path, but it doesn't make sense anymore, and so we're going to change course. And yeah, we burned two Sprints on this and that sucks, and I'm sorry, but we didn't burn two months on it, we didn't burn six months on it, right. And so we're going to shift to something more successful because of what we've learned in the past. And that brings me to the third point, which is evidence-based decision making. So those course corrections are being made based on data that you're gathering from the market, qualitative data, quantitative data that lets you know that, yeah, this is a good path to go down. Or, you know what, we really need to pivot here or to completely change course into something else, but you're making decisions based on data and not just opinion. And then finally, this continuous learning and improvement. This, again, this is that curiosity that says, we did a good job, we solved the problem, the product's successful, great. How do we make it better? How do we keep learning whether or not this still makes sense? Right? To me, that's what makes for successful Product Managers, right? Those multiple focus areas and two core qualities of humility and curiosity. I think that's what makes for good Product Managers. Ula Ojiaku That's awesome, thank you for that. And would you have, I mean you do, in your books, you've shared lots of war stories where you know, you had experience with product management or product leadership and to the audience, I'll say read the books, but is there any example maybe that comes to mind of someone who was a Product Manager that, you don't have to name names, you don't have to share like details, but that kind of brought to life all these personal qualities and focus areas and how that affected the work? Jeff Gothelf I mean, look, I've worked with a ton of remarkable folks over the years. I think I started really meeting folks who were working this way when I met folks like Janice Fraser who, in fact came up with the phrase ‘strong opinions, loosely held', which is exactly what I was just describing a few minutes ago. Janice has built multiple businesses and has really helped pioneer these ideas into sort of the mainstream. And I've seen her repeatedly do this. Eric Ries, you know, with The Lean Startup, really brought a lot of these ideas to light in a very easy to digest way, hence the success of his work in the past, and he lived this stuff in the businesses that he's built over the years. I had a colleague and co-worker and co-founder in a business named Giff Constable. Most recently, Giff was the Chief Product Officer at Meetup, but he's been a serial entrepreneur his whole life. Giff really embodied these ideas, like he's a smart guy, tons of experience, really great ideas, but he would test them all, and if he didn't get evidence that convinced him that they were right, he was willing to change course. And I learned a ton from working with him and building businesses with him. And it was inspirational because in many ways, you know, I appreciated his ruthlessness. You know, we all, it's hard, you know, this is personal stuff, this is my idea, all my ideas are great, I love my ideas, right. And he loved his ideas, but he was very, very good at separating emotion and evidence. And I really learned a ton from him as well. So those are three folks that kind of come to mind immediately. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for that, it reminds me in terms of what you said about Giff being ruthless, I think is a term in journalism to “kill your darlings” because you could write an article or, you know, write your first draft and you're so in love with it, but by the time the editor brings out their red pen or something and starts striking it out, you have to separate emotion from the love. Jeff Gothelf That's exactly right, kill your darlings is the reality of this, of good product management. It's, you know, if the data doesn't prove it, and the data we're looking for is changes, meaningful, positive changes in the behaviour of the customers that we're serving. And if the data doesn't show it, then no matter how brilliant this idea was, how much you love it or how much you thought it was just revolutionary, it doesn't make sense to continue to invest in it, we've got to find, figure out a different way. Ula Ojiaku That's awesome. I'd love to get to your take on the terms, you know, vision and strategy. How would you define these terms would be my first question, and my second question, and I'm happy to, you know, share this again, is how would you then tie this to, you know, for example, product development? How would they, how should they influence product development? Jeff Gothelf Yeah, so look, a couple things. There are, I'm not going to lie to you, you know, I struggle a little bit with, you know, vision and mission. Strategy is clear to me, but differentiating between vision and mission, some will say a vision is like what will the world look like in five years or something like that? Or if you're successful, what changes will you see in the world? That type of thing. Whereas a vision is sort of like the big motivational, like what was it for Google? Cataloguing all the world's data, that was their vision. Right? Ula Ojiaku Can I give you my own take? So my understanding mission is more like, okay, what do we stand for? We're going to save the world? And vision is like, okay, in this amount of time, you know, this is how we're saving the world. So it's kind of a picture from the future, say if we travel five years into the future and we see our customers, what are, how are they behaving? You know, what exactly does the world look like for us? While mission tends to remain constant. That's my understanding anyway. Jeff Gothelf Okay. Yeah. And so to me, look, it's directional, right? In the sense of like, we are, you know, we're going to make sure everyone is clean drinking water, like clean drinking water for everybody, right? That's our, is that our mission or our vision? I don't know. But like, or maybe that, maybe that's the mission and the vision is, you know, a world where no one's thirsty. To me, those are like you, I think you need that in the sense that like, you need to know sort of at a high level what problem is the company solving for in the world? I think that's important, right? Because I think that inevitably there are going to be initiatives that seem to stray from that. At the very least, you can point and say, look, is it our mission to bring clean drinking water to everybody in the world? And why are we like investing in a sports website? Right, doesn't make any sense. So at the very least, it gives us that perspective. Strategy, however, and I think strategy is really, really, really important. Strategy is super important for aligning the organisation so that everybody is pulling in the same direction, so that everybody is clear on what the short term goals are for the organisation and it gives people, if done correctly, it gives people the freedom to experiment and learn to figure out the best ways to achieve the strategy, because I do believe that strategy is a hypothesis. Our hypothesis is that we want to expand into the North American market in 2024. Okay, great, let's figure out all kinds of ways where we might start to build some market share in North America in 2024. Right. And to me, I think that that is the true benefit of strategy. I think that it can also be misused, at least, for alignment, that's very specific. Our strategy is, you know, North American market share and we're going to do it this way. And you can get very prescriptive with that. Now everybody's aligned, everybody knows what we're doing, but it doesn't allow for the flexibility and that push and pull that ultimately reveals a better way to do something or is more creative or more innovative. And so I think strategy is key. It's key to articulate it clearly and simply, it's key to disseminate it clearly and simply across the organisation. And I think no team in the organisation should have their project approved if they can't clearly state how they believe this might help achieve the strategy. That's what I believe. Ula Ojiaku And on that note, so you said no project or team should have their initiative approved unless they can show how it helps move the needle towards the desired strategy, the direction of travel, the organisation, I suppose that's what you mean, the organisation's direction of travel or what they want to achieve. Now how, because one of the shiny new objects, or, well, not an object per se, but more like a buzzword is OKRs, objectives and key results. So how can we use that? Or, let's say, can it be used to help with tying strategy with the work that, you know, the lower levels of the organisation might be doing? Jeff Gothelf I think it's critical to be able to tie the pieces together. Now, I don't expect an individual contributor necessarily to be able to do that, but certainly their manager can say, hey team, we're working on this very tactical thing because it's a component of these five other tactical things that when you put them together, they roll up and they achieve this much more meaningful thing together. Right, and so I, again, I think that there needs to be a clear, and it's rare, look, let's be honest, right? Everyone in the organisation needs to understand what the strategic focus is for the next six months, six to 12 months. Okay. And again, if you can't speak directly to why you're working on the thing that you're working on, then your boss should be able to answer that question for you. Ula Ojiaku So it's really about, what I'm hearing you say is that there needs to be a strategic focus for an organisation at least that looks ahead six to 12 months into the future to say, okay, this is what we're going to be doing. And for teams, they have to find a way of articulating how they are contributing to that strategic focus, to the fulfilment of that strategic focus. Now, how can OKRs be used? I know you said, okay, individual contributors may not necessarily use that, but in the situations where you feel they apply, how could they be, and by they, I mean OKRs, objectives and key results, how could this format help? Jeff Gothelf OKRs to me, are the key to bringing this alignment. So if there's a clear strategy. Without a clear strategy, the OKRs don't help, okay. But if there's a clear strategy and we've set success criteria for that strategy, for that strategic hypothesis, then, or we can start to say, okay, great. We are, our strategic focus for 2024 is North American expansion, we'll know we've achieved it when, you know, we've got 10% market share, this much revenue and a, you know, new customer referral rate of 20%, something like that. Right. All of a sudden, the organisation knows what it's targeting, not only what the strategic focus is, but the actual behaviour change that we're looking for. So fundamentally, every team in the organisation can then start to say, okay, we work on X, and X is a leading indicator of Y and Y is a leading indicator of market share. Okay. So the objective, while it should be local to the team, as well as the key results, they function as leading indicators for the strategic goal, right? So let's try to make an example on the fly, right? So we're talking about North American expansion in 2024. Let's assume that we are in the, you know, online furniture business, something along those lines, right? And so if, maybe you work on a merchandising team, right? And so there, in order to do proper merchandising, you need access to specific suppliers, right? And so there is a team that does supplier and vendor relations. Right. That team understands that for the merchandising team to be successful, they've got to build these relationships with these vendors. So their OKR is going to be about building those relationships, right? Those relationships in turn allow the proper merchandising to take place, which then allows for the proper, you know, for market share to grow in the North American market, for example. So, but that connection can be, you can literally draw it on a board because people understand the strategy. And so objectives and key results become the, sort of the tactical strategic beacons for each of the teams. Each team knows exactly what they're targeting and why, and they understand, in theory, how it might help achieve the overall strategy, which again is a hypothesis, it might be wrong, but at the very least, they've got a shared direction. Ula Ojiaku Thank you for that example. There's something you said about the leading indicators. So I assume that would fall under the key results part, because we'd have the objective which is like the, you know, ambitious statements and then the key results are like, this is what success looks like in terms of achieving that broad statement, the objective. Now, would you, I've read articles from respected thought leaders who say, okay, yes, leading indicators are good, but there also needs to be, you know, the lagging indicators, kind of a balance of, will I say measures, you know, leading, lagging and quality indicators. I don't know if you have any, I mean, I'd love to hear what your view would be on this, because if we're only looking at leading indicators, there might be a temptation to just be short term in our thinking and not also try to measure the lagging indicators, like okay, the actual revenue of the profit that you get versus our likelihood of getting that revenue. Jeff Gothelf Yeah. So look, so short answer is both are important, I think, obviously, and I think both are required. Slightly longer answer is the lagging indicators in an organisation often tend to be the, what we call the impact metrics for the organisation, the high level measures of the health of the business, like you said, revenue, sales, you know, customer satisfaction, etcetera. Right. So yeah, those things need to exist. Typically, they exist at the leadership level, and so then whatever's happening within the teams, tends to function as a leading indicator ultimately to those sort of high level lagging indicators. Right? So we're going to, you know, I've got a team working on email marketing, and they're working on email market opening click rates, right? Those are leading indicators of eventual sales, and those sales are leading indicators of revenue, which is a lagging indicator of the health of the business. And so those, that's,to me, both are needed. Typically the lagging indicators tend to be at the strategic and the leadership level. Ula Ojiaku I read on your blog post that you have another book coming up, whilst we're on the subject of OKRs, and you're going to be, or you are in the process of co-authoring yet another book with your co-author Josh Seiden. Could you tell us about that? Jeff Gothelf Absolutely. So, yeah, so Josh and I have been working and writing together for a long time. We have been talking about outcomes and OKRs together for a long time, and we feel there's an opportunity in the marketplace to build, to write a tactical how-to implementation guide for all, organisations of all size. And that's what we're doing. It doesn't have a title yet, we do have a website at okr-book.com where you can sign up and learn a bit more about it and then kind of be on the mailing list when we do have more info about it. We're writing it right now. To be honest, I've been writing it in public for the last two years on my blog every week at 500 to 700 words at a time. All those just kind of getting those ideas out there and experimenting to see what works and what doesn't and what gets feedback and what doesn't, and that's been super helpful and I expect this to be a popular book, and I expect this to be a very helpful and tactical book for organisations who are going through the process of implementing OKRs and are trying to make them work both as a goal setting framework, but also truly understanding the kinds of changes to ways of working that come after you've implemented OKRs. Agility, or agile ways of working, product discovery, Lean UX, right? Those types of activities as well, to help teams build that evidence-based decision making that we talked about earlier. Ula Ojiaku Awesome. Is there any timeframe or do we just go to your, to the website you mentioned and sign up to get more updates on the book as they unfold? Jeff Gothelf okr-book.com - that's the website? Ula Ojiaku Yes. And when do we expect it to be released? Jeff Gothelf October. Ula Ojiaku This October, awesome. So that would also be in the show notes. Are there any books or materials that you have found yourself gifting or recommending to people that have impacted or shaped the way you think right now? I mean, that is in addition to your, you know, Sense and Respond book, Lean UX. Unfortunately, I don't have the physical copy of the Forever Employable ones and, but yeah, are there other books that you could recommend to us? Jeff Gothelf Yeah, I think so recently I've read Tony Fadell, his book Build, the Tony Fadell of Apple and Nest and various other fame, Build is a really good book and really interesting insight as to how he works and builds products, and most recently I just finished the new book by Rick Rubin, legendary music producer Rick Rubin, it's called The Creative Act, and I found that book to be fascinating and really inspiring. I mean, it's, you know, he is very like, listen to this, you know, get into the zone and just the flow and, you know, there's a lot of that fluffy guru kind of stuff in there too. But I agreed with 90% of what I read in there about creativity, about, you know, working with an idea, about developing an idea, about getting feedback on an idea, about letting an idea go, about changing context and constraints to create more creativity and innovation. And I really enjoyed it. So it's called The Creative Act, it's by Rick Rubin, and it's an easy read and I would recommend that if you're looking for that kind of motivation, I think it was really smart. Ula Ojiaku Awesome. Is there anything else you'd like to ask of the audience? Jeff Gothelf I just hope that if you've got anything you'd like to ask me, don't hesitate to get in touch via Twitter or LinkedIn or my website. If you're interested in OKRs, do sign up for my newsletter, and go to okr-book.com and sign up there. And beyond that, I hope to see you online or in person sometime in the future, because it's nice to meet people in person again these days. Ula Ojiaku Great. Thank you very much, Jeff, for these. Any final words of wisdom for the audience before we go? Jeff Gothelf The pithy phrase I'll close with is this, do less, more often. That's the phrase that I would recommend for you. Ula Ojiaku Wow. Do less, more often. I am going to be pondering on that statement. Thank you so much, Jeff. It's been an honour speaking with you, learning from you, and I hope we would get the opportunity to do this again, hopefully. Jeff Gothelf Thank you, Ula. This was amazing. Thanks for having me on the show. Ula Ojiaku That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!   

Bio  A technology lawyer of some 40 years' experience, Richard has seen the IT industry from all sides - as an in-house lawyer with two substantial UK based systems houses, a lawyer in City of London practice and now as the head of his own practice offering legal services to IT companies large and small as well as acting as mediator and arbitrator in IT disputes.  Over the course of his career, Richard has been involved in some of the largest IT litigation and transactions and now gets involved in particular with Cloud contracting. When Richard set up his own private practice, the Chambers Guide to the Legal Profession described him as a “leader in his field” and as “good news on the most complex of matters”. Richard is a well known IT lawyer, having served two years as Chair of the Society for Computers & Law and is currently serving as Chair of the Legal Affairs Group at techUK. He has been a regular speaker at conferences both in the UK and internationally and has been providing training for over ten years: his annual lecture on Contract Law Developments attracts hundreds of attendees every year. More recently, he has ventured into writing with the publication of “Stephens on Contractual Indemnities” published by Law Brief Publishing.     Social media/ website(s): ·         LinkedIn: Richard Stephens on LinkedIn  ·         Richard's Website:  https://www.the-lors.co.uk   Books/References ·         ‘Stephens on Contractual Indemnities' by Richard Stephens – Law Brief Publishing   Interview Highlights 07:20 Don't leave any slippery bananas 09:15 Kicking the can down the street 15:20 Peppercorn rent 16:55 Blue v Ashley case 21:31 DSDM 22:40 Agile contracts 32:20 Atos Origin v De Beers 37:15 Hogjaard v EON    Episode Transcript  Ula Ojiaku Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. So, Richard, thank you so much for joining us on the Agile Innovation Leaders' podcast.    Richard Stephens Pleasure to be here.     Ula Ojiaku Fantastic. Now, as I start with all my guests, we want to know who Richard Stephens is. So, can you tell us about yourself?    Richard Stephens Well, it depends what you want to know Ula. I'm a solicitor, and it's not terribly exciting as professions go. So, I spend a lot of time reading long documents, commenting on them, marking them up, doing contracts. It's probably everyone's worst nightmare when it comes to a profession really, I suppose, I don't know.    Ula Ojiaku Well, I like the way you've just summarised your profession as reading long documents and making comments. I'm wondering if you ever had long debates over phrases and words in a document?    Richard Stephens Yes, that's what the job consists of. And when you get into negotiating big contracts, and over my career, I've done, I've been involved in huge global outsourcing of huge cloud contracts, huge this, huge that, huge development implementation contracts. The job consists of arguing about words and trying to get it right for your client to be honest, you don't want to leave any slippery bananas in there which are going to trip them up later on.    Ula Ojiaku So that phrase slippery bananas, we'll get back to it. But in the meantime, how did you end up in a career in law, because you said, the way you've described it, you said it's not the most exciting thing. So, there must have been something that still drew you to this, “non-exciting path”?    Richard Stephens Well, I don't know, really, you just, I don't know, why do you do anything when you're young, and you decide to become, you know, typically, young little boys will say, well, I want to be a train driver or whatever. And you just, as you grow up, you just become gravitated to do something, and there are a lot of us in our school who said they wanted to be lawyers, others said they wanted to be consultants or some wanted to be accountants, but you have to understand that I worked in a time when IT didn't really exist. So, I don't think there was anybody who wanted to go into technology, for example, because I was, you know, at school in the 70s. So that was very much an arcane shut away job where people would wear white coats and go into air conditioned, filtered air rooms to feed mainframe monsters. But of course, that sort of thing, we knew nothing about. I don't know, I don't know why I went into being a lawyer. I mean, I could have run away to the circus, I suppose, but I lacked the courage to do it, I suppose - too boring and unadventurous is typical lawyer you see.    Ula Ojiaku Okay, okay. Well, that's an interesting, will I say, narrative of your career to date. So, do you have any thing you would have done differently, knowing what you now know?    Richard Stephens I think I would have run away to the circus, Ula.    Ula Ojiaku Okay, well, that's an interesting response, Richard. Well, thanks for sharing your career story to date. And so, for someone who is, for example, listening, and that's considering a career in law that you know, no matter what stage in life they're at, what would be your advice?    Richard Stephens Don't put your daughter on the stage, Mrs. Robinson, I think is probably what I would say. You know, they're all different types of lawyers. And you can go through lawyers who do criminal work, for example, and I think some lawyers get a good deal of pleasure out of doing that sort of thing. I don't think the criminal lawyers make a huge amount of money out of it. Or a lot of people do very harrowing areas of law like family domestic law and they're dealing with battered people of, frankly, these days, both sexes and horrible emotional scars and, you know, battles over, but I, you know, I went to, did some of my CPD and I went to a talk given by a probate mediator. Now you think that probate was a nice sedate area of the law, but that's the most, he said, is the most vicious, dispute ridden thing, because he said all families will have secrets and they will harbour them. And he said, what will happen is that, you know, Aunt Maud dies, and she has some valuable art collection or something like that, and then all these little, all these little disputes and resentments that you had against your elder brother for 30 years suddenly all bubble to the surface. And he said, it all comes out as a horrible, vicious fight. People are going into Aunt Maud's house and stealing her property while she's dead. And they're arguing over who gets the fine china and who gets this and who gets that. He said, one of the horrible things is that you, know, when he does the settlement between the brothers or whoever it may be, and one of the clauses he's very often asked to put in is that such and such brother, should not ever again seek to contact him by phone, email, writing, or anything. So, you get that sort of thing as well. So, but you know why it is I would become a commercial lawyer, I say it's not that boring and actually, when you get in a deal, you get the excitement of trying to work the deal together, put it all together, bring it all together for the day of signature, I say there is a pressure, a dynamic, and every team has its own dynamic, and you're working towards getting something done. A bit like looking at your agile principles as well, I suppose. You know, you're trying to get it done. Although it's not done in incremental delivery, it's all done in one big drop at the end on the day of signature, of course.    Ula Ojiaku Now, that's an interesting story about, you know, different kinds of law, probate and going kindly back to commercial law, which you practice, if I'm correct in the understanding.    Richard Stephens That's right. I mean, I work for myself, when I say I do the big contracts, and I certainly do that, I work for SMEs as well, one of the things I also do is, I work as a mediator and an arbitrator in the IT sector. So, I'm there either helping people resolve disputes, or as an arbitrator, I'm actually resolving disputes, issuing binding awards. But I also provide some coaching in commercial law subjects as well. So, I do a variety of different things that helps keep my sanity.    Ula Ojiaku Now, the phrase slippery bananas because you said, you know, when you were, you know, you when you're drafting contracts, you make sure you're avoiding those slippery bananas. So, what's the perspective? Could you give us a glimpse into what goes on, you know, behind the scenes or in your mind, at the back of your mind when you're, you know, drafting, you're involved in drafting, and reviewing contracts on behalf of a client. What's the perspective you're doing this from?   Richard Stephens The first line is, and the first principle I start from is that projects, as has been said before, projects don't go wrong for terms of conditions. And I have a friend in the industry, who says that, and he, like me, works for himself. And he says that when he's doing a big contract or for a major client, he's up against a really big city of London law firm. He's there, he'll be negotiating the front end, as we call it, the terms and conditions, the legal bit, that goes at the front, the core of the contract, he'll spend days talking about liabilities and warranties and indemnities. He says, I'm talking with a partner of the law firm on that, he said, but when it comes to talking about the scope, the SLA, the charging schedule, all these things, he said, I end up negotiating with the trainee. He said, well, why does a contract go wrong? It won't be for anything to do with the indemnities or the liabilities or the warranties. They're there for after it has gone wrong. Why does it go wrong? It goes wrong for the things that are in the schedule, the operational things, that's the thing that you get wrong. And the second principle I move on to is this, that in my lifetime, I think drafting has simply got worse and worse and worse, and contracts have got longer and longer and longer. And so, having talked about slippery banana skins, then we now get on to another metaphor. And we talk about kicking the can down the street, as lawyers find it harder and harder to come to agreement on important issues, you know, when will such and such a sum be paid? You know, what you have to do to get acceptance of milestone three such that payment can be released. And so, they then insert modern drafting, like the parties will reasonably agree the amount to be released, and it's called kicking the can down the street, it's not actually legally binding. And it's not actually, it's nothing, it's a thing, it gets rid of the immediate problem. And all you're saying is that, you know, the judge or the arbitrator later on can make the decision for you, or you hope they can, they may just throw it out and say, well, it's not really an agreement at all. So that, I think, those are the things that I have noticed in my career, and those I think are the banana skins, the slippery bananas I try to avoid for my client wherever possible.    Ula Ojiaku Well, that's interesting, and how successful is it? Would you say that a good contract then, this is me stating my view and as a non-expert in this area, I would stand to be corrected by yourself. So, would a good contract be drafted in a way that enforces both parties to act in the best interests of the other, does it always result in a win-win situation?    Richard Stephens No, because I'm an English lawyer, I deal with the English common law. And the common law has typically, traditionally taken the line, and still, to a very large extent does, that each party looks after its own interests. I'm not here, when I represent a party, I'm not looking after the other party's interests at all. And my instructions, so to speak, or my implicit instructions, are to do the best deal for my clients, to do the worst deal for my opponent. Now, of course, that means I'm not actually trying to hamper them or hinder them or throw banana skins under their feet, because of course, if I hamper them or hinder them in the contract it could come back on me or come back on my client, I should say later on, if it's a long project, or outsourcing where the parties have to cooperate, so you do have to get a sort of balance. But the common laws approach, the English common law's approach is typically that each party is expected to enter into a contract, looking after its own interests, it's actually highly topical. I don't want to, you probably don't want to get into the riveting and fascinating details of English contract law, and it's sort of moving in practice and theoretically to adopting a, what you might call a more continental civil law approach by trying to import concepts of good faith (Note: Whilst correct at time of recording, the English Court of Appeal has since limited the use of the term 'good faith'), reasonableness, which are concepts I have to say, which are still by and large alien to my system of law, to the system of law, the country in which we live.    Ula Ojiaku Okay, wow. So, how then because, we've kind of dug into, you know, speaking about contracts for the, in the interest of the listener, who probably is just jumping in and wondering, okay, what are they talking about? What would you define a contract as?    Richard Stephens It's just a binding agreement for someone to do something for someone else and for the other to do something to the other party, which is normally payment, that's all it is. But contracts are all around us. And so, I mean, obviously, you know, it looks like you're sitting at home at the moment and you're not in an office. But if you, on the days or hopefully in the days to come when you go back into an office or you go to a physical meeting, and you might stop in a little shop somewhere and buy yourself a cup of coffee. Well, that's a contract. It's actually quite a complex contract as well, because it's a sale of goods and to some extent services, if they're making the coffee for you, in front of you. It imports therefore goods to the law to do with the sale of goods and services. It imports a whole lot of law to do with consumer law because you're a consumer buying a coffee, it's got a lot of law in there to do with health and safety because you know, you want your coffee shop to be a safe place from which to buy your beverage. So, if you actually look at that, and you took all the law and regulations relating to that very simple, I'll have a cappuccino, please, that you could probably fill a shelf with just the law and the cases dealing sales of goods and services, health and safety, consumer law, and all the rest of it. But you don't need to worry about that Ula, because all you want is your cappuccino at the end of the day. So, that is a contract and the contracts are all around us.    Ula Ojiaku And the seller I would dare say wants to be paid for the cup of cappuccino they made for me.    Richard Stephens That's the consideration, of course, that's traditionally the consideration, which has been a key feature, of course of English contract law, and not necessarily other systems of contract law, the Scots, for example, don't require consideration in their system of contract law. So, they don't require one party to do something for the other in exchange for something else, it can be a one-sided thing. But don't ask me how they get by, but they do. But the idea of consideration if you drew up, just to show, just to sort of mark out as it were, a casual deal, which you didn't really think was a contract from a proper contract. But a consideration can be anything, it can be a promise to do anything. It can be a promise to go for a walk around the park afterwards. So, I mean, it can be a thing of commercial, it can be commercially valueous. And that's why we have the concept of the peppercorn rent, if you've heard of a peppercorn rent?    Ula Ojiaku I'm not sure what that means. Could you explain please?    Richard Stephens Its where you rent a property, in exchange for the promise to pay a peppercorn, where the peppercorn has no commercial value at all. But it's a promise to hand over a peppercorn and the promise, and it's that promise that makes the contract a binding thing. You don't even have to hand it over. But if you promise to pay the peppercorn, that's the consideration. I'd like to see anyone suing someone else for a peppercorn but maybe the law reporters have got examples of that. I think not. But we need some levels of detail there.    Ula Ojiaku Oh, well, you might find me weird but I do find the concept of contracts interesting. And the fact that someone is promising a peppercorn, is it to show that there has been some sort of fair exchange between the two parties?    Richard Stephens It simply marks out a contract from what would otherwise be a gift. And it simply marks out what a contract is, so the law simply said, we want just these early signs, it only has to be basic, that the parties were actually serious about entering into a contract. And so, they required consideration, as a consideration can be commercially valueless. But it's just that the parties have thought to do something for each other. We won't even get into an intention to create legal relations, which is another requirement. And you still get some fantastic cases on that. And the case of Blue and Ashley recently,  which is where Mr. Blue worked for Mike Ashley of Sports Direct and they were all drinking heavily in the pub. And the evidence was at the end of the evening, that they consumed about 14,15 pints of beer by the end of the evening, although Mr. Blue wasn't present at that stage, but the evidence was that Mike Ashley said that if you can get my share price over eight pounds, then I will give you, you know, a huge bonus of several million pounds, I forget exactly how much it was. Well, is that a contract? And it went to the High Court and the High Court had to, well, what do you think, is that a contract or not? It was said the share price did go a bit over eight pounds and Mr. Blue carried on working there trying to make sure that the share price was maximized. He did actually get an ex gratia bonus of 1 million pounds from Sports Direct. So, did that make a contract?    Ula Ojiaku That's a question. Yes, because I audited a course in contract law being taught by a Harvard professor, so of course the focus is on the US laws and all that, so not necessarily here, but there's like intent of the person you know if it's a phrase that, or a statement that has been made jokingly, you know, how outrageous it is or whether the other party is being seen to get something in fair exchange, or whether it's a promise for a gift you know, so in those, in those situations, the three situations I've mentioned, it probably wouldn't hold water in a court of law if someone promised you a gift, because it's not contractually binding. But that's…    Richard Stephens You're learning legal skills already, because you know what you've done, don't you, you've actually used the word probably, you haven't committed yourself.    Ula Ojiaku No.    Richard Stephens And you've actually used the word probably because you're not willing to bet the farm on one decision, or the other, one resulting in the other, you know the old joke don't you about the client who goes into the solicitor's office and speaks to the receptionist and says, I want a meeting with the one-armed lawyer, please. The receptionist says we haven't got a one-armed lawyer here, why do you want to meet a one-armed lawyer and he said, well I'm fed up of meeting lawyers who say, well on the one hand this, and on the one hand that, but you've done it immediately, you've used that little word probably and it just came tumbling out in your speech, and you probably didn't even notice it. But I can recognise that you have legal skills already.    Ula Ojiaku Very kind of you Richard, that means a lot coming from you. But I do fancy myself going, you know, to go and do some sort of studies in law at some point in time. Wish me luck. But this brings us to the concept of agile. Have you had any experience with agile, and what does that mean to you, that term?    Richard Stephens Agile, I first got used to agile, when I was doing a lot of big scale litigation, when I was working in the city as a partner in a law firm there, and I did a lot of very large IT disputes, and it introduced me to some very odd concepts. And we had to get used to reading up about methods. And so, on some government projects, they mandated in those days, I don't know if they still do, but in those days, they were mandating the use of SSADM, and Prince overlaid on that as a management methodology. And we looked at this, and it was very odd, and I found it very strange, because what the SSADM and Prince would be doing would be mandating behaviours and actions that were flatly contradictory of the contract that had been written for the parties. And so, moving on from there, as agile became the big thing. We had, first of all, things like extreme programming, and that was getting everything going. And then other more formalised methods of Agile working, or Agile development came out, and I got involved with looking through DSDM as it then was, and thinking and the thing, the word that struck me was that everything will be fit for business purpose. And, of course, fit for purpose is very much a legal expression that's used in sales of goods contracts. And I thought, well, what does it mean to have an agile contract where you're promising the client that something is meant to be fit for business purpose, what is the business purpose? Did you know what it was before you started? What if it changes? I'm a lawyer, and I ask all of these questions. What if, what if, what if? And so I got very interested in writing DSDM, and I put together an industry committee of in-house lawyers working for tech companies and others, and we were just looking through Agile and we had a very senior person from the DSDM Consortium come and speak to us and train us on DSDM, and give us examples of how DSDM could deliver in a way that was better than the old waterfall method of delivery, especially when they were allied with the cumbersome approach of Prince 2 and so we got very interested in this, we tried thinking, well, what would an Agile contract, a contract for Agile development, actually look like? You know, how would it be different from what lawyers have been drafting up until that point and we had a go at it and we sort of let it sort of slip and slide and, you know, we all moved on to different things. And so, we never got there, but it's never gone away as a problem. And I think it is a problem. And I've given various ways I was a proponent of contracting for Agile development, Agile implementation at the time I was doing this, I find myself now cast in the role of villain. And Stewart, a chap called Stewart James has been taking the role of proponent of Agile contracts and I sort of, I the Devil's advocate, and I proposed a different way of working, and I just try and rubbish the view and so we had a go at each other there, we've had a go at each other at techUK if you know techUK, which is the industry body representing IT suppliers in the UK and we recently had another little go at each other in the BCS as a follow up to that talk we both attended over zoom. But interestingly, they had a poll at the end, and it garnered a huge amount of attention. We had a poll at the end of that having speakers do you have any confidence in the ability to contract for Agile and over 70% said they either had little confidence or no confidence in being able to contract for Agile. So…    Ula Ojiaku And why do you think there is that low confidence? What could be some of the root causes for this?    Richard Stephens  Oh, because I took them through the points I've made before, and I just pointed out that the Agile working doesn't fit in with English law, and we've already covered that up in a sense, because and I said to you that each party expects the English law, sorry, I should say English law expects each party to look after its own interests, and this idea of collaborative working, where you're working together to do the best you can with the resources available, and tried to come up with incremental deliveries, lots of short, sharp deliveries that give meaningful functionality to the customer, agreeing things on the fly, these things just don't sit very happily with the legal system that expects each party to look after its own interests. A legal system, which requires solid agreements, and which doesn't really regard reasonable endeavors, all these things and good faith doesn't regard these things as binding principles in law.    Ula Ojiaku Right, okay. Now, but in a case where, on one hand, you know, the two parties are more involved in the contract setting, as in, all right, we'll act in good faith, but at the same time, we would have our lawyers, our legal people, you know, put together an iron clad contract. Do you think that hypothetical situation is possible, in your experience?    Richard Stephens No, it's not, it's not possible at all, and that's the real problem. And I can take you through some of the cases that show this, if you like, referring to one of them, just got out the slide deck now, might be very interesting to you. It goes back to your first question, what's the point of a contract? Why have it? Because at the last outing I had, we had Andrew Craddock from the Agile Foundation, and he was proposing, you know, the benefits and the efficacy of agile, agile development, agile implementation. But of course, he was saying it's wonderful it, you know, beats waterfall hands down, it delivers all these great things and I said well, if it's that good, you probably don't need a contract anyway then, do you because it's never going to go into a dispute, then you don't need a contract. On the other hand, if you're a responsible business, you should be asking yourself as the directors of a responsible business, well what if the project doesn't go very well, what if it doesn't? What if it fails? What if I don't get what I expect at the end of the day, and on that point, I propose two reasons. And there are two reasons and both two sides of the same coin, for why an agile contract simply doesn't work. And the first reason is a legal reason. The other reason is a commercial reason. The second reason is what I call the FD principle, or the Financial Director principle. And the legal reason, to put it shortly is that the law, as I say, doesn't recognise a contract for good faith. And in any case, even if it did, you'd just be kicking the can down the street, because if you had a contract to do what you did in good faith, if it all went horribly wrong, which it inevitably will, how would you know whether someone had performed in good faith anyway? You just end up in another dispute, working out what the dispute was all about. So, and the second reason as I say is the FD principle, because while I was doing this DSDM thing, and I was chatting to a Financial Director of a good sized, medium sized company that was moving very much into IT and technology, it was mostly in the manufacturing sector, but very much absorbing IT, or what tech could do for it. And he said, look, I have the final sign off for any major expenditures, and I get a contract for 5 million pounds. He said, I want to know that at the end of the day, I've got something, when it's over that I that I can touch, I can feel with my fingers, hold with my hands. And I want to know that that's worth 5 million pounds, at least 5 million pounds to my business. And he said if I just get a contract that's agile, but people are simply saying well we'll work in good faith with each other, and we don't know what we'll deliver, but it'll be small, little bits incrementally and your you may or may not, to use the language of DSDM in the old days, you know, they have this concept of the minimum usable subset. And he said, well, is that worth 5 million pounds, because if that's only 60, 70%, of the full 5 million pounds, then I've been robbed, haven't I, and I've lost 30% of what I contracted for. And that's what I call therefore, the FD principle. And I remember when we were trying to draw up an agile contract, we were pulling teeth, trying to satisfy that FD, or his ilk that the contract would have some sort of effects, something that could be used to beat the supplier over the head. But I don't think we succeeded. And the problem is that every agile contract since, just drifts into this language, as you've said already, of good faith and reasonable endeavours and reasonable agreements on this. And these are all things that English law simply doesn't recognise.    Ula Ojiaku: Now, that's an interesting story. And you've just brought to light another perspective, that's not usually, explicitly considered in drafting contracts, which is that of the finances, the people who hold the purse strings, the people who sign off, you know, the projects or the programs of work. Sometimes, you know, people have the notion that, you know, agile is the be all and end all, it's not, there is still a place for waterfall. But waterfall is good for where you have straightforward issues, you have a problem, you know the solution, and there's a straight line from A to B, there's no need to go agile. But if it's a complex, adaptive problem where it's complex, and as things change, you know, the environmental change the nature of the problem, you know, keeps changing, you have to, well I say, adopt that agile approach to that now that's why the concept of a minimum viable product comes into play. And part of it is that, you know, you identify the minimum viable product, you state your assumptions, and then you, you know, create those, experiments based on the hypothesis of the assumptions you've made. And if you're validating, if your assumptions are validated, then you can go forward with, you know, the initiative. But if, at the very, you know, early instance, you're having negative results, you know, that negates your assumptions, then there's no need to go forward. Although from the Financial Director's perspective, you know, you say, okay, I've wasted it, I've been getting millions worth of money, but the learning has shown that it's a dead end we're moving towards, and it's better that we stop at a million than spending 10 million or even some other humongous amount on something that's probably not going to give any return.    Richard Stephens:  I think it's time to test your legal skills, again then.    Ula Ojiaku: I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a legal professional.    Richard Stephens:  I think you are a very modest lady indeed. I think you're probably going to go on and say you studied at the New York bar as well. But let me test your legal skills again, okay? And De Beers is the big diamond sorting diamond company in the world, as you may have heard of them, and Atos Origin are another company, you will doubtless have heard of, and they came to blows back in 2010, because they put out of ITT, for their diamond sorting and aggregating process, which, of course, is dealing with very high value things, namely diamonds. And so, it's all got to be it's a very difficult system to replicate and had all sorts of security and things built into it. So at first, they started doing the requirements analysis. And they did a mini survey, and they got their own view of what it was, and what was involved in doing this complex system. But they started work and found it was a hell of a lot more complex than they thought, and because De Beers and their operatives started asking for more and more and more, it got much more expensive. So, the original price was 2.9 million and Atos said well actually, it's going to cost nearly 5 million more than that to deliver everything you actually want. But it's interesting looking at what they said because, their Atos internal report said that this project was originally intended to be developed agile style, the team was organised into BAs who could refine the requirements and a pool of devs would be organised into teams to build elements of the solution incrementally, with a project beyond the requirements definition, set up Scrum star, this must be music to your ears, I would have thought Ula, all supported by an architect and a few key designer devs all very DSDM and can work fine in the right context. And of course, with the right customer. But what happened was, Atos said we need this extra 5 million odd to complete the project. De Beers said, I would have thought if anyone had, you know, 5 million pounds sitting around, it was like De Beers with all their diamonds, just sell a couple of those, I would have thought it was fine but they say get off site. And it all fell apart and they ended up in court. But which way did it go? So, you've got Atos, who's done the requirements analysis, they've done their best, they've tried to work out what was involved, they underbid. You've got De Beers that asked for more and more and more during the requirements analysis. Who wins at the end of the day? This is the time to put that Harvard training to use and no use of the word probably who won, someone won and someone lost.    Ula Ojiaku:  Before I answer your question, I'm just saying that I'm taking it in good faith you're not being sarcastic about my auditing the Harvard course online, but my answer to your question is going to be it depends, because all I know right now are the details you've given me and I know that there's usually more to a situation than meets the eye. So, it depends, again, I can see Atos's point of view, in the sense that if they did some sort of initial discovery work, and had given a quote, based on De Beers' requirements, now, and over time, you know, De Beers is asking for more, definitely that's called, you know, scope creep, and there might be some things, it inevitably would result in more costs. Now, on De Beers' hand, if they had been promised a pipe dream that agile is equal to cheaper, or fixed costs. So, they had also been working on a misinformed basis in the fact that if they thought, okay, yeah, agile solves everything, and it's going to be cheaper and faster. That's not true.    Richard Stephens:  So, we've got so far on the one hand this, and on the other hand that, so I'm looking for the one-armed lawyer now. I can see both your hands, Ula. You've got to decide, who wins?    Ula Ojiaku:  I think I wouldn't qualify for a one-armed lawyer. And the key thing is to know that I think it's the beginning of wisdom is to know that there is a limit to what I know. And in this case, it is definitely a good example. I don't know all the details behind it to make a firm judgment in favour or against one or the other.    Richard Stephens:  I think you know enough actually, come to have a go. Shall I tell you what the judge said?    Ula Ojiaku:  I'd like to know what the judge said please.    Richard Stephens:  In my judgment, he said, Atos went into this contract with its eyes at least half open, in the sense that it knew or should have known that it had not acquired a good grasp of the detail of De Beers diamond sorting and aggregating process. So, Atos lost is the important thing on that one. And because the general work, well, let me test your legal skills again, in case of Hojgaard and EON, okay.  This is all about constructing offshore wind turbines. Okay. You get a lot of those around, we don't see them because they're offshore, but you've seen wind turbines on land, and the employer, so the customer, in construction contracts they're known as the employer, mandated the use of an international standard called J101 for the construction of these wind turbines, okay. So Hojgaard had to use J101, or the methodologies for constructing wind turbines, as set out in that contract, in that international standard, I should say. Okay, so it started using J101. And what nobody knew was that J101, was fundamentally flawed. It had a design defect in it, and it underestimated the strength of the foundations needed to be built. So, as soon as they built these wind turbines, they started collapsing, and it cost 26 million pounds to put them right, 26 million euros, I think in those days. Okay. So, the question was, who was responsible? Well, Hojgaard said, well, you told me to use J101, so we only did what you said. And EON said, well, it doesn't matter, you're the provider, your supply, you should jolly well know, and you take the responsibility, so straightforwardly question. So no on the one hand..    Ula Ojiaku:  …on the other hand, straightforwardly answer. Again, based on the details you've set out I would say that EON is liable.    Richard Stephens:  EON is the employer. So, they've made the use of this standard.    Ula Ojiaku:  Yeah. So, my view is that EON is liable because they mandated the use of the standard. Now, that would be my view. Yeah, if that's the contract, and you know, you told someone build this for me and use this standard, because that's what we want. Now, as a responsible supplier, though, I would want to go to offer advice on what I think are the pros and cons of their decision. But finally, the client's decisions is theirs, so EON.    Richard Stephens:  So EON as the employer takes a rap, they have to cough up 26 million euros, went all the way to the Supreme Court, and they said it was the builders' responsibility. So even where the user has mandated that particular method, then it's the developer. The courts, they said are generally inclined to give full effect to the requirement that the item, as produced, complies with the prescribed criteria. Even if, even if the customer or employer has specified or approved the design, it's the contractor who can be expected to take the risk if he agreed to work to a design which would render the item incapable of meeting the criteria to which he has agreed. And it's not an inflexible rule of law, it's an approach of the courts. And this is one of the things that's highly relevant to agile because the parties are working cooperatively. And it may well be the customer that's mandating the use of, to get this result, or to use this method to get it and both parties are working in good faith. But when it all goes horribly wrong, which it inevitably will, the court's approach is generally, it's not mandated, you could put something different in your contract, the approach of the court is going to be well, it's the developer, it's the provider, it's the supplier, who's going to take the rap at the end of the day. And this is when you come back to the FD problem, because as soon as you then put something in your contract saying, nothing to do with us gov, it's all your responsibility, and we're not, you know, we'll just, we're just, you know, humble operatives doing as we're told, the FD's not going to sign off. He's gonna say, well, I'm paying my 5 million pounds, I want you to take some responsibility, I want you to take the responsibility at the end of the day. And as I say, these are the, these the interesting reasons why, in fact, trying to contract for agile is not so easy as you might think.    Ula Ojiaku:  So, what would be your recommendation then to, for example, leaders of organisations who want to continue with, you know, agile delivery, and agile ways of delivery and ways of working and wish to engage with their vendors. Because, on one hand, there are benefits to working in this manner, in the sense that you're working together, you're learning and then you are adapting your plan based on the new learnings. But on the other hand, it seems like there is a way to go in bringing up you know, bringing along legal colleagues and colleagues in finance, alongside this journey to have the same perspective, what would be your advice?    Richard Stephens:  One of the things is I fully accept all the good things that agile has done and all the good things it promises to do, but what I'm saying is contracting for that is very difficult, and if you end up with a contract that simply proceeds in talking about, you know, good faith, and many lawyers, many modern lawyers these days just lapse into this language of you know, we'll talk in good faith and reasonably agree this and reasonably agree that, and it doesn't really work, you end up with a contract that's just kicked the can down the street numerous times. And so, you need to come up with something that does actually have some teeth, and with agile, that's going to be difficult. I mean, there are ways of drafting around it, but it's, in some ways they're quite cumbersome. So, for example, you can have agreements to agree which are meaningless in English law, English law simply doesn't recognise an agreement to agree and you can add as many good faiths and reasonables around it as you like, but what you can do is you can then say, well, one of the drafting techniques you can use is to say, well, if we don't agree after a period of one week, three months, six months, whatever it is, that a third party, adjudicator will make the decision or the arbitrator or whatever it may be, will make the decision effectively for us, and we'll provide some criteria for that person to make a decision for us. Now in the construction industry, they introduced what's known as an adjudication scheme, which is a fix first and fight later, effectively. So, it's simply that if the parties get a dispute rather than just simply falling out with each other and having a huge arbitration, leaving the building unfinished, you get an adjudicator and it's now compulsory by law for domestic construction contracts, and the adjudicator comes in and just makes a quick decision, and it doesn't really matter that it's not ultimately binding, for the present purposes it is, I think it's been called temporary finality. And one of the things that the Society for Computers and Law has done is introduce a similar adjudication scheme for IT projects. Now, that's maybe one way to go, but of course there are two risks immediately with that, which you'd have to advise anybody on and that is, obviously it introduces a certain amount of delay and cost because the party is going to get into lots of little micro-spats trying to get up to come if they have lots of little adjudications in a major project. And the other problem, of course, is this problem of temporary finality. Once the adjudicator has issued his decision, then you've got to comply with it, even if you think it's wrong, or even if you think it's monstrously unfair, or very expensive for you. It's temporarily final, and then you'd have to wait till the very end of the project before you could then relitigate the matter. So, I mean, there are ways of getting around it. But as I say they're not necessarily risk free or problem free. Let's say one of the problems I find, and for the purposes of my talks on agile, taking devil's advocate, one of the things you can do is do a word search of any English contract, English law contract, and just count up the number of reasonables or reasonablys in good faith. Actually one agile contract I looked at, which is available from an online supplier, provider of legal services, over 36 pages, it had a staggering total of 29 reasonables,s 26 reasonablys and 4 good faiths. I mean, that is a very high batting average for using these rather horrible terms that in many cases don't really mean anything. So, you have been warned.    Ula Ojiaku:  Well, thank you, Richard, for that. I would take it then that these are your guidelines for anyone who is considering drafting agile contracts, be careful about how you go about it. It's not risk free, and there are pitfalls to be aware of, and I guess it also depends on the jurisdiction, you know, the legal jurisdiction where the contract would be.    Richard Stephens:  You're never going to get away from that, because as soon as you start using words like a reasonable endeavours, good faith, even if the legal system you're working under actually recognises them, you then have a dispute trying to work out what on earth it means in practice, and you want a really good example of that, what's a contract under Belgian law that we all know about at the moment, and everyone's been talking about it, have a guess? It's the AstraZeneca contract with the EU Commission, and what's a horrible phrase it uses, best reasonable efforts, a monstrosity. So not just reasonable efforts, but best reasonable efforts. Belgian law recognises that as a concept and English law does as well. But what on earth does it mean? What does it mean in practice? What behaviour does it mandate? What result does it mandate? And so, the parties then just lumber into the dispute, a dispute a dispute about the dispute because nobody really knows what they're supposed to be doing anyway. So, you can do it, but you have been warned.    Ula Ojiaku:  Now, to wrap up, based on our conversation, are there any books that you could, that you would recommend to the listeners, if they want to learn more about contracting, agile?    Richard Stephens:  That's the book, Ula, Stephens on Contractual Indemnities. I mean, what a right riveting read. Thrilling from beginning to end, and it will tell you everything you've ever wanted to know.    Ula Ojiaku:  Fantastic, thanks for sharing. We will put the link to your book in the show notes alongside with everything else about this episode.    Richard Stephens:  It's for lawyers only. Otherwise, don't open its covers, you will be horrified. Well, actually, I mean, as a lawyer, as you proved yourself to be, maybe you would find it interesting.    Ula Ojiaku:  Now, do you have any, anything you'd like to ask of the audience, or let them know about your practice?    Richard Stephens:  Yeah, I mean, as I say, I do three things which may be of interest to your audience out there. One is, I'm a commercial solicitor, who is very well experienced in these areas in terms of putting together contracts for developments implementations, agile, or otherwise. And I provide training not only to lawyers, I do this one-day course introducing people to the principles of contract law, insofar as it would affect professionals working in the IT industry. And I've had people come on that, who were Project Managers all the way up through to Board Directors of SMEs or even quite large companies. I had one major American international company send its commercial management team on that course, for example. And as I say, the other thing I do is I work as a mediator if you're in a dispute, and you want someone to try and facilitate a resolution to that dispute, then again, I can help you with that. I could even, if he's got an arbitration clause, you want to have an arbitrator appointed someone who understands a little bit about these things and can come to a legal decision on your dispute, I can do that too.    Ula Ojiaku:  Fantastic. Thanks for sharing those. And with respect to for example, your trainings and you know, the other services you offer, how can the audience reach you?    Richard Stephens: As usual these days, they can Google for me, and if you look up for Richard Stephens there are various academics and I think, artists who are masquerading as Richard Stephens, just put Richard Stephens Solicitor, you will find me and you will find my website, and you can find me or you can search for me on LinkedIn, all sorts of possibilities. So that's very easily done.    Ula Ojiaku:  Okay. Well, I have to say, from my experience, but maybe I'm not good at googling, but the last time I tried finding you on LinkedIn, even though I'd put solicitor against your name, I still had a lot of what's it called, results for Richard Stephens solicitor. So, what I'm going to do to make it easier for the audience is I'm going to put a direct link to your LinkedIn profile in the show notes, if that's okay with.    Richard Stephens:  Yes, you can do that, link into, connect to my LinkedIn profile, or link to my website. It's very easy, no objection to that.    Ula Ojiaku:  Okay. Fantastic. So, any final words for the audience before we close this out? It's been a great conversation so far.    Richard Stephens:  It's been it's been nice, I mean it's funny how this is a problem, which I first got involved in 25, 30 years ago. And it rumbles along as an issue for IT lawyers. It's never lost its interest. But in 25 or 30 years, equally, I haven't seen a particularly good resolution to the problem, either. And so, you've got the industry doing one thing, and the lawyers trying to play, not so much catch up, but trying to work out still after 25, 30 years of lawyers thinking about it, what an agile contract or a contract for an agile project would look like such that it was both legally effective and would satisfy that avaricious Financial Director. But it hasn't been resolved yet.    Ula Ojiaku:  And the question is, will it? You don't have to answer, well…    Richard Stephens:  There is a sort of, there are all sorts of resolutions out there. As I mentioned, the adjudication one, but that, then is the sort of thing you don't want in an agile project because it's, whilst it's legally effective, the idea of Agile as you're working cooperatively together, and then having little micro adjudications where you're at war with each other, trying to get the best out of the adjudicator in terms of decision. It then actually tends to drive the parties further away, which is, goes against what you did an agile project for in the first place. So, I mean, you can do but, you know, I just don't know how it would work in practice.    Ula Ojiaku:  It's been great speaking with you, Richard, thank you for sharing your wealth of knowledge and experience with the audience and myself.    Richard Stephens:  Pleasure.    Ula Ojiaku:  That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!  

Bio As CEO of Agile Velocity, David Hawks guides leaders through their agile transformation with a focus on achieving business results. David is a Certified Enterprise Coach and Certified Scrum Trainer who is passionate about helping organisations achieve true agility, not just implementing Agile practices. He helps create transformation strategies and manages organisational change through leadership coaching and was the creator of Path to Agility®.  Interview Highlights  03:58 Stumbling into agile 05:25 Agile Velocity 09:00 Path to Agility 14:30 Applying a different lens to each context 20:25 Philosophy around assessment 27:20 How to lead transformation  Websites: ·         https://pathtoagility.com/ ·         https://agilevelocity.com/ ·         Agile Transformation Management Tool | Path to Agility Navigator  Books: ·         Leadership is Language by L. David Marquet https://www.amazon.co.uk/Leadership-Language-Hidden-Power-What/dp/B083FXXNSP/ ·         Turn the Ship Around by L. David Marquet https://www.amazon.co.uk/Turn-Ship-Around-Turning-Followers/dp/B09BNR6L51  Social media: ·         LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidhawks1/ ·         Twitter: @austinagile Episode Transcript Intro (Ula Ojiaku): Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. Ula Ojiaku Thank you, David, for making the time for this conversation. David Hawks Thank you for having me. Ula Ojiaku Awesome. So let's learn a bit more about you, David. Can you tell us about yourself? David Hawks Let's see. So, I founded a company called Agile Velocity about 12 years ago. I live in Austin, Texas, and have two kids that are in college, trying to figure out how to get through ‘COVID college', which is quite the crazy time to, you know, one of them started college in COVID times, and so that's definitely a whole different experience. And, let's see, so I'm an avid Longhorn fan. So, Longhorns or the university here, we don't have any professional sports teams in Austin. So, that was my alma mater, and so I am known for long football tailgates and being at all the sporting events. Ula Ojiaku Awesome. Did you play any football yourself? David Hawks I did not play football, but I was, the surprising thing for me is that I was a, not in college, but an all year round swimmer for about eight years of my life. So, strong swimming background, started doing triathlons about five years ago. So I hadn't swam, I mean, I swam in like, the ocean, but like, I hadn't swam in any competitive way for like 20 years. And then I picked that back up and started doing triathlons a number of years ago. So, I put that on the shelf, but I'm starting, the itch is coming back. So I'm starting down that path again. Ula Ojiaku Awesome. So, could you tell us a bit about your background, you know, growing up, did you have any experiences that you would kind of see the inflection points that maybe guided you on the path that you're on today? David Hawks Yeah. I mean the one that comes to mind. So, my dad started his own consulting company when I was in middle school, and so I always had this vision of being an entrepreneur, starting a company. Now, when I was, you know, middle or like college and after college, I always thought it was going to be like, start some custom software. I can, I got a technical degree. So I thought I was going to be like a custom software development company or something. And then the dot com bust happened. And it was like, oh, that, and then I started having kids and it didn't seem like the risk to take at the time of going and doing that, so it took a little longer to get going, but what is interesting as I ended up starting my business when my son was in middle school, so it's like, he's kind of got a little bit of the same type of like, hey, I've, you know, experienced, this entrepreneur kind of building a business. And, but that was always my bucket list. That was always the, like, that's, what I want to do is go build a business.  I stumbled into agile in around 2003 at a company where it was, you know, we were doing agile things and, you know, there weren't a ton of books at the time, right? Like, it wasn't until I think Mike Cohn's Agile Estimating and Planning book came out that I was like, oh, now I see how we can run our, you know, our projects, our work and plan and forecast and do all those things, and so I had the luxury of, I worked for a company around 2003 to 2005, where we started some things, but then the company I went to next, I was able to hire much of the team from the previous company. We continued our agile journey together, and then some of those same folks were the first employees of Agile Velocity in around 2011, 2012 timeframe. So, we all kind of had this agile journey over 10 years and then kind of ended up building this business to help organisations that are trying to adopt agile practices and agile ways of working. And so, yeah, those were kind of two pivotal things that like shaped ultimately building this organisation that's now, you know, helping companies across the world with their agile transformations. Ula Ojiaku That's very impressive, David. So what made you know, this is the right time to start my David Hawks To start Agile Velocity? I would say I kind of stumbled into it, right? Like it was, so I ended at the one company, I picked up what was supposed to be just this short term contract, a company that had just been bought by, that was like, it was called Wayport, that was bought by AT&T, but they were doing like all the wifi for Starbucks, for Hilton at that time. And they were trying to scale, and they were like, we're agile, but we just need help scaling. And so I just kind of went in as a consultant to help them with that, it's supposed to be like a three to six months engagement. Well, I got in there and I was like, y'all are not as agile as y'all think y'all are, right. And so I ended up, I remember putting together this, like, one page spreadsheet that was like, here's what I observe, here's what you could be doing better, here's what the impact of that would be. And they said, okay, go help us do that. So I didn't even know, like agile coaching was a career, and all of a sudden I kinda stumbled into like coaching them, right, and helping them and guiding them. You know, I had been a, like director, executive over software development groups up until that point, but always was kind of focused on the process and the way we work and how we collaborate and how the teams are structured and all, that was always what was my focus less, about like, the technical architecture and other things like, other people were better at that than me, but like, thinking about the flow and all that before I understood lean, before I understood any of that, right, like that was just kind of innate and what I would always look at. So then all of a sudden where I'm coaching them. And I always thought like, after that three to six month engagement, I'd just go back and get another kind of leadership role in one of the Austin companies and, but about six months in, I was like, this is kind of fun and I'm not half bad at it. You know, maybe I could build a business around this, right. And, and so that's when Agile Velocity was formed in 2010, about six months into that, where I go, okay, and then created the company and started doing, getting more active in the local kind of user group, which Agile Austin is pretty active, they've got over 10 meetings a month just happening within that umbrella. So I started getting involved in that, started kind of building a brand around helping folks in agile space. And then by the end of, well, I guess it was kind of into that next year that I started picking up other clients and then added a first employee and then like, oh, okay, like, now we're off, right, and it wasn't just that, you know, we got past that first engagement and then, okay, now there's a business here and more people are interested in, and really the beginning of 2012 is when we started getting, oh, we got this client and this client, and this client and this client now I'm stretched everywhere and now I need to start adding people. So, yeah. Ula Ojiaku That's really awesome. So let's move on to, because I noticed on your website and actually it was via your Agile Velocity website that I learned about Path to Agility, also known as P to A. So can you tell us what P to A is? David Hawks Yeah, so Path to Agility is something that emerged over, kind of our years of guiding transformation changes within big enterprise organisations. And it started out in kind of two forms. One was, we started in, for those that are on video, if you're not on video, you can go to pathtoagility.com It's like, we started to build out this kind of model, and the model was in response to a couple of things.  One is every time the sales hotline would ring, it would be a leader saying, I need to do agile, can you come train my teams? Right. And we would be like, all right, we can do that, but it's not just a team level problem. Right? Like it has more levels to it. So we are trying to, how do we articulate that? And two, it's more than just a training thing, right? You're going to need more than training. You're going to need coaching and support and rollout. And you need to think about this as an organisational change. So we started to build out this model called Path to Agility. At the same time, we had a coach who took the Scrum guide and reverse engineered it into a set of stories that were like, you know, we're cards on a wall that we're like, all right, I'm here to coach you on getting a product owner in place. In order for us to know that we have a product owner in place, here's the acceptance criteria, right? In order for us to know that we're doing good sprint planning, here's the acceptance criteria. And we built out these cards and that really helped us as coaches to start being explicit about why are we here? What are we here to do? Because a lot of times people are like, the leaders are like, I have no idea what you're going to coach. Right. And so we started being explicit with that. Well, that all evolved into what we have and know in Path to Agility today, which is a capability model of 85 capabilities that have over 400 acceptance criteria for us to be able to evaluate where we are in our transformation, where we are in our adoption, in an outcome driven, kind of assessment versus a just, practice of what we see is too many companies that are just going through the motions of agile. It's like I have a daily Scrum check. I have a Scrum master check, which, that early version was kind of more like, are we doing the things? But we all know that you could do the things and still not be delivering faster or delivering with happier customers or anything like that. So we've evolved Path to Agility, to become a way of assessing from an outcomes perspective, from a capability perspective, are we actually achieving a, you know, let's say little a agility, as opposed to just doing the framework that's kind of in front of us. And so we're using that with all of our clients and we've got over a hundred facilitators across the world that are using Path to Agility to guide transformations in this much more outcome driven way. Ula Ojiaku I know that some listeners or people, well, if they're watching the video, they will be wondering, is this yet another agile framework? David Hawks Yeah. So we may, it's funny you ask, because we made the mistake of calling it a, like we think it is a framework, but it's not that type of framework. Right. So what we distinguish is, you know, Scrum, SAFe, those are implementation frameworks, right, they're telling us the, how, like, here's the practices that we should do, here's the rules of how we work. We think about Path to Agility as more of a transformation framework, right? A framework on how do I guide my transformation? So think of it as an umbrella on top of Scrum, SAFe, Kanban, LeSS, DaD, whatever, Nexus, whatever practices, you know, user stories, story points, whatever you're doing. Path to Agility is a lens on top of that to say, how do I guide the change? How do I, so we took agile adoption patterns and organisational change management techniques and combined them into a way of saying how do I get from point A to point B? Because, you know, I mentioned that that first engagement that I had, Wayport, and bought by AT&T well, one of the mistakes I made as like the first time as a coach is I had seen a hundred mile an hour agile, and they were maybe at like, you know, 10 or 20 mile an hour agile. And I tried to yank them to a hundred mile an hour agile overnight, and that didn't work. Right? Like, you can't do that. You've got to go from like 20 to 40, and 40 to 60, and 60 to 80. And sometimes when you go from 80 to 100, you throw out some of the things you learned that, you know, some of the, like the training wheels types of things that you learned. Well, Path to Agility is a way, a lens for you to see where are we? Are we at 20? Are we at 40? Are we at 60? Are we at 80? And given where we are, it informs our next steps, right? Because we can't jump and leapfrog all the way to a hundred. While you maybe could do that, if you were a 10 person company, an enterprise, you know, most of our organisations we deal with are in the thousands, in the organisation that's transforming. And, you know, you can't change like that. Like, you're trying to turn an aircraft carrier around and it takes time, right, and it's almost like we're trying to turn it into the wind, right? Like it keeps blowing back, you know? So, yeah, it's a challenging thing, but getting a better sense of where we are, and better intel on what to do next is what Path to Agility is trying to help organisations and leaders with. Ula Ojiaku You mentioned something earlier about, you know, helping organisations with evaluating where they are on the transformation. So that gives me the impression that it could be used for, you know, no matter what, you know, implementation framework they've adopted, it's still there, it still fits in seamlessly with helping them look at it from an outcome-based focus. So that's one. So that's a type of organisation that has already started, but there probably would also be organisations, let's say they're in the early stages, or they've not yet started. If they implement this with whatever they choose, you know, it probably would give them, save them a lot of heartache because they're starting from an outcome. That is the focus. So for the first scenario where an organisation is, has already started, how would you typically go about introducing P to A and how would they, you know, how can at a high level, you know, how would you go about David Hawks Yeah, I mean, yeah. So first one, like you're, well, I guess the first thing is very few organisations at this point are on their first agile transformation, right? Like, and what I kind of, just like thought about it is that, you know, 10 years ago, or prior to 10 years ago, everything was grassroots agile, right? Like the one I told the story, it was like the developers were the ones introducing agile at that first company in the ARTs. Right. But in then about 10 years ago, everything was Scrum based. It was really team only agile transformation applying Scrum. Then, you know what, six, seven years ago, SAFe and other scaling frameworks started to emerge because it's really the team level unlocked the ability for us to think about how it could be applied across like the system as a system of teams, team of teams, in a, in a 100 to 200 person organisation, and so the scaling techniques. So then we started seeing all these scaling transformations and now we're on the cusp of introducing the next era, which are, which is business agility, and how, now that we've seen how it can apply at, like these kind of sub orgs. Now we could see how it could be applied across the whole org, right. And that starting to turn to that. So I would say all that's just an evolution, and so most companies are in a transformation somewhere along that horizon. And so what Path to Agility helps you do is figure out where you are. Right. And figure out when to, you know, again, you know, and some transformations have stalled, right? So it could be a way of reenergising, right, to get a sense of, okay, we, you know, a lot of times people think we're done because we implemented all the things, right. We did all the stuff in the picture. We have an RTE, we have an ART, we do PI planning. We're doing all the things. So we're done . Well, not necessarily, right? Like maybe, you know, we have five stages and paths to agility. Maybe you've learned those things, but the next stage is have you gotten predictable delivery out of those things? And then the next stage is, are you optimising for speed and reducing cycle time by doing those things? And then the fifth stage is, are you adapting based on what the market is telling you because you can now deliver quickly. Are you actually sensing and responding based on what the market is saying, and are you running quick experiments, are you testing and learning? Right? Like those are different levels of kind of maturity. And very few companies are actually at that fifth stage, most are actually kind of exiting learn, trying to get predictable and have an achieved speed. So, what I would say is for most organisations, Path to Agility can help them assess where they are if they already are doing some transformation efforts and it will better inform their next actions. And then for the second kind of scenario, you said, where they're kind of more just starting. Well they're probably just starting somewhere along that evolution, right? Like, there's already some agile teams happening somewhere, right. So they're not necessarily starting, like I've never done agile before, but what it can help them do is determine what practices we need. So, we would say, figure out your business outcome. Like we want to deliver faster, whatever that is, then figure out the minimum number, like what capabilities do you need to enable that? And Path to Agility helps with that, and then do the minimal amount of practice change in order to support that. Don't just go implement all the things, right? Because you may not need all those things, and if you get lost in just doing all those things, you might not actually achieve the outcome that you're after. Ula Ojiaku Awesome. So how would you conduct the assessments? Because some listeners might be curious to say, yeah, well, it sounds really interesting, but what's, how would the assessment go and how would you then go on to choose what capabilities you need and, you know, how are you going to measure? David Hawks Yeah, there's two fidelities, I would say, of ability to kind of assess with Path to Agility, and then I think it's important to mention kind of our philosophy around assessment. So, we don't believe in assessing just to get a score, right. We believe in the process of self-evaluation or self-assessment enables the intelligence to determine action, right. The only reason, so we don't want to just turn assessment in to report card it, you know, we've seen that and then it's just weaponised and it's not really that useful. So that means anytime we do assessment, we want the people that can take action in the room doing it, right, and we don't want it to also, we don't believe in, just offline, fill out a set survey, because that doesn't invoke conversation and doesn't invoke action. So all of our assessment kind of processes are built around the notion of a facilitated session with the people, like, say we're going to do an assessment with just a single team, we could just do that and wait, but we would do it with the team, right, because then we would say, okay, given what you learned and where you are, and what Path to Agility is saying, hey, here are some of the next steps, then you can determine what actions do you want to take. If you're doing that across a system or, say, an organisation of like 150 people, well then you would want to bring the leadership team of that organisation in, because they're the ones that are going to need to prioritise action and take action based on that, right. So then you would do a facilitated session with them and work through that. Ula Ojiaku Okay. Now there's something you've been mentioning, which you've mentioned like team, system, organisation, for some people who might not be familiar with the term. So the team is like, you know, a normal team, the team that actually would do the work in a day to day, and you might have multiple of those teams. The system, is that the same thing as a program, you know? David Hawks It could be, yeah, and if you are, so, system, we're not talking about like a technical system, we're talking about the system of teams or the team of teams, the flow of work through the system, and if you're doing a safe implementation and system and ART are usually pretty synonymous, that kind of scale, assuming that you've formed your ARTs correctly, aligned to value and you know, some things like that, so it would be more akin to, all right,  I need these 10 teams to deliver a product together. So however we're aligning around value and being more product centric, that's typically the system. And then the org is, typically, aligned more with kind of, a lot of times more of a hierarchical kind of context and an organisation could be like the VPs organisation, where is the transformation change happening? In some of our large clients where we have 5,000, so one of our case studies is out there as with Southwest Airlines, so I can mention that one. So, you know, they had 5,000 people in their technology organisation, but the cruise systems, that organisation was led by a gentlemen named Marty Garza, and he had, you know, 250 people in that organisation, and that was the focus of some of the transformational efforts. So we got his leadership team together, right, to look at kind of their transformational roadmap and backlog and plan and applied that organisational lens. And then we work with the marketing organisation, we apply a different lens, right, like, so, depending on that organisational kind of context, most of the time, these big transformations are, I say, are really like transformations inside of transformations inside of transformations, because it's really, you've got the larger scope, but then, all right, we're going to have a wave approach that we're going to do crew, and then we're going to do, you know, round offs and then tech ops, and like, we're going to roll out these different parts. We're not going to do all of them at once typically, right. It's going to be kind of a waved approach. And so that order lens is whatever that kind of context that we're looking at. Ula Ojiaku Okay. That makes sense. So what's next for Path to Agility? David Hawks Yeah. So, we've actually been, had the luxury this last year that we've taken what was, you know, in this card form that I mentioned originally, and then with COVID, we had to convert that to virtual Miro and Mural boards and do all of our workshops in that form. But over the last year, we've actually invested in building a software tool and product around Path to Agility called Path to Agility Navigator, and that's just enabling the assessment, the visualisation, the impediments, the tracking, the management of your transformation to just be done so much easier, and it's not like stuff hiding in a Miro or hiding in a Mural, right, and, or, in all these different PowerPoints or whatever. So we're actually launching that product this quarter, and so yeah, Path to Agility Navigator, we'll put a link in the materials. But that's something interesting, as far as the visualisation and management of your transformation, we're excited to have done a lot of work on that, and launching that this month. Ula Ojiaku And it does look cool. I was at the, you know, Path to Agility Facilitators mini conference and the demo was awesome, it shows a lot of promise. I can't wait to play around with it myself. So what do you then, because you have helped lots of organisations since you started back in 2010, 11, 12 with their transformation and evaluating where they are at now, so what would be your advice for leaders already on their transformation? David Hawks Yeah, so one, you know, we kind of have hit on it, but just to put a pin in it, it is to say, when you're thinking about your transformation, start with, you know, what, I guess the end in mind, but like, you know, like what's the outcome? What, not a goal. Your goal is not to be agile, right, or not to implement agile, or not to implement SAFe. Those are not goals, that's not going to motivate anybody. So what you've got to have, this kind of vision statement, mission statement that you're making really clear, that's a motivating change in your organisation that people can get excited about, the reason why we're doing this change is because we're trying to, we need to be more responsive in the market, if we're not more responsive, we're getting left behind, right. We're losing market share, whatever, what's creating the urgency for change? And if you can't find it, then don't do it, right. Because it's hard and it's difficult and you won't persevere through the change if you can't come up with this clear mission of why you're doing it. That's going to motivate not just the leaders, not just the Board, but like motivate more importantly, all the people, right, that are going to be part of the change. So that's got to be, and it's got to be a business outcome focused, not practices centric. Second is, the leadership team has to lead the change, and it's not enough to say, Mr. VP, I support the agile, you know, you've got to be engaged in the transformation efforts, you've got to be identifying how you need to potentially shift your questions, your behaviour, your actions, right? I don't know how many times I've seen a leader say, hey, yeah, y'all go do agile, but what's the date and what's going to be in it? Right? Like you're still asking the same question, so I encourage leaders to change instead of asking these very delivery focused kind of questions to ask, what are you learning and how can I help, right. What can I do to support you? What impediments can I remove for you that are organisational? The leaders have to go attack the organisational and systemic impediments that emerge, right, and they've got to lead those change efforts while the teams are trying to change themselves, right, and how they're working. So it's not enough just to say, go train my teams or go train the people to do work differently. You've got to think about what are you doing differently that's encouraging? And the reason why I say, what are you learning is we want to start encouraging a continuous improvement culture, and so you've got to apply accountability to, are you taking, are you having meaningful retrospectives and taking action? What are you learning? What are you doing to improve? And if you don't ever ask that question, you're only asking like, are you going to make the date, then they're not going to focus on improving, right. They're going to focus on just delivering, but if they can focus on improving, then they'll actually start delivering more successfully, right? You'll get what you want out of it, you want them to deliver faster, you want them to do those things, but ask them and start putting the onus on what are they learning, right, challenging them in that way. Ula Ojiaku Awesome. So what books have you, you know, recommended most to people, and why? David Hawks I think, yeah, I've got it right here, you know, I'm a big David Marquet fan and so, you know, Turn the Ship Around, and I've seen him speak multiple times, is always great, but the one he came out with just like, I don't know, this was like a year or two ago was the Leadership is Language and, you know, he says there, the hidden power of what you say and what you don't, right, like, again, that if you're a leader and you're trying to think about, okay, how do I, you know, you say, oh, I need to operate differently, but I, you know, but I don't, but I'm kicked out of the room. I don't get invited to the sprint plannings and I'm not allowed in the retrospectives, so what is it that I need to do differently, you know, looks like that or things that, you know, start helping you see, okay, how can I lead in a more outcome-based way, right? Give people purpose, but get out of the way of the how, right, and I think that's, you know, that's kind of where I would point folks. Ula Ojiaku Okay, well, thank you. I've noted that and there will be links to both books, Turn the Ship Around, which you mentioned, and Leadership is Language in the show notes. And how can the audience find you if they want to get in touch with you or engage with you? David Hawks Yeah. So, you know, our two kind of brands that we've talked about here, so agilevelocity.com pathtoagility.com as well are kind of the two different things that we've talked about here, and you can reach out on both of those websites and we're small, but mighty. So, you know, that's an easy way to find me. There are three Davids on our team now, so you do need to be specific with my last name or else you might get to one of the other Davids. We actually hired two in December, so it was like, we went from one to three overnight. Now we actually have to use last names. Ula Ojiaku And are you on social media by any chance? David Hawks Yeah, so I'm actually Austin Agile is, but I'm not, I haven't been very active in Twitter in a long time, but that's, LinkedIn is probably a better, and I think my profile is David Hawks1 or something like that. Ula Ojiaku We'll find the link, no worries. So LinkedIn. David Hawks LinkedIn's probably the best. And then, yeah, that's where I'm more active. Ula Ojiaku All right. So would there be anything you'd like the audience to do, you know, based on what we've discussed so far, is there anything you want to share? David Hawks Yeah, if you're involved in agile transformation, transition, adoption, trying to improve your ways of working, then I would just encourage you to think about, is there a clear business driver that everybody is aware of, right? Is it, you know, you might be aware of it as the leader, is everybody aware of why you're doing it? Or if you went and polled why we're doing it, would they say well, because you know, Joe VP told me to, or would they say because we're implementing SAFe, right, like what, why are we implementing SAFe, right? And the reason for that is if people aren't motivated to change, then you're not going to persevere through the, it's going to get, it's tough, right? There's some tough things that have to happen. So, and then I think changing, thinking about changing your language in terms of kind of applying more of an accountability for learning and continuous improvement versus an accountability, we have plenty of accountability towards like getting things done, right. So I would encourage folks to kind of shift that a little bit. Ula Ojiaku Thank you so much, David, it's been very insightful speaking with you and I can't wait to see what comes with, you know, comes up in the Path to Agility platform, so thank you again for your time. David Hawks Thanks for having me. Ula Ojiaku That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless! 

Bio Bjarte Bogsnes has a long international career, both in Finance and HR. He is a pioneer in the Beyond Budgeting movement and has been heading up the implementation of Beyond Budgeting at Equinor (formerly Statoil), Scandinavia's largest company. He led a similar initiative in Borealis in the mid-nineties, one of the companies that inspired the Beyond Budgeting model. He has helped numerous other companies globally getting started on a Beyond Budgeting journey.  Bjarte is Chairman of Beyond Budgeting Roundtable (BBRT).  He is a popular international business speaker and Beyond Budgeting coach, and a winner of a Harvard Business Review/McKinsey Management Innovation award. Bjarte is the author of "Implementing Beyond Budgeting - Unlocking the Performance Potential", where he writes about his almost thirty years long Beyond Budgeting journey.  His new book “This is Beyond Budgeting – A Guide to more Adaptive and Human Organizations” with a foreword by Gary Hamel is just out. Bjarte is available for speaking engagements and select consulting work through Bogsnes Advisory.  Episode Highlights  04:33 New book ‘This is Beyond Budgeting' 07:40 Beyond Budgeting 16:25The issue with the current performance appraisal process 19:45 The case for change 31:00 Becoming braver 33:50 ‘Losing' control 49:10 Reflect on the risk picture  Books ·         This is Beyond Budgeting: A Guide to More Adaptive and Human Organizations by Bjarte Bogsnes This Is Beyond Budgeting: A Guide to More Adaptive and Human Organizations: Amazon.co.uk: Bogsnes, Bjarte: 9781394171248: Books ·         Implementing Beyond Budgeting: Unlocking the Performance Potential by Bjarte Bogsnes Implementing Beyond Budgeting: Unlocking the Performance Potential: Amazon.co.uk: Bogsnes, Bjarte: 9781119152477: Books ·         Maverick by Ricardo Semler https://www.amazon.co.uk/Maverick-Success-Behind-Unusual-Workplace/dp/0712678867 ·         Humanocracy by Gary Hamel et al https://www.amazon.co.uk/Humanocracy-Creating-Organizations-Amazing-People/dp/B08F2TCKWN ·         The Future of Management by Gary Hamel and Bill Breen https://www.amazon.co.uk/Future-Management-Gary-Hamel/dp/1422102505  Websites ·         Beyond Budgeting Institute https://bbrt.org ·         Bogsnes Advisory (Bjarte's consulting firm) https://bogsnesadvisory.com  Social media ·         LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bjarte-bogsnes-41557910/ ·         Twitter:  @bbogsnes  Guest Intro (Ula Ojiaku) Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. Ula Ojiaku Hello, Bjarte. Thank you for being my guest on the Agile Innovation Leaders Podcast, it's a great honour. I remember meeting you for the first time last year in Copenhagen at the Beyond Budgeting Roundtable, and you kindly accepted. So thank you for being here today. Bjarte Bogsnes Thank you for the invitation. Ula Ojiaku Great. So could you tell us any experience that you might have had growing up, that would have led to where you are today? Bjarte Bogsnes Well, the author Douglas Adams, he once wrote that: “I might not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I ended up where I needed to be”, and that's basically the story of my life because it was in no way given that we should sit here today and talk about Beyond Budgeting, because my career started in a very different place. I'm a finance guy by education and after I finished my business studies, I joined a company called Statoil, it's today called Equinor, it's Scandinavia's largest company, it's an energy company, and my first management job in this company, the year after I joined, was actually Head of the Corporate Budget Department. So I have been heading up more budget processes in my career than I want to be reminded about in that job and in many other Finance Manager jobs in different, you know, jobs. I've been working abroad quite a lot for the same company. So I used to be a big fan of this way of managing, there is actually an interview with me from the company magazine at the time where I'm praising the brilliance of budgeting, and I hope that there are no more copies around. And another reason I like that quote from Adams is that I come from a teacher family. My parents were teachers, my sister was a teacher, so I was in the way, the black sheep in the family because I went for Business Studies. But these days I really feel that I'm back in the fold, because I feel that that is what I'm doing now, teaching, and trying to make a positive difference, just like my parents and my sister did. Ula Ojiaku So teaching, it seems like it's a full circle, but you wouldn't have gotten here without, you know, still going through that process of working in business. Bjarte Bogsnes No, I think I'm very glad I have that background because it means that I know what I'm talking about. I know most of the fix in the budget book and some of them are quite nasty, and so when I would discuss with managers, finance people and others then, I mean, I know the arguments, and I know how to respond. Another important part of this journey was that I am one of the few finance persons, I believe, who has also worked in Human Resources. I was heading up the HR function in a large European company for some years, and that experience was also a big eyeopener for me when it comes to the leadership, the people side of Beyond Budgeting, which is just as big as the kind of finance process side. Ula Ojiaku Nice. Now, I mean, we will be getting to talk about your book, which is This Is Beyond Budgeting, that was released this February, 2023. Congratulations! Bjarte Bogsnes Thank you. Ula Ojiaku What I noticed was that the difference between This is Budgeting, I mean your, your second book and, Implementing Beyond Budgeting, which preceded this, this is actually a quicker read, you know, smaller, it seems like it was condensed and it was done on purpose. Could you tell us about this book, the main message? Bjarte Bogsnes Yes. Now, first of all, I mean, that is a correct observation. This is a shorter book, on purpose, and the simple reason is that we need to reach people, busy people, with limited time to read, and they don't have time to read bricks. So, yes, it is a shorter book, it is recapping some key messages from my earlier books, but there's also a lot of new stuff in it. I have learned a lot since the other book you've shown was published back in 2016. I've written a lot, I've worked with a lot of great organisations. So, again, a lot of new learning also. And I really do hope to reach, I did reach a number of executives, managers with my previous book, and I know, because of nice feedback from many of them. But there are so many more of them that still needs to hear this message. So that is why it's the shorter one. And I'm also very grateful and happy that Gary Hamel agreed to write the foreword. I mean, he is such an inspiration when it comes to management innovation and has been for such a long time. I mean, hearing Gary speak is simply mind-blowing. I mean, he is dynamite as a speaker and I think he's written a great foreword, and there are also some, quite some nice endorsements from important people in the agile community and kind of borderline agile community, Rita McGrath, Dave Snowden and Julian Birkinshaw, Jos de Blok, the founder of Buurtzorg. So I'm also very happy that these people took the time to read it and write these nice endorsements. Ula Ojiaku Indeed, we will go into some key points in the book for the listeners or viewers, they would have to buy it to go through it, to know what it's all about. But can you tell us, because there might be some people listening to this that don't know, what Beyond Budgeting is all about. Bjarte Bogsnes No, that's obviously an important question and let me start with saying that Beyond Budgeting is a somewhat misleading name, we know. It was, Beyond Budgeting was invented, developed 25 years ago, and back then there was nothing called agility, agile, or business agility, so if that label had been around at the same time, maybe that would've been the name of this. But it is basically about business agility. And, as the subtitle in my book states, it's about creating organisations that are more adaptive and more human, and Beyond Budgeting is very much about changing traditional management. But at the core of traditional management, you find not just the budgeting process, but also the budgeting mindset, built on the assumptions that the world is predictable and plannable and that you can't trust people. These are assumptions that we really challenge in Beyond Budgeting, because it isn't true. So if you want to change traditional management, you need to do something with the elephant in the room, the budgeting process. And that is something that, if you look at Agile, I think Agile has kind of avoided that elephant throughout all these years. It's been regarded as something unavoidable, a lower business, which isn't true, because more and more companies are skipping this way, or managing. And talking about Agile, I'm a big fan of Agile, but what I'm going to say now is not criticising Agile, but I think it would also help to explain what Beyond Budgeting is. I think part of the success of what I call early Agile has to do with its birthplace in software development, and how teams are working. And I think in those early years, I think what executives in big companies, what they observed and heard about Agile was better projects, faster projects, more value, more engaged people, and who can be against that, wonderful, I love it, come on guys, Agile is great. Then for obvious reasons, companies started to scale Agile, right? And at one level it kind of reaches the executives and has consequences, implications for these guys' beliefs and behaviours. And then it isn't that it wasn't that fun anymore. I think that's one reason why scaling Agile has been difficult. Another reason is that you can't scale Agile using the same language and tools and frameworks that did wonders back in those days. I mean, for executives who don't play rugby and don't know Agile, they might think that Scrum is some kind of skin disease, or Slack is about laziness or that Sprint is about running faster, or continuous delivery is about 24/7. Right? So, I mean we need a language here that these guys can understand and relate to, and Beyond Budgeting is providing that language. They might still disagree, but they understand what we are talking about. And the last issue here is that, again, Agile was not designed as a way to run an enterprise. So when you try to scale it, these holes in Agile become visible, like how do you manage resources?  How do you do forecasting? How do you evaluate performance? How do you reward? Right? And these are the holes that Beyond Budgeting is filling, because, again, Beyond Budgeting was designed from day one as an Agile way of running an organisation. And that is why we never talk about scaling agile, because it comes scaled, it is scaled, right? But this is also why Beyond Budgeting in Agile is such a beautiful fit, and why so many companies on Agile transformation journeys are reaching out to us because they reach these insights and learnings and understand that there can be no true agile transformation without Beyond Budgeting. Ula Ojiaku That's an excellent overview of Beyond Budgeting. And I understand, you know, in Beyond Budgeting, there are 10 principles, and there is the leadership principles, if I may say, and then the management processes. Do you want to talk a bit more about this, please? Bjarte Bogsnes Yeah. So there're actually a 12 principles, and you're right, six of them are on leadership and six of them are on management processes, and if you look at what Beyond Budgeting is saying about leadership, it is not necessarily that unique. There are many other great communities and models out there saying similar things about leadership, right? Talking about purpose and autonomy, transparency, values, and so on. But very often these models and communities haven't reflected very much, it seems like, about what kind of management processes are needed to activate these leadership intentions, because what is often the case in organisations is that they might have the best intentions on the leadership side. They say the right things, they write the right things, but that doesn't help if the management processes are expressing the exact opposite use. Classic example, it doesn't help to talk loud and warm about how fantastic employees we have on board, and we would be nothing without you, and we trust you so much, but not that much. Of course, we need detailed travel budgets, right? This is hypocrisy, and people notice and the words become hollow, because the management processes has a different message. So that is why there is a strong focus in Beyond Budgeting on coherence between the two, between what is said and what is done, right. So I think that is one and very important aspect with Beyond Budgeting. The other is that, as I mentioned earlier, I don't think any other community out there has cracked the budget problem. The budgeting process is something that everybody complains about. It's maybe the most loathed corporate process out there, followed by performance appraisals, but again, it's kind of been left untouched until Beyond Budgeting came and offered great alternatives to this quite outdated way of managing because, it is fascinating, there are not too many other technologies applied in companies today that are a hundred years old, but that is the age of budgeting invented in 1922 by James O McKinsey, the founder of McKinsey Consulting, right. And I never met Mr. McKinsey, but I don't think he was an evil man. I actually think he had the best of intentions. I mean, he wanted to help organisations perform better. This was management innovation a hundred years ago, and it probably worked a hundred years ago, because the world was completely different, the quality and the capability, competence of people were very different, but today things have changed and that is something that our leadership and management models must reflect. Ula Ojiaku Okay, there's something you said, you know, the two things or two activities, that are probably most loathed in organisations would be the budgeting process and the performance appraisal. And you've talked a bit about the budgeting. So, for the performance appraisal, what exactly about it doesn't sit well with people? Bjarte Bogsnes Oh, that list is long. First of all, I mean, it's just like budgets, as I will come back to, has different purposes, so has the performance appraisal, I mean, one purpose is meant to be learning and development, that's a positive one, but another purpose is to determine rewards, right. So, if you are my manager and I'm coming in to a performance appraisal with you and if my mind is mainly on the reward side, the last thing I want to share with you is where I have learning and development needs, right? I want to brag about all my successes and how great I am and so on, and vice versa. So, kind of combining this in one process, with one outcome is meaningless, and also this focus on rewards and, which very often is about individual bonus, which is one of the problems in traditional management that Beyond Budgeting is strongly against, we believe in common bonus schemes, driven by joint performance instead of individual performance. So it is typically an annual event, right, an annual stunt, it's meaningless to talk about feedback and development once a year, that needs to happen much more continuously, right? So, I think budgeting is a bigger problem, it makes more damage, by all means. But performance appraisals come and the whole low performance management notion, it does almost as much damage. And by the way, that is a label I really dislike, performance management, right? Think about it. What are we really saying? Aren't we saying that if we don't manage your performance, there will be no performance, right? That is not a very positive message, and I also think there's quite a lot of illusion playing out here. I think our ability to manage performance, among knowledge workers in today's people and business realities is actually quite limited compared to what managers and HR people and some finance people often tend to think. So it's an awful label, and, you know, we need to stop thinking about managing people, we need to start thinking about how we can create conditions for people to perform, how we can enable performance, not managing performance. Ula Ojiaku That's a great point Bjarte. So what's the solution? What is the solution that Beyond Budgeting is going to offer? And the next one following it would be, how do we apply this? Bjarte Bogsnes Oh, most people actually who are blank on Beyond Budgeting, when they hear about this, they like it, they see that this makes sense. It's only common sense in a way, this is about taking reality seriously, and it is addressing so many of the pain points they experience working, especially in big companies. But then of course the next question is, well, how do we get started? And we have two general recommendations here. The first one is about the case for change, which simply means that the whole organisation, or as many as possible, has to understand that all those complaints about traditional management, including budgeting, the time it takes, the gaming, the narrow performance language, the outdated assumptions. I mean, these are more than irritating itches, right? These are symptoms of a big and serious problem, namely that this way of thinking, this way of managing originally meant to help organisations perform better is today doing the opposite. It has become more of a barrier than a support for getting out the best possible performance, and the more there is a common understanding of what kind of problems the organisation is trying to solve, the easier everything afterwards is. Because if you are unclear about that, I mean, how can you make your choices about alternatives, right? But the clearer the case for change, the better the problems are defined, the easier it is when you have a choice of design, should we go this way or this way? Well, which solution would best solve the problems they are trying to solve? So the case for change has to be created, a solid one, then getting started. We know that many, having seen the Beyond Budgeting principles for the first time, might feel this is a bit overwhelming, right? With all these bold ambitions around leadership, these major changes towards the traditional management processes. I mean, it is a mouthful, it is quite a comprehensive leadership and management model. And if some are kind of a bit scared, I can understand that. If that is the case, we have a very simple, tested, practical, logical way of getting started, which is more budget-oriented than Beyond Budgeting itself, but it is a great way to get started, and it is simply about asking a very simple question, namely, why do you budget? Right? What's the purpose of a budget? And most people that I've asked that question, when they have thought a little bit about that question, they actually realise that there are more than one purpose with a budget in a typical, and when I say budget, I mean more than project budgets, more than cost budgets, I'm talking profit loss, cash flow, balance sheet budgets, the whole finance definition. And the purpose of these budgets are the following. First, companies make budgets to set targets. It could be financial targets, sales targets, production targets, right? So that's one purpose. Second, companies and organisations use these budgets to try to understand what next year could look like in terms of profit and loss cashflow. So it is a kind of forecast of what next year could look like. So, that's the second purpose. The third purpose is resource allocation. The budget is used as a mechanism for handing out bags of money to the organisation on operational costs and on invests, and it might seem very efficient, practical to solve all three purposes in one process and one set of numbers. But that is also the problem, because what happens if we move into the budgeting process in a company, and upstairs finance want to understand next year's profit and loss and they start on the revenue side asking responsible people, what's your best number for next year? But everybody knows that what I'm sending upstairs will most likely come back to me as a target for next year and often with a bonus attached to it. And that insight might do something to the level or numbers submitted, and I think you know, which way those numbers will go, namely down. Moving to the cost side, operational cost investments. The same people, other people are asked, what's your best numbers for next year? But everybody knows that this is my only shot at getting access to resources for next year, and some might also remember that 20% cut from last year and that insight and that memory might also do something to the level of numbers submitted. And I can see you're smiling a bit, and a lot of people do. Ula Ojiaku I'm smiling because I'm just kind of thinking of incidents in past, you know, in past organisations that it has happened. You know, you just sandbag it and give a very high number, knowing that there might be a challenge. Bjarte Bogsnes And you're in good company when you're smiling, but at the same time, I mean, this is actually quite a serious problem, not just because it destroys the quality of numbers, but even more because it actually stimulates behaviour, which I would call at least borderline unethical. The road-balling, the gaming, the sandbagging, the resource hoarding, I mean, all the kind of behaviours that we wouldn't like to see between colleagues. At the same time, I'm not blaming anyone for behaving like this, right? Because then people are just responding to the system we have designed for them to operate in. So if we want to change behaviours, it's not about fixing people, it's about fixing systems, which again, will change behaviours. So that's the problem, three different purposes in one process, in one set of numbers. Fortunately, there is a very simple solution. We can still, and in many cases, should still do these three things, but we should do them in three different processes because these are different things. A target, that's an aspiration, it's what we want to happen. While a forecast is an expectation, it's what we think will happen whether we like what we see or not, right? Brutally honest, the expected outcome. And last but not least, resource allocation is about optimisation of what is often scarce resources. When we then have separated, then a target can be more ambitious than a forecast, which it typically should be. But the most important thing is that that separation opens up for big and important improvement discussions. We can now improve each of these in ways impossible when it was all bundled in one process and one set of numbers. So we can have great discussions around targets. How do we set better targets that really inspire and motivate people, without people feeling stretched? How can we set targets that are more robust against the volatility, the uncertainty, the complexity, and the ambiguity out there? Forecasting, how can we get the gaming and the politics out to the forecasting? And we don't need a million details here, we are looking at the future. There's uncertainty, which is a big difference on looking at the past through accounting, where details and decimals make sense and is often required. But looking at the future, there is uncertainty and that must have implications. So this isn't a good example of, in this stuff, we have to leave behind that accounting mindset that is applied for describing the past recounting, right? When we look at the future, then we need to accept the ambiguity, the complexity, and not just accept it, but embrace it. And last but not least, resource allocation. How can we find better and more intelligent, more effective ways of managing cost than what a certain Mr. McKinsey could offer us a hundred years ago, under very different circumstances? And this is the important discussion, that separation of purposes that just enables these improvement discussions. And in these discussions, having these discussions that is a kind of not scary organic backdoor into those 12 principles, especially in your leadership, right? Target setting, what really motivates people? Resource allocation, again, do we need detailed travel budgets, if we say we trust people? So, again, it is pure logic. I have yet to meet a CEO, a CFO, that didn't come up with that list of three purposes, didn't understand, when helped a little bit, that that's problematic, and didn't see that there are much better ways when you can improve each one separately. And last but not least, we can also then do something with the cadence, with the rhythm of each one. So now we can organise each of the three: target setting, forecasting, resource allocation, on a rhythm that not just reflects the kind of business we're in, but also the kind of purpose, right. So you would set targets or chase targets much less, I mean, not that often as you would change your forecast, and resource allocation is something that you would do all the time, right. So, and also another beauty of this approach is that when people tell me it's impossible to operate without the budget, then my response is, having explained this, that here we still do what that budget try to do for us, but because we have separated, we can do each one in so much better ways, right? And when people say, well, the bank want a budget, the reason why banks ask for budgets is that they have never really realised that there was something else to ask for. So if you can tell the bank, I won't give you a budget, but I will give you my targets and my reliable forecasts, the bank will be more than happy. So I'm spending a little bit of time on this because it is the more finance-oriented part of Beyond Budgeting, but it is a great way to get started. And I helped so many companies over the years and with the big majority, this is where we started out and what we observe over and over again, is in having those improvement discussions the first year, people are a little bit cautious about how radical shall we be, but then it turns out that things work. And what was scary today is not scary tomorrow because it did work, which means that the appetite for being braver increases, so we typically see that organisations get braver along the way, and when it comes to targets, some, after some years of setting better targets, actually decide to skip targets, right? They realised that they are absolutely able to create direction, create motivation, evaluate performance without traditional targets, some even skip forecasting. I haven't heard anyone skipping resource allocation yet that you need to have, but my point is that people and companies tend to get braver. And a final important message, very few companies that have embarked on a Beyond Budgeting journey go back, very few. I don't need one hand to count the number, and the few who did go back, the reasons fall in two categories. Either a flawed implementation, typically, an unclear, weak case for change, or starting only with rolling forecasting. The other typical reason has to do with a significant change in top management at the very early part of the journey. That's actually something I've experienced myself. Ula Ojiaku Great explanation, Bjarte. So you mentioned, you know, about separating the budget into three distinct parts, the target, the forecast, the resource allocation. Now at the organisations where you've implemented this, did you get any resistance from, you know, the top level leaders, managers, because you know, traditionally whoever has the budget, who controls the money, tends to wield power in any organisation. Was there any resistance? Bjarte Bogsnes Well, I think there has been maybe more fear and confusion than outright resistance, even if the resistance sometimes is hidden behind those two. And of course, one word that keeps coming up over and over again when I discuss Beyond Budgeting with people is the word control, right? The fear, and the context is of course the fear of losing control, but the interesting thing with that word is that, when I ask people to be a bit more specific to define what they mean with control, after people have said cost control, actually many go quiet. They struggle with defining what they are so afraid of losing, and that is quite interesting. And if you look at Oxford Dictionary's definition of control, it is the power to influence people's behaviour or the course of events which, again, then for an organisation typically means controlling people and controlling the future. And again, those are the two assumptions that we challenge in Beyond Budgeting, because it is about not trusting people and thinking that the future is predictable and untenable and on control, what I often tell these people is that, yes, you will lose control, but the control that you lose are the bad controls. What you will get more of is good controls, and I wouldn't call that losing control. And one example of a good control in Beyond Budgeting is transparency, right? And let me give you one classical example of how it can be applied, ad this is a real example from a Swiss's pharmaceutical company called Roche, quite big, and they are today on a Beyond Budgeting journey, but some years ago they did a very interesting experiment around travel cost. In the pilot, they kicked out the travel budget, and most travel groups and regulations, and replaced it with full transparency. So with a few exceptions, everybody could see everything. If you travelled, to where did you fly, sleep, eat, cheaper, expensive, open for your colleagues to see and vice versa. And guess what happened with travel costs in that pilot? We'll Go Down Costs came down through a very simple self-regulating control mechanism. This was about tearing up pages in that rules book instead of doing the opposite. At the same time, we need to remember that transparency is a very powerful mechanism. It has to be applied with wisdom. So if it becomes naming and shaming, it doesn't work. And that is why I would always recommend companies to position transparency more from a learning perspective than from a control perspective. I mean, how can we learn from each other if everything is secret? And that control, that shock control effect, you would get in any case as a nice side effect. But again, it must be applied with wisdom. It is fascinating that the biggest fear managers have is to lose control, but what they haven't understood is that a lot of these controls are nothing but illusions of control. Ula Ojiaku That's very interesting. And another thing that I know that some, or if not most of the listeners will be wondering is, okay, you've talked about how, and in your… in both your books… actually the Implementing Beyond Budgeting and your latest one, This is Beyond Budgeting, you did mention something about “you can't get rid of Command and Control via Command and Control”. And in that part of the book, you were saying something that in terms of implementing it - it's something that you recommend the organisations do themselves. Can you elaborate on this? Cause someone, you know, might wonder, is it that you are against getting consulting help? Bjarte Bogsnes So, consultants and Beyond Budgeting. I think what you refer to is, I have a chapter about implementation advice, and one of these is that nobody can do this for you. And what I mean with that, and I explained this in the book, is that, I mean, I'm not saying that companies shouldn't ask for external help, and I'm offering external help, but what they typically should ask for is some inspiration, some guidance on implementation, connections to other companies that have implemented this, but it is not something that an organisation can delegate to consultants. This is not something consultants can do for you. You have to be in the driver's seat, and the more transformation- oriented your ambitions are, the more the executives need to take this role themselves. And I'm saying this because implementing Beyond Budgeting can be anything from a more cautious improvement of finance processes to a radical organisational transformation, and anything in between. And the higher your ambition levels, the higher the ownership in the organisation has to be. When it comes to the consultants, and I also write about this in my book, this is something that has happened just over the last few years, that is that the big consulting companies have gotten seriously interested in Beyond Budgeting. That was not the case before. And the reason for it is that their clients are getting interested, asking for it. And so most of these would like to work with us in some form or shape. Ula Ojiaku Sorry to interrupt, Bjarte. So by ‘us', you mean the Beyond Budgeting Institute)? Bjarte Bogsnes Yeah. Yes. They want to work with the Beyond Budgeting advisory, the Beyond Budgeting Institute. And again, we are not naive. I mean, we come from different places, we might have different agendas here, but at the same time, these companies, they have channels and muscles that we don't have to the same extent, at least not yet. So we have actually decided to say yes to work with them, because we would rather help them and their clients succeed than to stand on the outside and watch them fail, right? So, we have been working, are working with a number of big companies, together with some of these big consulting companies. Ula Ojiaku That's great. And if I may just point to, because you spearheaded this in Statoil, now known as Equinor, and actually this was, I read this in your Implementing Beyond Budgeting book that your approach was based on two principles, no fixed implementation schedule, and no consultants. So how did that work, not having an implementation schedule. Bjarte Bogsnes Well, if we take the first implementation in Borealis back in the mid-nineties where we had a chance to do this, before there was anything called Beyond Budgeting, this company that was partly owned by Statoil, then, I mean, this wasn't an issue because there was no consultants. Even if we had wanted consultants, there was no one to reach out to. So then it was quite easy.  In Statoil, later Equinor, it was more about the fact that I had that implementation experience from Borealis, which kind of, I became some kind of an in-house consultant. And again, as I said, I'm not saying that companies shouldn't use consultants, but you have to use the right ones and use them in the right way. Ula Ojiaku Okay. Thanks for clarifying. Okay, it seems like, you know, Beyond Budgeting would be something that we should seriously consider implementing in our organisation. What else should we be aware of?” Bjarte Bogsnes Well, I think it is important for everybody, also executives to understand that Beyond Budgeting changes work and how you work in a positive way, and for executives, I mean, the role becomes more strategic, more longer term. It's more about coaching, it's less about micromanagement, and maybe most important, there's a new credibility between what is said and what is done, right, which the organisation will notice. When it comes to other functions like finance, it also has a very positive effect. The job becomes much more business-oriented, less annual stunts, more forward-looking, less backwards-looking, more cooperation with other functions like for instance, human resources. And I can't think of a single finance person in Equinor that wants to go back to the old days and the time before 2005. And I think that provides an indication as well. And another key message is that what we have been talking about today, it will happen. It will happen. I don't care if it will be called Beyond Budgeting, or business agility or whatever, that is not important. But in 15, 20 years time, maybe earlier, when we look back at what was mainstream management in 2023, I think we will smile, maybe even have a laugh, just like we today smile about the days before the internet or before the smartphone. And how long ago is that? It's not that long ago. So organisations have a choice here, they can choose to be early movers or vanguards, understanding that you can get just as much competitive advantage out of management innovation as you can get from technology innovation. Or they can choose to be laggards, dragged into this as one of the last ones or anything in between. And every year you wait, competitors will be ahead of you. And I don't think that choice should be very difficult, and again, it should b. easier to make today, when so many organisations are embarking on a Beyond Budgeting journey. It was a bit tougher and a bit more scary 25 years ago when, when this started out, right. But again, it will happen. Ula Ojiaku I'm going to ask you a question I ask all my guests. What books have influenced you and would you recommend to the audience? Bjarte Bogsnes Well, many, many years ago, when I was an ardent budget supporter and believer, I read Maverick by Ricardo Semler, the former CEO of Semco, and I was mind-blown, simply mind-blown. It, kind of yeah, it really, really moved me, even if I kind of didn't have the chance to adopt any of that thinking before, many, many years later. Lately, again, I've mentioned Gary Hamel, and his co-author, Michele Zanini, they have written great books. The last book Humanocracy is a great one, and, a previous one by Gary Hamel, The Future of Management is also a book that I really like and I recall giving that book to the CEO of Statoil quite early on the journey, and he liked it so much that he gave it as a Christmas present to the rest of the executive committee. Ula Ojiaku Thank you, and of course I would add to the list This is Beyond Budgeting. If someone wants to get in touch with you, what's the best way of getting to you? Bjarte Bogsnes Yeah, then I will think about this as getting in touch with us, and when I say us, I mean that there is a core team of five, six people who are kind of driving this. And we have a website called, bbrt.org. That will give you more information about the Beyond Budgeting Roundtable, which is a global network of companies interested in this and individuals interested in this. And that is where you can sign up as company member, individual member. And I also recommend to subscribe to our newsletter, and if you're curious about this guy and all of this then I made that difficult decision a few years ago to leave Equinor, to start Bogsnes Advisory to be able to work full-time with this. And so I have my own small simple website called bogsnesadvisory.com And on bbrt.org you will also find a list of more books that I can highly recommend on this topic. Ula Ojiaku That's great. Are you on social media, Bjarte? Bjarte Bogsnes I am, I'm on LinkedIn, Twitter, and the only thing I write about is this stuff. There are no cats and dogs and grandchildren or anything, so that's why it's highly appreciated if somebody wants to follow me. Ula Ojiaku So any final words for the audience in terms of an ask? Is there something you want them to do? Bjarte Bogsnes Reflect a little bit about the risk picture here, because there is a very compelling risk picture, right? If you are afraid that it won't work in your organisation, well, what's really the downside risk? Because if you're right, if it doesn't, you can go back to the old way tomorrow. Not the single soul in the company would've forgotten how to budget as one example, and compare that minimal downside risk with that huge upside potential performance-wise. And I'm saying when this is working, not if it's working, as we have seen in so many organisations. So a very compelling risk picture. I think that is worth reflecting on as well. Ula Ojiaku Well, it's been great speaking with you, Bjarte. Thank you so much for those wise words and the advice, and I would again say to you, the audience, please go grab your copy of Bjarte's book, This Is Beyond Budgeting, which is now out. And I hope we'll definitely have another opportunity to have a conversation and speak about Beyond Budgeting, since you don't want to talk about any other thing. Anyway, so thank you again, Bjarte. It's a pleasure having you on. Bjarte Bogsnes Thank you, Ula. Thank you very much for the invitation. Ula Ojiaku That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!   

Bio When Primo was young he wanted to be a Film Director.  Today he directs his own business – helping individuals and teams be more effective through the power of coaching and Insights Discovery.  With 30 years' experience in corporates such as IBM, GE, T-Mobile & BP, Primo has made the transition from IT Project & Programme Management to Learning and Development.  He has always used his core values of Empathy, Trust & Honesty to build deep relationships with others and support them in achieving their career potential.  He has a wealth of experience developing others, both as a Line Manager to global teams and in designing and delivering a global Leadership Development Programme. Now he can use this experience to support individuals and teams in their journeys using Coaching and the Insights Discovery tool. LinkedIn - Primo Masella | LinkedIn  Interview Highlights Project work – 04:15 How leadership sets the tone – 08:00 Insights Discovery – 13:26 Recruitments styles – 27:08 What makes a good leader? – 32:15  Books  ·         The Development of Personality by Carl G. Jung https://www.amazon.co.uk/Development-Personality-Collected-Works-C-G/dp/0415071747 ·         The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious by Carl G. Jung https://www.amazon.co.uk/Archetypes-Collective-Unconscious/dp/B08RF2RGSM ·         The Psychology of C G Jung The Psychology of C G Jung Rev: 1973 Edition: Amazon.co.uk: Jacobi, Irving G.: 9780300016741: Books ·         The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey https://www.amazon.co.uk/Habits-Highly-Effective-People-Anniversary/dp/1471195201/ ·         No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer https://www.amazon.co.uk/No-Rules-Netflix-Culture-Reinvention/dp/0753553651 ·         The Inside Out Revolution by Michael Neill https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inside-Out-Revolution-Thing-Change-Forever/dp/1781800790  Episode Transcript Guest Intro (Ula Ojiaku)  Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. Ula Ojiaku So I have with me Primo Masella as my guest of the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. Primo, thank you so much for making the time for this conversation. Primo Masella My absolute pleasure, Ula. Lovely to see you again. Ula Ojiaku Great. I've been looking forward to having this conversation. Can you tell us about yourself, Primo? Primo Masella Gosh, there's a question to start with. So I'm the youngest of five siblings. My parents were both Italian, but I was born here in the UK, and grew up in the Midlands, in the UK, in Coventry. And then, for most of my career, I worked in IT actually, so I was an IT Project and Program Manager for a long time. And then I moved over into HR and got really interested in developing talent, and especially developing leadership skills and future leaders. And I guess that's how I've ended up where I am. Ula Ojiaku Okay, so growing up, what would you consider were the significant happenings, the choices that put you on the path you are on right now, career wise? Primo Masella Yeah. So I liked things at school, but I also really liked both arts and sciences. So I kind of always felt like I was that person who could bridge that gap between two things. So, you know, I loved English at school and at the same time I loved physics, which I think is kind of unusual. People tend to go one way or the other, don't they? And so then when I did a degree, it was an Applied Sciences degree where I could choose lots of different modules of things, and so it was at that point that I kind of got into IT really, because I chose quite a lot of IT elements and I guess early on in my career, again, I was using that skillset of bridging the gap between technology and business. And so I've never done coding for a living, but I've been the guy that could speak to the coders and then translate that for non-coders to understand. Somehow I kind of fell into that quite early on. My first real job, actually, when I moved down to London, I was in quality assurance. So my first ever job was testing software and also proofreading user guides for software, so that was always quite interesting. Ula Ojiaku So what do you do for leisure? What are your interests? Primo Masella So I'm a huge movie fan, so I've been passionate about movies my whole life. If I hadn't ended up where I am today, I would've loved to have been Steven Spielberg. I just, being a director would've been amazing. So I still love movies, anything to do with cinema and film, and in the last few years I've become quite a keen road cyclist as well. So I got myself a bike, which worked out brilliantly during the pandemic because at the time when we were still allowed to go out and exercise once a day during the lockdowns, that was just perfect. That gave me my escape for the day, and it also acts as my kind of way of just getting out and being mindful. So rather than purposely practice mindfulness, I tend to just go out on the bike. So yeah, that's kind of the key thing you'll find me doing when I'm not doing this. Ula Ojiaku Okay. So what do you do now? Primo Masella So I wonder if before I come onto that, I just give you a couple of key things which led me to do what I'm doing now I think. So back in the day when I was in IT and an IT Project and Program Manager, the thing that I really loved about project work was the variety and the fact that we got to work with different stakeholders all the time. And I think in my experience, there are broadly two types of Project Manager – there's the kind who's really good at managing a schedule and keeping on top of a plan and a risk log and an issue log and really executing a plan - that wasn't me. I'm the other type that's really good at working with stakeholders, defining the scope, making sure that the business case is sound and what the customer wants. And so the piece that I really enjoyed about projects was starting them to be honest, and once the project was underway, I lost interest pretty quickly. And so the first kind of real inflection point for me was when I stopped delivering IT projects and instead, I looked after the pool of Project Managers, I became the resourcing and Line Manager for a group of project professionals, and that was probably the first time where I specifically had people's development at the heart of my job. And whereas previously I'd had people's development kind of tangentially really, when we worked together, when we first met each other, I was doing little training sessions as a kind of an aside really. It was something I really enjoyed doing, but it wasn't part of my job description. So being responsible for a pool, and I was lucky enough that we worked in a model where we had a bit like a consultancy, we had a pool of Project Managers who were then allocated to different project sets, and they all reported to me from a people perspective. And so I could really focus on, how are they developing those skills? Are we giving them the best projects to help them on whatever career path they all wanted? So, I guess that was kind of the first kind of real thing. There might be three things I haven't counted. So the second thing was, I'd kind of mentally checked out of delivery for quite a while then, so I was looking after resourcing, I was focusing on capability development and how do we develop IT professionals? And then I had the opportunity to step back into delivery, to deliver a really large transformation program, and that was a serious inflection point, because I consciously made a decision where I thought I could add value because I think I can bring some people skills, which were lacking at that time in that particular program. And so I stepped in, and that true, that turned out to be a massively significant part of my career. So without going into lots of details and we don't need to name anybody at all, it was a very challenging piece of work and there were lots of things going on, and I was tested to my absolute limits as a Program Leader, as a person, to be honest, it was probably the most stressful part of my entire career. And I went on this kind of emotional rollercoaster and I left that program on my own terms, having taken away one of the key things that I still hold to this day, and that is that leadership sets the tone. So depending on how the leaders shows up, that cascades to everybody else in that program, in that organisation, it reflects in the culture of the group of people that are working together. And I felt like I learned that the hard way. It was a huge lesson for me, you know, to the point where I was considering leaving the industry. I was, in my mind, at the point where I was going to make some really fundamental decisions about what I wanted to do next. So I say that because that, I don't, as I look back, I'm massively grateful for that experience because I think many of us would agree that it's when we're challenged, that we truly learn about ourselves. We learn about what we want and we learn about what we're going to do next. And so that led me then, that helped facilitate a move out of the IT sector and into HR. That was one of the key catalysts of me moving functions. And I'd always been an IT guy, so this was, you know, although, you know, as I said before, not hands on, not a developer, but IT felt like my home, those were the people that I understood and I knew really well. So to move to the dark side of HR, seemed like a really strange thing to do. And I remember being asked at an interview, this seems a bit odd, you know, you are a project guy, why do you want to come and work in HR? And it was absolutely the right thing for me, because I'm all about people, and every job that I've ever done, irrespective of what the job title was, was about how can I help people get the best out of themselves? That's really the bottom line. So that led me then into this path, which I established for a while, which was around developing talent and developing future leaders. I was fortunate enough to be in a position, right place, right time, where I designed and led one of the global development programs in our previous organisation, and that was great, having an 18 month program to deliver and look at future leaders and what they needed to get to the next stage of their careers. And then that brings me, I guess, to the final  significant point, which was during that process, I also became an Insights Discovery practitioner, and we can talk about Insights in a moment if you like, but that gave me a tool, that gave me a mechanism that I could get into a conversation with teams about how do you show up within your team? How do you like to work and interact with others? What is it that makes it difficult sometimes to work with people because, you know, people think differently from each other and that's completely normal, but a lot of us go into teams thinking we all think about stuff the same way, so having that exposure to Insights and having the ability to become certified as a practitioner has then led me to, I'm finally getting to answer your question that you asked me a million years ago, a position where I now work for myself. And I use Insights Discovery as one of my core tools, along with other tools and models to help leaders develop themselves and develop their teams. So anything that's in that space of how do we build the best team that we can with this group of people? And a big part of that is coaching and I'm in my process of becoming a certified coach, I would say I've been an informal coach for probably 30 years, so I thought it's probably about time I had the letters to put after my name as well. Ula Ojiaku That's awesome, so what's the name of your business? What sort of service do you offer? Primo Masella So I have my own consultancy. It's called Primo Leadership Development Limited. It's just me, I'm not intending to hire lots of people, and the service offer is really to provide physical, virtual workshops, coaching and other training interventions to help people either establish or develop their teams. So whether it's creating a new team, setting a vision, being clear on, kind of, what are the ways of working of that team, maybe thinking about, you know, how do we look at trust or conflict or emotional intelligence? That's a really hot topic, obviously right now. And then aside that it's the offer of coaching individuals, one to one through their leadership and their career journeys, and we may use Insights Discovery as a tool in some of those offers. So if you wanted just a standalone intervention using Insights Discovery, then I also provide that as a service. Ula Ojiaku Okay, so going onto Insights then, what exactly is Insights Discovery, and what's the, if I may use that word, science behind it? Primo Masella Sure. So Insights Discovery is a personality profiling tool, it's been around for quite a number of years, probably about 30 odd years now I think, based out of the Insights company in Scotland, in the UK. You'll see in my background I've got a set here of these lovely coloured bricks, we use these four core colours to talk about different traits in people's personality. Ula Ojiaku And you're holding up a brick, looks like a set of yellow bricks, I mean, not yellow bricks, a set of Lego bricks, yellow, red, blue and green in the interest of those who are listening only to the audio version. Primo Masella Yeah, they're like bricks, we've said Lego a few times, hopefully we don't have to pay royalties for saying that they're like big Lego bricks kind of made of a strong foam, and they're just a physical reminder of what the model is about. So, when we talk about it, we say, we all have these four core traits and the way that we use them, the way that we are made of them is slightly different for each of us. And so we talk about yellow energy being very collaborative or influencing or visionary, red energy being very directive, more focused on results, blue energy being all about attention to detail and being structured and formal, and green energy all about building trust, strong relationships and having empathy. So, you know, each one of us has got all four of those traits, but it's the way that we combine them and the way that they show up when we work with others. So the way the model works is that you take an online questionnaire, you get a really detailed report about your style of working, and then we can use that report in a workshop environment with you and your team to look at what are the common areas and the differences in people's styles, in the team. So you might have, for example, somebody who's very task focused, who's very good at, you know, working in a kind of project context, working with data, really delivering an objective very effectively, but they may be working with somebody who's very relationship focused and wants to take more time to build relationships, look at kind of a bigger picture of what's going on and seeing how it's impacting people. So there, that's one of axis of the model where, you know, you have individuals in a team who will be on different places on that scale. And so Insights is just a way of providing this common language and using colour is a really easy way to access the language, so people very quickly remember, oh yes, yellow means this, and blue means this. And once we have those four core colours, we then get into various layers. So we go from 4 to 8 to 16. Ultimately you can be in one of 72 positions in the Insights model, so it's a very rich model compared to some others in the marketplace that take you up to 16. So in my experience, people overwhelmingly say they find it useful and they say that they could see themselves in the report that they received back. It's very, very rare that somebody reads their report, just doesn't agree with it. When that does happen, it tends to be there's something else going on for that person, because at the end of the day, it's about understanding ourselves and kind of self-awareness and self-reflection. And the greater the level of self-awareness, we tend to see the, the greater the level of buy into the tool. Ula Ojiaku I have, you know, taken the Insights assessment a couple of times and whilst I've found it very useful, there were some, you know, aspects of the analysis that I said, hmm, I didn't know I was like that, am I really like that? You know, I had those, you know, moments and you know, where I questioned what I was reading. And that brings me to, you know, some people who are of the school of thought that going through these sorts of assessments, you know, brings with it a risk of shoehorning or putting people into boxes and saying, oh, he's a red, you know, therefore we expect you to always be fiery on the, on the point, get abrupt with people. What do you think about that, what's your view on this? Primo Masella Yeah, I think it's a very common misconception of this kind of tool and especially of Insights Discovery. In my experience, all I could tell you is that I see the colours in the real world. When I work with people, I see these colour energies as they are working, and at the end of the day, this kind of thing is not intended to stereotype. So we purposely say things like, we're not going to use the phrase, she's a red, or he's being a complete blue today, for example, that wouldn't be a healthy way to use the language. But what I can say is that when you work with somebody, and you can just test this in the next few hours, just think about whoever you're going to interact with today. If you know them a little bit, if you've interacted with them a few times already, think about, do they tend to focus on the task more or do they tend to focus on people more? People who focus on task may use the phrase ‘I think' a lot more often, they may be more detailed, they may be more urgent in what they're talking about and they have a passion for the thing. People who are more people focused, tend to use the phrase ‘I feel' a lot more often, so we'll hear it in the language that people use, and it's quite subconscious for most of us, and they'll just have a different warmth to them if they have more of that people energy. And so I completely get the idea that it's stereotyping, and especially if people focus on the fact that we start with four colours and people see the four colours and think, well, there's more than four types of people in the world. The intent is that those four sets of traits give us the clue into what makes this person work the way they work, and the model is actually far more sophisticated and much more multi-layered than just four colours. So all I would say is that in my experience, it works. I've interacted with lots and lots of people over the years, I can tell you that I can see the traits described in this model in pretty much everybody I work with. There hasn't been a single person, and I'm pretty happy saying this, there hasn't been a single person that I couldn't say, I wouldn't know where to put them on the model. Ula Ojiaku I would agree it's being more aware of, you know, the colours and the four broad personality traits they represent has helped me with understanding, whilst not stereotyping people or putting them in a box, but understanding, okay, what dimension they're from and how best to adapt myself to, you know, relate better with them. So can you share some, you know, one or two examples of where using this assessment has helped maybe a person or a team to become more aware, because in agile or in even any team at all, the aim is to get teams to become, you know, high performing and when teams understand themselves as individuals and how, you know, they fit in or their skill sets, you know, complement, you know, one another in terms of achieving that common goal, they can move mountains. So have you had any instance where facilitating this sort of assessment and conversation around it has helped? Primo Masella Yeah, yeah, very much so. So if I think about, I've worked before with leaders who, say, lead with the red energy, which is all being focused on delivering results. And they may have somebody on their leadership team who meets with the opposite trait, which is the green energy, which is all about being there for the team and building trust and strong relationships. So I've seen in the past where a leader, for example, was about to send an email to a large group of people, and the person that worked for them who was the opposite trait kind of literally stopped them and got them to redraft parts of the email to just make it a little bit more human. And so that's an example of where those two opposite styles can really complement each other and give you a better outcome, because had the initial senior person just sent the email, it would have landed badly with a number of people, because if you have a different style, you perceive things in slightly different ways. So where somebody might think they're being efficient, it may be perceived by their opposites styles as being arrogant or overbearing. And so that collaboration of opposite styles works really, really effectively. I can think of one particular example, but I've seen that happen lots of, lots of times. There's another kind of, couple of quick ones when we do a physical workshop where we're able to get people in a room and we have a floor mat of the model. So it comes as a kind of circular mat that people can stand on and move around, and that's amazingly powerful because you get the team to physically stand where they would appear on the model. And then you are physically opposite some people in the team and physically next to other people, or slightly adjacent to some other people you work with, and you just see people's eyes come alive as they see each other and, you know, I've had people say out loud, I finally get why that individual behaves that way, and I've always found it really hard to work with them, and now I, understand we just do things differently and that's okay. And part of the premise is we all like to think we're super smart, because we're all pretty smart. Yeah, people are pretty smart, but the challenge is sometimes appreciating that we don't always have to do it our way and just because we thought of it, it doesn't mean it's the best way of doing something, and so somebody else's way that may be different may be just as good. And so a lot of the conversations we have around Insights is to say, you know, nobody's better or worse, it's just different and appreciating the difference can lead you a huge step forward. I'll give you one other quick example, which is I did a one to one conversation with somebody. So one of the powers that we have of something like this tool is that once you have a personal profile, you can use that to continue to work on yourself, develop yourself. And so I did coach somebody at one point, who was having a particular issue with somebody else in her team, and we looked at them both on the team wheel, we looked at where they were different in styles, I gave her some pointers about how she might think about communicating with that individual based on their preferences, and she went away and then we subsequently met again, and literally after years of working together, she found a way of connecting with that person that she'd never found before, and that was just astounding to me, not astounding as in surprising, but I was massively, massively pleased that she'd had that outcome and it improved the level of relationship with that individual. Ula Ojiaku There's something you said about being able to see things from other people's perspective that helps us to empathise and hopefully be able to make any adjustments we need, you know, on our own part. So I'm suspecting that's probably what happened for the lady that you coached, being able to understand where that co-worker was coming from. So if someone wants to build a team, assuming you don't have an existing team, because on one hand you've given us examples, how the Insights framework and assessments could help with getting team members to better understand themselves. Is it possible to use this as a role of deliberately putting together a new team? Primo Masella Yeah, it's a good question, and we get asked this question quite a lot, especially in terms of recruiting people into a team and an organisation. So depending on, so if you work inside a company that has a policy about how they recruit people, typically, certainly in Western corporate organisations, people tend to do something called competency based recruitment. So we recruit people by asking them questions, like, tell me about a time when you… and so we're looking for some experience in their past, which gives us an indicator of how they might perform in the future. So that's typically, for a number of years, that's how a lot of corporate organisations have recruited. So if you are recruiting that style, Insights isn't the best tool to use for recruitment because Insights doesn't tell us about your competency or your level of skill. So if you have a high level of cool blue energy in the model, which indicates attention to detail and structure, and objectivity, that's not the same as saying I'm good at writing a project plan or working with Microsoft Excel because those latter two things are skills that you can learn to do by practicing them more often. So that's kind of the first thing to say, there's a bit of a health warning. And I think the same would apply to many of these kinds of tools. However, assuming you have somebody within your organisation already, that's passed all the necessary kind of entry checks, Insights is a great way of saying how do I assemble a team in order to deliver on a particular set of objectives? So I may have a team that I need to be, you know, really focused and interrogate data and make sure accuracy is really, really key. If that's the case, then I'll look for that cool blue energy in a number of key individuals in the team. You know, conversely, I may have a team where I really need some creative thinking, I need to come up with some wacky ideas, you know, I may work at an industry where that's, you know, really important, my competitive edge, in which case I'll look purposely for people with more sunshine, yellow energy, which is the opposite of that blue. So it can be really helpful, once a team leader is looking at, what is it I need to achieve, it can be a great way of saying who's the best person to allocate to this task or which two or three individuals do I put together so that I get a really nice balance or a really nice mixture of styles to give us an interesting result that maybe we wouldn't have got otherwise. We can think of it like a, it's another lens on diversity and inclusion, so what's the diversity of thought in the team with respect to how they interact task versus people, how kind of more introverted or extroverted people might be. Ula Ojiaku Is it possible to take the tests  and then a time passes and you take it again and you come up with different results, and if so, what could be the reasons for that? Primo Masella Yeah, it is possible. We refer to it sometimes as a test - that scares people doesn't it, they feel like there's a pass or a fail. It's an evaluation of your preferences, but it can change over time, so for some people, if you, you know, are adapting as you move along your career, if you're changing the roles you are doing or changing the industry or the country, that may have an effect on how you show up. So yeah, I see people as they go through their careers, they may move around and use different styles. I worked with a leadership team in the past where a lot of the leadership team were high in the red energy, were really focused on delivering outcome. And as individuals in the team became more experienced and more mature in their careers, they actually focused a bit more on others and bringing up others below them in the organisation. And so that red energy came down and the yellow energy came up a bit, which was about engaging and collaborating with others. So there are definitely some people who kind of move around, there are others then like me, who I've stayed pretty much in the same place forever, and anybody hearing this who's ever seen the model before would be no surprise to any of you. I'm very high in earth green energy. I don't think that will ever change. So, spoiler for anybody I'm about to work with I'm, so on, on a scale of a hundred percent for each colour, I'm 99% earth green. So I don't see myself moving very far from that position. Ula Ojiaku That's very interesting. So how, in your experience, because you've worked with leaders extensively. So what makes a good leader? Primo Masella I could take the project management answer and I can say it depends, because that's in any project context, that's always the answer the project manager should give isn't it, but I'm not a project manager anymore, so I'm not allowed to do that. I would say it's somebody who can set the right tone for the organisation to deliver on its objectives. And in setting the right tone, that sounds like a really simple thing to say, doesn't it, but I think those few words are really difficult for some leaders to do. Now some leaders are really naturally just there, they're just on it. Other leaders need to be coached and trained and guided on how to do that in the most effective way, and by setting the tone, it's getting that balance right between how do we deliver safely, in an inclusive way. How do I make sure that each person in my team is engaged, stretched to the right level, but not overstretched? So there's actually quite a lot, I think. To be an exceptional leader is huge actually, and I think there is a mixture of nurture and nature here. I think some people have that innate thing where they understand how other people work. Now, whether you call that emotional intelligence in this context, or whether you say they've got high people skills or they're very self-aware, all of that kind of language is pointing to the same thing. It's having an understanding of what you do. Sorry, how what you do is impacting other people. So I think some individuals have got naturally higher levels of that than others. I think that can be taught up until a point, but I think there's, you know, if you have a natural empathy, I think that will take you a long way as a leader, personally, I'm aware of my own bias though, as well. So my bias is the people lens, that's always been my bias and my focus, which is why I'm very conscious to be clear around, you know, do we understand what we need to deliver, how it aligns with the organisation's objectives? What's the culture I'm working in? There's, you know, there's a framework that has to sit around this. I think being a leader in today's society is a huge ask for anybody. Ula Ojiaku Would you then say that there's a particular, you know, colour or energy type that this ideal leader would be more inclined towards than another? Primo Masella Yeah, again, that's a really great question. The truthful answer is no. And, so the model that I work with comes as a circle, the four colours, core colours, being quadrants of the circle. If there was such a thing as an ideal, you'd be right in the centre, yeah. You'd have easy and natural access to all colours all the time and use them massively appropriately. Since none of us are perfect, that's a bit of a tall ask. It's unfortunate that some people look at these kind of models and say, for example, they look at the red energy and since the red energy is associated with delivering results and efficiency and meeting objectives, there's a perception with some organisations that we need leaders who've got lots of that red energy. And if you've got a command control organisation or you work in a safety critical environment, or are heavily audited, you know, in any of those environments, that red and that blue energy really play their part. And yes, you may find a lot more of the leadership roles are filled by people with those traits. My perspective is that in reality you can lead from anywhere. There's a saying isn't there, you can lead from any chair, you don't have to be sitting at the front of the room to be the leader, or at the head of the table to be the leader. I think the trick is adjusting according to the circumstance, so according to the group of people you are with, or the activity that needs to be done. And actually one of the things I often say when we talk about Insights is that if we think of somebody who's a really strong communicator, they'll use all four colour energies. When they work, when they make a speech, I often think of, I cite President Obama as an example, I'm sure Obama had wonderful speech writers, that helps as well, but if you don't hit all four colours, you're going to lose potentially a quarter of your audience. So when Obama spoke, he would talk about a vision, he would paint a picture of what was going to happen, he would give people enough details that they understood there was some credibility there. He would have a sense of urgency and pace about what he was doing, but he would also be empathetic and engaging with the people at a human level. Now, if you can do that, if you can hit all four of those traits, when you speak to somebody, that for me is the sign of a great communicator. It's also a pretty good indicator of a pretty strong leader, I think. I'm not going to name any names, but I'm sure we could all think of senior political figures, past or present, who certainly don't hit all four of those colour energies when they speak. And some of them are literally rooted in one dimension, and the real danger is, like I say, you're going to lose at least a quarter, half, maybe three quarters of your audience, because you're not speaking to them, that's the danger. Ula Ojiaku So what I'm hearing is there needs to be a balance and as a leader, an effective leader, or the ideal leader would know how to slide, for lack of a better word, you know, from one energy to another. Primo Masella Yeah. So that's not to say that you can't have leaders in different positions who kind of call that out. So it's absolutely fine to have a leader who is more people focused and they're more collaborative and engaging and people know them, that that's their leadership style. Likewise, it's fine to have a leader who's very results focused, and wants the data before they make decisions and move things forward. I think the trick is to kind of be very clear with the team that you are leading - this is how I work, these are my preferences, and be conscious of the fact that you may be missing some things because you have a stronger preference for something else. And then think about how do I use the rest of my team to help fill in those gaps, so that as a team, we bring a unified view to how we're going to deliver this particular activity. Ula Ojiaku So, what I'm hearing is, you know, be aware of where you tend to operate from as a leader, and also understand, you know, that you need the team to complement, you know, the gaps. Primo Masella I think, because otherwise we do get into this thing of setting an expectation that a leader should be able to do everything. That's a tough call, isn't it. Ula Ojiaku What books would you recommend for anyone who wants to learn more about this topic, you know, personalities, leadership teams? Primo Masella Yeah, I've got a couple of recommendations, which aren't necessarily related to what we've spoken about. So the Insights model is based on the work of Carl Jung. So if you read anything of Jung's work, that can be helpful. So this whole concept of how our personalities work, the fact that we each have at least two aspects to our personalities, and we might show up in a slightly different way, depending on who we're working with or where we are. So, I would heartily recommend anything in that space. People ask me about leadership books and I have to be brutally honest and say I'm not a huge reader of leadership books, but I would say the one thing that stuck with me over years and years is Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. And I keep coming back to it because it just works for me. So, you know, you can get these things now as synopses, kind of easy read, quick read things, but yeah, read the whole book. It's one of the few kind of management books that I read and have reread, so maybe that's an indicator. On a slightly different tangent I've just finished reading a book. It's been out for a few years now, but I'm a bit late to the party, about the culture at Netflix and, culture, I find, is really interesting. So I've worked in big corporate organisations where they've had certain cultures. The book is called The No Rules Rules by Reed Hastings, who was one of the co-founders of Netflix. And it's really interesting, especially if, like me, you've, you've worked in huge corporate environments for a long time, because Netflix took an entirely different approach to how they created their organisational culture, and it makes no qualms about the fact that if you are in highly regulated or safety critical, or, you know, if you're building aeroplanes and you don't want people to fall out of the sky, you need certain policies and procedures in place. With a company like Netflix, who are in a creative environment, it's really interesting to read about how they built their company culture, which is the polar opposite from some of the companies I've worked for, really interesting. So just as a read, it's a great read. Then the final thing I'm going to recommend is, and this is slightly off topic. So I'm holding up a book called The Inside Out Revolution by Michael Neill, and this is a based on a principle around consciously thinking about how we think, and a principle that I'm becoming more and more interested in actually, as I get older, which is that everything starts from the way that we think about it. So our mindset governs everything else. So where you may feel like an event happens and I'm sad because that event happens, actually there's growing evidence, and there has been evidence for some years, actually, that how I think about the event dictates really how I feel about it, not the event itself. So Michael Neill's book is a great way into that, but there's loads of other things out there as well. If you, you know, Google ‘mindset' or ‘consciously thinking', you'll see a whole bunch of stuff. So that's something that I find really interesting because that's much more about us taking personal responsibility for how we think about stuff, and being quite intentional rather than be reactive and blame things outside of us for what happens. Ula Ojiaku I like the concept of, you know, being intentional and actually exploring our mindset and why we're thinking or feeling the way we do. So where can the audience find you? How can they get in touch with you if they want to. Primo Masella So, the best place is LinkedIn. So I'm on LinkedIn as Primo Masella, LinkedIn is probably the best place, so you can find me on there, and I'd be very happy to chat to anybody about Insights or connect with anybody who's interested in the same things that we've been talking about today. It's been really interesting, just to share one reflection. So I've been self-employed for just over a year now, so not about long, really, and, and I started this self-employment journey with perhaps a misconception that it would be very competitive and people would be very guarded about sharing anything. I have to say, it's the exact opposite. People have been so gracious with their time. I've made connections that I never thought I would make, and literally everybody that I've been introduced to, or that I've met along the way has just wanted to help. So if you are thinking of going self-employed then, you know, I can heartily recommend it. Ula Ojiaku It kind of goes back to a statement you made earlier. And I said when we're challenged, we learn more about ourselves. So sometimes in the challenges, the going out of the comfort zone, that's where you get the room to grow. Primo Masella Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, in my circumstance, I left the big corporate world. I wasn't expecting to do that, particularly, it wasn't a decision I'd made some years before, I didn't have a plan for this, and so yeah, I kind of felt like I was thrown into it and I thought, well, I'll just see what happens, and it's great. I can't say enough how generous people have been with their time, and that's just reinforced the fact that I think there is still a sense of supporting other people and collaboration and wanting to do good work, you know, across lots of people. Ula Ojiaku So any final words for the audience as we wrap up, this has been a great conversation. Primo Masella I would say just start with yourself. So if you know, if you're having a tough time or it feels like everything's going wrong, or your team's falling apart, just, just kind of start by looking at yourself. I don't mean that in a kind of negative way, but you know, we are the masters of our own destiny and there's always something you can change, and sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is to change how you think about something and that can help you in whatever circumstance you're in. Ula Ojiaku Yes. Those are profound words of wisdom, Primo. And again, it's been a great pleasure having you as my guest on this episode of the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast, so thank you very much. Primo Masella My pleasure, and thank you so much for inviting me. That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!   

Bio Dave West is the Product Owner and CEO at Scrum.org. In this capacity, he engages with partners, and the community to drive Scrum.org's strategy and the overall market position of Scrum. Prior to joining Ken Schwaber and the team at Scrum.org he was Chief Product Officer at Tasktop where he was responsible for product management, engineering and architecture. As a member of the company's executive management team was also instrumental in growing Tasktop from a services business into a VC backed product business with a team of almost 100. As one of the foremost industry experts on software development and deployment, West has helped advance many modern software development processes, including the Unified process and Agile methods. He is a frequent keynote at major industry conferences and is a widely published author of articles and research reports. He also is the co-author of two books, The Nexus Framework For Scaling Scrum and Head First Object-Oriented Analysis and Design. He led the development of the Rational Unified Process (RUP) for IBM/Rational. After IBM/Rational, West returned to consulting and managed Ivar Jacobson Consulting for North America. Then he served as vice president, research director at Forrester Research, where he worked with leading IT organisations and solutions providers to define, drive and advance Agile-based methodology and tool breakthroughs in the enterprise. Email –  Dave.west@scrum.org Twitter - @davidjwest LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidjustinwest   Interview Highlights Growing up with dyslexia 03:10 & 10:20 Water-Scrum-Fall 07:40 Psychological safety 15:40 Lilian the rockstar - 'who have you helped today?' 18:55 Is 'project' a taboo word? 21:53 'Humble and Kind' - not just for country music 44:30 Books ·         Head First Object-Oriented Analysis and Design by Dave West, Brett McLaughlin and Gary Pollice https://www.amazon.co.uk/Head-First-Object-Oriented-Analysis-Design/dp/0596008678/ ·         The Nexus Framework for Scaling Scrum by Dave West, Kurt Bittner and Patricia Kong https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nexus-Framework-Scaling-Scrum-Continuously/dp/0134682661 ·         ARTICLE: Why Kindness Matters by Dave West https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/why-kindness-matters ·         Thank You for Being Late by Thomas L Friedman https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thank-You-Being-Late-Accelerations/dp/0141985755 ·         Scrum: A Pocket Guide by Gunther Verheyen https://www.amazon.co.uk/Scrum-Pocket-Companion-Practice-Publishing/dp/9087537204 ·         The Professional Scrum Series by various authors https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=the+professional+scrum+series&crid=1WVNY1VHR0QAQ&sprefix=professional+scrum+series ·         Zombie Scrum by Christiaan Verijs, Johannes Schartau and Barry Overeem https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zombie-Scrum-Survival-Guide-Professional/dp/0136523269 ·         The Professional Agile Leader: The Leader's Journey Toward Growing Mature Agile Teams and Organizations (The Professional Scrum Series) by Ron Eringa, Kurt Bittner, Laurens Bonnema, foreword by Dave West https://www.amazon.com/Professional-Agile-Leader-Growing-Organizations-dp-0137591519/dp/0137591519/ Episode Transcript Ula Ojiaku (Guest Intro): Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. It's my honour to introduce my guest for this episode. He is Dave West. Dave is the CEO of Scrum.org and prior to joining Scrum.org as CEO, he led the development of the Rational Unified Process, also known as RUP with IBM. He was also Chief Product Officer for Tasktop Technologies and Managing Director of the Americas at Ivar Jacobson Consulting. He is a widely published author of several articles and research reports, as well as the books The Nexus Framework for Scaling Scrum and Head First Object-Oriented Analysis and Design. In this conversation, Dave talked about growing up in the council estates, being raised by his grandparents who were of great positive influence in his life, especially his grandmother. He also talked about navigating the challenges of being dyslexic, especially as a student in secondary school with the silver lining being that he got introduced to computers. Dave also gave his perspective on one of the ongoing “agile wars” quote unquote, on the concept of projects and whether they still have a place in agile or not. Without further ado ladies and gentlemen, my conversation with Dave, I am sure you would find it very, very interesting, relevant and insightful. Thanks again for listening. Ula Ojiaku So we have on this episode of the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast, Dave West, who is the CEO of Scrum.org. Dave, it's a pleasure to have you on this show, thank you for making the time. Dave West Oh, well, thank you for inviting me. I'm glad we've finally managed to make the time to do this. It's great to talk to you. Ula Ojiaku Yes, well, the honour is mine. Let's start by talking about, you know, getting to know about the man, Dave. Can you, you know, tell us a bit about that? Dave West Yeah, I'll try not to bore your audience. So I was brought up on a council estate in a little town called Market Harborough, just outside Leicester. I lived with my grandparents, and which has definitely, my grandmother's definitely shaped who I am, I think, which is fantastic. So I got into computers, sort of a little bit by accident. I'm dyslexic and I found school, particularly secondary school, very challenging. I don't know if any of your audiences had a similar experience, but, you know, I went from a very protected environment and secondary school is a, oh my gosh, it's like an experience that could scare any human being. And so my dyslexia really was a challenge there and there was a teacher at secondary school called Phil Smith. He drove a sports car, he was sort of like that young, you know those teachers that you remember from school that are the good looking young ones. And he ran a computer lab and it had, you know, RS236, it had these really old computers, well, now we would look at them, they were brand new at the time, computers and some BBC model As and some other things. And I helped him and he gave me a lot of time in the lab and it was my sort of like escape. So I got very into computing and helped him and helped other teachers who were rubbish, I'm not going to lie, with computing. So that allowed me then, you know, I went through, managed to survive school, went to a further education college called Charles Keene where I studied, well I did a computing course, so not traditional A'levels and all of that. And then got into Huddersfield that was a poly at the time, became a University whilst I was there. And I think that that gave me a great opportunity, it was a fantastic university, it was a very practical course. My dyslexia became less of an issue because of, you know, word processing and I'd be honest and, you know, the ability for it to read back, even though it was an awful read back, it was like listening to say, you know, to like an old fashioned Stephen Hawking, you know, sort of, and then got me a job at Commercial Union, which then led to me doing a Masters, which then led me to move to London, all this sort of stuff. The adventure was great. The thing about, I guess, my journey is that it, I was driven at a certain point, I became very driven by the need to improve the way in which we delivered software development at that time, and that led me through my Masters and, you know, Object-Oriented and then to a company called Rational Software where I became the Product Manager for RUP, the Rational Unified Process. Now for the agilists listening, they're probably like, oh, boo hiss, and that's totally legit. It was in fact, that's when I first met Ken Schwaber and he told me I was an idiot, which turns out he was right. Ken Schwaber the creator (of Scrum), who I work for now. Anyways. Ula Ojiaku I mean, who wouldn't know Ken Schwaber if you're a self-respecting agilist.  Sorry, go on please. Dave West Yeah, he's an interesting character for sure. Anyway, so I was the RUP Product Manager and I realised I went to this large insurance company in the Midwest and it's a huge organisation and I met this lady and she said, I'm a use case. I said, what do you do? She said, I'm a use case specifier, and meet my friend, she's a use case realiser and I'm like, oh, no, that's not the intent. And so I realised that there was this process that I loved, and I still definitely love elements of it, but was fundamentally flawed in terms of helping actually people to work together to work on complex problems and solve them. So that, you know, and I'd written a book and I'd done some other things on the way to this point, but this point really did make me realise that I was going wrong, which was a little scary because RUP was incredibly popular at that time, and so then that led me to work with Ivar Jacobson, tried to bring in Scrum to the unified process, spent more time with Ken Schwaber who'd finally realised I may still be an idiot, but I was an idiot that was willing to listen to him. Then I ended up at Forrester Research, running the application development practice, I became a research director there, which was super interesting, because I spent a lot of time looking at organisations, and I realised a really fundamental problem that I think probably will resonate with many that are listening to this podcast, that people were doing Scrum yeah, Scrum was incredibly popular and people were doing Scrum, but they were doing it in an industrial context. It was more like Water-Scrum-Fall. And I coined that term in a research document, which got picked up by the, InfoQ and all these magazines, it became this sort of ‘thing' – Water-Scrum-Fall. You know, they were doing Scrum, but they only liked to plan once a year, and there's a huge planning sort of routine that they did. They were doing Scrum, but they rarely released because the customers really don't want it - it's incredibly hard and dangerous and things can go horribly wrong. And so they were doing Scrum, but they weren't really doing Scrum, you know. And so that was super interesting. And I got an opportunity to do a number of workshops and presentations on the, sort of like the solution to this Water-Scrum-Fall problem with Ken, I invited him and we did this very entertaining roadshow, which I'm surprised we weren't arrested during it, but we were, it was a really interesting experience. I then decided like any good practitioner, I had to do a Startup. So I went to Tasktop working with Mik Kersten and the gang at Tasktop, and the great thing about Tasktop was it was a massive fire hose of doing Scrum, trying to make payroll, learning about everything around delivering a product in a market that wasn't really there and that we had to build. And it was just fantastic working with a lot of OEMs, a lot of partners and looking at, and then we got funding. We grew to five teams. I was running product and engineering. And Ken was continually talking to me through this time, and mentoring me, coaching me, but I realised he was also interviewing me. So he then said to me, one day, Dave, I don't want to be the CEO of Scrum.org anymore. I'd like you to be, when can you start? Ken doesn't take no for an answer, and I think that's part of the success of Scrum. I think that his persistence, his tenacity, his, you know, sort of energy around this, was the reason why Scrum, part of the reason him and Jeff, you know, had different skills, but definitely both had that in common, was successful. So I then came and joined about seven years ago Scrum.org, to run Scrum.org and it's an amazing organisation Ula Ojiaku And if I may just go back a bit to what you said about your time in secondary school, you said you were dyslexic and apart from the fact that you discovered computers, you had a horrible experience. What made it horrible for you? Dave West I think it was, you know, there's no support network, there's nobody checking in on you, particularly at secondary school. At primary school, you have a teacher that you're in the same room, you've sort of got that, you're with the same kids, but you go, you know, you, you go from one lesson to another lesson, to another lesson and if you're a little bit, well for me, you know, reading and writing was incredibly difficult. I could read and write at that point. I was about nine and a half, 10 when I finally broke through, thanks to an amazing teacher that worked with my primary school. And, but I was way, way behind. I was slower. I, you know, and teachers didn't really, it was almost as though, and I'm sure education's very different now, and both my children are dyslexic and they go to a special school that's designed around this, so I know that it's different for them, but the teaching was very much delivery without inspection and adaption of the outcome, you know, just to make it a bit agile for a second. So you go through all this stuff and I wasn't able to write all the stuff down fast enough. I certainly wasn't able to process it, so because of that, it was pretty awful. I always felt that I was stupid, I was, you know, and obviously I relied on humour and I was a big lad, so I didn't have any bullying issues, but it was very, very challenging. And I found that I could be good at something with computers. And I sort of got it, I understood how to write, you know, BASIC very quickly and maybe even a little Assembly. I knew how to configure machines, it just seemed natural, it certainly helped my confidence, which, you know, maybe I'm a little too confident now, but definitely had an impact on my future life. Ula Ojiaku That's awesome, and I'm sure there are people who would be encouraged by what you've just said, so I wanted to begin there. Thanks for sharing. Now, what about, what do you do when you're not working? Dave West What do I do when I'm not working? Well, I'm a, that's a hard question. Gosh. So I have a nine year old and a six year old, and two boys, so, you know, sometimes I'm refereeing wrestling matches, you know, I'm definitely dealing with having children, I was late to life having children. I'm 52 and I have a nine year old and a six year old. I thought that, you know, a single lifestyle, a bachelor lifestyle in Boston and, you know, loving my work, writing books, you know, doing this traveling the world was going to be survive, and then I met the most amazing girl and, who persuaded me that I needed to have children, and I thought, well, I really like you, so I'd better. And it's been an incredible adventure with these children. They've taught me so much, the most important thing I think they've taught me is patience. And it's making me a better human being, and many of those traits, just to bring it back to Agile for a second, are things that we need to build better into the way that we turn up at work because you know, the project, I think it was called Aristotle, the Google big project where they looked at the successful teams, they found a number of traits, but one of those traits that was so important was psychological safety, right? And that requires you to attend every interaction with a mindfulness, not of doing things that you want to do to yourself, which is that sort of golden rule, but that platinum rule, do unto others as they want be done unto. And, and I think that is so, so important and crucial, and it's something that I aspire to, I don't always succeed every day as a human being, you know, whether it's at the checkout at the supermarket or whether it's waiting in line, particularly at the moment in an airport, and it's just, you know, something that I think in an agile team is so important because that safety is so, so required to create that environment where transparency happens, to create that environment where you can have those honest conversations about what's happening next, or what's happened previously where you're running those retrospectives, where you're trying to really plan when there is not enough knowledge to plan. You know, those sort of things require that kind of environment to be successful. So, you know, though, yes, I spend my life either working or really spending it with my children at the moment because of the age they're at, I think it's helping me, the time I'm spending with my children is helping me be a better human being and be a better Agilist.  Ula Ojiaku There's something you said, you know, about psychological safety and being kind, it just reminded me that, you know, of that, the need for also to be respectful of people, because when you are kind and you're showing people respect, they would, that brings down the barriers and makes them, you know, more inclined to be open and to participate. What do you think about that? Would you say there's a link between respect and kindness, I know we're being philosophical right now… Dave West Well actually, yes, but no, it's incredibly practical as well. I think that kindness, so I've written quite a lot about kindness, because it's a trait that we, as a community, our professional Scrum trainer community, manifests and lives. It's something that we actually interview for when you join our community, and the reason why we do that, isn't because we're a bunch of hippies that just like kumbaya, want everybody to hold hands and be nice to each other, I mean, that would be great as well and who doesn't like a good rendition of kumbaya, it's a great song, but it's because we believe that kindness, ultimately, is beneficial to both parties, particularly the person that's being kind, because it creates, not only does it create levels of karma, but it creates that transparency, it creates that opportunity to learn that you may not get, if you go in in a very confrontational way and people don't intentionally be confrontational, but it's so easy for it to happen. You know, it's so easy for you to question, because, you know, somebody says something you're like, well, I don't agree with that, and that instantly creates an environment or a connection that is, you know, confrontational, you're in this position, it spirals, blah, blah, blah. So, but you can, instead of saying, I don't agree with that say, hey, well, that's interesting, let me have a look into that, and you're inquisitive. And if you try to approach everything with that sort of like kindness model, and I don't mean always being nice. Nice is different to kind, nice is like faking, I think, sometimes, you know, it's funny, you don't have to be kind to be nice, but you have to be nice to be kind if you understand what I mean. So you can fake niceness, niceness is part of being kind. So, you know, if you approach it in the right way, where you care about people and you care about what they're bringing to the table and you care about the environment that they're in, whether it's just simple things like checking in more frequently, you know, whether it's actually making time in this very scheduled life that we live now with zoom call after zoom call, to check in with the team, or the person that you're talking to, to see how are they turning up today? How has their day been? And I think that's, you know, super, super important. The other important element of kindness that comes out is this helping others element, you know, my gran, God rest her soul, Lilian, she was a rockstar on so many levels. And she used to say to me, when I came home from school, particularly from elementary school or primary school, I think we call it in England, right? She'd say things like, not what have you done today, I mean, sometimes she said that, but she'd say, who have you helped? Who have you helped? I'd be like uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, and she said it enough that I realised it's important, you know, it's important that you spend time with others, help them in their tasks, you know, because I think you can learn so much and build those relationships, build that safety that is so, so important to really develop. We work in complex environments, right, that's the whole point of agility. Complex environments require people to collaborate, they require people to look at things in different ways. They really benefit from diversity, diversity of mind, diversity of experience, diversity of skill. And you bring that together, but you can only bring all these different parts together when you have an environment that allows for it, and traditional project management techniques, fabulous as they were for building bridges and tunnels and everything like that, didn't allow that, they don't encourage that. They encourage people to be focused, to be efficient, to be managing to that model. And I think we have to step away from that and work in a slightly different way where kindness, psychological safety, trust, respect, use the word respect. And I think it's, you know, obviously it's a Scrum value, but it's crucial to effectively allowing independent people with diverse perspectives to work together in an effective way. And to be honest society doesn't have enough of that in general. I think we've definitely moved away from respect and trust. We don't trust in our governments, we don't trust in our institutions, we don't trust in our fellow human beings and we've become very much focused on ourselves and our individual needs. And the reality is there's no such thing as a self-made person, you're only there because of the success of previous generations. As you drive to work on a car, on a road that has been built by others, that's been funded by others, you know, so this idea that you are in it alone, you know, is completely wrong, and I think sometimes we bring that to the work and it creates an environment that is not as successful. Ula Ojiaku True, true. No, thanks for that, Dave. I completely agree. Now there are people back to this project program that feel like, you know, the word project in agile is a taboo, almost a swear word. What's your perspective on this? Dave West I don't think it's a swear word, I don't think it's taboo. I think, you know, Mik's book is a fabulous book and he's a fabulous person, but he was using it to emphasise the fact that, you know, that we have become too focused on this, you know, investment paradigm, this organisation paradigm, this structural paradigm of the project and that, ultimately, the idea of a product, this idea of a cohesive set of capabilities that's packaged in some way that has a clear boundary, that has a clear set of customers, that has some clear value, is a much better way of aligning your people and your investments. And so he was emphasising that, and obviously he emphasised the idea of value streams being the mechanism that we deliver value in this construct to these people in this packaging of products, and it's a great book and I recommend everybody should read it. Ula Ojiaku I have mine here. Dave West No, that's good. Yeah. I was fortunate enough to be involved in the development of the book a little, working with Mik, providing a lot of feedback and I think it's a great book. However, the idea of a project doesn't go away and all of that work that we did, that organisations that I respect deeply like the PMI and, you know, that even, dare I say, things like Prince2, all of that work, isn't wrong. It's just, we need to look at it from a different lens. The idea that complex work is there changes certain things, the fact that requirements and understandings and appreciation of what we're doing emerges over time, that is just a truth, and that was true of projects as well. We just need to build in the mechanisms to be better able to deal with that. The fact that we would invest hundreds, if not thousands of hours planning things that ultimately fell apart when some underlying assumption changed and then we'd create a change order to deal with the chaos that that created need to be, we need to step away from those ideas. Do we still have projects? I think yes, sometimes you will have something that has a, you know, put a man on, or hopefully it's not a man, hopefully it's a woman, but a woman on Mars. I don't trust men on, I think it'd be much more successful if it was a woman, but, anyway, or person. Men get old, they don't grow up, right? Isn't that the saying, but anyway, so putting that person on Mars is a project, right? It has a definitive, you know, plan, it has an end goal that's very clearly underside. It's very likely that we're going to build a series of products to support that, you know, there is, I don't think we need to get tied up so much on the words, project and product. However, we really need to step back a little bit and look at, okay, you know, like treating people as resources, breaking up teams and reforming teams continuously, treating people as fungible or whatever that is, they're just unrealistic. It's not nothing to do with project or product, they're just silly, you just can't deal with this. The fact that teams take time to form, you know, the fact that, you know, the most successful agile teams I've ever seen are teams that have a clear line of sight to the customer, clear understanding of what they're trying to do for that customer, have guardrails, have an enabling management structure that provides support to deliver that value to that customer. As long as you think about those things and you don't get so tied up with the dance or the routine of project management that you forget that, then I'm not concerned. You know, there's this big thing about, oh, should project managers be Scrum masters? I don't know, it depends on the project manager. Sometimes project managers make very good product owners because they take real clear ownership of the outcomes and the value that's trying to be delivered. Sometimes, you know, they make great Scrum masters because they care very much about the flow of work, the team dynamics, the service to the organisation, the service to the business, and they want to act in that way. And sometimes you just want to get stuff done and work in a team, as a developer on that increment. You know, I don't know, you know, people are like, oh, because, and I think this is the fundamental problem, and you've got me onto my soapbox here and I apologise, but the thing that I see over and over again is the use of agile in an industrial, mass production oil and mass production way of thinking about the world. So what they do is that it isn't agile or project management that's at fault. It's the paradigm that's driving the use of agile or the use of project management. You can do agile in a very waterfall way, don't get me wrong or a very industrial way, I almost don't want to use the word waterfall, but this idea of, you know, maximizing efficiency. I mean, gosh, the word velocity has been as synonymous of agile forever when ultimately it's got nothing to do with agility, you know, it's a useful mechanism for a team to help them run a retrospective sometimes. But it isn't a mechanism that you use to plan, you know, the capacity of your organisation and all this sort of idea,  what they're trying to do always is use an industrial, you know, sort of mindset in an agile context, in a context that doesn't support an industrial mindset or a traditional mindset. And that drives me mad because I see agility being used to deliver work rather than value, I see agility basically being missed, sort of like, almost jimmied in with a crowbar into these massive projects and programs where you've got fixed scope, fixed budgets at the start. They don't actually know what they're trying to achieve, but you've got all these contracts in place that describe all this stuff, very detailed up front. And then they say, we're going to use agile to do it, and you're like, okay, what are we, you know, what happens if the first sprint uncovers the fact that the product goal was fundamentally flawed? Oh well, we can't change that because the contract says, well, hang on a minute, what are we in this business for? Are we actually trying to deliver value to customers and help them solve a particular problem to deliver? Or are we trying to do something else? And they're like, no, we're trying to deliver on the contract. Oh, but isn't the contract a mechanism that describes that? Maybe, but that's not why we're here. And that's when it starts getting, going wrong, I think,  that industrial mindset that I just want, tell me what to do, give me a job, let me sit down, just give me that change order and I will start work. It's just wrong. And for certain types of project, and certain types of product and certain types of problem, you know, it probably works really well if we're building the 17th bridge or we're, you know, doing those sort of things. But the reality is in the digital age, that most knowledge workers, who are the people that really benefit from agile the most, that aren't working in that way, they're working with very changeable environments, very changeable customer understanding very, you know, it's a little bit more complex. Ula Ojiaku True, true. And what you're saying reminds me of my conversation with Dave Snowden, he's known for his work on complexity theory, Cynefin, and if it's in a complex adaptive environment, you know, you need to be agile, but if it's a complicated problem or a simple problem, so complicated is really about, you know, breaking it down into a series of simple problems but it's still sequential and predictable, you could use, you know, the traditional waterfall method, because nothing is going to change, it's really putting all those pieces together to get to a known end state, and so I am of the same mindset as you, in terms of it's all about the context and understanding what exactly are you trying to achieve, what's of value to the customer and how much of it do we know and how much learning do we have to do as we get there. Dave West Exactly. I'm obviously not anywhere near as smart as somebody like a Dave Snowden who just, I think he has forgotten more things than I've ever understood, but yeah, I mean he's an amazing thought leader in this space, but the challenge and he talks a little bit about this sometimes, or I think he does, is that we don't always know what's complicated or complex or the amount of unknown. And this is, you know, this is the classic sort of entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs aren't necessarily working in complexity, they're working in unknown. But the nature of complex unknown is really tricky because you may discover that something that you thought was known is not known, and then you then have to change how you approach it. So the reason in Scrum, what we do is we deliver frequently and that, ultimately, and we deliver the most valuable things or the things that will give us the most value, thus that uncovers those misunderstandings early in the process. Ula Ojiaku Yeah, completely true. And just to build on what you said in terms of understanding or realising that your product goal was wrong, you're working on the wrong thing. Sometimes you might have to also kind of say goodbye to the project or pull the plug. It depends. Dave West Yeah. And that's incredibly hard, sorry, just to lean into that. It's very hard because you've got people that are there and you've invested time, you know, there's the sort of classic fallacy of sunk costs, all that stuff, but the reality is it's not a fallacy of psychological sort of like sunk energy. You've invested all this time and money and effort and motion to get where you're at and then you're realising it's wrong. It's incredibly hard to step away from that. And so what you do, and you see this with startups all the time is, you know, you pivot, you pivot, you pivot, you pivot, you pivot, but you don't really pivot, what you're doing actually is trying to find a way to get all that investment that you've spent to be useful to deliver some value, you know, and whether it's repackaging or whatever, so that you can say, oh, that's okay when actually, and you can spend as much time doing that as you did the original thing, and now you are even worse, in a worse situation and it's hard. Ula Ojiaku Yes. Completely agree. So there's something you said about, you know, you gave an example of people doing, if I will use your term, Water-Scrum-Fall, in their delivery. And sometimes, you know, they go into detailed requirements, you know, specification, and this is, and they write an iron-clad contract that would, you know, kind of specify all these requirements have to be met, and whilst from the delivery perspective, in terms of the teams who actually do the work, it's they are, they get it, they want to be agile, but it's always these constraints. And whenever we, as an agile coach, you know, you go into the root of the matter. It's the typical root causes of why there is this inflexibility it's either, you know, the leadership and/or, you know, the business or their clients not wanting, you know, having that traditional expectations, any advice on how to effectively deal with this sort of blocker? Dave West I think it's very difficult, particularly when it's like outsourced or you've got, you know, that sort of it's contract-based as opposed to internal in terms of commitments. So it's not budgeted it's actually contracted. And when, when that happens it's very difficult, because you know, you've got the deal because you know how to do stuff and you've done it before, and you've got all that experience with the customer of course, so it's well, because you've done it before and you've invested all this experience, you must tell us exactly what it is that we are going to do. And the reality is the customer themselves doesn't know what they want, really. And until you actually get into the process, it's very difficult. I think one of the big things that's going to happen over the next few years, and we're starting to see some of this with things like Beyond Budgeting, the new procurement contract models that the US is, is perpetuating with 18F and the work of the central government. It would sort of stop during the previous administration, but it's now back, you know, how do you do agile contract management, what does it mean? Speaking from personal use, you know, of external companies to do work for Scrum.org, we pay for sprints. We define a clear product goal that we evaluate continuously, that's measurable. We, you know, we have a product owner from Scrum.org embedded in the Scrum team, even if the Scrum team or in the Scrum team, so of course, if the product owner, they are part of the Scrum team, but even if the Scrum team is predominantly a third party. So we do things like that to, and because you can't just fund one sprint at a time. It's very, you know, these people have got to pay mortgages and you know, they've got payroll to hit, so you have to negotiate a number of sprints that you would do it that allows them the flexibility to manage those constraints whilst being realistic, that at the end of a sprint review, you may discover so much stuff, or even during a sprint, that questions everything, and requires a fundamentally, you know, shifting of the backlog, maybe a change to the backlog, assuming that the objective and the product goal is still valid. You know, so putting those things in place, having those honest conversations and partnership conversations with the client is crucial. And the, you know, service companies that serve Scrum.org are a little bit luckier because we actually come at that from a, we know that we don't know what we want, whereas most clients, it's a lot harder to get them to say that. We know what we'd like to achieve, so the other thing that's important and I think that OKRs are maybe part of this, we have a thing called EBM, Evidence Based Management, which is a sort of like an agile version of OKRs. The OKRs and if defining the outcomes that you're trying to achieve and how you're going to measure them up front, validating them continuously, because it's possible you're wrong, but it's a much less of a scary prospect than not describing anything at all, or just having some very highfaluting goal. So getting very clear and precise in what you're trying to achieve and actually investing the time up front to work out what that means, and getting everybody on the same page around that can really help solve those problems long term, because you build to that, and that ultimately becomes the true north that everybody's working to. So when you have those moments of oh, that's not what we thought then, you know, that's okay, because you are validating against at least something, you have some level of structure in all of this. Ula Ojiaku So let's get to some other questions. What books have you, you know, read that you would say have kind of impacted the way your outlook on, or view on the subject of agile agility or anything else, what would you recommend to the audience? Dave West So the books that really changed my life around thinking about this in a different way, there was a few. The one that actually has nothing to do with agile that made me step back from the way I was looking at the world was Thank You for Being Late by Thomas Friedman. That book really sort of like reinforced the fact that the world is incredibly complex and is, you know, he's famous for The World is Flat, you know, the sort of like global supply chain thing, which we are all very aware of and it's fundamentally having a huge impact now on prices and inflation and the like because of, you know, it's been such a mess over the last two and a half years. So that changed my outlook with respect to the world that I'm living in, which I thought was quite interesting. In terms of straight agility, you know, I'll be honest, there's Scrum – A Pocket Guide that taught me professional Scrum, that's Gunther Verheyen's book that I'd never really thought about Scrum in that way. And then I have to plug the series, The Professional Scrum Series from Addison, well, it's Pearson now, sorry. There are some great books in there, Zombie Scrum is absolutely fabulous. And actually, coming out on the 17th of June is a new book about leadership, The Professional Agile Leader: The Leader's Journey Toward Growing Mature Agile Teams and Organizations. I just read that, so I did not remember it, but it's by three people I adore, Ron Eringa, Kurt Bittner and Laurens Bonnema. They're awesome, you know, had lots of leadership positions, written a great book. I wrote an inspired forward just in case anybody's checking that, you know, that confidence thing certainly came back after middle school, right. But that's a really interesting book that talks about the issue that you highlighted earlier, that leadership needs, we've spent a lot, we've spent 25 years teaching Scrum to teams. We need to spend the next, probably 60 years, teaching Scrum to leaders and trying to help, and it's not just Scrum, it's agile, hence the reason why this isn't just about Scrum, you know, whether it's Kanban, whether it's Flow, whether it's Spotify Model, whether it's whatever, but the essence of that, you know, empiricism, self-management, you know, the continuous improvement, the importance of discipline, the importance of being customer centric, the value of outcomes and measures against outcomes, the value of community and support networks, you know, all of this stuff is crucial and we need to start putting that thing, you know, whether it's business agility, whether you call it business agility, you know, all organisations, I think the pandemic proved this, need to be more agile in responding to their market, to their customers, to their employers and to the society that they contribute to. We get that. Leadership needs to change, and that's not a, you're wrong and awful, now sort of old leadership bad. No, it's just the reality is the world has changed and the more mindful leaders step back and say, oh, what do I have to do differently? Now, my entire team is remote, my, you know, my work is hard to plan, the fact that we, you know, our funding cycles have changed, our investment models have changed, you know, stepping back a little bit. So this professional, agile leader book I do recommend. Obviously I had the benefit of reading it before it became a book and it's very, very good and fun to read. Ula Ojiaku Awesome, we will put the list of books and links to them in the show notes, so thank you for that. Now, is there anything you'd like to ask you know, of the audience? Dave West Oh gosh, I don't know. I mean, my only sort of like, if it's sort of closing, if we've unfortunately come to the end of our time together and I, you know, I did waffle on, so I apologise for using far too much of it. But I guess the question I, and we talked a little bit about this, but you know, this sort of, there is a propensity in our industry, like every industry, and every moment, and every movement to become very inward looking, to become very like my way is better than every other way, you know. And obviously I'm very into Scrum and I apologise, I accept that I am. But I'm not arrogant enough to believe that it is the only way of solving complex problems. I'm also not arrogant to believe that it is sufficient. You know, I love the work of the Lean UX, Agile UX, we loved it so much we worked with Jeff and Josh to build a class together. I love the work of Daniel Vacanti and in professional Kanban and the Kanban community in general, I love, you know, I love the work of the professional coaching organisations and what they're really doing to help me be a better human being dare I say. You know, the point is, as you sit at this moment in time, you as an agile practitioner, have the opportunity to draw on many different disciplines and many different experts to really help to create that environment. That can allow agility to thrive and value to be delivered. And I think the only thing that's getting in the way of you doing that, or the only thing that was getting in the way of me doing that, and it still does sometimes is uberous arrogance and just a lack of, I don't know, not willing, not being willing to step out of my comfort zone and accept that my predefined ideas and my experience, my diversity that I bring isn't necessarily always right and to be more humble and to be more kind. I know it's a country song, you know, humble and kind, right, which I'm, you know, obviously I live in America, so I have to like country music, it's mandatory, but if you can be a little bit kinder and to do what my gran asks, right? Not what did you do today, but who did you help? What did you learn? How are you going to be better tomorrow? If we can do all of those things, then not only are our projects and teams and products better, but our lives better, and maybe society could be a little bit better. Ula Ojiaku Those are great words, Dave, thank you so much for those. One last thing, are you on social media? How can people get in touch with you? Dave West Well you could always dave.west@scrum.org if you want to ping me on this thing called email. If you are under 30, it's this thing that old people like, it's called email. If you're younger and cooler, I do not have a TikTok account, I don't totally know what it is. My son says we need it. I'm not a totally sure that we do, but it's not about clocks as well, who knew that, what was all that about? Ula Ojiaku Well, just like Apple isn't the fruit… Dave West Isn't about fruit, how annoying is that as well? Anyway, and so many misconceptions in the world, right. Anyway, but, and M&Ms aren't Smarties, I know I get it. But anyway, sorry, David J. West is my Twitter handle, you know, but, you know, whatever, LinkedIn, you can always find me on LinkedIn, just do Dave West Scrum.org and you will find me on LinkedIn. Love connecting, love talking about this stuff, maybe a little too much. You know another saying that my gran used to say, “you've got two ears and one mouth, shame you never used it like that, David”. I was like, yes, gran, I know, yeah. She also didn't by the way, just for the record anyway. Ula Ojiaku Oh gosh, your grandma Lilian sounds like she was one awesome woman. Dave West Rockstar, rockstar. Ula Ojiaku Well, thank you so much, Dave. It's been a pleasure and I thoroughly enjoyed having this conversation with you, actually more learning from you and I hope sometime you'll be back again for another conversation. Dave West I would love that. Thank you for your audience. Thank you for taking the time today. I appreciate it. Let's stay in touch and I hope that we'll see maybe in person again soon. Ula Ojiaku Yeah, that will be wonderful.

Bio  Evan is the Founder and CEO of the Business Agility Institute; an international membership body to both champion and support the next-generation of organisations. Companies that are agile, innovative and dynamic – perfectly designed to thrive in today's unpredictable markets. His experience while holding senior leadership and board positions in both private industry and government has driven his work in business agility and he regularly speaks on these topics at local and international industry conferences.    Interview Highlights  01:10 Nomadic childhood  08:15 Management isn't innate  14:54 Confidence, competency and empathy  21:30 The Business Agility Institute  31:20 #noprojects  Social Media/ Websites:           LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evanleybourn/          Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eleybourn          Twitter: @eleybourn          Websites: o   Business Agility Institute https://businessagility.institute/  o   The Agile Director (Evan's personal site): https://theagiledirector.com/          Books/ Articles                   #noprojects: A Culture of Continuous Value by Evan Leybourn and Shane Hastie https://www.amazon.co.uk/noprojects-Culture-Continuous-Value/dp/1387941933          Directing the Agile Organisation: A Lean Approach to Business Management by Evan Leybourn https://www.amazon.co.uk/Directing-Agile-Organisation-approach-management-ebook/dp/B01E8WYTQ6          Out of the Crisis by W. Edwards Deming https://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Crisis-Press-Edwards-Deming/dp/0262535947          The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt https://www.amazon.co.uk/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement-ebook/dp/B002LHRM2O          Sooner, Safer, Happier by Jonathan Smart, Jane Steel et al https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sooner-Safer-Happier-Antipatterns-Patterns/dp/B08N5G1P6D          Dare to Lead by Brene Brown https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dare-Lead-Brave-Conversations-Hearts/dp/1785042149          Article: Evan's Theory of Agile Constraints https://theagiledirector.com/article/2017/04/27/evans-theory-of-agile-constraints/ Episode Transcript  Ula Ojiaku (Guest Intro): Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener.  Ula Ojiaku  I am honoured to have with me Evan Leybourn, he is the founder and CEO of the Business Agility Institute, an international membership body that champions and supports the next generation of organisations. I am really, really pleased to have you here. Thank you for making the time Evan.  Evan Leybourn  Thank you Ula, I'm looking forward to this.  Ula Ojiaku  Awesome, now, so I always start with my guests and I'm very curious to know who is Evan and how did you evolve to the Evan we know right now today?  Evan Leybourn  I suppose that's a long one, isn't it? So I'm Australian, I was born in a small country town in the middle of nowhere, called Armadale, it's about midway between Sydney and Brisbane, about 800 kilometers from both, about 200 kilometers inland, and moved to Sydney when I was fairly young. Now I've spent my entire childhood moving house to house, city to city. So  the idea of stability, I suppose, is not something that I ever really had as a child. I'm not saying this is a bad thing. I don't, I had as good as childhood as any, but it's, I love moving, I love new experiences and that's definitely one of the, I think drivers for me in, when I talk about agility, this idea that the world changes around you. I think that a lot of that early childhood just, disruption, has actually put me in a pretty good place to understand and deal with the disruption of the world and then so, well, we've got COVID and everything else right now. So obviously there is a big, there are issues right now, and disruption is the name of the game. I started my career as a techie. I was a systems administrator in Solara Systems, then a programmer, and then a business intelligence data warehousing person. So I've done a lot of that sort of tech space. And, but you mentioned like the Business Agility Institute and this is the organisation I work now, but probably have to go back to 2008 when, I've been using agile, capital A agile, Scrum and XP, primarily a little bit of FDD in a data warehousing business intelligence space. And in 2008, I got promoted to be an executive in the Australian Public Service. And this was, I think, my first exposure to like, before that I'd run teams, I'd run projects, I knew how to do stuff. And like being a first level leader or project manager, it's, everything is personal. I don't need process, I don't need all those things that make organisations work or not work as the case may be, because when you've got seven people reporting to you, like that's a personal form of management.  So when I became a director, this was, I think, my first exposure into just how different the world was when, well the world of business was. And, I'll be blunt, I wasn't a good director. I got the job because I knew what to do. I knew how to, like, I could communicate in the interview how to like, build this whole of governments program, and that isn't enough. I had this assumption that because I was good at X, I would be good at being a leader of X and that's not the case. And so I actually, there's a concept called the Peter principle, being promoted to your level of incompetence. And that was me. I, it's, that's literally, I didn't know what I was doing, and of course, no one likes to admit to themselves that they're a fraud. It took my boss at the time to tell me that I was arrogant, because, and, and that actually hurt because, it's like, I don't see myself as arrogant, it's not part of my mental model of myself. And so, that push, that sort of sharp jab at my ego, at my sense of self was enough to go, hang on, well, actually, maybe I need to look at what it means to be a leader, what it means to create that kind of skillset, and I had this idea at the time that this thing that I'd been doing back as a techie called agile, maybe that might help me with, help me solve the problems I was facing as an executive – coordination, collaboration, not amongst seven people, but amongst like five, six different government agencies where we're trying to build this whole of government program and long story short, it worked. And this was sort of my first ‘aha moment' around what we sort of now would call, or what I would now call business agility, though definitely what I was doing back in 2008 was very, a far cry from what I would think of as good business agility. It was more like agile business, but that's what sort of set me up for the last, almost 15 years of my career and helping and advocating for creating organisations that are customer centric with employee engagement, engaged people, that idea of, we can be better if we have, take these values and these principles that we hold so dear in a technology space and we make that possible, we make that tangible in a business context. So it's a bit rambly, but that's kind of the journey that got me to where I am.  Ula Ojiaku  Not to me at all. I find it fascinating, you know, hearing people's stories and journeys. Now, there's something you said about, you know, you, weren't a good director, you knew how to do the work, but you just didn't know, or you weren't so good at the leadership aspects and then you had a wake up moment when your boss told you, you were coming off as arrogant. Looking back now and knowing what you now know, in hindsight, what do you think where the behaviours you were displaying that whilst it wasn't showing up to you then, but you now know could be misconstrued as arrogance?   Evan Leybourn  So let me take one step. I will answer your question, but I want to take it one step before that, because I've come to learn that this is a systemic problem. So the first thing, I shouldn't have been given that job, right. Now, do I do a good job? Eventually, yes, and I grew into it, and I'm not saying you need to be an expert in the job before you get it. Learning on the job is a big part of it, but we as a society, see that management is innate. It's something that you have, or you don't, and that's completely wrong. You don't look at a nurse or a doctor or an engineer and think, I can do their job. No, you think if I go to university and train, I can do that job. I don't think we look at a janitor and go, I can do their job without training. And a janitor is going to receive on the job, like it might be a couple of days, but they're going to receive on the job training. There was a study by, I think it was CareerBuilder, 58% of managers receive no training. We just have this assumption that I'm looking at my boss, I can do their job better than them. And maybe you can, but better isn't the same as good. Like, if they've reached their levels in competence, yes, you could probably be better, but not good. And so I think the skills of management are, it's an entirely different skillset to what, the thing that you are managing. And so I was good at, I was Director of Business Intelligence, so I was good at business intelligence, data warehousing systems. I didn't have the skills of management, no, running a thirty-five million dollar P&L, coordinating multiple business units, building out those systems and actually designing the systems that enabled effective outcomes. And so I think, I'm going to touch on two things. The first is, people and I, definitely, should have invested in learning how the skills of management before I became a manager. Not so that you're perfect, not so that you're an expert manager before you start, because you will learn more on the job than you ever will, from anything before you, before you do that job. But I didn't, it's the, I didn't know what I didn't know. I didn't know I was a bad manager. I was completely blind to that fact. I knew that outcomes weren't happening and that I was struggling, but half the time, it's a, why won't people listen to me? Why wouldn't they do what I say? Right, which, okay, yes, definitely not servant leadership material, but I didn't even know servant leadership was a thing. Right, so that's the point. At a minimum, I should have known what it took to be a manager, the skills that were going to be required of me. I should have made some investments in building that before I took that job, which is now the second point as to, they shouldn't have given me the job. And, again, this goes to that systemic problem.  I forget who like, there was like a Facebook, like, or a Reddit, like screenshot tweet, meme thing. And I saw it like six or seven years ago, and it stuck with me ever since. It was ‘God save us from confident middle-aged white men'. And I wasn't middle-aged, I was the youngest director in the public service at the time, but I definitely was confident. And for those of you not watching the video, I am white. So, the privilege and the assumption, I carried confidence into the interview, of course I can do the job, I run this team, I know how to do, like I know business intelligence and I know how to design business development systems, and it's like, sure it's a different scale, but it's the same thing. And because I came across as confident, because I thought I could do the job. I thought it was just what I was doing before, plus one, right. But it wasn't, because sure, I could do the plus one part, but that was 30% of the role. I was completely missing everything else. And so that's that other systemic problem, which I have learnt, sadly, over the last decade and a half, in terms of just, we overvalue confidence, then empathy, we overvalue confidence over skill. And I had one, I was empathetic. I didn't have, and, but I was weak at the skills, the management skills, I should have had all three, competence, confidence and empathy, but we value in interviews, as hiring managers, we interview confidence a lot more than the other two. And that is, I think the, one of the real systemic problems we have in the world, especially in tech, but just generally in the world.  Ula Ojiaku  Awesome. I mean, I was going to ask you, you know, what were those skills, but you've kind of summarised in terms of competence, confidence and empathy. So, well, I'm glad to hear the story had a happier ending, because you definitely changed course. So now knowing, again, what you now know, and you're speaking to Evan of 2008, what are the things, before going for that job, would you have told him to skill up in to be prepared for management?   Evan Leybourn  So, let me get very specific. So confidence, competence, empathy for me, those are the, so  this is something that I came up with, or I don't know where this idea emerged from, it's something that I've carried with me for the better part of a decade. For me, those three attributes are my measures of success. If I can have all three, that's what can make me successful. Now in terms of, going deeper than some of the specific skills that we need, that I needed, so the first one, emotional intelligence. Now, I know that's broad and fuzzy, but there were many times, and many times since I'm not saying I'm perfect and I'm not perfect now. This last week, there have been challenges where it's like I've misobserved, and I wish I had seen that, but being able to understand when you're not hearing somebody, when they're talking to you and you're listening, but not hearing, and so the emotional intelligence to sort of read and understand that there's a gap, there's something missing between what is being said and what is being processed up there in the little grey cells. The other one that, a couple, I'll call it emergent strategy. So, this idea of the three-year plan is completely ridiculous, it's been wrong for 30 years, but we don't develop enough of the counter skill, which is being able to take an uncertain environment, where there's insufficient information and ambiguity, make a decision, but design that decision with feedback loops so that, you know the decision is probably, right, that strategic decision is probably wrong, so rather than sort of run with it for three months and then make another decision, it's designed with these feedback loops, so it's, the next decision is better because you, it's the whole strategic system is designed to create those loops. And that was a key skill that I was missing, in that, this is the government, like I was a Prince 2 Project Manager, an MSP programme manager. I knew how to build the Gantt charts, and I was also an agilest, like I've been doing Scrum for the past five years, but like Scrum at a team level and agility at a business level was not something that many people had even thought about. And so, all of the programme level strategy was not agile. Again, this is 2008, and so we had this,  if I had known how to build an emergent, adaptive strategy, a lot of the challenges, the systems level challenges would have been resolved. And I could go a long time, but I'll give you one more.   So, I'm going to say communication, but not in the way that I think many people think about it. It's not about like conveying ideas or conveying messages, but it is that empathetic communication. It goes with that emotional intelligence and so forth, but it's the ability to communicate a vision, the ability to communicate an idea, and intent, not just the ability to communicate a fact or a requirement, like those are important too, but I could do those, but I had a large teams of teams across, not all of them reported to me, this was a whole government program. So there were people who reported to the program, but their bosses were in a completely different company, government department to me. And so I needed to learn how to align all of these people towards a common vision, a common goal beyond just a here's your requirements, here's the Gantt chart for the program. Please execute on this 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, right, which, sure, they did, but it's, they would, what's the saying? I think it was Deming, give someone a measurable target and they will destroy the company in order to make it. And you give them these, it's like, they will do like what that Gantt chart says, even if the world changes around them and it's the wrong thing to do, and we know, we've learned a lot better as a world, the idea of program level agility is pretty standard now, but 2008, it definitely, wasn't definitely not in government, definitely not in Australia. So, if I had been able to communicate intent and vision and get them aligned to that vision, and not just aligned to a Gantt chart, we would have been a lot more successful, we'd have a lot more buy-in, a lot more engagement. So, there's more, a lot more, but those would be, I think, some of the three that I would say really, really learn before you get the job.   Ula Ojiaku  Well, thanks for that. I'd like to just dive in a bit more, because you said something about the designing, you would have benefited if you knew how to design, build and adapt, that adaptive emerging strategy. How do you do that now? What's the process for doing this?   Evan Leybourn  So let me jump to the present. So, I run the Business Agility Institute. We're a fiercely independent advocacy and research organisation. We've been around for about four years, we don't do consulting, we're funded by our members primarily. Now, one of the very first publications that we put together was something called The Domains of Business Agility. It's not a framework, it doesn't tell you how to do it, it's not like Scrum or SAFe or Beyond Budgeting. Actually, Beyond Budgeting is not quite, if Bjarte heard me call Beyond Budgeting a framework, I'd be in trouble. It's, I think of it, I call it the ‘don't forget' model, because if you're going to change an organisation, these are the domains that you can't forget. The customers at the centre. Around that I would call the relationships, the workforce, your external partners, your vendors and contractors and suppliers, and your Board of Directors, because they represent ownership of the business. Around that are the nine, what I think of as ‘what's domains', right? These are the things that you need to focus on, right, there's leadership domains, individual domains, and so forth. One of them is strategic agility, otherwise known as adaptive strategy or emergent strategy. Now, one of the reasons that is one of the core domains of business agility and has been since 2018, I think, when we first published this, is because this is one of the fundamental capabilities for an organisation to not survive, but to thrive in uncertainty. Now, there are different approaches and, like, there's a whole bunch of different frameworks and approaches to BS, like four quadrant matrixes and tools and canvases. I'm not going to go to any of that, because A, all the tools are fine, right. So, find the one that works for you, Google will be your friend there, but what I want to do is, however, just look at what the characteristics of all those tools, what do they have in common? And I mean, I do that by really telling a little bit of a story. We, one of the things that we run is the Business Agility Conference in New York. It did run every March in New York city until 2020, well actually it ran in 2020. I know the exact date COVID was declared a pandemic because I was literally onstage, because I had to tell our delegates that this was now officially a pandemic, and if you needed to leave early to get flights and so forth, because we had delegates from Denmark and Switzerland, then please feel free to leave and all that kind of thing. Now, this isn't about the conference, but it's about what was happening before the conference. So you had this emergent problem, COVID-19, starting in China, hitting Italy, and I think it was like February 28 or March 1st, thereabouts, the first case hit in America, and it was California, I think it was Orange County, it was the first case. And what happened was we started to see companies change. Now, I describe it, well, sorry, these aren't my words, I'm stealing this from a comic I saw on Facebook at the time, we saw companies responding and companies reacting. Now, this is the difference between strategic agility and non strategic agility. So what was happening, so the first company pulled out from the conference, travel ban, our people can't attend. Within a week we'd lost about 50% of our delegates, right. Now, remember all we know at this point, this isn't the COVID of today, right? All we knew was there was a disease, it was more contagious than the flu, it was deadlier than the flu and it had hit America, right. We didn't know much more than that. We certainly didn't imagine it would be two years later and we're still dealing with it. I remember thinking at the time it's like, all right, we'll have a plan for like September, we'll do something in September, we'll be fine by then, and a famous last words. But companies had to make a decision. Every company didn't have a choice, you were forced to make a decision. Now, the decisions were, like, do I go to a conference or not? Right. Do I ban travel for my employees? Do we work from home? But that decision came later, but there was a first decision to make and, you know what, there's no, there was no difference between companies, those companies that responded and reacted made the first decision the same, right. It's what came next, right. Those companies that were reacting, because every day there was something new that came up, a new piece of information, more infections, a new city, new guidance from the World Health Organisation or the CDC, and companies had to make decisions every single day. And those that were reacting, took the information of the day and made the decision. Those that were responding, took the decision they made yesterday, the new information, looked at the pathway that was emerging, that's that emergent strategy out of it and made the next decision. And so those strategic decisions that they were making as an organisation were built on the ones that came before, rather than discreet decision after decision after decision after decision. And so what ended up happening is you had those companies who were able to build a coherent strategy on insufficient information that grew and adapted and emerged as new information emerged, were better able to respond to the pandemic than those that were chaotically making decisions. And you could see that in something as simple as how quickly they could start working from home, or how quickly they made the decision to work from home, because those that responded, they had this thread of strategy, and so they were able to make the decision to work from home much faster, and then they were able to execute on that much faster. Whereas those that were not, did not. And I think of this as going to the agile gym, or business agility gym, no company was prepared for the pandemic. No company had a strategy paper of, if there's a worldwide pandemic, these are the things that we're going to do. But those companies that have practiced emergent strategy, right, in their product, in how they engage with the marketplace, they'd sort of, they'd taken concepts like lean startup and adopted some of those practices into their organisation. Those who had been to the agile gym, they knew how to respond. They weren't prepared for the scale of pandemic, no one had done emergent strategy at that scale, but they knew, they had the muscle memory, they knew how to do it, and so they just scaled up and operated in that new context. And it's like literally going to the gym, it's, if I build up my muscles, I mean, I definitely don't go to the gym enough, but if I did, right, I could lift more weights. So if a friend goes, hey mate, can you help me move a fridge, right, I'm able to do that because I have the capabilities in my body to do that. If I don't go to the gym, which I don't, not enough, right, and my mate goes, hey, can you help me move a fridge? It's like, I can help, but I'm not going to be that much help. It's, I'll stop it from tilting, right. I'm not going to be the lifter, right. So, the capabilities of that business agility enabled that emergent strategy or the responsiveness during a pandemic, even though no one was prepared for it. And that's kind of really what I see as organisations as they adjust to this new world.  Ula Ojiaku  Now you have this book, actually you've authored a couple of books at the very least, you know, there's #noprojects – A Culture of Continuous Value and Directing the Agile Organisation: A Lean Approach to Business Management Which one would you want us to discuss?   Evan Leybourn  So #noprojects is the most recent book, Directing the Agile Organisation is definitely based on my experience, it's drawing upon that experience back in 2008, I started writing it in 2009. It is out of date, the ideas that are in that book are out of date, I wouldn't suggest anyone reads it unless you're more interested in history. There are ideas, so sometimes I'll talk about the difference between business agility and agile business, where business agility is definitely, it's creating this space where things can happen properly through values and culture and practices and processes. But also it's very human, it's very focused on the outcomes, whereas agile business is more, how do we apply Scrum to marketing teams? And so my first book is unfortunately much more agile business than business agility.   Ula Ojiaku  Okay, so let's go to #noprojects then. There is a quote in a review of the book that says, OK, the metrics by which we have historically defined success are no longer applicable.  We need to re-examine how value is delivered in the new economy. What does that mean, what do you mean by that?   Evan Leybourn  So, the reason I wrote the #noprojects book, and this predates the Institute. So, this is back when I was a consultant. I've run a transformation programme for a large multinational organisation and their project management process was overwhelming. Everything was a project, the way they structured their organisation was that the doers were all contractors or vendors, every employee was a Project Manager. And so what ended up happening was they've got this project management process and it would take, I'm not exaggerating nine months, 300 and something signatures to start a project, even if that project was only like six weeks long. There were cases where the project management cost was seven to eight times the cost of the actual execution. Now that's an extreme case, certainly, and not all were that ratio, but that was kind of the culture of the organisation, and they were doing it to try and manage risk and ensure outcomes, and there's a whole bunch of logical fallacies and business fallacies in that, but that's another matter altogether, but what was happening is they were like, I'm going to focus in on one issue. I said there were many, but one issue was they valued output over outcome. They valued getting a specific piece of work, a work package completed to their desired expectations and they valued that more than the value that that work would produce. And I've seen this in my career for decades, where you'd run a project, again, I used to be a Project Manager, I'm going back like Prince2, you've got this benefits realisation phase at the end of the project. The Project Manager's gone, the project team is gone, the project sponsor is still around, but they're onto whatever's next. Half the time benefits realisation fell to the responsibility of finance to go, okay, did we actually get the value out of that project? And half the time they never did it, in fact more than half the time they never actually did it. It was just a yes, tick. And for those of you who have written business cases, the benefits that you define in the business cases are ridiculous half the time, they pluck it from the air, it's this bloody assumption that, hey, if we do this, it'll be better. I've seen business cases where it's like, we will save $10 million for this organisation by making like page reloads, half a second faster. So every employee will get three minutes back in their day, three minutes times how many employees, times how average salary equals $10 million. It's like how are you going to use that three minutes in some productive way? Is that actually a benefit or are you just trying to upgrade your system, and you're trying to convince finance that they need to let go of the purse strings so that you can do something that you want to do. So if we actually care about the value of things, then we should be structuring the work, not around the outcome, sorry, not around the output, but around the value, we should be incrementally measuring value, we should be measuring the outcome on a regular basis. Agile, we should be delivering frequently, measuring the value, and if we're not achieving the value that we're expecting, well, that's a business decision, right. What do we do with that piece of information? And sometimes it may be continue, because we need to do this, other times it may be, is there a better way to do this? And once you're locked into that traditional project plan, then sure, you might be agile inside the project plan, you might have sprints and Scrum and dev ops and all that kind of stuff, but if you can't change the business rationale as quickly as you can change the technology like the sprint backlog, then what's the point?  Ula Ojiaku  So you mentioned something and I know that some of the listeners or viewers might be wondering what's business outcome versus output? Can you define that?   Evan Leybourn  So, there is a definition in the book, which I wrote like six years ago. So I'm going to paraphrase because I don't remember exactly the words that I wrote, but an output is the thing, the product, the tangible elements of what is created, right. In writing a book, the output is the book. In this podcast, the output is the recording, the podcast that we're doing right now, the outcome and the impact is what we want to achieve from it. So, the output of the podcast is we have a recording, but if no one listens to it, then why? The outcome is that, well, the ultimate outcome is changing hearts and minds. Well, at least that's why I'm here. We want to create some kind of change or movements in, well in your case with your listeners, in the case of the book, the readers, we want to create a new capability, a new way of looking at the world, a new way of doing things. And so the outcome is, hopefully measurable, but not always. But it is that goal, that intent.   Ula Ojiaku  Exactly. So, I mean, for me, outcomes are like, what they find valuable, it's either you're solving and helping them solve a problem or putting them in a position, you know, to get to achieve some gains. Now let's just, are there any other books you might want to recommend to the audience, that have impacted you or influenced you?  Evan Leybourn  Yep. So I'm going to recommend three books. Two are very old books. So the first book is Deming, or actually anything by Deming, but Out of the Crisis is probably the best one, the first one, otherwise The New Economics. Deming is coming out of lean and manufacturing and the Japanese miracle, but he might've been writing in the eighties, seventies, but it's as agile as it gets, right. His 14 points for managers reads like something that would emerge from the Agile Manifesto, right. So I definitely love, I will go to Deming quite regularly in terms of just great concepts and the articulation of it.  The other book that I recommend for the idea, I have to admit it's a bit of a hard read, is The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt. The Theory of Constraints, and if you Google Evan's Theory of Agile Constraints, and I think we're almost out of time, so I don't really have time to talk about it, but it's the Theory of Constraints, both in a practical sense as to how you actually optimise a process, but it also applies when you're looking at it from a holistic metaphorical standpoint, because I like to say, there is a constraint to agility in your organisation. You're only as agile as your least agile function, and it's not it IT software anymore, it's some other part of your business. You might have a sprint that can create a potentially shippable product increment every two weeks, but if it takes you three months to get a hiring ticket, or nine months get a budget change approved or six weeks to, until the next project control board, you're not, your agility is not measured in weeks. Your agility is still measured in months. Yeah. So Theory of Constraints, the book's a bit hard to read, it's definitely dated, but the concept is so powerful.   Evan Leybourn  So the last one that I'm going to recommend is, Sooner Safer Happier by Jon Smart. It's a relatively recent book. I, it's the book I've read most recently, which is partly why it's on the top of my mind. It is a very powerful, it really touches to the human sense of agility. It's in the title - Sooner Safer Happier, sooner is a technical value, right. Safer, happier, right? These are more than that, these are human values, these are human benefits. I know I said  three, but I'm just going to add a fourth, one more for the road. It comes to what I was talking about early in terms of my own experiences as a leader. And the book didn't exist at the time, but Dare to Lead by Brené Brown. Growth mindset is a bit of a buzzword these days, and there are definitely more mindsets than just growth and fixed. There are different kinds of mindsets that we hold, but just as a way of getting people to understand that you don't have to have all the answers, that you don't have to be right. So the reason I was arrogant, I was called arrogant by my boss at the time was because I didn't have a growth mindset. I didn't know I was wrong, or I didn't know what I didn't know. And it took some poking to make myself realise that I need to open up and I needed to be willing to learn because I didn't have all the answers. And the assumption that as a manager, as a leader, you're meant to have all the answers is a very toxic, cultural, systemic problem. So I think Brené Brown and the growth mindset work Dare to Lead is such a powerful concept that the more we can get people sort of internalising it, the better.  Ula Ojiaku  So thank you for that. How can the audience engage with you? Where can they find you?   Evan Leybourn  Yep. So, LinkedIn is probably the easiest way. I'm just Evan Leybourn, I think I'm the only Evan Leybourn on the planet, so I should be fairly easy to find. Otherwise, look at businessagility.institute We have a very comprehensive library of case studies and references, research that we've published, the models, like the domains that we have a new behavioural model that's coming out fairly soon, and you can always reach me through the Business Agility Institute as well.   Ula Ojiaku  Okay. And for like leaders and organisations that want to engage with the Business Agility Institute, would there be any, are there any options for them, with respect to that?  Evan Leybourn  So individuals can become individual members, it's 50 bucks a year, that's our COVID pricing. We cut it by 50%, at the beginning of COVID, because a lot of people are losing their jobs and we wanted to make it possible, easier for them to maintain as members. That gives you access to like, full access to everything. We publish books as well, so you can actually download full eBooks of the ones that we've published, and also obviously supports us and helps us grow and helps us keep doing more. We are however primarily funded by our corporate members, so it's what we call journey companies, those companies who are on the journey to business agility. So TD bank and DBS bank, for example, are two of our members, Telstra in Australia. So there is value in corporate membership and I'm not going to do a sales pitch if you are, if you want to know more, reach out to me and I'll definitely give you the sales pitch.  Ula Ojiaku  Awesome. Well, thank you so much. These will be in the show notes, and I want to say thank you so much, Evan, for making the time for this conversation. I definitely learned a lot and it was a pleasure having you here.   Evan Leybourn  Thank you. I really appreciate being here.   That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!   

Bio Lyssa Adkins is a coach, facilitator, teacher and inspirer. Her current focus is improving the performance of top leadership teams through insightful facilitation and organization systems coaching. Making difficult decisions faster and with clear alignment, unknotting challenging multi-department impediments, creating the conditions for smooth organizational delivery, helping leaders take up the “Agile transformation” that is theirs to make…this is where she thrives and helps thrive. Her Agile community focus is amplifying women's voices, which is why she is a founder of the TENWOMENSTRONG #WomeninAgile programs. She has been pleased to serve the emergence of Agile Coaching as a profession. In 2010, she co-founded the Agile Coaching Institute which has developed over 10,000 people in the knowledge, skills and being-ness needed to yield genuinely competent agile coaching. Since 2011, she has been a member of the ICAgile working committee that defines the learning objectives for Agile Facilitation and Coaching and she assesses candidates for the ICAgile-Expert in Agile Coaching competence-based certification. She has also served the Scrum Alliance as an application reviewer for the Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC) designation. She is the author of Coaching Agile Teams which, as a top ranking Agile book, was released as an audiobook in its 10th year. She likes to explore facilitating intense conflict, societal change, organizational change, the benefits and costs of being human in the workplace, agile coaching, agile transformation, adult human development, human systems dynamics, the role of nature, and books of all sorts. She tends toward a balance of the provocative and practical. Lyssa holds an alphabet soup of certifications: ICAgile Expert in Agile Coaching (ICE-AC), Scrum Alliance Certified Enterprise Coach Emeritus (CEC-E), International Coach Federation Professional Certified Coach (PCC), Organization and Relationship Systems Certified Coach (ORSCC) and Certified Integral Facilitator (IF).  She is also a trained Co-Active Coach and Leader. Social media/ website(s): LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lyssaadkins/ Twitter: @LyssaAdkins Lyssa's Website: https://lyssaadkins.com/ Interview Highlights Timestamp 05:35 How can we stop going faster while our ability to see further ahead is decreasing? 08:00 Coaching leaders – Lyssa's 5Cs 21:05 Agile Mastery 24:55 Using agile to author a book 30:52 TENWOMENSTRONG 37:50 Expanding leaderfulness Books/Resources Mentioned InspireMe! card deck Lyssa's 5&5 Podcast: Essential Shifts for Leading in Turbulent Times https://lyssaadkins.com/55-with-lyssa-adkins-season-three/ Listen on Spotify Apple or your favourite podcast platform  One-on-One Leadership Coaching & Mentoring TENWOMENSTRONG: Influence & Impact in the Agile World plus other great programs Episode Transcript Ula Ojiaku (Intro): Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. Ula Ojiaku (Guest Intro): Hello everyone. It's my absolute honour to introduce my guest for this episode, she is no other than the legendary Lyssa Adkins herself. We met at the Agile Coach Conference in Amsterdam and she graciously agreed to be my guest. Lyssa is renowned for her groundbreaking work in defining the Agile coaching discipline and she is known for her book as well, that is titled Coaching Agile Teams. She is also one of the original founders of the Agile Coaching Institute. In this conversation, Lyssa talked about some things that are currently on her mind, and a little bit more about her work that she is currently doing which is focused on coaching the leadership teams in organisations. Without further ado, my conversation with Lyssa. Ula Ojiaku So, Lyssa, thank you so much for being a guest here on the Agile Innovation Leaders Podcast. Lyssa Adkins You're welcome. I took a little peek at your previous guests and I'm like, oh wow, there have been some really amazing people on this podcast. So I'm hoping that this goes well for you and me and all the people who listen to it. Ula Ojiaku I have no doubts, Lyssa. It's a known fact that I'm a big Lyssa Adkins fan. So for me, this is like a dream come true. I am speaking, well, virtually, face to face, with someone that I absolutely admire and it was a pleasure meeting you as well at the March Agile Coach Conference back in Amsterdam. So do you want to tell us a bit about yourself so we can know how your journey has brought you this way? Lyssa Adkins Yeah, I sure will. I think that the thing to know about me is that the places where I find out that I am not a match for what's going on in my environment is the thing that propels me forward. So I'm thinking about the things I've been learning about recently, and they are things like trauma informed coaching, how to deal with grief and loss and suffering. And this is all because, you know, we're sort of in a time where these things are up and I don't have the skills for it. And so, you know, as you mentioned, those things like, you know, I like to sing and all this work and I've just, I was realising that these are the places where I find in myself that I'm just not capable to meet the complexity of the world around me. And so I try to do something different. One of those things in meeting the complexity of the world around me is that we've just bought a collaboration space property in Portugal. So that's a little bit about what's happening in my life and my home and my work. And my adult daughter is going to go move there with her partner and they're going to be the full-time caretakers of it. So that's a whole new thing that's just opened up for us and will allow us to do some really deep and wonderful work with people. Ula Ojiaku So are you planning to do some sort of retreats there as well? Because you said it's a collaborative working space? Lyssa Adkins Yeah. So people who have programs, and want to bring people to the property, it's a beautiful property, on more than an acre of land and beautiful, mature fruit trees and all of this and lovely property. And so people who want to do deep work with their groups or people who want to come and co-work together, you know, just to be in the same spot, you know, they don't even have to be from the same company necessarily. So that's something that's happening now, more in the world. And we just want to create this as a space for people to really get in touch with the fullness of what's going on in their work, in their life, and ask themselves some really different questions and perhaps even start to generate a completely new way of forward. Ula Ojiaku Interesting, given the world we're in now with the whole change caused by COVID 19, it means that we can remotely work from almost anywhere in the world. So that is something I think is very relevant to the times we're in and the opportunity to as well, do the deep work you're talking about. So we will put the links to more details on this in the show notes of this episode, but can we then go, because we are also interested in knowing about you Lyssa, you know, the person who is Lyssa Adkins? Lyssa Adkins Oh, I'm someone who is, on a daily basis, confounded by the world and by the difficulties we're in. I find myself experiencing a significant amount of grief about the things that are falling away in our society, and my outlook on where we're headed is that things are going to continue to fall away. And so a really big question I'm sitting in, I guess, two questions I'm sitting in for myself right now are, one is, you know, who do I want to be as a leader while things are collapsing? And the second question I'm sitting in is, it's so funny, because I just drew this Inspire Me card right before we got here. And I was thinking about this question. This is a card deck that I created with my husband and another agile coach, Deb Preuss, years and years ago. And so for the people who are listening to the audio version, it's a picture of someone driving like into fog and they can't see much, and the question is from Peter Senge and it's this, How can we stop going faster while our ability to see further ahead is decreasing? And I think that's a really big question for me, as a leader in the world, like how can we get off the crazy merry-go-round we have created because we can't expect the same level of performance we did before. We can't expect that things are going to remain certain and stable, actually, I'm pretty sure they're not. So I, you know, who is Lyssa Adkins is someone who sits in these big questions, and for like months and months and months, like a really long time, I sit in these big questions and, according to the strengths binder, my top two strengths are connectedness and futuristic. So that's where my mind tends to move a lot of the time. And what I'm realising as I'm working with leaders is that they hang on to all those things that aren't going well. And that compounds the problem that, that makes it so, now our nervous systems are on high alert, in addition to the thing that's going the way we didn't want it to go. Ula Ojiaku What could be those things that actually lead us down that path of holding on to things when we should be letting go? Lyssa Adkins Well, so there are three broad areas I'm talking to leaders about right now, and I've created them sort of like little bumper stickers so we can remind ourselves of them. And the first is upgrade your complexity of mind. The second is downshift your nervous system. And the third one is expand your team's core capabilities, core competencies. Five Cs for short, because there are five of them. We remember them. So, I mean, so your question is squarely in the bumper sticker of upgrade your complexity of mind, right. So when we upgrade our complexity of mind, this isn't requiring a new skill or a new model or a new whatever best, it's definitely not a new best practice, what it is, is being able to take in so much more information, especially contradictory and competing information, which is happening to us anyway. But to be able to bring on a deeper level of meaning-making about all of that. And in part of what is required, there is not necessarily to stop going fast, but what's required there is to start listening and bringing in different essence energies that allow you to make different kinds of decisions. Because I see leaders right now making the same kinds of decisions over and over, and we're just trying harder. We're just trying harder at the things that don't match the world, where supply chains are failing, where we're having multiple climate disasters at the same time where, you know, we can just keep going on and on about the things that are walking our world. Ula Ojiaku Are you able to also talk about the other two, you know, you said, downshifting our nervous system, I couldn't get the C, and then upskilling your team's competency as well. Those other two. Lyssa Adkins Sure. Let's just touch on those briefly. So downshifting your nervous system is actually one of the key capabilities for having a more complex mind, because what happens to us is that when we encounter something that is a threat of some sort and a threat can be to our sense of identity, to our ego, to our intellect, those are all very related. You know, a threat can be that there's just, you know, now a global supply chain meltdown, and all of a sudden, as an executive, I'm going, oh my God, what do I do? You know, I mean, it's like deer in headlights moment. Like now I'm at the edge of my meaning-making and I don't know what to do and what happens is that our bodies respond and our bodies respond, according to something called neuroception. It's a type of perception, but it's based on your biology, it's based on your actual, your animal body, this thing that you, that you are in, this animal body, responds to these threats in the world before you have cognitively realised them. And so what it does is a very smart thing. It floods your body with all kinds of anxiety hormones, you know, adrenaline, all of these. Yeah. Right. And it gets you ready to take some immediate action because your body does not know that the idea that feels like a threat to you is not the same thing as a sabre tooth tiger chasing you. Your body actually doesn't know that, right. Now, good news is that we have this amazing prefrontal cortex. Human beings get the luxury of a prefrontal cortex where all our executive functions, reside and work. And we can recognise when the animal of our body has taken over and flooded our body with these stress hormones, and we can go, okay, I have the ability to interrupt these. There are really easy ways to interrupt it, actually, and to bring back online those executive functions, because that's the important thing. Things like decision making, critical thinking, empathy, logic, they all leave the building when your body is getting ready to have you run or freeze or fight. Right. And so what I'm noticing is that this happens in really subtle ways on leadership teams and people don't know that their body has been hijacked. They don't know it's happening, but I can, because I'm working with teams, leadership teams on sort of like the pattern level of their interaction. I can sit there and go, huh? It looks like she's hijacked, and I can watch this interaction, and a couple minutes later. Oh, he is too. Well, there's a third. And so, pretty soon you have an entire executive team operating without their executive functions online and no one is recognising it. So part of what I think is important for us to do in this particular time we're in, when things are incredibly stressful and our ways of coping don't necessarily work in the complexity that we're in. One of the things that's important is learning about our nervous systems, because it's actually super easy to interrupt this whole process of your lizard brain getting hijacked. It's super easy, but people don't know to do it. And people feel a little bit embarrassed about it. They're like, oh, well this is like my thing I have to deal with. No, actually it's a group thing. So that's maybe a little more than an introduction to the idea of downshifting your nervous system, but that's the idea there that I've just really gotten clear about how much people are operating, not at their best. Ula Ojiaku And then what about upskilling your team's competency? The third one. Could you tell us a bit about that? Lyssa Adkins Yeah. I think executive teams, as I watch them work and as I interact with them to help them work better together, I notice that they have the same, this might be a little bit unfortunate to hear, but they have the same sort of mediocre conversations that delivery teams have. And by mediocre, I mean, they don't have a high level of competence in conflict, in collaboration and creativity and communication, and definitely not in change. Because all they keep doing is driving, driving, driving, driving. They keep moving through these very surface level conversations and making decisions from there. And we're basically getting the same results we've been getting, you know, we're not going anywhere new and we're not able to take in the fullness of the context we are now in, which is something human beings have never encountered before. So as I work with executive teams, I'm like, okay, great, you've got your key result, great, fantastic. Those key results happen through a series of conversations, decisions, work sessions. In those work sessions, the way that is happening is through these five core competencies, communication, collaboration, creativity, conflict, and change. And then to the core of that is actually the intelligence that resides and how the relationship system is working. So if we can focus on that, then those five core competencies increase. Then we have much more effective working sessions and decisions. Then we meet our goals. So it's like working from the core out. Ula Ojiaku It's really an interesting framework. I don't think this is yet out in the world or in any of the materials you've released to us yet. So I hope to learn more about it at some point in time. Is there anywhere that I could actually…? Lyssa Adkins Yeah, I've just now realised there is somewhere. So I created a keynote around this last year, and it's one of the keynotes I give publicly and to make myself get clear about the contents of the keynote, I made myself record my own podcast, which is called the 5 & 5, five minutes a day, five days a week. And it's all around this topic of the five essential shifts for leading in turbulent times. And so we can absolutely provide that link in the show notes. So that definitely gives people, a flavour, in five minute bites, of these things we're talking about. Upgrade your complexity of mind, downshift your nervous system, and expand your team's five core competencies. Ula Ojiaku That's awesome Lyssa, we'll definitely have that in the show notes. Now I'm curious, in working with, you know, the leaders that you do, how do you go about setting the intention for the engagements and how do you measure the progress towards meeting that set intention? Lyssa Adkins That's a really good question, and I have to say, I have not found a secret sauce that I'm happy with here yet, because most executives and executive teams don't know that they're in over their heads in a way that they certainly are in over their heads. They keep thinking that if we just apply the same things we've been doing, we're going to get out of this mess. They keep thinking normal is going to come back. They keep thinking, well, maybe normal won't come back, but we'll just keep going. And I don't know that we're going to be able to just keep going, I don't know how much longer we'll be able to keep going, because we are absolutely encountering, now, the limits to growth that were predicted back in the 1970s, you know, so everything that we've predicated our business world on, the idea that growth is good, growth is what we go for, you know, and we always have to have this sort of sterling impression of our service and we can never let anyone down. Well, we're going to start letting people down. We are absolutely approaching limits to growth. We're not going to be able to keep growing as we were before. And so I think that what is going on is that I move into executive teams starting with this idea that I'm going to help them develop their leadership. And it usually is around a goal that the organisation has. So for example, the organisation will have a goal that, hey, we're going to expand threefold in the next year, which means we have got to make ourselves, leaders, capable of creating leaders. And we've got to do that at the next two layers down as well. So now, so that's a phrase that people understand. We now, as leaders, our job is to create leaders and we now realise that we're not very good at that. So that's one way that people think, oh yeah, maybe I need some leadership development help. And it could be around any kind of crisis. That's also a certain time that people will, executive teams will say, yeah, I guess we should look at the way we're working, but pretty infrequently, you know. So, I'm now sitting at the crossroads, wondering where is the greatest impact for me as a practitioner? Is it working with an entire executive team or is it working with those two people on the executive team that are really ready to level up? And so I'm actually in the process of expanding my one-on-one leadership coaching for the latter half of this year, because I want to just really find out and, you know, have a sense at least of how is the return on investment for them and me? You know, where is the greatest impact, basically? Ula Ojiaku That's really interesting. And I would be keen to know what the evaluation is at the end of the year, when you've… because it seems like it's an experiment to understand where are you going to make the most impact? One of the things that you are renowned for is the fact that you made some breakthrough contributions, you know, in the field of agile coaching, you, co-founded the Agile Coaching Institute in 2010, and you wrote the book, which is still helping, you know, lots of people, agile coaches and other people who, you know, play servant leadership roles in organisations that are in their journey towards embracing agile ways of working and mindset, coaching agile teams. What led you to that? If you don't mind, if we could take a walk down memory lane, what led you to writing the book and coaching, and co-founding the Agile Coaching Institute? Lyssa Adkins So I love this trip down memory lane, and actually it's not totally in the past, because as you say that book is still doing its work in the world, even though it is now 12 years old, it's still selling as much as it ever did, and so right now I'm actually recording what we call a guided study and practice group that we're going to open for ongoing admission. And it's sitting inside of this really beautiful community called Agile Mastery, so like it's the lessons from me, which are something like a book club on steroids. So we're taking just a section of the book at a time, a metabolisable section, there's field work that people are doing in between each session and they're interacting with each other on it, and they're helping each other learn. There are accountability conversations that are going on. And so that sort of action learning cycle takes place to help people really use what's in that book. Because what I kept hearing is like, gosh, I've read this book four times and I can't believe I'm still discovering something new, or like I've had this book for 10 years, I just opened it again, like, oh my gosh, how did I not see this before? So there's a lot in it, it's really sort of dense actually. So there's a way in which, although my personal practice is now with leadership teams, I am still very much involved with people who are working with delivery teams and the portfolio level and that sort of thing through helping people use what's in that book well, and where that book came from was my identity crisis. I mean, so we started this podcast by saying, well tell me a little bit about you and I'm like, well, I'm someone who, you know, grows by realising I'm totally in over my head and I don't know how to deal with this. And so instead of doing the same stuff I did before, like, what skill do I need to get? And what I love about people in the agile community is that's a very common mindset. You know, what I think is not so common is allowing the identity crises in and allowing them to inform us and allowing those crises to break us down, which is what I did. I allowed the identity crisis to break me down. And I started writing about that on this little blog called The road from project manager to agile coach. And so this is in 2008 or something like that. And so that's what eventually led to the book. I, you know, gave a talk at a Scrum gathering, my very first Scrum gathering. My very first public speaking thing called The road from project manager to agile coach. And talking about that, now the things I do as an agile coach now that I would have never done as a plan driven project manager, like I would've thought were stupid or ridiculous, or like magical thinking or just wouldn't work, you know, and of course they worked beautifully. So you know, from that point, I got asked to write the book, you know, and I had no intentions of writing a book and actually resisted it for a while, and kept getting all these sort of messages in the phone with people saying, gosh, that's good, you should write that down. And eventually, got in the place where the Coaching Agile Teams book just galloped its way into the world through me, it just, it was, it took one calendar year to write it and really, I didn't start writing it until May and it got turned in in November. I mean, so it just moved through very quickly. Ula Ojiaku Wow. Is there anything, because, you know, knowing what you now know, that you would do differently about the process of authoring a book and the messaging in it? Lyssa Adkins I think I would use the same process of authoring the book, and I think it's probably worth saying a little bit about what that is, because I actually went and found some mentors, people who've written books and said, so, you know, I don't know how to do this, you know, what's your advice? And so some of, the main process I used was agile. And so I had an outline of the book that had come to me over like a six month period of time before I turned in, before I finally decided to, well, I guess I'll go ahead and turn in this book proposal. It seems like I already have it written. And I, at the time we were in a Facebook group, I sent that out to the group and I said, put these in business value order. You know, and they put it in a business value order about 90% of the way I would have. And so I started writing the book in business value order. And when I met the publisher in August and the book was due in November, he said, I guess you probably want an extension. You know, cause you surely the book's not going to be ready in November. I'm like, hmm, yeah, it is. He's like, well, how can you be so sure. I'm like, well, I'm writing it in business value order. I mean, so I'm writing the chapters that are most useful to people. So if we get to November 1st and something's not written, it's just not going to be in the book because it's the lowest value content anyway. He was like, wow, really? And he still didn't believe me that I would make the deadline, but I did, November 1st. So, you know, so I think that's an important thing. What was, what was important then, and I think it's probably even more important now is timing. You know, I had the sense that the content of the book was important, and that the sooner it got out there, the better, and that was more important than it being great or amazing, definitely not perfect, definitely more important than being perfect, that's something that I struggle with all the time. So it turned out though that my husband quit his job, retired a little bit early and he became the proofreader of the book and he and I were in this amazing cycle for the last few months of the book. And it all got written, every chapter. Ula Ojiaku Wow. That's amazing and inspiring. So what about the mentors? What was their inputs in addition to, you know, telling you how, their own process for writing? Did you also get their input to, you know, proofreading and suggesting? Lyssa Adkins We got a lot of people's input to the book. The book went out for review to about 12 people, and there were some really useful things that came back from that, and that affected how it, how it rolled out eventually. But one of my mentors was a guy named Lee Devin, and he's written a few books, but the one he's most known for in the agile world is called Artful Making: What Managers Need to Know About How Artists Work is what that book is, and when we got together, he gave me two pieces of advice. He said, don't let your writer and your editor be in the room at the same time. And so what he meant by that is, your job when you are getting content out is just to write and don't even worry about spelling or punctuation or anything. And don't judge it, just get it out, come back in another time with the editor, who's got the red pen. It's like, oh, I don't like that language, this is not even a well-formed idea, punctuation, whatever. Now, to the extent that I can do that, the book flowed very beautifully. I can't tell you that I could do it all the time because I am so critical. Most of us are so critical of ourselves that we are writing and editing at the same time and what that, what that means is that our ideas die before they get to be born. And so the other thing that he recommended as a practice, which I did religiously, was before you start writing content for the day or whatever session you were, open a Word document and just start typing whatever is in your mind. And what you're doing there is you're trying to get your fingers and your body to move as fast as your mind. And so you're literally sort of warming up, you know, like a pianist would warm up or like someone playing soccer would warm up, so you're literally warming up this whole mind body instrument because the mind moves so fast. And it turns out, of course, that through that stream of consciousness writing, there were some real gems in there that got pulled into the book, but usually it was just a bunch of junk, you know, and I only, I set a timer for only five minutes. It didn't take a long time to do it, but the times that I didn't do it, the writing was not as good. Ula Ojiaku It's almost like, you know, priming a pump, because when you're speaking, I'm thinking of an ancient well, where you'd have the manual pump, you know, you'd have some prime it before the water starts flowing and you get into the zone and interestingly, that's also what, so Marie Forleo, she's more of a, she has a podcast as well and a course, I mean, what's it called, but the key thing is she said, interestingly, she said the same thing about, you know, just typing or writing and not minding whether it's quality or quantity and at a point in time, you know, you'd get flowing. Lyssa Adkins Yeah, exactly. There are all of these beautiful books of writing prompts too, you know, I mean, there's just, you're making me realise I need to start writing more. I think I've let the well go dry a little bit. Yeah. Thank you for the reminder. Ula Ojiaku Could we talk about your organisation, because there is your TENWOMENSTRONG Program. Is that still on? And if so, can you tell us about it? What's the vision behind, your putting that organisation together and how is it going right now? Lyssa Adkins Yeah. So I am a co-leader and a contributor to TENWOMENSTRONG. It's actually an organisation owned by Carolyn Dragon and Carolyn, and I've known each other for more than a dozen years. We were in a really intense year-long leadership program together in 2010. And so she had this program and this company, TENWOMENSTRONG, and about the time that I sold Agile Coaching Institute in 2017, you know, she would, she said, I'm going to put myself on your calendar every six weeks just for us to have coffee, and I want to hear that you're doing nothing but singing and gardening and whatever you want to do, and that you're actually taking a break because it had been, you know, about a decade of really intense work, following my mission to help professionalise the discipline of agile coaching, you know, and working with so many people on having, you know, such a focus on that for so long and, you know, and it totally worked because now dozens of people are carrying that forward, you know? So my role in sort of, again, priming the pump, we're back to this metaphor, right? So my role along with Michael Spayd, like our role together, priming the pump for agile coaching you know, was done, it was done. And the next question is, well, what do I do next? And so Carolyn, true to her word, we got together every six weeks. What a great friend in that, in that following year, while I was busy transitioning Agile Coaching Institute to its new owner, but not really having a new mission for myself. And she was telling me about the impact of this program she has called TENWOMENSTRONG, and it's basically a program to help women reconnect with their purpose, and go through this process of discovering who I am authentically, you know, what are all of my creativities, especially the ones that I've forgotten about or that I think aren't wanted in my work world or in other parts of my world. And then what's the creative expression I'm here to bring. And so, at the time I had been looking around the agile world and going like, where are the women? I mean, I kept looking and going, like, there are plenty of us at these conferences, there are plenty of us at these meetups there, you know, like there's plenty of women in the agile world, but when you ask, you know, who are the people who I should read, you would get a list of men's names predominantly. Maybe my name would be in there and maybe Esther Derby and maybe a few others, but just, just a few. And so, as Carolyn was telling me the impact of this program, where she'd been running it inside of corporations and publicly, all of a sudden out of my mouth, I was like, oh my gosh, we need that for women in agile. And so we started, I think it was probably in 2019 with virtual and in-person programs, maybe it was 2018. So and then we did those for a few years and then the pandemic hit, and it was a real reassessment of what we wanted to do. And it was also Carolyn's decision, which I thought was a very brilliant business decision, to pull back, because people had enough on their plates, you know, another constant self-improvement like this whole sort of constant self improvement thing we do is another trap, you know? And so she did things that supported women in her circles, women who've been through her program that she attracted through various free offerings. She did things to support them, but not to add anything that would, you know, just contribute to the stress of the moment, they were under enough stress. And so now, as it is, she's now starting to bring back more programs, but she's doing them shorter duration. And so the one that I'm contributing to TENWOMENSTRONG right now is called Influence and Impact in the Agile World and it's a workshop where women come and they share with each other, the places where they're not having the influence and impact they wanted, and they don't know why, they've tried all different kinds of things, and so it's a workshop to take, you know, to create community about that, to actually be vulnerable and say that to other people, and to know that you're going to be received. And then we go through some different steps that allow the women to have some insight about their specific situation and they leave with an idea of what they want to try next. So those are the types of things that she's doing there, couple of other programs, but that's the one that I'm leading with her. Ula Ojiaku Now, based on what we've talked about so far, what are the books you would say have influenced your thinking and, you know, your approach as a coach, as a professional? Lyssa Adkins Well the books that have influenced my development as a coach and a professional are the ones that are written by the people who are in the coaching schools I went to. So, Co-Active Coaching is one, and then there's just a new book out now that encapsulates what I learned in organisation and relationship systems coaching, and that book is called Systems Inspired Leadership. It encapsulates the coaching approach, but talks about it from a leadership perspective, so it marries those two worlds for me. And then there's the whole genre of learning about Zen Buddhism, which I think has been a really important contribution to my ability to be a good coach. And so Pema Chödrön is someone I read there. There are many, many others, but she's the one that comes to mind right now because she has books that are called, well, hang on, what are they called? Get a load of these titles. The Places That Scare You, Comfortable With Uncertainty, Welcoming the Unwelcome, The Wisdom of No Escape - those are just some of her books. So what she helps me do, is actually what we talked about at the beginning, upgrade my own complexity of mind to work with what actually is happening and not ignore it, or try to bypass it. Downshift my nervous system, and then expand my ability to see the web of the relationship system to expand those five core competencies in myself and in my interactions with other people. So I think that for me, that's an essential piece of learning and, I would say, not so much learning, but leaderfullness, expanding my own leaderfullness, and ability to be in the world and with the world as it is. Ula Ojiaku That's a new word for me, leaderfullness. It's almost like… Lyssa Adkins Yeah, it's a funny word, right. I think I picked it up from the Coaches Training Institute. They used to, have said that for years and years, but I think it conveys something really important, which is that leadership is not even primarily anymore about knowing better or doing more or any of these things that we promoted and we lauded leaders for, you know, leadership is about working with the world as it is and bringing to every moment, your authentic leaderfullness, you are full up with leadership. You are a full up, it's like a fully embodied way of expressing leadership and expressing our ability to take in what's really happening, to slow our minds down, to not be hijacked by the situation, to ask some deeper questions, and to look squarely in the face of the things that we don't want. Ula Ojiaku Awesome. Are there things that you'd like the audience to know in terms of what you're doing currently? Lyssa Adkins Yeah, I would direct people to lyssaadkins.com for what I'm doing currently, and of course you have to know how to spell it. L Y S S A A D K I N S.com. I know it'll be in the show notes too. The thing I think I want people to know is that something really exciting is just now starting, and I'm part of starting it. And I would say it's going to be, the kickoff or the beginning of a worldwide movement in the agile community, all centered around the question, if it's no accident that agile has emerged at exactly this time, what is its role in the planetary challenges and the paradigm shifts we are currently experiencing? That question, both enlivens me and haunts me. I've been holding that question for a long time and the first thing I know that is related to that question that's going to be moving out into the world will happen at Agile 2022 in Nashville in late July. And I am the moderator of a panel, essentially about what is Agile's bigger role and the panellists are all using agile in ways that help make our current situation better, help try to fend us off from the worst of the impacts of our previous behaviour. So there are people who, for example, are working in climate change, they're working and bringing agile into helping democracies arise. They're bringing agile into pulling girls out of poverty and the only option for themselves is sex trafficking, for example. All right. So these are some of the leaders who are going to be speaking about how, what they've been doing to investigate this question of like, if we agilists have something that's useful and we know how to do and be a different sort of person, have a different sort of skills, like what can we add to the people who are already doing this really important work on the planet right now. So I'm really excited to find out how that conversation goes. We're hoping to see that the sparks from that panel fly all over the world and ignite these conversations and agile communities all over the world, because I think we do have a role, and I think we have something that's so different and so useful, and I don't think we need to force it on anyone, but I think we're good at experiments, you know, so like why don't we run some experiments, go find out, like would what you know, as an agilest be useful for an organisation who's responding to climate disasters, for example. Ula Ojiaku That's inspiring. What one thing would you like to leave the audience with? Lyssa Adkins You know, there's a quote, I don't even know where it came from that I say to myself all the time and I think that's what I want to leave the audience with. For those of you listening, first of all, thank you for your attention. I know that is the most precious thing we have. So what I'll leave you with is this. It will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end. Ula Ojiaku That's a great one. Thank you so much Lyssa for your time, it's been an insightful conversation. Lyssa Adkins My pleasure. Thank you for inviting me. I've really enjoyed this exploration and I've found some new ideas too Ula Ojiaku That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless! 

Bio  Chris Boeckerman is currently Vice President of Research & Development for Fabric & Home Care. Prior to this she was R&D Vice President for P&G Ventures, the company's internal startup studio that partners with entrepreneurs and startups to create new brands and businesses in spaces where the company doesn't play today.   Known as a “change agent” during her 30-year career with Procter & Gamble, Chris co-founded P&G's Lean Innovation movement, known as GrowthWorks, and has specialised in developing dynamic teams worldwide to strengthen the company's innovation capabilities.  Her impressive P&G career also includes more than 20 years in the company's Global Fabric Care business, working to create breakthrough innovations with iconic brands such as Tide, Ariel, Downy, Gain and Bounce.     Chris holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Cincinnati.  She has been honoured as a YWCA Rising Star, is an active leader in the Girls in STEM program for P&G and across Cincinnati and serves on the Advisory Board for the Greater Cincinnati STEM Collaborative.     Chris resides in Cincinnati, Ohio with her family.    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-boeckerman-06577110/       Interview Highlights  Timestamp  02:12 - Growing up in Cincinnati, Ohio  07:07 - Studying engineering in a cooperative education setting  12:25 - R&D Vice President at P&G Ventures  19:38 - Productive failure  37:00 - Co-founding GrowthWorks  44:30 - No one size fits all  53:22 - Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful , committed citizens can change the world; indeed it's the only thing that ever has    Books/ Resources Mentioned The Lean Startup by Eric Ries https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lean-Startup-Innovation-Successful-Businesses/dp/0670921602/  The Startup Way  by Eric Ries https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B06Y1G9RVC  The Leader's Guide by Eric Ries https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/The-Leaders-Guide-Audiobook/B07K8WQHYW  New to Big: How Companies Can Create Like Entrepreneurs, Invest Like VCs, and Install a Permanent Operating System for Growth by David Kidder and Christina Wallace https://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Big-Companies-Entrepreneurs-Permanent-ebook/dp/B07FC3C51Z  Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland https://www.amazon.co.uk/Scrum-Doing-Twice-Work-Half/dp/1847941109  Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman https://www.amazon.co.uk/Four-Thousand-Weeks-Embrace-limits/dp/1784704008    Episode Transcript  Ula Ojiaku (Intro): Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener.  Ula Ojiaku (Guest Intro): My guest today is Chris Boeckerman. She is the Vice-President of Research and Development with the startup studio for Procter & Gamble that partners with entrepreneurs and startups to create new brands and businesses in spaces where the company doesn't play today. Known as a change agent during her 29 year career with Procter & Gamble, Chris co-founded P & G's lean innovation movement known as GrowthWorks and has specialised in developing dynamic teams worldwide to strengthen the company's innovation capabilities. In this episode, Chris talks about herself and gives us a glimpse into the influences that shaped her into who she is today and how she got into Procter & Gamble and developed her career, as well as her experience setting up GrowthWorks within Procter & Gamble. It was a very insightful conversation. I definitely will be listening to this episode again, because there were lots of gems and I know you will find it useful as well. So thank you again for tuning in and for watching. Without further ado, my conversation with Chris. Enjoy.  Ula Ojiaku  So Chris, thank you so much for making the time to join us on the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. It is a great honour to have you here.   Chris Boeckerman  Oh, thank you. Thank you for asking me. It's a wonderful honour to be here.   Ula Ojiaku  Awesome. Now let's get to know you, Chris. Can you tell us about yourself, your background?  Chris Boeckerman  Sure. My name is Chris Boeckerman. I work at Procter & Gamble. I've been here almost 30 years, which is exciting, but going back to the beginning, so I'm actually born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, and I've never left. And it's kind of funny, when you're born in Cincinnati, many times you don't leave. I've been prepping my parents from the day I got my job at P & G that I would leave and I just, I never. I never left. So it's very fun, but yeah, so I'm born and raised. My family is still here, and yeah, I love it.   Ula Ojiaku  Wow. So you, based on what you said, it seemed like you had expectations growing up that you would leave. So what was it about, you know, the whole set up that made you end up not leaving Cincinnati?  Chris Boeckerman  I don't know that I ever thought I would leave because, like Cincinnati is a great place and a lot of people I know don't leave, but when I got my job at Proctor & Gamble, which is a multinational company, I expected that I might have to, but really no, I, went to grade school in Cincinnati and then high school. And then I ended up going into chemical engineering at the University of Cincinnati. And I co-oped and ended up, you know, getting this great job at P & G. So that's just kind of how it all happened, which is why I ended up staying in Cincinnati. It's a great place. It's a wonderful place to raise a family. I'm married. My husband works full time, at a company called Turner Construction. And, I have two children, my oldest child is 21 and he's at the University of Dayton doing mechanical engineering. And then my daughter is 17 and she's at a local high school here in Cincinnati. So, and my family and my husband's family, we met at the University of Cincinnati. So I think a lot of those things kind of keep you in a place.   Ula Ojiaku  I can imagine. Well, whilst I didn't grow up in the town I studied, I also graduated with an engineering degree, but it's an electronic engineering degree and I met my husband in the university as well. But that's about, you know, the parallel, I've moved a lot, I've kind of lived everywhere else in the world.  Chris Boeckerman  Well, what I'm happy about is, I'm so happy that I work at P & G, because P & G has introduced the world to me. And so I've been able to travel all over the place and then it sparked that interest in my husband and my family being able to travel. So we definitely, because of P & G we now know it, but I've just never lived anywhere else, that's all.  Ula Ojiaku  And there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, you travelled when you wanted to. And I can only imagine, because that's not been my experience having family and friends, you know, it makes things easier as a full time working mother, a family person.  Chris Boeckerman  Yes, yes. I don't know how you do it otherwise. So I bow to you, to all my friends. It's difficult, but we all figure it out.   Ula Ojiaku  Exactly. Yeah, exactly. That's great. So, what do you do, Chris? When you're not working, what would you say you do to recharge yourself?  Chris Boeckerman  Well, I am, as you've already found out, I'm very family oriented. And so, we are a family of SciFi lovers. And so we like movies and shows and things like that. We just celebrated my husband's 50th birthday at Disney at Galaxy's Edge.   Ula Ojiaku  Wow. Happy birthday to him.   Chris Boeckerman  I know, it was great. We both turned 50 this year, so it's a big year. But that was fun. We were able to get my son back from college and my daughter, and we were able to spend a fun long weekend there. We love rollercoasters and so we've organised family vacations around rollercoasters and getting to rollercoasters all over the world. And we all love to golf. And so that's something I picked up later. My husband's a wonderful golfer. And so now we really enjoy that as the kids have gotten older, I can spend more time golfing along with my full-time career, but yeah, so it's a lot of fun. I just really like to be outdoors. I think that's the common theme. I love to read, I love to do, but I love to do it outdoors. So that's my favourite.   Ula Ojiaku  Yeah, that sounds very interesting. The first and the only time I tried golf, I was so horrible at it. I think I gave myself an advisory, you know, just to do it not in public.  Chris Boeckerman  It's not for everybody, it's not for everybody.   Ula Ojiaku  Yeah. Okay. I also got the, when you're talking about yourself, that you studied chemical engineering at the University of Cincinnati. What made you choose that discipline, that line of study?   Chris Boeckerman  Yeah, and that's kind of a funny, it's kind of a funny story. So, my parents didn't get to go to college, but I've known since I can remember that I was going to college. So, they worked their whole life, I'm blue collar raised. The one thing I can tell you is I work hard. That's what, you know, my parents really instilled that in me. And so I really liked chemistry in school, and I was pretty good at maths. And so my counselor was like, oh, chemical engineering. My grandpa was actually a chemical engineer. So it was a familiar term, even though I think it's hard to just understand what engineering is by talking to people. But I did some shadowing and I thought, okay, engineering sounds good. And University of Cincinnati was close by, but they invented cooperative education. So, this kind of go to school, go to work. It helps pay for your school, and what I didn't even realise at the time is I'm a very practical person. And so University of Cincinnati was the best for me because I didn't always love the theory. I could learn it, I got the theory, but I'm an applied learner is what I've learned since then. And so by having a co-op job, I could take the theory, apply it, and then I loved it. And so I got the chance to co-op six quarters at P & G in all different parts of the company. So I got to see how, I got to see the company, the company got to see me. It's really how we hire now is through interns and co-ops. But back then, it was just perfect for me. So I'm so glad I made the choice. Like I said, when your parents don't go to college, I don't think you even realise there's that many opportunities, what all the colleges are. But I just got really lucky and then obviously had to work hard because engineering is extremely difficult, and like I said, I think if I wouldn't have had co-op, I may not have stayed in chemical engineering, but because I had the experience of what I could do with it, I made it through.  Ula Ojiaku  Well done you and it's people like you, that paved the way for people like us women to get more into engineering as well. So the co-op, was it the University of Cincinnati, did the university help you with getting the job with P & G as part of the studies?  Chris Boeckerman  Yeah, it's integrated into a five-year program at the University of Cincinnati. And so you have to co-op to graduate and therefore they have a very structured way of introducing you to many companies, and so they have great relationships with local companies, with national companies. And so, because you know you have to, it's just part of the curriculum, and so they work hard to make sure you get a job. You work hard to make sure you get a job, and then you graduate with experience. So, yeah, I encourage anybody who's going into engineering, even if it's not integrated, like it was at UC, to do internships over the summer. It's a very popular thing to do here in the US so like my son did internships, most of the colleges have support here to be able to do an internship or they have co-op abroad, learning abroad. Any of that I think is amazing.   Ula Ojiaku  Yes, it helps with the balance, you know, to know what reality is and what the theory is of this discipline. Okay. And how did you, you said you made it through, so how was it for you as a student?   Chris Boeckerman  I am the person that you should send anybody to who struggled, because I struggled. You know, in high school I was a straight A student, and I memorised everything. I, like I said before, I know how to work hard. I worked hard, grades were very important to me, but it was more of a memorisation thing in high school. I understood the problem solving up to that point, but then I got into university, and yeah, it was just a whole other ball game. One of the things that I think I just learned about engineering is, in the real world, you never have enough time. You never have enough money to do what you want to do. Well, engineering preps you for that because you walk into a test and there's not enough time to finish the test. You're never going to get the right answer. Right. And it's hard to go through that, but I think it creates this grit and tenacity of like, I just have to keep going now.  And that is, I mean, that's kind of what I learned when I got into the workforce, is that engineers are problem solvers and that experience, that difficult experience through school just preps you for real life. And you know, when you feel like you can't keep going, you're like, I am, let's just, you know, this is the way it is. There's not enough time. There's not enough money. We've got to keep moving.  Ula Ojiaku  Exactly, let's make the most of the situation. So, you were co-opting with P & G, they loved you and they said they wouldn't let you go. And here you are. So how did you get to your current position as the Vice President? You're now for R & D right?  Chris Boeckerman  Right, it's R & D Vice President in a part of the company called P & G Ventures, which I can explain. So I'll try to take 30 years and give you the shortened version of it. So I started with Procter & Gamble and I worked 20 years actually in the part of the business called fabric care, so Tide, Gain, Ariel, Lenor… like I could talk to you about laundry all day long. So I worked there for 20 years. I worked upstream, downstream, consumer facing, technical facing, internal, external. Like, if you're going to stay somewhere for 20 years, you better do it all, and it was a wonderful, great experience. I've always lived in Cincinnati, but I've had teams all over the world, and so, you know, getting to know the cultures and how people work and the diversity, it's just, it's been amazing. You know, even the different brands and the different countries was great. And so I did that for 20 years, loved it, but I had this wonderful boss who said, hey, it's time to go try something else. And so I went into corporate R & D, and I wasn't sure about it because I come from the business and I have a P & L and I know what I'm delivering to the company, but I really trusted her. And she said, this is where you should go. And the minute I met with the leader of that organisation, he convinced me because he said, hey, my goal is that we are tailwinds for the business units. So, we're not off on the side, but we have the time to look internally and externally at all the best practices. And then we become tailwinds for our businesses who don't have time to do that because they're running the business. And I just loved that vision. And you know, P & G, our mission, our purpose at P and G is to improve the lives of consumers every day. I always say I love my job. I don't love it every day, but I do really love my job. I think if anybody tells you, they love it every day, they're just lying, but I really do love my job. And I think it's because my personal mission in life is to nurture and inspire the people in my work, my community, my family, and P & G's mission and purpose to improve the lives of consumers comes together in a great place. And that role in particular, in corporate R & D, it all really came together because, you know, I did feel like it was a mission. So when I got into that organisation, it was when, I like to say Dollar Shave Club had happened to us. So it was something where we stand for irresistibly superior products, and that is what our business model was made of. And this was a new, digital business model and it was new to the world and we were trying to figure it out. And so right as I got into this role, the Chief Technical Officer, Kathy Fish, and the Chief Brand Officer kind of came to me and my boss and said, you know, the world is changing really fast and we need to make sure that we are sustainable in this changing environment. So can you go find out what's happening and figure out, you know, how to make sure that we survive, right. How to make sure that we can live in this changing world.  And so I was like, wow, that is like a very clear work plan. And I have no idea how to do that, right. It was very big, the company is big, it's a hundred thousand people, and you know, but I did what I do and I just went and started talking to everybody. And as I was talking to everybody, there were two very clear themes that came out. One was fear of failure, and the second one was that commercial and technical were working in silos. We weren't really a connected team, and so we just kind of looked around and said, what other industry or what other space is tackling these two issues in this dynamic world? And it was the startup Ecosystem. And so we just went to school. I mean, I, the number of podcasts I looked into, like everything I had to learn. We are lucky enough to be a big company. We were able to get to the likes of like David Kidder from Bionic and Ian Berkowitz and Eric Ries. And I could give you the five names of the people that I would go to, but we were lucky enough to get those experts to come in and counsel us, which, that's one of the things I'm so proud of us to do is we didn't pretend we knew how to do it. Yeah. And that's one of the advice I would give everybody is don't pretend, go seek external help, always, because they're always going to give you a different perspective. But anyway, we just kind of, that's how we got into lean innovation, that's how we got into, hey, there is a different way in which we can, you know, learn quickly, learn fast, fail fast. We kind of learned nobody wants to fail, but if you can fail fast and early, then it's, it feels much more like learning. How fascinating, why did that happen? If you fail later and expensive, that's bad. And so, you know, we were, we had to get to school on it. We had to learn how to do it. And then the organisation I was able to create really was a small organisation that was meant to enable the business unit. So we created a framework that was agile and could kind of meet the business units where they were and helped them to understand this is the framework that you can apply to wherever you're at in this journey, because we were all at a different place in the journey, but we enabled startups inside the company is the easiest way for me to talk about that.  And then I did that and now I got the great opportunity, about two years ago, to come into a part of the company called P & G Ventures, which had actually, they were the first part of the company to kind of work like a startup, and they worked internally and externally to start up, what are the next businesses going to be? So we have 10 existing business units. Their job was, how do you develop the next business unit, which, talk about a high hurdle. Right. But, so I basically got to take the five years of kind of learning and enabling the business units, and I got to apply it to one of the toughest problems, which is how do you create a new business unit in an already very big and successful company?   Ula Ojiaku  That sounds exciting. And the journey so far, it sounds really impressive and exciting. So, given that P & G, you know, already is renowned for, you know, research, the extensive research and development, would you say that you already had that culture where it's okay to fail because not everything in the research would, you know, go on to be commercialised and end up on the shelf, or did you have to also change people's mindsets towards failure to know that if you fail fast it's okay. You know, was there any, from a leadership perspective, did you need to change anything in terms of people's perception?   Chris Boeckerman  Yeah, I mean, we really did, and it's still, you know, it's never perfect inside of an organisation because, you know, it is a large organisation. It was more around though, the speed of learning is what I would say is the biggest difference, was get something out there faster, to let people react. So it was almost and we do, we have a great, behavioural learning mindset now as well, but it was earlier back then. Right. And so I think what happens is, you know, you have your standard, large base qualification tests. That was, you know, the standard process that we had, and it worked well, but the world was shifting. And so it was like, if you were going to need to be more dynamic in how you evolved it, you needed, we needed to follow more of what the lean innovation process would be, which is, you create a quick and early prototype. It doesn't have to be perfect because you're only going to test it with 10 people, get it out to those 10 people and you're going to learn much more, very fast. I always joked, I had this old project or I'm in a project I did a long time ago and I had a bad package, but I knew the product was amazing. And I had this team and the packaging group did not want to place this package. Of course, we all knew it was bad and nobody wanted to look bad, right. And I was like, listen, I promise, I'm going to get the highest level person to say, he knows the package is going to fail. Well, if that's okay, will you let us place this test? Because I've got to find out if the juice is good, right. I've got to find out if the product is good, and I promise when I come back, I'm going to have even better information about what the package needs to do to be amazing. And so, you know, this was what this was way before, but it like, it just took people, you know, a little bit of time. And they needed to be reassured that it wasn't going to come back on them, right. And it's the difference, it's not the qualification test or I'm spending a million dollars, it's a small test, but you just need to make sure you're intentional about that, right. And we did, we learned a ton. We learned that the juice was magical. The product was great, and the package was bad, and this is exactly what we needed from the package. And we wrote up probably the most beautiful package brief ever. So I really think that's the difference, is you had to make sure that there weren't repercussions. You had to take the risk lower. And if you can take the risk lower, then the failure, like I said, it's more of, oh, you learned that, awesome, you learned it fast, you learned it cheap and now we know what to go do. I always used to say in the early days of GrowthWorks, because everybody's polarised by the term failure, which I totally understand, but it was like productive failure is failure that enables you to know fast, cheap, and easy what to go do next. And as long as you do that, that is productive failure. I had these great managers one time who, I was very uptight about a very large test market that was going to get delayed. It was under my charge and I felt very responsible. And as you can tell, I'm very passionate and you can read my emotions on my face. So I walked into my two leaders and they're new too, they don't know me, so I don't have a relationship with them, but they can just tell, I haven't slept for a week and, like, things are bad and, you know, and they kind of looked at me and they said, hey, Chris, is this the worst thing that's ever happened to you at work? And I was like, uh, yeah, like million dollar test market, right. And they're like, oh, okay, we're going to talk to you about that tomorrow. Today, we're going to talk to you about things that have gone wrong in our career, and what we learned from them. And I just, this was a transformative conversation that my leaders, I'm so thankful, took the time because when I found out what went wrong in their history, I was like, that's not even close to what is happening. Put things in perspective, right. They really, they were able to put things in perspective for me, and they were able to help me see you learn more from your mistakes than your successes. Don't make the same mistake twice and make your mistakes, or do your failures as early and as cheap as possible. And you know, this was 10 years before I did GrowthWorks, but that stuck with me and it turned me, it turned me from a micro-managing crazy person, which is what I was doing at that time into a learning leader is what I would say. I learned to then, when things came to me that were surprising, I always try to say, no matter what the data is, I try to say, oh, how fascinating, why do we think that happened? And it's, you know, like the results are awesome, clean, fascinating. Why do we think they're great? Like, why do we think that happened? The results are bad, fascinating, why? Why do we think that happened? And what we learned is if leaders can approach everything that way, then the team moves into a learning mindset and you learn a lot faster. It's hard to do. And I don't do it every day. If my team were here with me, they would be like, we're going to remind Chris on Monday about that. So, you know, nobody can do it all the time, but that learning mindset, which is something P & G has, you know, focused on a lot, it makes all the difference in the world of creating a culture in which people can learn fast, because everything's fascinating and you need to understand why you got good data, just as much as you need to understand why you got bad data. That's just good science.   Ula Ojiaku  I love that term productive failure. I think this is the first time I'm hearing. So do you get to share your failures, you know, after experiments do you get to share that with the rest of the organisation or how does that work?  Chris Boeckerman  Yeah, I mean we try hard. We actually try hard in P & G Ventures, because anybody who's listening, who's done any type of venture, new business building type stuff, you have to shut down more things than you keep going and it's really hard to shut a program down, and so we really try to celebrate when we stopped something as much as we celebrate when we're moving forward, because Kathy Fish had this, she would say to us, she was our past, Chief R & D officer when we were doing GrowthWorks, and she was like, it's so important to shut things down because you need to shut the good things down so that you have people to work on the great things, right. And it's, but I'd say that that's the hardest thing to do. And we just did it this week and I compliment the team and it's so exciting to see it's not all roses all the time, I'm telling you, it's not, this is very hard work.  Everybody's job is hard, but when you have a team that really does the sprint together to get to the bottom of how big is it, how big is the problem? Does P & G have a unique, proprietary gift to solve it? And, you know, they come back and the answer is, hey, we did all the due diligence and we don't think that we should pursue it. It's like, I am so excited that they had the confidence and they gave us the confidence because you just want to be confident in your decision, whether it's to go forward or to not, this world of disruptive innovation is uncertain, right? It is just uncertain. It's hard to live in uncertainty every day. But if you have clarity of, we did the due diligence in the team, like I always used to say in GrowthWorks, I want the teams to shut the programs down, or the teams to be the ones that are driving it forward. But it's hard, it is hard to create a culture where people can be agile enough to move to different programs, and we are in the learning, we don't have it all figured out, but you know, we've been at it for a while, and so it's just really, it's exciting to be part of this organisation at this time, to see how far we've come.   Ula Ojiaku  Wow. So, for them, because you said something about clarity in times of uncertainty and, you know, the teams actually come to you and say, they've done the due diligence, it doesn't meet the criteria. That suggests to me that you've, you know, and you, as a leadership team have taken the time to sit down with them to identify what those clear criteria are. Are you able to share what these are, or at least the process, you know, that made you arrive to those criteria that is open and transparent to everyone that it makes the team, you know, that helps the team to determine if it meets the, it aligns with what P & G is looking for?  Chris Boeckerman  Right. Well, I can share it in general terms, right. And so a lot of people listening into the podcast would understand a funnel, right? You know, you have big, broad ideas in the beginning of the funnel and you're trying to figure out, and that's what this particular project was at, is you're trying to figure out really at that point in time, how big is the problem? It's got to be a problem big enough that P & G will care about it. Right. But the problem itself, that's more of a, how many people have it? How many solutions are out there already? What are the dissatisfiers with the solutions? So you kind of go through the essence of how big is the problem? And could we do something about it? So how big is the problem? Does P & G have a proprietary, unique reason why we should go after this versus somebody else? Do we have the capability and the technology, or do we have the partnerships? We do external scouting, right? So do we have external solutions that look viable? And then you put that together to figure out financially, what do the signals look like? Does it look big enough that it's going to be a business that P & G would care about? Because there are plenty of businesses. I've done this myself, I've fallen in love with the business, I want to do this business, and at the end of the day, it's not going to look attractive to P & G, you, at the end of the day, you are choosing to put resources on different programs at different times, and they have to not compete, that's not a great way of saying it, but they have to be big enough that it's worthy of putting a team on it. So we take a small team, they do that early work, and there's a sprint that you go to it, but it's not the same for everybody. Like it's not hard and fast numbers at this point in time. But it is all around, is the problem big enough? Do we have a reason to think that we can deliver a breakthrough solution? And then, when you put that together financially, does it look good? And so we have, I would say, what we have, the leadership team has determined is, there are some ranges that the teams work within, but what really helped this team in particular, which is something that I think people could value is we really enabled the team to focus, right? So they did this broad, like what are the parts of this problem that we think are interesting? And they did a sprint, they identified those spaces. We were like, great. We love it. Now, with that criteria go run some sprints to figure out quickly, how big is it? Is it growing? What are the gifts we have in the company? What is the quick scouting? And is this something that makes sense for, you know, P & G to create a new brand VR work or not. And they really, they came back and they said, thank you for the focus, we met with them every month after the sprint, we made decisions, but they made the recommendations and then they were like, this one isn't big enough, it's not growing, we're going to stop work on that one, do you agree? They were like, yeah, because you made such a compelling case, how can we not agree? And then the other, you know, the other, we were like, we are still really interested in the other two. Do you have enough time? And do you have the right people to do that? They went after it, they came back and you know, and then it becomes much more of a discussion because it's like, is it really something we should do? Is it something the other businesses have a better, do they already have a brand? It is expensive to create a new brand. So, we have amazing brands in this company. And so, many times it's like, wait, do we need to influence, or do we want to try to influence another brand to really take this on, because it's big and growing. So that's how it, early in the funnel, as we go later in the funnel, it becomes much more of, the first question is, could we do it, the second question is, should we do it? Right. And so the, should we do it is all based on can you create the business? Right, so then you really start pulling in all of the business aspects, the full qualification that we tend to do, transactional learning tests, incubations either in stores or in small markets or in direct to consumer. So you really start to get that behavioural and transactional data giving you the signals that this is a business. Janice Fraser, who was also one of these external experts, she would always say, you know you're ready to scale when you've put the variables together and you know where to pour the money to make it grow, you know where the money should be poured to make it grow. If you don't know where to pour the money, you're not ready to scale. And, you know, those are always, so it's complicated. Business is complicated. The channels are complicated, the platforms are complicated. So, you know, that's when you really have to figure out, do I have, you know, should I invest the big money in this? And I think one of the things that you have when you're doing intrapreneurship, you're creating startups inside the company, is you should be able to get through that funnel faster, if you can get all those parts to come together and that's, you know, that's our goal, that's what we're getting to. In P & G Ventures,  I mean, we have a new opportunity area around safe and effective insect control. And it's a brand called Zevo and it's amazing, right. And so it's nice to have a program that has been through those parts and is really kind of in that space now that we can all look to and, you know, say, all right, how are we looking compared to where they were looking at the time? Because it's like, that uncertainty and clarity, like you said, it is just uncertain space. You don't know, you can't predict a billion dollar brand, you just can't, but what are the things that you can start running after and you can learn fast and you can validate that gives you the signals at all different fidelities and levels to then go, all right, we're going. So anyway, that's the goal.   Ula Ojiaku  So, the listeners might be wondering, especially for those of us who are not so familiar with the intricate, you know, organisation, the way P & G is organised. So, what's GrowthWorks and then, what role did you play in that?   Chris Boeckerman  Perfect. Well, I ended up being able to be the co-founder of GrowthWorks. And GrowthWorks, in a simple term, is, a framework that you can apply to nurture startups inside the company. So, we are a big company and we know how to do big, big programs. Right. As we got into this disruptive world and we were being disrupted and, you know, we were looking for how to become agile, it, you know, it was sort of like we needed to shift how we did our innovation. And so we needed to be able to apply these principles from lean innovation, but in a way that made sense for P & G. So one of the things we learned, you know, very early on and everybody would know is, you know, at the end of the day, our goal is to build a business that we cultivate. We're not trying to sell to somebody. That's a very different aspect of being a startup, in a startup you want to get bought, right. But here we need to create a value creating business. And it is interesting during this time is when, Marc Pritchard, who's our Chief Brand Officer, really started to talk quite a bit about constructive disruption, and it was really important, and I think it's important for any big company to understand as they're doing this, is our job is always to build categories, to build the industry. We don't ever want to take the industry down. We want to build the industry. So we want to be disruptive, but in a building way, and so as we were thinking about that, it was just like, okay, there's probably three components that we were pulling together that you can apply, whether you're doing sustaining innovation, or disruptive innovation.   There's a, how do you learn, right. So it's the build, measure, learn, but how do you handle this, helping an organisation feel okay about sending five prototypes to consumers and not being concerned that it's going to fail. Right. So that is sort of the build, measure, learn loop. We base everything in the consumer love and the consumer need. And so we wrapped that together to kind of give it, this is how P & G applies the lean innovation model. There's also, how do you think about the type of innovation you're doing? And so, like I said, whether it's sustaining, disruptive or anything like that, but visualising that is really important, helping everybody understand, what are the new spaces that we're looking at? Placing lots of bets in these new spaces and knowing the high percentage is going to fail, right. And so, how do you measure progress in this uncertain space? That was a part of the framework as well. And then the last part of the framework was how do you organise to do this work? And I'd say the biggest thing we learned then is yeah, when you're early in the funnel, a small team can make tremendous progress, make it less hierarchical, let the team lead, leaders learn, because this is new. So I used to always joke. I was 20 years in fabric care, right. And so I would be working with an internal startup team in fabric care. And my 20 years of knowledge of fabric care wasn't what was helping the team. I was holding them back because I have all these biases of the past and they needed to go into the future and I needed to learn, so you just have to let the teams lead at that point in time and you have to learn, and be supportive. Then you do get to the point though, where my 20 years of knowledge of fabric care does become important. And that's where every startup runs into as well, is you get it to a certain point, but if you need to industrialise something, that is the core capability the company has, and you can't do that with three people, and you need hierarchy and you need to, so it's like, how do you take the best of both worlds and bring them together? And so that was how we had to figure out how to organise for where you're at and what you need at the time.  And then how do you shift to that when you need to shift it quickly? And so those were the three aspects, how you learn, what is the type of innovation you're going after, and then how do you organise, and that we made it a broad enough framework so that we have 10 business units and P & G Ventures who were at the tip of the sphere of doing this for the company anyway. And we were trying to help the rest of the company, but you wanted to give them that framework and then no matter what they were working on, could they fit themselves into that framework or could the framework enable them? And so we started as two people and our leader, and I was able to grow that organisation to about 25 people across every function of the company, but just a small group, like we just had, you know, 25 people out of a hundred thousand, right. But each of us were a function in the company, but we were one team across all functions. And so that's how we were able to kind of like be like the Navy Seals, we could come in and we could help support the business unit for what they were doing. And then the business unit would take it on. That was the only way we could become sustainable because we weren't, I never wanted to create a 500 person organisation.  Everything I learned about from all my predecessors who've tried this at other companies as well, that just gets to be too heavy. And it doesn't integrate into the entire company because you're reliant on the coaches or the experts versus our job was eventually like when we were about three years in and we kind of knew what we were doing, when we would come in and help train some part of the organisation, we would only do it if they offered up a person that would then take it from us and do the next training. And so, you know, then you start to really get into the fibre of the company to really drive the change. And it's not perfect, right. But it really was able to shift how we did our innovation and the BUs own it, right, the business units own it.   Ula Ojiaku  That's the only way it's going to be sustainable, if there's ownership from them.   Chris Boeckerman  Exactly. And they applied it in different ways, our beauty care business is very different than our fabric care business. So one size fits all was never going to work.   Ula Ojiaku  Oh my gosh, sorry, that was a theme at the conference I spoke at, you know, it was like, no, there's no one size fits all approach.   Chris Boeckerman  I'm very thankful that I had the support around me, and that the company invested to bring external people in, right. One of the people I haven't mentioned yet is Maxine Friedman and she started with Bionic and, you know, now has her own work that she does, but she was my partner day in and day out as we were trying to figure out how to make this change. And without having people like that near me, Karen Hershenson's an internal person that was with me. They're the ones that really helped me see it was more than us. And in order to make it more than us, we had to enable others. We had to give it away. So first we had to figure out what it was. So don't get me wrong. That was not easy. It took us an entire year of really crazy experiments that the business units did. And we were just learning and running and helping and doing everything that we could, but we were pulling together the learnings. We were strategically figuring out what was working and what wasn't working so that we could land within the first year with this framework. Then once we had the framework, then we had something more intentional that we could work with the business units on. And we showed up for free. That was the other thing is, when they called, we showed up, right? Like nobody paid for us, we were helping them, but then they started to pay with their people, and they became the experts who then moved it forward and they moved it forward in different ways, because the external experts were the ones telling us we've seen other companies try this, don't try to mandate, don't force it, help figure out an agile framework that people can fit for what they need. And to this day it still exists. I mean, I'm not on it anymore, there's a small team that's still is working through it and, you know, but the businesses own it. They're the ones who really drive it in the way that they need.   Ula Ojiaku  Wow. I respect your time. I could delve in more. I think, Chris, this is an official invite to have you back sometime, you know, for a sequel to this conversation.   Chris Boeckerman  I would love it. I would love it. This has been so much fun. I really, I have a ton of passion for this type of work and our motto in GrowthWorks was unleash people to unleash growth. I do think P & G has the best people. I think everybody thinks that about their company, but I just really, I believe it, you know, when I was 20 years in fabric care, when I was, you know, 5 years in GrowthWorks, and now in P & G Ventures, that we just have the best people. And as we unleash them, we're growing, and so it's just a ton of fun, so happy to come back.   Ula Ojiaku  Your passion shines through and for you to say P & G has the best people, speaking with you, I am left with no doubt about it because you are a great ambassador for that. So thank you for that. So, in terms of a few more questions, so what books, if you had, because you said you had to go to school to learn more about innovation and you got in coaches. Are there any books that have helped you, you know, in this learning journey?  Chris Boeckerman  Yeah, there's a group of books just on lean innovation that definitely helped. So the Eric Ries, like kind of trilogy of books, I would say is The Lean Startup, The Startup Way, but he also had a small printing of something called, The Leader's Guide, which I think you can only get on audio now. And Janice Fraser, Eric introduced us to Janice and she had a lot of that, that really helps you to figure out how to help an organisation, how to help leaders to bring this to life. So those were really critical. And then David Kidder from Bionic wrote a book called New to Big, and I would say that's a great synopsis of what they taught us. And so, that's a good one to go to. And then there's a Scrum book that, I'm going to have to look up afterwards to give you the actual title, but twice the work and half the time.  Ula Ojiaku  That'll be Jeff Sutherland, Scrum, How to do Twice the Work in Half the Time. Dr Sutherland was my guest a few episodes ago.   Chris Boeckerman  Yes, it was life-changing for me, not necessarily because I became, I did not become a Scrum master. We have people inside the company that have done amazing things, but that was the book where he really articulated the questions that we started to ask, that helped us with teams lead, leaders learn. So he articulated that leaders, you know, should ask, what did you learn? How do you know? What do you need to learn next? And how can I help you as a leader? And, you know, that simple articulation was really great for us. So those are the ones that I kind of went back to again and again, to really figure out how to do lean innovation. I have another book for you just in general to share, and that's called Four Thousand Weeks, and it's a productivity book that somebody had just shared with me and it's by Oliver Burkeman and this, I just really liked because it's made a big impact in my life right now. If you live to be 80, you live 4,000 weeks. So it puts a finite amount of time, which can be scary, but we all know is real. But what I loved about this, it's the first productivity book that I received the message because I'm sure other productivity books have told me this, but it's the first time I was able to openly receive the message that you cannot do it all, so stop trying. You need to be choiceful. You need to be intentional on what it is you want to do and what it is you're going to intentionally not do. And that was just really impactful for me. And I think it can be impactful for a lot of people that really, the quality of your life is based on the choices that you make, and it's part of the reason I'm here because I'm a very busy person, but I just decided, no, I really, this is a passion that I have. I have a unique experience, I would really like to share that with other like-minded people who are on this, you know, what I call rollercoaster journey. It is like high highs and low lows when you are a change agent in big companies, but it's so fulfilling. So that book just had a big impact on me, that I really am in control of my destiny, but I need to make some choices.  Ula Ojiaku  Well, I've made a note of those books and they would be in the show notes of your episode. So thank you for that. Would that be, if the audience wants to get in touch with you, how can they find you?  Chris Boeckerman  The best way is through LinkedIn, I'm on LinkedIn, and while I would love to talk to everybody in the world, right. The way that I kind of make my choices, like I just said, which is exactly when you reached out to me is, anything that enables P & G and you know, what, what we all have passion for, I make time for, so yeah, so LinkedIn is the best way.   Ula Ojiaku  Definitely. I mean, you're a busy person, so LinkedIn would be the best place. And any final words for the audience so we wrap this up.   Chris Boeckerman  Yeah. I think, you know, I think it just really is, if you can, you follow your passion and people are everything. I just, everybody in the startup world, everybody in a corporate environment will tell you that the team and the people, they make all the difference in the world. And I just have found through my career as well, the more I invest in the people, the better, and so, yeah, I mean, if there's a way that you can ever really drive together your passions and then the ability to kind of bring an amazing team around you, you can do anything. My favourite quote is, never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it's the only thing that ever has. It's by Margaret Mead. And I just really, I really believe it. I think, and, in what we've been able to do at P & G, we had the people, the groundswell, and we had the leadership support in, and you need both, but it just really starts with a small group of people that have a lot of passion and are amazing. And so that's what I would focus on.   Ula Ojiaku  Wow. Thank you so much, Chris. This has been an inspiring conversation, more like me learning from you. So I do think, and I know that the audience, the viewers and listeners would also find this episode very useful. So thank you again for your time.   Chris Boeckerman  Oh, thank you very much. And I've listened to all your podcasts now. And so I'm learning a ton from this forum as well. And just thank you for taking the time and doing it. I love your story and I was really happy to be part of it. So thank you.  Ula Ojiaku   That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show.   I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com  Take care and God bless. 

Join Jerry Engel, Pete Newell, and Steve Weinstein for the sixth edition of the Lean Innovation Educators Summit December 14, 1-4 pm Eastern Time, 10 am-1 pm Pacific Time. This virtual gathering will bring together entrepreneurship educators from around the world who are putting Lean Innovation to work in their classrooms, accelerators, venture studios, and student-driven ventures.

This episode, Spencer Easton announces big changes in his life and appreciation and admiration for the lean community who has had his back through some tough times over the last few weeks. From his first vehicle, an ambulance to being a recovering CMP guru, to his father who helped Spencer develop a love hate relationship with construction – Spencer puts it all out there! He is by far one of the most genuine and sincere guest we have had on the show to date. Spencer was a co-author for the book Elevating Takt Planning and dives into the book. Plus, he brings proof of the first person to document the Skilled Trades Alliance Elementary Classroom Clarity Takt metric! You do not want to miss this episode as he compares takt planning to music! Spencer tells us about his new role as a lean champion at Mortensen Construction! Find out what he is going to be doing and how advanced Mortensen is in the lean world, specifically with regards to takt (flow) planning. Especially with the addition of Spencer, they are leading the industry in takt planning. Spencer highlights those people who made a difference in his life! You have a tune in to find out who that is! Spoiler Alert: One of his people, made him! All this and more within this super deep episode highlighting Spencer Easton! ABOUT HOOTS ON THE GROUND PODCAST: The Lean Builder's absolutely, positively NO bullshido podcast. Join Host Adam Hoots and his guests as they dig deep into the topics that are relevant to those of us who “get it”: the men and women with the dirty boots, the ones who work in the field, doing the hands-on business of construction each day. Listen in as we keep it real while stories from the trenches are shared along with lessons learned and some laughter along the way. RESOURCE LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: theleanbuilder.com | Our main blog, book, resources, news & events website https://youtu.be/ICPsue1jJAE | What is lean? Feat. Spencer Easton https://takting.com/ | Takting A free Takt Software thisislean.com | This is Lean book Niklas Modig GUESTS FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE: Adam Hoots | linkedin.com/in/adam-hoots-4645519/ | podcast host for “Hoots on the Ground” and Lean Construction Shepherd with ConstructionACHEsolutions Spencer Easton | https://www.linkedin.com/in/spencer-easton/ SPONSORED BY: BOSCH RefinemySite | www.bosch-refinemysite.us

Shein is a $10 billion-in-revenue e-commerce platform directly targeting Gen Z. It was the second most downloaded shopping app globally in the first half of 2021 and has been growing more than 100% for each of the last 8 years.Sell it before building it! Shein leverages a lean innovation approach amplified by AI at scale. In the first episode of LeanCast Shorts, we explore Shein's systematic approach to innovation.

 The most innovative companies tend to tackle the risk of developing new products upfront. There are 4 types of risks Value Risk Tech Risk Usability Risk Business Viability RiskThe most important risk any product developer needs to address upfront is value risk i.e. would customers find values in what we'd like to offer them? aka would they buy it? aka does our offer address their need? How would you know the answer without having a business running, you might ask? Well, that's what Lean Innovation is all about 

Lean Innovation Problem Solving With Peter Newell Peter Newell is a nationally recognized innovation expert whose work is transforming how the government and other large organizations compete and drive growth. He is the CEO of BMNT, a Palo Alto-based innovation consultancy and early-stage technology incubator that helps solve some of the hardest real-world problems in […] The post Lean Innovation Problem Solving With Peter Newell – #332 appeared first on James Taylor.

Lean Innovation Problem Solving With Peter Newell Peter Newell is a nationally recognized innovation expert whose work is transforming how the government and other large organizations compete and drive growth. He is the CEO of BMNT, a Palo Alto-based innovation consultancy and early-stage technology incubator that helps solve some of the hardest real-world problems in […] The post Lean Innovation Problem Solving With Peter Newell – #332 appeared first on James Taylor.

Full episode video available here: https://youtu.be/gWWkD9hQVtA  Ula's Bio: Uloaku (Ula) Ojiaku is a Business Agility Strategist, coach, mentor and trainer with a focus on helping leaders and their teams in large organisations embrace a Lean-Agile mindset and adopt its associated ways of working to improve how they operate, effectively respond to changes in the marketplace and ultimately deliver value to their customers. With nearly 20 years of professional experience, she has worked in multiple countries, in a variety of technical, business and leadership roles across industries including Oil & Gas, Telecommunications, Financial Services, Government, Higher Education and Consulting. A certified Technology Business Management (TBM) Council Executive, SAFe 5.0 Program Consultant (SPC 5.0) and ICAgile Coach, Ula has a Masters degree in Computer Science from the University College London (UCL) and a Bachelors degree in Electronics Engineering from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN). She is the Founder/ Principal Consultant of Mezahab Group Ltd (a UK-based Lean Agile Innovation training and consulting company). She also currently serves a multi-national retail organisation as a Senior Agile Coach and is a guest lecturer at Coventry University.  Social Media/ Websites: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/uloakuojiaku/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/uloakuojiaku Website: www.agileinnovationleaders.com  Episode Transcript Ula Ojiaku Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders Podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more, with actionable takeaways for you the listener. Hi everyone. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of the Agile Innovation Leaders Podcast. I had the privilege on the 30th of March 2022 to speak at the Agile Coach Conference organised by Gladwell Academy. My talk was focused on the SLoMoSH Canvas, which is the tool that I had developed to help with facilitating conversations amongst teams, to clarify roles and responsibilities. The SLoMoSH Canvas has other use cases, however my talk was just focused on the clarification of roles and responsibilities and how it could be used in that situation. Without further ado, my talk at the 2022 Agile Coach Conference in Amsterdam. Thank you, it's a great privilege to be here, live and in person. The last time I attended and participated in a face to face conference was back in 2019, December 2019, San Francisco, so you can't imagine how refreshing it is to be out here. So I'm here, all the way from the United Kingdom, I'm here to speak to you about the topic ‘Set up for Success: Clarifying Roles and Responsibilities using the SLoMoSH Canvas.' I know, ‘what's that word SLoMoSH'? I made it up, as you're going to come to realise. But without further ado, let me tell you about myself. I have about 20 years of professional experience. I started off in engineering, hands-on engineering roles in telecommunications, oil and gas industry, and then kind of moved on to that more business-facing, interfacing type of role with teams where you're kind of translating the conversations, and my first foray into agile ways of working was about 16 years ago as a field engineer, with Schlumberger as a field engineer. We had standups, we had kanbans and all that, but we didn't use the term agile, it wasn't a buzzword then. So as coaches, and I'm sure as we're predominantly agile coaches in the audience here, I've noticed. And we do have those… part of our satisfaction that comes from our jobs is when the teams, the leaders, the people we're coaching, have those ‘aha' moments, and I love what Lyssa (Adkins) said in the morning, it's really about taking a holistic view, building those relationships, meeting people where they are, so that's what I love about being an agile coach. I host a podcast, Agile Innovation Leaders, and I've been privileged to have people like Jeff Sutherland, Steve Blank, Alex Osterwalder, but that's not why we're here. So, we're going to do an ice breaker. I have two children, I have a son who's 11 and a daughter, Kiki, who's 9. So one day Kiki comes back from school and says, and I'm busy working and in the zone, and she says ‘mum, I have something for you, I have a game I have to play'. And I'm like, in my mind, I don't need this right now, but I have to be a loving parent with my children isn't it, so I say ‘all right Kiki, what do you have for me?' All right, so I'm going to teach you that. I don't need to tell you the story, but the key thing is now, I'm going to mention three words in succession, and after each word, you know, you use A, shout out A and raise your left hand if it's an A, if that word matches with an A, so if it's an animal, you raise your left hand, if it's a food, the word that I call, raise your right hand, you can also shout it out if you feel like that, and if it's a place, C, then raise both hands and say C. Does that sound clear enough? OK, let's do a trial run. So, A, well, you did it. So I was going to say ‘poodle', A, awesome. Burger! B. You guys are rocking it. And a castle. C. OK, awesome, you guys have gotten it. Now let's do the real thing. OK, so, I'm going to mention it in a random way. I know you're watching and wondering what I'm doing. Yoghurt. B. OK, B, good, good. Lion. A. Are you sure? Yes, it's an animal, lion is an animal. All right, third and the last, Turkey. (Laughter) That was exactly what my daughter did to me, you know she said, Turkey and I was like OK, where does it go, because mine was more like, A is stand here, B is stand here and C is stand here. But I will take the blame, as a responsible agile coach I will say, if I had wanted you to understand, I would have explained it better. That is the words of the famous Johan Cruyff. And I should have explained it better because, you know, I kind of, hands up if you know, you didn't quite go into the outliers, because you didn't, because the impression based on the instruction was the, you know, the words would fit into one box. Either it's going to be A, or B, or C. Hands up if that was your impression? OK, the rest of you could see that two, three steps ahead, awesome, please call me, because maybe we have a business to start because you can see into the future. But that's the case with transformation initiatives. There are lots of moving wheels, it's about change on a massive scale, and the fact is, with all the changes happening, and people are complex beings, and as Lyssa mentioned again, in her talk earlier on today. I was taking copious notes for all the speakers, when you all were speaking. It's really about moving from that mindset of an organisation and people as machines to an organisation as a complex eco system. And I don't know about you, but for most transformation, and no matter where you are on your transformation journey, whether you are very mature or whether you are just at the beginning of the journey or somewhere in between, the fact is there are always going to be moving parts, and we change, and we need to change and adapt as we go on. So, again, Lyssa, by now you all know I'm a massive Lyssa fan, but the key thing is how work has really impacted a lot of the things we do as agile coaches and the agile coaching competencies that she and Michael Spayd developed, you know has kind of helped with clarifying, what are those multiple hats, those balls that we need to juggle as agile coaches as we support and lead and help the teams as they move under transformation, the journey towards ways of agile working, and developing an agile mindset. Now, usually it would start with some sort of training, you know, to train people into the roles, to understand, because people need to be trained. And I think it was, you know, and I think it was during the session with Marcel, there was something about needing to combine education with coaching. So, in terms of like the initial starting point of training people, let's say classroom-based training, there would be, if you, as an agile coach, are the one running that training, you need to have your teacher's hat on. Lyssa, am I correct, or am I bungling it up? Lyssa Adkins You've been beautiful, I'm overwhelmed. Ula Ojiaku Ok, well please correct me, because you are the expert, and that's your work there. Anyway, so you have to have that teaching hat on, but the main message today that I want to bring to you here, the key point it this, more often than not, just classroom-based training or training of any sort isn't quite enough for the teams to start adapting or applying their learnings to their context. Even within the same organisation, you'll find out that no two teams are alike, and you might have a product owner in team A and a product owner in team B. They are on paper, they have the same role, the title, however, the nuances of what they do with it, it might mean that there are other things that they would need to take on as a result of the nature of their work and the team that they belong to. And so, in what I'm going to be sharing with you in terms of the case study, I've also had to become a neutral process holder, you know, to facilitate conversations with the teams. And this is with the purpose of helping them to connect the dots. OK, just to help them to connect the dots, because they need to get to a shared understanding of whatever topic it is that they are having. So I picked this graphic from the internet. Unfortunately, I don't know who the author, the original originator is, but credit to them, it kind of beautifully illustrates the concept. You might have the same people in the room, listening to this talk right now like we are, you know, if you look at this picture here, there are three people looking at a picture of a truck, but what you can see is something, different elements of the picture is coming out, jumping out at them. But you need to make sure that they also have a joined up view, you know, to have the bigger picture in mind. So how does that apply to us as agile coaches? It's not about having lots of different frameworks, and we don't want to go into that rut of being like the proverbial person with their hangman seeing everything as a nail, it's about taking the time to understand the context. And as Sharon and Yasmina said in their talk, you know, you need to have tools in the toolbox, but you also need to know that it's not about the tools in the toolbox, it's, according to my colleague Scott Henault, who says the power of the tool is in the conversation it creates. It goes back to the people, it's about helping them to have a conversation so that they have a shared understanding to work together more effectively. And so, a bit of the case study in my case. So I am currently a senior agile coach with a multi national retail organisation, if you read into my LinkedIn profile, you'll know which organisation that is. So there is this, there were these teams and when the organisation started its agile transformation about four years ago or something like thereabouts, for that team they were pivoted into agile, single agile team like team level team teams, OK. And then over time some further analysis was done and the leadership decided, that's a story for another day, but go with me here. So they decided they wanted it to be a SAFe ART and so the team was now being pivoted into the combined SAFe ART. Now I had joined the organisation after the initial, the first, you know, pivot to agile teams, and what I noticed interacting with those teams was that they, the teams, already struggled, because they were moving from a traditional projects management waterfall based approach to delivery into agile, and as agile teams, you know, scrum teams, Kanban teams, they were already struggling. I mean, they were delivering, it's almost like, have you ever had a toothache where you're able to eat, but how you ate and enjoyed your food when you had a toothache versus when your, when everything is OK, is much different. So they were delivering all right, but it's almost like you're chewing with a toothache, or hobbling with a bad foot, you're moving, but you're not moving in the most effective way you could. So I realised they had this problem, and just waving, if I could be a fairy godmother and wave the SAFe wand over them with all due respect, it wasn't going to make the problem go away. There was something we needed to get to the root cause. So, sometimes, yes, it's all about trying to make a light touch and as simple as possible reduce the cognitive load as Mariëlle said in the workshop earlier, but there are times that, you know, the hard things have to be done. There are times you have to strip down, get into the weeds, get into the detail, and based on the conversation with the RTE, I designed a session for the key roles, because those were the key points, if you know the theory of constraints, it's about looking at where the bottom leg is and then addressing the bottom leg to improve the flow, and of course you know as the system, because, you know, there would definitely be something else to improve, but right now the key bottom leg was with the Epic Owner roles, the product management roles, the product and scrum master roles, so those were the areas we decided to focus on, because you can't boil the ocean. So, the SLoMoSH Canvas. Now I wouldn't say that it all was original, but it's more of a synthesis of ideas , concepts, mental models that I've been exposed to over the past 20 years, but the main influence for this SLoMoSH Canvas was the work of Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur, the business model canvas, and of course when I last spoke with Alex Osterwalder, you know, I had him as a guest on my podcast , he said it's really about making things visual, it's important, it makes it easier for conversations, it helps people to get on the same page. And another influence in developing this was from the work of an executive coach known as Tony Jeary, Jeary with a J, and he wrote this book ‘Strategic Acceleration' and he had the MOLO matrix, which is like 'more of, less of'. So based on that I kind of developed this, which I was using as well for personal reasons, you know, in terms of thinking where do I want to be in the future, how do I get there, what do I need to do more of, less of, what do I need to stop entirely, hand over. And I kind of, as I was thinking about this in the middle of the night, I thought, this might work for the teams we're talking about. So let me explain the SLoMoSH Canvas. Has anyone figured out why it's named SLoMoSH? OK, here you go. Audience member It's the first letters OK, yes, so the first letters, Start, Less of, More of, then Stop and Handover. So that's where the SLoMoSH came from, and I'm still thinking of, is there anything better to call this, so if you have any ideas, please let me know. But that's what it's called. Now, the key thing, how does it work? It's more in the centre you have the core responsibilities, that would be, let's say, common to all the roles, it's better when you do it role by role, so if it's about a particular role, it's something you're facing, you have those responsibilities and tasks in the centre, and there's no change, no action needs to be done, and usually that would be a starting point, OK, for the conversation. Now, the actions that will come out in the conversation will be when you're now looking at those key things, you kind of have a conversation about it, as we'll look at it later, and then you  find out, are there things that you need to, that you should be doing that you're not doing that you should start, you put it there, and the other thing is that you should be doing as part of your role that you're not doing as often as you should, maybe put them in the ‘More of'. You know, ‘Less of' would be the reverse of ‘More of' and then other things ‘Stop'. This part is really important, because as human beings we are adverse to, you know, kind of losing things and taking things out, kind of losing things, we'd rather pile up things without taking off some other things consequently and that is a mindset that we, you know, because there should be the art of maximising the work, the amount of work not done. So it's also important to challenge your teams, are there things that you should stop doing, and stop means stop. Don't hand it over to anyone because it's not adding value now, it wasn't adding value then, it's not going to add value in the future. And then, just as important, is the Handover part. Are there things that you're doing in your current role or in the current context, which in the new role, in the new structure, which don't necessarily apply to you, what your role as you understand it now, but someone needs to do it or else things will fall through the cracks and it's going to impact on delivery, and that would be in the Handover space. OK. So, this if for you now, two minutes, can we all take the time to pause and reflect, and I acknowledge it might not be applicable to you, we all have different situations and contexts, problems that we're solving right now. So if it doesn't apply to you, that's fine. Can you pause and reflect individually on what you've heard so far. Think about scenarios in your current context, your current work, where you could use the Canvas, or where you have, you're needing to have the conversations that this Canvas could help you with. What are those scenarios? So it's an individual pause and think. Can anyone share the result of your conversations? Audience member We were just discussing challenges that we have in multiple teams and the conclusion of the challenge was the team motivation and the relationship with the team members started deteriorating due to the moving to remote working, right. So, there were misunderstandings about what the team lead needs to do, what the product owner needs to do, what the scrum master needs to do, or even every single member of the team. So, what we did, we did different kinds of workshops, but now, when I see this, it perfectly fits into the, what I think we could use, or what we could benefit a lot from this. It was not structured like you did, but this is more clear and straightforward, yeah. Ula Ojiaku Wow, thank you for that, and yes, I'll be sharing my context, so thank you for sharing that. We have just enough time for you. Audience member I think we can use this in our organisation. I'm working for the government, for the POVmark we call that, the Product Owner Vakgroep Manager and agile coach, it's like, we talk about the teams, but not about the individuals, but not about the teams, but what are we talking about? Because we say the product owner is there for the product, and the manager is there for the people, and the agile coach is there for the team. But sometimes it feels like no one has the responsibility so we can use this very wise to, hey, what can we stop talking about? Ula Ojiaku Awesome! Well thank you for sharing. Right, thank you. So, what did I do? Let's move on. So, a case study with the very team that I was talking about, a team of teams in this case. Now, something else I didn't share about the challenges they were facing was this, you know. Having gone to the training, because, let's say for example some of them were previously project managers and as part of the transformation pivot, you know, they were now set, OK, the way it was done is another conversation. And it was more of a combination of OK, where do you think we fit in now that, you know, this is what this role does, and that's what that role does. So it was a combination of that and, you know, my management kind of making joint decisions to give people new roles. And so as a traditional project manager, you'd expect that you're making sure things are on time, you budget and schedule, you liaise with third parties, maybe vendors as required to make sure everyone is cooperating. That's the traditional project management role. You're also, you'd also be monitoring the spend, how much are we spending on this project? You know, the financial reporting, the compliance, to make sure you're being compliant, and being a publicly traded organisation, you also have to make sure that, you know, on the straight and narrow, it's not directly giving value to the end customer, but it needs to be done if you want to operate as an organisation, if you want to be legally trading. So, these things still need to be done. But in the new roles, you know, the new product owner role generally, it doesn't have anything about managing compliance issues, it doesn't have anything about financial reporting, and so when we're operating as that agile team, these things were falling through the cracks. You could have said, yes, I used to be a project manager but now I'm a scrum master, there's nothing that says, you know, as a scrum master, that I need to do that same thing with the product. So, who does it, because it needs to be done. OK. So in this simplified example, let's assume we're doing this session with product owners. Now, I populated the core area, or the continuum area with the generic responsibilities that a product owner would do. Of course, this is not exhaustive, this is only for illustration. And then at the start of the session I'll be like, OK, now these are the things, you know, generic things that the product owner would need to do. But are there other things that you currently do that's not in the box? Feel free to create a sticky(note) and put it there, because we need to have a conversation, we need to make it visible. Because most people have what they do in their heads, and other people, remember the picture with the, you the bus and all that, and three people are looking at, one is seeing the driver, the other one is seeing the cargo, the other one is seeing the vehicle. So, let's all visualise it and talk through it. I told you sometimes you need to get into the weed of things so that everyone has a shared understanding. So, imagine that the ones or the items in the bold italics are the ones that I can't add in, oh, I also manage compliance issues, oh I also participate in release value, oh and I also produce reports for the senior management. Let's put it there. Now, after having the conversation, sticky by sticky, let's assume in this hypothetical session, this is what we came up with. So, remember in the core part it's more of whatever it is that you're doing and you're happy with it, you think you're doing OK, there's nothing that needs to change, that's fine, you leave it there. So, for, let's assume, that the product owner group you know, you already create to start the stories. We prioritise our backlog and we also participate in release planning  and we think it's relevant to where we're going so we have to keep stay there. But there might be other things that they have, you know, had a conversation about, and they say OK, you know what, we haven't really been conducting backlog refinement sessions and we need to do that a bit more, thoughtfully and, you know, we need to just start doing it basically. That goes in the start place. And maybe they say something about contributing to the product vision and roadmap, and say it's been someone else that's been doing that, the product manager has been doing that, but we feel like, you know, the, it trickles down to us and it comes as a surprise, we need to contribute earlier so that we can also give the team perspective into things, so we can put that in the ‘More of' etc etc. But the key thing is, it's about facilitating those conversations. And it doesn't stop here. Once we've done this part, it's now about focusing on the elements in the outer rectangle to identify what's the action that's required for this. So, if you said you don't facilitate or you don't do backlog refinement sessions, what action needs to be done and who's going to own it after this session? And they, as a group, you know, there's this saying, if they write it, they won't fight it. As a coach, as an agile coach, it's not about being the sage on the stage, it's about being their guide by their side. So you ask them, OK, so you have, and of your own free will, I didn't tell you to start doing it, but you said you do need to start doing it, so what are you going to do about it? Because, you know, if you tell them, then the ownership for following up with that action is going to be on me if I told them, but if they said, this is what we think we need to do, and this is who, I mean, I think I'll own it, then they're more likely to follow through with the actual action, so they will, you know, identify who owns it, what they're going to do, and the writing of the same happens with the rest of the items on the board. So for this case study, some of the outcomes were, there was an improved visibility and shared understanding of what people were doing. And of course, during the session, the fact that it was visual, it wasn't like a spreadsheet or a long Word document, not that there's anything wrong with it, but most people process, you know we all process information differently and having it visually on stickys helped with, you know, bringing or bridging that gap in communication and giving us a point of reference that we all could zone into. So, it helped with relevant conversations, both as a group and after the session they were also able to show this to their line management, and have necessary conversations with them. And for some of them, the product management group, they were able to demonstrate, because they would say, I had a lot on my plate, and the line management would be like, she's complaining again, but by the time we did this, and they showed an electronic copy of it to the line management, they said, oh, you actually do a whole lot, right, and that meant a case for an additional set of business analysts to be added to the team to help them with those sorts of things, to invent the responsibility on their plate. It enabled them to identify actions to move from their current state to the desired future state and, you know, they have also role descriptions that takes into account the context of the work they do, that they can share with their stakeholders, because there was a confusion about who does what. So, some facilitation tips as I round off this. It's more effective if you do it role by role. You know, don't try to boil the ocean, there are instances you can do it as a whole team, but my focus right now, on this case study, is more about, you know, on a role, so if it's for scum masters, within a team of teams, then bring them together so they have a joint understanding. If it's a product management, or product owner etc etc, but do it role by role, because that helps with focusing the session. And don't start with a blank slate. Prepopulate the centre of the board with generic responsibilities and then have them add things or remove things as they see fit. Now it's really about being a neutral facilitator in this process, because it's now them having conversations. Now, encourage conversation and debate whilst keeping focused on desirable outcomes and then remind them that, you know, this is not a once and done activity. Things will change, and as they do, you don't have to do it often, but as things change, and you feel they're significantly changed that you need to have another of these conversations, you do so, and inspect and adapt as required. So, before we summarise, what would be your key takeaway from this talk? Anyone? OK, I'll walk to you, I'm not throwing. Audience member  Thank you. Maybe we all recognise, because I also saw it in your model, that stopping and handover are mainly the most difficult topics to discuss. How did you handle those things? Because if you look at the model now, it doesn't seem a lot went off their plate.  More or less it shifted or put on their plate. Ula Ojiaku OK, I was asking for key takeaways, but you know, you've given me a question so I will answer that. No problem. So you said stopping and handover are the most important aspects, and how did I get them, keep them focused on that conversation? It's all about asking questions but I can't tell them you have to stop it, you need to have them come to a realisation and sometimes it's a conversation that you might have with them a few times before they come to the realisation themselves, but it's not about telling them what to do, so I, when I facilitate these sessions, I don't tell them what they need to do, I just ask questions to clarify, OK, what you are doing, do you think you still need to keep it? Yes, OK. Is it adding value to your stakeholders, your customers, does it make it more efficient, no? So why do you think we should keep it, because it's the way we've always done it. OK, so I leave it there and it might not be the right time to pursue it, but I try to encourage them to, you know, consider things that they can stop and handover. So it's a interfaced question and it's also like there's no one-size-fits-all-approach. But thank you very much sir for that question. So, I'll just round up. Classroom based training is almost never enough. We need to support them to kind of, make sense of whatever they've learnt, and teams, because they as teams and individuals sometimes, I personally sometimes struggle to apply what I've learnt in the classroom, on a course, into my real life context. So sometimes that additional support is needed, sometimes we have to roll up our sleeves and help them to have those conversations. And my humble submission is, would you consider using maybe the SLoMoSH Canvas for these sort of conversations, would that help you? For me, for the team that I've used it with, it's made things clearer for them. I wouldn't say it's a Fairy Godmother. You know, I wave the wand and they lived happily ever after, but that hobble has definitely gone. I'm now going to find a dentist to go help me on with the toothache, because there are always going to be problems to be solved. So, with that, that's all I have. Thank you so much for listening and for not falling asleep on me. That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!

Interview video available here: https://youtu.be/F3X1BC_HQws  Bio Bruno Pešec helps business leaders innovate profitably. He is the rare innovator who can claim that he's worked on a regulation-defying freight train and an award-winning board game. In addition to his corporate experience with brands like DNV, DNB, and Kongsberg Group, Bruno runs a community of entrepreneurs of several thousand members. Longer version of bio available at https://www.pesec.no/about/ Websites/ Social Media Bruno's website: pesec.no Playing Lean site: https://www.playinglean.com/ LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pesec/ Books The 9 Big Don'ts of Corporate Innovation by Bruno Pešec https://www.pesec.no/9-big-donts-of-corporate-innovation/ The Corporate Startup by Tendayi Viki https://www.amazon.co.uk/Corporate-Startup-Established-Successful-Innovation/dp/9462761507 The Game Changing Strategy by Constantinos Markides https://www.amazon.co.uk/Game-Changing-Strategies-Established-Industries-Breaking/dp/0470276878    To Better Thinking by Linda Elder https://www.amazon.co.uk/Better-Thinking-Living-Through-Critical/dp/0133092569 The Halo Effect by Phil Rosenzweig https://www.amazon.co.uk/Effect-Business-Delusions-Deceive-Managers/dp/1476784035 Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink https://www.amazon.co.uk/Drive-Surprising-Truth-about-Motivates/dp/B004N74VBK   Episode Transcript Intro: Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. Guest Intro: Hello everyone, thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of the Agile Innovation Leaders Podcast. My guest today is Bruno Pešec. He is one of those rare innovators and coaches whose focus is on helping business leaders innovate profitably. I had lots of learning moments and ‘aha' moments speaking with Bruno and I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. I learnt a lot as well. I have no doubt that you will also get some useful nuggets from this episode, so enjoy. Ula Ojiaku:  I have with me here, Bruno Pešec. And, Bruno, welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast, it's a great pleasure and honour to have you here on the show. Bruno Pešec:  Thank you very much, Ula. And I also want to give my special gratitude and thanks for perfectly pronouncing my surname. Ula Ojiaku:  Oh, well, I am very happy about that. I actually wrote it out, you know, phonetically on a piece of paper. But thanks, you taught me well, great. Now let's go straight into the questions we have for you today. So, who is Bruno Pešec? Bruno Pešec:  So, Bruno Pešec is, I will describe an Innovator, Martial Artist and Engineer, that probably sums up like parts of my life that I'm proudest, and that I engage with the most. So, I started my studies as a young engineer, and what I was really fascinated with are problems, wicked problems. Usually wicked problems are described as a collection of problems that don't really have a clear cause, clear root cause, and there is no clear-cut solution, the only thing you can try to do is tame them a little bit, and I was fascinated with that as engineer. That's why I studied industrial engineering, which is a combination of systems and humans. I started my career in defense, and I had the good fortune of working on some very, very difficult products. And one of the projects that I was working on was an innovation completely based on product and technology. We made such a product that was by far the best in the whole world, it was so good, no one believed us. And it was ridiculous, but for me, it was a great learning experience, because, you know, we were a young group of engineers that said, like, hey, let's just do everything we can to make the best product we can, and we succeeded, and nobody on the market believed us. So, what happened, our sales department had to send our product on a tour across the globe. And with a lot of engineering products and solutions, they can be copied by sufficiently proficient engineers, and that is what happened after a few years. It wasn't such a leading product anymore. But for me, it was a very important learning lesson, because I realised that innovation isn't just about this technical side, but also about the human side, you must understand how to talk about innovation, you must understand how narratives form, how stories form and how people interact. And that is kind of how I started to slowly expand my own knowledge beyond just being an engineer, to also invest in a lot of time and effort to understand psychology, human nature, emotions, not just to reading, but also to try to be different myself, whatever that might mean. And it wasn't always pleasant. Ula Ojiaku:  I totally empathise - wow! Could you tell us a bit more about the product? What was the product all about? Bruno Pešec:  So, since I was working in industry, that's, you know, very limited with NDAs. So unfortunately, I can't really go into great specifics, but let's say that innovations were based on the physical properties. And I can say, you know, people expect that the products made out of steel have a specific weight, what we were able to do is, through a lot of engineering trades, using numerical simulations, very advanced computation, a lot of testing in actual manufacturing whole, we were able to make a product that has varying thickness of steel panels, and that reduce the weight of the product and increase the functionality of the product. And that's why I say, when a smart engineer sees the solution, they can easily copy it, but the challenge is seeing the solution, coming to see that. So, we did the heavy working of finding the new improvement, and then it was easy to take over. And if we connect it to what a lot of companies and startups mess up, when they spend their time and effort to educate the market and then somebody else comes and actually picks up the market. So that is, you know, when you have the whole discussion, is it good to be first to the market? Yes, if you can afford to capture it. Ula Ojiaku: Yes. Yes. Very true, because you have the fast followers who just sit back, let you do the heavy lifting and then they, because they have maybe a wide range of resources and deep pockets, are able to mass manufacture what you spent years to put together. Wow! Bruno Pešec: Exactly. Ula Ojiaku: So, what were the key lessons, because you said you now realise that it's not just about having a fantastic product, you also had to focus on the human psychology. So, what's different between then and now? Bruno Pešec: So, one of the things, reflecting here in the moment, one of the very important lessons, for me personally, was that alignment is much more important and valuable than being the most correct person in the room, or following the perfect or the ideal process. So for myself, you know, I have a decade of experience innovating and inventing, not just in defense, but also in transportation in oil and gas, in entertainment, you know, in different industries. And without trying to sound arrogant, I have a good grasp of what it takes to, you know, develop, invent something and take it to the market, which is not necessarily always true. So, when I work, you know, with clients or different teams, I'm usually the person who knows the innovation process, but that doesn't matter a lot if I cannot help those people in the room to actually get from A to B. And that sometimes includes, I don't want to say compromises, but negotiations, both internal implicit, but also external, you know, when do you stop focusing on just the theory and when do you move to, okay, in practice being pragmatic, and moving on. And I would say that Agile and Innovation and Lean and Lean Startup and a lot of these fields, they're guilty of being extremely dogmatic and paradigmatic, and then you have this whole conversation around, okay, when is it about dogma and when is it about flow, customer, value, outcomes? So, that, to me was part of my learning journey, like, sometimes harsh lessons. Ula Ojiaku: I totally am nodding because I experienced this every day, as you know, as an Agile Coach, it's really about, you might know things, you know, but it's also about working with people, because finally, at the end of the day, it's all about people and you need to work with people, you need to establish the relationship, the trust. And for me, a policy is I want to work with people in a way that they would want to work with me over and over again. And sometimes this may be about losing a battle so that you know, everyone can together win the greater war, you know, from time to time. One statement you made now that really stood out to me is that; “Alignment is more valuable than being the most correct person in a room”. That's a great quote. Okay, so can you tell us about your game Playing Lean? I understand you developed the game, how did it come about and what do you currently use it for? Bruno Pešec: So yes, it's called Playing Lean, and I'd be happy to tell you a bit more. So, it's funny, it came through part of this learning experience as well. So, I'm not the only one, it was also Simen Fure Jørgensen, he is the guy that actually started it as well. So, the starting point was very simple. You have a group of people, and you want to introduce a new concept. In this case, it was Lean Startup. And you know how it will go, if you tell two groups of people where here's a book, read it, let's talk in a week. So, maybe there's one person that reads it, the rest might skim it, and the, you know, the other third won't even open it. And what we were inspired with was using games. We were actually inspired with Get Kanban if you know the game for teaching Kanban in software development. And back in that time, Simen just tried to find a similar game for teaching Lean Startup Innovation, entrepreneurship, and there was none, and that was the trigger. So, it was scratching our own need, and what I love and what I'm the proudest was that we used the Lean Startup principles to develop the game itself. That was very important to us, and to the listeners that maybe have heard about Lean Startup but aren't as familiar. So, Lean Startup is a methodology for developing businesses through experimentation, iterative development, and it basically relies on Agile body of knowledge, customer development and business modeling. So, in our case, we decided after we have iterated a lot on the functionality and the desirability of the game, we decided to go down a crowdfunding route. And what happened, it was a big failure. So, we didn't manage to reach our goal, but when we were reviewing, so it wasn't zero, but it was not enough money to actually take us, so, we used Kickstarter as a platform, which is all or nothing, you must reach the goal, otherwise, you receive no funds, but you can see the data. And what we noticed is that the people that were supporting the campaign actually weren't who we thought the players are, but who would use the game to teach Lean Startup. And that is when we realised, hey, our customer segment isn't really the people that will play the game to learn lean startup, but our customer segment is actually people like you and me, Ula, that consult and coach and help others. Now when we realised that, we started focusing, okay, what do these people need? What are their jobs to be done, what is important to them? And then tweak the product, what we learned is to them, what's really important is that the product is extremely polished, they need to be proud of it, it shouldn't look like you know, Microsoft clipboard, or clipart, whatever, it needs to look very professional. So, we partnered with Holger who is one of the best illustrators in the world, he illustrated Business Model Generation and other things like that. So, we partnered with him, the game looks spectacular. Okay, then we said it needs to be reputable. So, we partnered with Ash Maurya who wrote Running Lean, we partnered with Alexander Osterwalder who wrote Business Model Generation and few other books in the series, that was important. And then what was also the thing is the facilitators and coaches and consultants, they're not buying the game, they're buying a new product for their coaching or consulting portfolio. So, our value proposition is the game, plus the facilitating materials, plus the marketing materials, plus everything. So, a lot of learning happened, you know, in that one failed campaign. And then we kept iterating on that, and they usually say the rest is history, I hope it's still not history. But you know, we won awards, first game was completely sold out, we made a new one, that one is also almost sold out, we have a global community of 200 Facilitators. So, it's been going pretty well. And all of this, you know, learning, learning, learning, adjusting, learning, adjusting, learning, adjusting, learning, adjusting. Ula Ojiaku:  You're basically applying the, you know, the Lean Startup cycle as well, because you're adjusting, you learn, you take the learning you're adjusting, and you make an improvement on what's existing. Congratulations. Now, that's an amazing story. And the fact that you said, you know, the Kickstarter failed, it wasn't a failure, it was more of a redirection, because you now got to focus on the right customer, the person who needs the product. Yeah and so, I also understand from your website that you sort of run, Train the Trainer sessions on Playing Lean, is that correct? Bruno Pešec: That's correct. That's correct. Ula Ojiaku: Okay, and when is your next one? Do you have any scheduled in the near future, or, you know, should listeners just go to the website and register? Bruno Pešec: So, listeners can go to playinglean.com. And what we decided to do because of COVID, obviously, and the global situation, so we have a completely self-paced part. So, you can take it any time, and then when you complete it, we schedule, so we have batches of people. So, let's say that you immediately go, you hear this show, and you go, you can take it, you can listen to all the theory or the facilitation, Playing Lean facilitator training. And then when there's four or six, we schedule a private session where we play the game together, and you know, let's say, finish the training, and we came to that because it's pretty flexible for people. And as I said, our customer segments are consultants and coaches, and the thing that they really don't want is to lose their precious billable time. Ula Ojiaku: Yes, yes. And will the follow up sessions, will they have to be in person or have you devised a way of doing it virtually? Bruno Pešec: So, everything is completely virtual for the time being. So, we're using Mural, but any of these can work. And what we basically did is we took and we recreated the whole game in that setup, and I was a bit skeptical at first. I wasn't 100% sure that, you know, it would work in such a setting because it is a board game, Playing Lean is a physical board game, and we purposefully designed it to be physical. Before all this happened, we rejected to make it digital, because there's a special connection when you're doing that together. And so I wasn't sure if we go with, we move it online, but people were asking so much, like, they want to play, they want to attend it. So, we said okay, let's give it a try. What we actually found out was that it works in some cases better, and in some worse. So, one thing that you lose is people cannot talk at the same time.  I'm sure that everybody noticed that now with all zoom and Teams and all the meetings is, it's very difficult, you cannot talk at the same time, which does happen in physical meetings, you might have small groups of people either whispering or saying something. Here, that doesn't work, so, you must facilitate and arrange everything differently. You can have breakouts, but again, you cannot see it as a facilitator. When you coach team, you know, if you tell two of them have a discussion, you can slightly overhear. Yeah, now, you lose that. So, there are some challenges in this. But I'm pleasantly surprised, you know, thinking back 10 years ago, how many digital tools we have today and they're good. They work. Ula Ojiaku: True, true, I mean, that's why we're speaking although we're in different geographical locations. So yeah, definitely. Right, so, I know that you also recently published the book, an E-book, “Nine Big Don'ts of Corporate Innovation: How to Spot and Avoid Costly Innovation Mistakes”, can you tell us a bit more about this? Bruno Pešec: I'd love to. So, the starting point for this, were something that's usually called survivor bias. And I'll just share two stories to kind of illustrate the survivor bias. And funnily, both include aviation. So, in one case is Aeroplane Inspectors, so whatever is their formal title, were investigating plane crashes, and survivals. And what they noticed was that it wasn't the most important, how physically prepared people in the plane were, it didn't matter if they are obese, or if they're healthy, unhealthy, or whatnot, the only thing that mattered, was if people stopped to take their belongings before evacuating the plane. So, everybody who stopped to try to get their, you know, things from the overhead department perished. And that is why you always hear that boring message, back in the time when we were flying much more often, you know, take oxygen first in case of evacuation, ignore your belongings, go out. So, and they discovered it by focusing on all those that perished, not those that actually did manage to run out and escape before the plane caught fire. A similar story, but from wartime, was when they were looking into reinforcing fighter crafts. So, they were looking, they were charting, when the crafts returned, they were charting all the holes on the body of the plane. And then their initial idea was to focus on all the parts where the holes were. But one guy observed and said, “No, that's wrong. Because those planes return, let's take look where there are no holes, because where there are no holes, those planes did not return”. And then they reinforced that and that increased the survivability of the plane. So, this is, it's almost like inversion of thinking. And that survivor bias at the core is, hey, sometimes there is value in looking at all those that failed, and understanding why did that fail, and avoiding the things that they were doing? And that was the logic, that was something that started me here. So, I worked with hundreds of innovators with, I don't, I can't say hundreds of companies, but when you work with a large company, you know, it's easily several hundred people. And I continue to see the same mistakes again, and again and again. And I said, you know, it's not about trying to copy Amazon, or Google or whoever you think is the most innovative company in the world. Stop, pause and take a look at all the failed innovations. And that was kind of the trigger that is, so from experience and observation, I decided to share mine. I will not go into great details of all mine, because everybody who listens to this can get the e-book for free in your show notes, they will be able to find it. If not, they can reach out to you, to me, whoever, we're going to help them. But one that I want to share with your listeners is one of maybe a little bit shocking ones that I say is don't invest in orphans, orphan ideas, and what do I mean by that is ideas by themselves are worthless. We keep hearing that, but we don't take action on that. So, an idea doesn't come out of nowhere, someone must have recommended it, and on the management level, a common mistake is when, let's say there's a group or strategy retreat, and they hire some consultant, they come up with brilliant ideas, but they don't execute on it, they give it to someone else to do it. So, there is a discrepancy, there is this idea, it came from Ula, but suddenly it was thrown to Bruno, go do it. I never met Ula in my life, I'm supposed to be passionate about this? Ula Ojiaku: Exactly. You don't know the context behind the whole idea? How did it come about? But, no, these things happen and I'm thinking of a recent example. Bruno Pešec: But it is, it you know, it is something that resonates, and people are aware of it, but they don't think about it this way, and then they don't realise how damaging this is. And especially, so I don't want to sugarcoat it. Innovation, in a large company, is a very painful process, it is very punishing on people, it's very rarely rewarding, and people that do deal with innovation in companies, they don't do it to get tapped on the back, they do it because they derive pleasure from it, they derive joy from it. But that does not mean that they shouldn't be rewarded, but those people that are like that, they're rare. So usually, you know, I see that happen again, and again, a company decides ‘we want to be innovative'. Everybody, you know, there's a training for everybody in the company, and we will have like, big company meeting from today on, you must be innovative, and, you know, it's forced down the throat. And suddenly, people, you must work on this project, it's very difficult. It's difficult to force people to go through such pain for nothing. Ula Ojiaku: Like you said, innovation is not something you force down people's throats, it has to align with their intrinsic motivation, I believe it was Daniel Pink that wrote the book Drive about what motivates people. And, at the very least, they have to know what's in it for them, which goes back to, you know, your earlier statement about, you're dealing with human beings, you need to understand the psychology, how do you get people's buy in? How do you make sure that they want to do it, even if you're not there watching them? Yeah. Right. So, you've shared one of the don'ts, which is don't invest in orphans, do you want to share maybe one or two more of those ‘don'ts' in corporate innovation? Bruno Pešec: So, the last one, don't make how much time, effort and money you have spent so far, guide your decision. That is also a very common one, it happens to all of us in private life, in business life, I'm sure you experienced this, well, you know, when you're sitting there, the project isn't going as it should be going. And then somebody says, well, we've been going at this for two years, we spent, you know, so much money, we hired people for this, you know, let's keep on doing it, and if that is your only reason to keep on doing it, I'm sorry, this probably doesn't have a very bright future. And the same goes for innovation projects and companies, you know, after some time, you should just cut the losses. It's kind of if you've spent two years and there is no traction in the market, it's just not attracting attention. It's better, you know, to stop leaking more funds, and even worse than that is people's time, like, as far as we know, time goes in only one direction, we can make money again. But to me, especially in large companies, what every leader has is additional responsibility for the time of their employees. The most disrespectful thing you can do is waste somebody's time. It happens, unfortunately, often because people don't understand that it's happening. But when you walk into a room, and you tell someone that they've spent two years on something that's at a dead end, what you did, you threw away two years of their life, they could have been doing something else. Ula Ojiaku: True, true. And there's nothing more demoralising than you know, you're going on a road that's a dead end, and everybody knows it, but nobody wants to say, you know, “are we actually headed in the right direction?” And there's a phrase, I mean, this is in in the scaled agile framework, which is one of the, you know, popular scaling agile frameworks. One of the principles there is to ignore sunk costs. And you know, that's basically, you don't base decisions for the future based on how much time, money, effort, resources, that you've put into it. You have to evaluate it based on the results you're getting - are you getting the outcomes? I mean, if you had if you had made a hypothesis, has the hypothesis been validated or not, if it's not been validated, and you're getting, your indications are contrary to what you expected, it's either you pivot or you kill it. You don't just go on for sentimental reasons. So, no, great one. Yeah. Do you want to add anything else about your e-book? Is there anything else you'd like to share with the audience? Bruno Pešec: Well, we could probably go for several hours discussing everything in it. But what I can just say is that, besides just discussing these different don'ts, I also offer specific countermeasures. So, that is something for example, for the sunk cost I completely agree with what you shared. Unfortunately, the side effect is, if you run into someone that doesn't want to see exactly how you describe it, so like, no, no, no, no, that experiment wasn't done correctly, or I wasn't involved in that hypothesis, then one easy countermeasure is to immediately agree on the spot, okay, I see, I understand that you're very involved in that you, you know, your ego is in this. So, let's make an agreement right here, right now. What is it? What terms are we giving to this? What terms are we giving to this to continue? So, we, for example, this is a real one, but I'm removing the details, because of confidentiality. With one executive, he had exactly that problem. He was working on something for three years and he was afraid that if he would stop this, that his career would suffer as well. So, we sat down with his management team, and we said, okay, we are not now ready to immediately kill it, even though we have spent so much, but we're going to give it exactly three more months, and A, B and C, if that happens, it continues. As clear as that, signed by everybody, not for legal reasons, but for psychological reasons. You know, I put my name on this, I commit to these terms. Three months later, they kill it, we didn't even discuss it for five minutes. It was, you know, this is what we said, it didn't happen. Bam! I was shocked, I was shocked how easy that went. So that is, you know, an easy one, because people need to own that, I cannot tell people go and kill it, they must see like, oh, we really should stop this. Ula Ojiaku: Exactly. And there's something about a public commitment as well, it kind of, you know, makes it easier for all parties involved. You know, there is a rational reason for killing it and a rational reason for stopping an initiative, if that makes sense. Now, I'm going to ask you a question as a, you know, you teach innovation and entrepreneurship. Have you ever been in a situation where you've been asked to coach, you know, maybe a team or a particular area, so you have like the leadership buy in, and you've been asked to coach the team, but the team are kind of a bit closed to getting input from you? If so, what have you, you know, could you share with the audience what you've done to win them over or, and get them to actually get to a point where they are seeking and actively drawing your input into what they're doing? Bruno Pešec: So, I had that happen both at the management level and at the team level. So, in one case, I walked in with a team, and the guy immediately told me as I walked through the door, Bruno, this is bull****, I'm here, just because I was commanded to be here. You know, you have three minutes. And I just completely ignored him, I just looked at him, I was like, okay, so, and started the discussion. Why are we here? What do we want to get? In my case, I usually try to avoid confrontation in that sense, because people are, they have the right to be frustrated. Like, if they have really been commanded and just said, "You be here”. You know, it's kind of, I might recognise that and say, okay, I understand that, I'm not here to do innovation theatre, so I don't, how could I say, I don't really do training. When I'm brought in, I do very specific things. So, in this case, I'm really relying a lot on my background as engineer because they can see that I'm one of them in most of the cases, so I'm not like a manager or a sales guy or something like that, I'm very curious. I'm curious about their work, and this is where we start. We start talking about their specific product or service. Understanding that, and I just let them talk, and that's the easiest one, it's kind of, I'm not there to be smarter than them, I'm there because I'm good at the part of the process, and together, we're going to figure out what needs to be achieved, and sometimes they have very strong feelings. I know exactly what needs to be done, but no one in management is listening to me, and then I go, okay, I'm here, I'm listening to you, now share. And we just start from there. And people usually do have, and it is a great starting point, they will say, you know, this product sucks, because of A, B, and C, what needs to happen is X, Y, and Z. And then I start probing, it's like, okay, the things that you said that it sucks, why is that so? Okay, and you say that this will be a solution, why do you think so? And I ask them, we start to have a whiteboard, we start mapping it, if we don't know, we have this conversation, we start going to very specific things. Because what I strongly believe in is go harsh on problems, go harsh on issues, but be gentle with people. So, if you and I, you know, I will always have my utmost respect for Ula, but when we have a problem in front of us, when I go harsh, I'm not going to harsh on Ula, I'm going harsh on the problem. Ula Ojiaku: Don't take it personally. Bruno Pešec: Exactly. I want to rip the problem apart. That's our job as innovators, you have an idea, it's not about kissing that idea on the cheek, it's about breaking it seeing you know, what, if we do this, is it going to hold? What if we do this is it going to hold? What if we do that, is it still going to hold? If not, well maybe this is worth doing, it has nothing to do with you as a person. You and I, we are in a partnership about solving that problem, that issue, and for me, it works because it's genuine and people can feel that. So, I'm, you know, I'm being authentic, I'm being myself. And that is why I also say when people ask me, okay, Bruno, how can I coach like you? How can I, you know, repeat the same thing? I tell them, don't try to copy, you know, I am me, you are you, play to your strength. If you're a quiet person, if you're a gentle person, play to that, you know, be like water, be like river, wear them out, you know, wear them out with kindness, always go back to what you're discussing, be yourself. It's so tiring trying to be somebody else, it's so tiring trying to copy somebody else. It won't always work, but you will know that you were yourself, you did the best you could what's then there left to regret, even if it goes bad. Ula Ojiaku: True, true. I'm beginning to get suspicious that you've been eavesdropping on me, because I recently this week, gave a talk on being yourself and being that perfectly, so it's almost like, hmm, did Bruno eavesdrop on my speech? But hey, well said, well said. Now, let's just round up with a few more questions. This has been a fantastic conversation, I definitely have enjoyed speaking with you. Are there any books that you'd say you've drawn inspiration over the course of your career? You know, if so, what books are these? If you can share? Bruno Pešec:  Since the topics we have discussed today, were about innovation and a little bit of thinking better, I'll share three specific books. So, one for innovation. That is The Corporate Startup by Dan Toma, Esther Gons and Tendayi Viki, it is a great book, it's currently I would say one of the best books on both Innovation Practice and Innovation Management. So, I would definitely recommend it to everybody. It's a bit thick, but you know, you get actually two books in one. And another one, because to me, both Lean Agile Innovation, you know, they're all means to an end. If they become an end in itself, then that's when they become dogmatic. And what ties them all together is, you know, strategy. And the book I would heartily recommend, it's a, I would say, it's a bit underappreciated, is Game Changing Strategies from Constantinos Markides. It's a great book, so, he's a professor from London Business School, I think, or London School of Economics, I don't know, I keep mixing them. And he writes very well for an academic, you know, it's easy to consume a lot of examples. He makes business model innovation come to life. It's not just some theory, but it's specific examples, and for me, it's great because it shows you how to adapt. It doesn't have a lot of modules or anything, so it's more like looking at it and seeing okay, this worked, this didn't work, what's my case? And the third one, to better thinking. So, one great thing I read was that employees can make a bad CEO look great, so, employees can make anything work, bad decisions, bad management policies, you know, if they want to, they will make it work. At the same time, employees can also make the best strategies and policies go to nothing if they want to sabotage them. So, the last book is more on, I would say, for managers and leaders, and it's The Halo Effect from Phil Rosenzweig. What he talks about is exactly like what I mentioned with the survivor bias, but he talks about different views. Let's say that the gist of his book is by focusing on, you know, those perfect leaders with their halo, you become blinded, and leaders themselves become blinded, because they get confused, because they think that it is their ingenuity that created the result and not the employees and their skill. And you know, was Steve Jobs, the one who created everything? Ula Ojiaku: No Bruno Pešec: No, he definitely had some things that were good, he had some things that are horrible, but he had great people around him, they didn't come out of nowhere. Obviously, you could say the same for Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, or all the people that we consider, look at that that person, the halo around them. The risk for every leader and manager is to get deluded by their own success. And it's a lovely short book that will show you all these biases and delusions that can happen. I'll stop here. I think three books are enough. Ula Ojiaku:  I've had The Corporate Startup on my reading list, but the other ones, Game Changing Strategy, The Halo Effect definitely have gone onto my reading list now, which is already like this long. So, thanks for sharing those. Now, how can the audience reach you? How can the audience reach you, Bruno, are you online on social media? Bruno Pešec: So, I write a lot about innovation, strategy, experimentation, entrepreneurship, as well. You can find all of that on my website, www.pesec.no. It will be in your show note, as well, so you can find it there. I publish a lot of free resources, templates, sessions like this, webinars, writings, an E-book, etc. So, you can find everything there. I invite everybody who would like to connect on LinkedIn as well, but if you do then then please just drop in “Ula sends me.” Ula Ojiaku:  Well, more like “I listened to your episode on the podcast, and I'm reaching out.” Bruno Pešec: Right? They can make it as detailed as they wish. So, keeping it simple, that is where I share everything, and it's open and free. And I'm happy to share. You know, if you heard something in this conversation, please reach out to Ula or reach out to me if you would like any questions or any specific materials or whatever. Ula Ojiaku: Sounds great Bruno, thanks for that. Now, any final words for the audience before we wrap this up? Bruno Pešec:  Well, before the audience, for you, thank you very much. This has been a great conversation, very engaging. So thank you for creating this atmosphere and making this a very easy conversation. I believe, I mean, I enjoyed it so much, I would be surprised if the listeners don't take a little bit of our energy and conversationA and to the listeners, I just have one thing. So, you heard today a lot of stuff. There's a lot of great stuff to hear from Ula's other episodes, but the most important thing is start immediately, today, don't wait for the perfect moment. Take just one thing from today, and immediately discuss it tomorrow with the team or yourself, just one thing, it doesn't matter what, just immediately try it out. One step at a time. And, you know, a year from now we will look back and see what an amazing year you had. Don't wait for the perfect moment. Just start. Ula Ojiaku:  Fantastic. Well, that's very inspirational, I'm motivated to just go and conquer the world right now. Bruno it's been a pleasure speaking with you and I hope you would want to come back another time for us to have another conversation on this show. So, thank you so much Bruno. Bruno Pešec: Thank you, Ula, would be lovely. Ula Ojiaku: Great! Outro: That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show.  I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless.  

Consultant and author of "The Lean Innovation Cycle" Episode page: https://leanblog.org/445 My guest for Episode #445 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Michael Parent. He is the Managing Director of Michael Parent Consulting Services and a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt with AAA Auto Club Group in Michigan. He has written a new book titled The Lean Innovation Cycle: A Multi-Disciplinary Framework for Designing Value with Lean and Human-Centered Design.  Today, we're going to take a dive deep into topics that augment both the Lean and Human Centered Design frameworks. Today, we discuss topics and questions including: How about an Operational Definition: What is Human Centered Design? Tools — but more than the tools Design something… empathize with the end user “Transparency is a good thing” Design thinking (prototyping?) vs. human-centered design?? Observing people vs. asking them about needs as customers? Converging toward a design? What made you interested in exploring Human Centered Design?  What value does Human Centered Design offer for Lean, Six Sigma, and continuous improvement? Methodology, being an experimentalist Customer journey vs. VSM? Or Customer Journey VSM hybrid? What is the Kano model? The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in their 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity, and healthcare industries. Learn more. This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network. 

Seit Jahrzehnten gibt es den Ansatz, dank "Convenience" Kunden zu begeistern und zu binden. Angefangen mit Fastfood, Fertiggerichten, Shopping bei Tankstellen oder iPod Benutzerführung, es geht stets um Bequemlichkeit, Einfachheit, Sicherheit - also um "Convenience". Mit den digitalen Geschäftsmodellen gibt es nun viel mehr Möglichkeiten für "Convenience": On Demand Dienste, Omnichannel Kommunikation, Empfehlungen, Individualisierung dank Mass Customisation, Vorhersagen und Fernwartungen, aber auch moderne Finanzierung bzw. Preisgestaltung (wie Leasing, Pay per Use oder Freemium). Und diese Beispiele verdeutlichen es: Convenience betrifft dabei sowohl den b2c als auch den b2b Markt. Doch was braucht es, um als Unternehmen die richtigen "Convenience" Lösungen zu finden und zu entwickeln? Auch hierüber denke ich kurz nach. Aber intensiver beantworte ich diese Frage in Podcastfolgen wie Lean Innovation oder Digital Leaders.

Join you host Tracy Wilson and Special Guest Bruno Pesec on today's episode of the Unlocked Show and discover the art of lean innovation and how to identify opportunities in plain sight.

Interview video available on the Agile Innovation Leaders Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/FYFKaJoagTc Guest Bio: Dr. Ivar Jacobson is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Ivar Jacobson International. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from KTH Royal Institute of Technology, was awarded the Gustaf Dalén medal from Chalmers in 2003, and made an honorary doctor at San Martin de Porres University, Peru, in 2009. Ivar has a flourishing career in both academia and business. He has authored ten books, published more than a hundred papers and is a frequent keynote speaker at conferences around the world. Ivar is a father of components and component architecture - work that was adopted by Ericsson and resulted in the greatest commercial success story ever in the history of Sweden, and it still is. He is the father of use cases and Objectory, which, after the acquisition of Rational Software in 1995, resulted in the Rational Unified Process, a widely adopted method. He is also one of the three original developers of the Unified Modelling Language. But all this is history. Ivar founded his current company, Ivar Jacobson International, which since 2004 has been focused on using methods and tools in a smart, super light and agile way. This work resulted in Ivar becoming a founder and a leader of a worldwide network, SEMAT, which has the mission to revolutionize software development based on a kernel of software engineering. The kernel has been realized as a formal OMG standard called Essence.   Contact/ Social Media Email: ivar@ivarjacobson.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivarjacobson Twitter: @ivarjacobson Books The Essentials of Modern Software Engineering by Ivar Jacobson et al https://www.amazon.co.uk/Essence-Software-Engineering-Applying-Kernel/dp/0321885953 Denotational Semantics by Joseph E Stoy https://www.amazon.co.uk/Denotational-Semantics-Computer-Science-Scott-Strachey/dp/0262690764 Resources/ Websites Essence for Agility Meetup https://meetup.com/essence-for-agility Essence Education Forum https://forum.essenceineducation.org    Ivar Jacobson International https://ivarjacobson.com   Interview Highlights: Timestamp 02:59 – Growing up in Sweden 07:05 – Coming up with concept for component-based software development and architecture 15:14 – On Essence OMG Standard as a unifying platform for methods 24:22 – Special offer announcement (Better Scrum Through Essence course) 29:41 – “Shy Boys Don't Kiss Beautiful Girls” – Swedish proverb 32:34 – “Doing it smarter…”   Interview Transcript Ula Ojiaku: 0:04 Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. Hello everyone! Welcome to Season 2 of the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast! I'm honoured to have Dr Ivar Jacobson – Founder, Chairman and CEO of Ivar Jacobson International (IJI - a global consulting and training organisation) as my guest on this episode. Known as one of the fathers of modern software engineering, he has many accomplishments under his belt including developing the concept of Use Cases and Use Case modelling. In this episode, Dr Jacobson shares his experience growing up in Sweden; how he came up with the concept for components and component architecture whist at Ericsson (which helped Ericsson with its remarkable commercial success) and his current focus on Essence, an Object Management Group (OMG) standard revolutionising the world of Software Development. Quick sidebar: Ivar Jacobson International Chief Scientist, Ian Spence will be delivering a training on ‘Better Scrum Through Essence' this November, 2021. Make sure you listen to the very end for details on offers available to AILP listeners. You won't want to miss this! Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, my conversation with Dr Ivar Jacobson – enjoy! Ula Ojiaku: 02:28 Thank you so much Ivar for joining us on the Agile Innovation Leaders' podcast. It's a great pleasure to have you. Ivar Jacobson: 02:35 Thank you. Thank you. I'm looking forward to it. Ula Ojiaku: 02:40 Well, I've been very excited right from when I got your response saying “yes”, the honor is definitely mine. Now, with I know that our audience would be, you know, keen to know, who is Ivar, you know, can you tell us about yourself? Ivar Jacobson: 02:59 Yes, I can. I was born in a very nice family in a small city, in Sweden, in the very south of Sweden, very close to Denmark. And, I was an ordinary kid. Nobody in my family had ever studied, so to speak. My father had six years in school, and my mother, maybe one year more. And he was an entrepreneur, quite successful. And, I hated by the way when I was older, the idea that I would be an entrepreneur, but it always a seed in the blood. So, I was not very good at school, clear. And I remember my mother, when I had passed Junior High School. And I suggested, maybe I should go to high school, I have very low grades. And so, but I can work hard, I said. And my mother said, it's good if you can just pass junior high school. You know, you don't have a head for studies. So, I don't know what happened. But I really got the interest and succeeded to get up to high school. But in high school, I was not very good either. I was more interested in sports, I played handball, handball is similar to soccer, but you play with the hands instead of the feet and it's very popular in Europe, probably gets popular in US too, but it takes time. And I was passionate about it. But even if I worked harder than anyone else, I never really became the star. I was okay. But instead, I became a coach and now I found passion. I really worked hard as a coach, my team became the best team in the city, we had many handball teams, and not only in the city - in the province. And then what I started to know I loved to coach, I loved to feel that I could help people to become better and they became much better. I was a coach both for boys and ladies. So that made me popular. And so, I was very well treated and had a very hard time to imagine moving away from my small city. I went out High School and then I wanted to stay in the city, to be electrician. But my aunt decided differently - she applied to Chalmers which is an Institute of Technology. And, I actually was accepted as the last student, had so low grades, so last student (to be accepted to study) to Electric engineering. Ula Ojiaku: 06:28 Wow! Ivar Jacobson: 06:29 And yeah, I did quite well. I found it so fascinating - engineering, mathematics and so on, but became very different. So, I was the first one in my whole big family that ever passed junior high school, high school, and becoming a bachelor of electrical engineering or almost the master. It was unthinkable in my family. Ula : 07:04 Wow! Ivar Jacobson: 07:05 And then I was absolutely sure I should continue to do research. But I was smart enough, to say you need to know what it means to work in the industry. So, I took the most boring work I could imagine at Ericsson, working with old fashioned systems, not digital, it was a electromechanical. And I was sure after one year, I will go back to Chalmers to get the doctor (my doctorate degree). But after one year, I felt, “this is life!” Projects, people, collaborating, is very different from doing a research at Chalmers. So, it was not in my mind to go back. Instead I learned something absolutely fundamental, that impacted me for the rest of my life, namely, how to build systems. And in hardware, you build with components. So, after a couple of years, I was actually working with hardware system. And they had, the managers had seen something in Ivar. And so, they actually offered him to become project manager for the most mission critical system, which was based on computing. And that was absolutely unbelievable - I knew nothing at that time about computing. And I didn't, I've never written a code. (At the time) I never really understood how a computer works. But I was now Project Manager, and the reason was, they probably felt like I could manage a project and you don't need so deep knowledge, you're probably more difficult if you know too much. But to me, it was unthinkable to be a project manager without knowing how we work and what it was. So, I studied very hard every night. And at that time, there were no books, really, But after three months, I felt well, this was not so hard and now I became difficult. Because I couldn't see that the product we're building would ever be successful. Because Ericsson was selling to the whole world. But every country wanted their own market adaptation. And the way we built software - the standard way of building the software at that time, was not easy to change. Modularity was only in the code-oriented data structures. So, you separate the code and data and this separation meant, if you made a change, it could result in changes anywhere. Anyway, so that's how I came up with component-based development, which was the biggest fight I've ever had in my life. It was when I was 28 plus, and, no one did component-based development at that time, as we heard about Bell Labs, the other competitors did it the same way as Ericsson did. But for some reason, there was one guy ‘up there' who said, “Ivar is right. Let's do it”. And that resulted after some years in the greatest commercial success story in the history of Sweden. And it still is, it's even more successful than ABBA and Spotify – so you can imagine. I was rewarded, I got after 10 years people said, “oh, God that was so good”. And so, I could study, get the PhD during work hours. Ula Ojiaku: 11:34 Wow. Ivar Jacobson: 11:35 So, I think I leave it a little for you now. Ula Ojiaku: 11:40 Know this yours is a very fascinating story. So, there were lots I could pick on (to ask more questions) but the first one you said about, you know, playing handball, and despite how hard you worked, you didn't quite make it as a superstar you wanted to be in handball, but you found out that you did great at coaching. I think there's a parallel to that and coaching in real life as well. A coach doesn't necessarily have to be the expert in the area, but it's really about being able to draw out the best in people. Would you say… Ivar Jacobson: 12:18 And show a path forward… Actually, girls at that time were playing handball in a way that was very girlish, you know, balls like this and not like shooting it . I mean, very softballs. Whereas my girls were trained with my boys. So, I put together guys and girls in the same team and made two teams. And the girls started to play like boys, and that made them superior other teams because they didn't do it. So, I mean, I invented a new method, let's say that. Ula Ojiaku: 13:00 You definitely are an innovative inspiration. It seemed like everyone in your family knew you were barely getting by in Junior High school, High school. I'm wondering, what was it that your aunt saw that made her despite all the indications she went and registered you at Chalmers? Did you ask her? Ivar Jacobson: 13:25 No, I felt, I really didn't think about it. I felt I understood her. I mean, I had showed her that I was not very good at school. So… But then what really happened was that I was fed up by school in the last semester (of) Junior High and wanted to leave. Then she said to me, “No, no, you should at least go get the junior high school graduation”. Because we celebrated it in Sweden at that time, not anymore but at that time. But now when I relaxed and didn't study, didn't prepare for mathematics or anything like that. Really, I tried. I had private lessons in mathematics. I mean, it's hard to believe I had it. And the reason was that the way I had learned was by learning rules. I mean, not thinking. “This is the rule you use when you see this problem” and that limits you. So now for the first time, I had no rules to apply. I start to think, and I remember very well, after one exam that the teacher came in with a book and he had all the books in a package and then he put it on the desk and he says, one of you have (has) decided to change his life; Ivar Jacobson - best in class. And you know, I was flabbergasted and not only me, the whole class. So, and then I understood that was something I could do. So, everything all my grades went up. Ula Ojiaku: 15:14 That's just amazing. So, you are currently, you are credited with you know, developing the used cases, components, the RUP rather the Rapid Unified Process, which is, you know, one of the ‘fore bringers' of Agile Methodologies. And currently you are working or you've been working most recently on Essence, can you tell us a bit more about Essence, what it is and you know, what's the story behind it? Ivar Jacobson: 15:52 Now we were around year 2000. And then, I was a rock star traveling around the world, talking about the UML and Rational Unified Process. And everyone wanted to have… use these things. They misused both UML and they misused RUP (Rational Unified Process), but they were wanted to have it. It's very similar situation with SAFe today. So anyway, at that time, it was very popular. But I… now Agile came. And I remember very well when I was at the OOPSLA (Object-oriented Programming, Systems, Languages and Applications) conference, the biggest conference at that time. And I was on a panel of 2000 people in the audience, and I was there with agilisters really great guys - people I'm very good friends with today. And the audience basically booed every time I was about to talk. Ula Ojiaku: 16:49 Why? Ivar Jacobson: 16:50 Because we're talking about the we enemy, the Empire, the old Empire, that the audience wanted to kill. And I listened very carefully, and then I went home and studied more about XP, it was about XP. And I said, “Okay, this will dramatically change the future”. I tried to convince my company at that time Rational, with the top stars in the company, many famous people. But it took a while; there was nothing new in XP is what I heard. But it was a lot of new (it had lots that were new) particularly about social engineering. So, and then a couple of years later Rational was acquired by IBM and I had a chance to be with IBM in a very interesting position. But I decided no, IBM is too big for me, I want to do my own business. So, but I also was thinking this is not sustainable. The world is ridiculous. Here you have gurus like me, and we play such an important role. And still, the guru is just a methodology salesperson. You can be an expert on a few things, but you're never an expert on all things you need to do when you develop software, or develop anything for that matter. Hardware systems… and anything. So I wanted to get rid of (this attitude). I felt this is stupid. And I use the word foolish because it's a little nicer. But having gurus that develop methods and ideas in the methods cannot be used in another method without rewriting it. So, for instance, Scrum has been used in SAFe, but it doesn't fit into SAFe without rewriting it. And that means with the original authors of Scrum are diminished, instead it moves into something else. So, we get no collaboration between these top guys. They don't like one another. And I'm not talking about any particular person, but that's the general problem. Instead, we want the top guys to collaborate and help to work. So, I came to the conclusion we need to do something dramatically different. Instead of having all these different methods and with nothing in common, nothing in common and that is visible and still a lot is common. It's just hidden, because everyone hides it without the purpose to hide, but it becomes hidden in a particular method. So, what I said is that every method has a number of ideas - you can call them practices or method precepts. They are in a precept guarded by a guru. Isn't this foolish? At least I think so. So, in 2005 we decided in my company to do something different and we started to identify a common ground between all methods. What is it that is essential… that we always do always produce, always have in terms of competences, for instance, and so on. And it created, let me call it the kernel. It's very small, it's very powerful. And it works as a platform to describe methods. So, instead of it (being that) every methodology has its own way of describing everything: its own language, its own terminology, its own isolated island, we created a common ground which has actually become a standard and on top of this standard, people now can describe their own method. So, Scrum, for instance, has become Scrum Essentials. (It) is described on top of this kernel, which is called Essence. A standard is very important, because… first of all, nothing should be standard without being such that everybody can accept it. If there is any, really controversial stuff, throw it out and keep it at such a small level. So, but big enough to be useful, and as useful for everybody. So, now many companies are using Essence to describe their own methods. We are working with Jeff Sutherland (co-creator of Scrum) - he has  ‘Essentialised' as we call it, both Scrum, and his Scrum at Scale. We're also working with Scott Ambler (co-creator of Disciplined Agile Delivery, DAD) who has essentialised some of his practice. He has so many practices. So, he has to wait till we build a bigger library of practice. So, we have it today in my company, we have 100 practices, this guide; 50 of them are published and available. But there are many other people around the world, that develop practices. And we can put them in an ecosystem, which we are trying to do. So, people can go there and select the practices. And they (could) say, ‘I want user stories, I want to Scrum, I want test driven development..', compose, these three practices, and I have my method. And then you can add more and more as you become more and more competent, you scale up, you don't scale down, but you have to do with big frameworks, like RUP and SAFe. So, the idea is that we in this way by collecting knowledge and making it available at one place or many places - similar places can grow competency instead of having (this) so fragmented. You know, in one single company today, you may have 10 different ways of using use cases for instance. Ula Ojiaku: 24:07 True, true… Ivar Jacobson: 24:08 If they don't learn for one. Okay? Ula Ojiaku: 24:13 Because they work in silos, so everyone is just doing their own thing. Ivar Jacobson: 24:18 Yeah, they have their own methodology and everything you know. So… Interlude/ Announcement (Ula Ojiaku) 24:22 Hi again listeners. Quick message before we continue with Ivar Jacobson's interview. Did you know, according to Scrum Inc., 58% of Scrum implementations fail. Dr Jeff Sutherland, co-creator of Scrum says their investigation revealed that, of the 21 components of Scrum, an average Scrum team implements one-third well, one-third poorly and the last one-third not at all! Dr Sutherland also acknowledged that Essence ‘is the key to success…' As mentioned earlier, Ian Spence, Chief Scientist at IJI will be running a 3-day, live virtual training on ‘Better Scrum Through Essence with Essence Games Master certification' this November 2021. If you want proven ideas on how to address failed Scrum implementations, this course is for you! I know - because I'd attended the alpha version of the course earlier on in the year. Register on the website www.ivarjacobson.com  at least 2 weeks before the training to take advantage of the early bird pricing. As a valued Agile Innovation Leaders podcast listener, you can also get an exclusive 5% off when you use the code AILP5OFF. That's AILP5OFF. Back to my conversation with Ivar Jacobson… Ula Ojiaku: 26:32 Wow, well, it does sound like Essence is going to be a game changer. Where do you see it? What's your ideal state for Essence, in terms of adoption? Ivar Jacobson: 26:44 Okay. So, the roadmap is we now have developed tools that we are using with clients and they're tools we never had before - the kind of tools we never had in the software engineering discipline before. And we are using web client learning, and we take, we work with one client after the other. We expect to, at the end of the year, have verified and vetted the work. Then the approach is that we make it more widely available. Okay, and we are looking more for volume than for big accounts. Ula Ojiaku: 27:34 Right, right. Ivar Jacobson: 27:35 So now we are extremely optimistic. There are as, you know, we have a forum … two forums…. One is a meetup called Essence for Agility, which has now in just a couple of months got 2000 members. And next time, we will get my good friend Grady Booch to speak together with (a) couple of other people about Architecture and Agile Methods. We also have created a forum in the academic world called Essence Education Forum; where more than 50 university professors are collaborating to create a material for training and so on, and also do projects and basically anything on top of Essence. So, it's… no I'm very bullish. I've never seen so much progress as now You know, if I look back on the things I have contributed to, and I can say basically all of them have been by first identifying a problem but no one else has identified. And then sell that problem, so other people think it is a problem. And that's not trivial, that's absolutely the hardest thing and once I have succeeded to sell it, then of course the solution is not so far away. Ula Ojiaku: 29:14 Wow. Now that is just fascinating. So, it seemed like in selling your idea, it wasn't really about the technical skill, it was more about what's … quote, unquote, you'd call the you know, “soft skills” of selling, marketing. That you had to…” Ivar Jacobson: 29:27 Yeah, that's it was the most important I mean, you can be the best technical guy had best ideas, but if you cannot sell them, you won't have them. Ula Ojiaku: 29:41 Okay, now it is kind of ties in with, you know one of your favourite (Swedish) quotes that you shared with me that “Shy boys don't kiss beautiful girls”, do you want to expand on that? Ivar Jacobson: 29:59 This is a Swedish expression. There is nothing similar that I know in English that you can say that is strong enough, probably similar but not strong enough. It means basically, that even if you have an idea that is controversial, you have to express it, because it will never … otherwise it will never happen. I remember a situation when I was in South (of) France and at the conference, for it was a conference for executives. And they I had a company with 10 employees and I was CEO. So, I was an executive. It happened that Bill Gates was also there. And he had a company with 10,000 employees. So, we were colleagues. And I was out jogging and came back after half an hour sweating and maybe smelling too. And I saw crowd standing beside the pool. And in the middle of that crowd was Bill Gates. Now is the chance. So, I ran up and I don't know, for what reason… if I was… I was not really rude in any way, but they moved around, they opened - the crowd… and I stood face to face with Bill Gates and I did my elevator pitch. And then we talked a little and when he said he welcomed me to Microsoft, he gave me his business card and said you have to come and talk about the engineering in software. So that's an example of that, shy boys may not kiss beautiful girls. So don't be shy. Ula Ojiaku: 32:09 It reminds me of the saying in English that Fortune favours the brave. So maybe that's the closest saying to that, but it's really about being bold and seizing the moment. Ivar Jacobson: 32:24 Yeah. That is exactly what it is. And by way it's valid in the other direction too. It's not the only boys you're talking about. It can be anything. Ula Ojiaku: 32:34 Well said Ivar. Well said. You also have another quote that you like… or that you use a lot in your organization, “Can we do it smarter?” What do you mean by that? Ivar Jacobson: 32:49 Basically in every situation where you meet difficulties, and you may come up with a solution, that is very straightforward. Most uncontroversial story, solution, but it's really not fantastic. It just is a solution. In this situation, I ask all.. almost always, “can we do it smarter?” And the interesting thing is but if people start to think like that, can we do it smarter? They often come up with smarter solutions. And I have my own experience has been exactly that. Ula Ojiaku: 33:43 Would you tell us about the book you're writing for your son? You said you have a five-year-old son, and you're writing a book for him that's titled “What They Don't Teach You in School?” Ivar Jacobson: 33:58 Yes, I am a very lucky man. I have a five-year-old son. My name is Ivar in Swedish. And his name is Ivar Theodor, which becomes IT. And the thing was not on purpose. It just happened. We like to name; my wife liked the name Ivar Theodor. Ivar is a Viking name. Theodor means God's gift. And then you know, I am not 20 years old. So, (to) get the son is really God's gift if I may use these words. So I want to write the book for him that he can read when, when I don't know where I will be. I'm certain if I will be somewhere else, than on this planet, it will be in heaven, that's for sure. So, he will get the book. And this book is about smart cases. So, I describe situations in life, when you can do something smart or not so smart. I mean, first of all, there is a huge difference between being intelligent and being smart. I have a lot of friends that are extremely intelligent, analytical, and so on, but I wouldn't say they are smart. I have written about the 100 pages, it takes quite a lot of time. And it must be funny or entertaining, otherwise, he will not read it. Ula Ojiaku: 35:44 Now, what books have you found yourself recommending to people, or giving as a gift to people the most and why? Ivar Jacobson: 35:59 Yes, I think two books I would mention and this is also where I could recommend others. One of the most influential books on my career was about the denotation semantics as it's called. It's a way to mathematically describe, for instance, a language. And, I have used it to describe several languages. Ula Ojiaku: 36:35 Denotational Semantics. Okay. Do you know … what was the name of the author, please? I can always (look this up) ... Ivar Jacobson: 36:43 First book I learned was pure mathematics. It was Discrete Mathematics in computer science. And when it comes to Denotational Semantics, I read a book about the Vienna Development Method. The Vienna Development Methods, it was developed by a Dines Bjorner, and Chris, Chris Jones, I think, and a couple of our people at IBM. But then there are later versions on Denotational Semantics that may be that I don't know that. But this is a book I read. Ula Ojiaku: 37:21 It's been a fascinating conversation Ivar, and I really appreciate your time, where can the audience find you, if they you know, want to learn more, or if they want to contact you? Ivar Jacobson: 37:34 They can always contact me via email. And they are welcome to do that. And also, I get a lot of emails, so it may take a couple of days. But I always respond, even if I had to work many hours to do it. But I think attending this Essence for Agility meet up a there will be a lot related to what we have been talking about. And if you're an academic, I would recommend (you) join Essence Education Forum. Ula Ojiaku: 38:20 Okay. And we will put all the links and you know, the resources you mentioned in this, in the show notes. So just to wrap up, then do you have any final word of advice for the audience? What would you like to leave us with, as we end this conversation? Ivar Jacobson: 38:42 Yeah, in some way, the books I mentioned, and the quotes about, the shy boys becoming smarter. But I think what really has helped me has been that if I have an idea, and I believe in it, I don't give up. So, perseverance is probably a very important property. And some people when things were not so good, after introduce components, people will replace perseverance with stubbornness. So, the difference is: if it's good, it's perseverance; if it's bad, it's stubbornness. So, I may be a little stubborn, but I think it's more being persevere. Ula Ojiaku: 39:48 Depends on who you ask. Ivar Jacobson: 39:52 Yeah. So don't give up. Push your ideas. And also, I'm very lucky, I think what I'm doing is fun. I don't do anything for money. I do it for fun. But of course, it's very important to have money. So, I do my best to help my company to make a profit so we can invest in doing these things. It's not money for me, it's money for the company. Ula Ojiaku: 40:29 Thank you for sharing those wise words. Ivar, thank you so much for your time. Ivar Jacobson: 40:35 Thank you. It was a pleasure. Ula Ojiaku: 40:38 The pleasure is mine. Thanks again. That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com.  I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com