Rizing Evolution – The Future Proofed Enterprise Podcast

Episode 11 Transcript: Your Ideal IT Project Team: Who, What, Where?

(Editors note: this transcript was machine generated then lightly edited. You can read a summary, watch the original episode on LinkedIn or see the list of all podcast episodes.)

Bonnie Graham

Welcome to Rizing Evolution, the future-proofed enterprise. I’m Bonnie Graham, happy to be here. This episode #11 in our series and we’ve got a hot topic that is important to companies all over the world. I’m telling you, it’s timely, it’s relevant and you’re going to want to know. We’re talking about your ideal IT project team who, what, where and I’m going to ask. How and why I’m adding that to the title of the episode? I’ve got a panel of four experts in this field. They’re going to help us figure this out with their insights, with their discussion statements, with their best practices, we might even learn quite a lot. Now as all of you know who watch the show and watch my other shows on a regular basis, my monologue is not exactly what most people do on live radio. Somebody called me last week, the poet laureate of virtual poetry on live radio. So there we go. I have collaborated. Bonnie, you can smile now. We got two Bonnies here today. I’ve collaborated with ChatGPT. Fed some information about the topic and I asked it to write a little tiny verse about the bios of each of my guests. So let me read this, and when I call your name, please wave furiously. It’s very important because we are live streaming. Now, so welcome viewers and listeners to Rizing Evolutions domain, where enterprise futures future proofed ascertain. Oh, it rhymes. Today we focus on the IT initiatives that steer the challenges faced, the solutions drawing near are a panel, a symphony of expertise, so navigates the landscape where insights. A bound. I don’t have a rhyme for a bound. Sorry about that. It was expertise sound. Best practices unravel resource constraints, untie internal talents, leveraged external expertise, amplify their where? I’m now on our live roundtable today. Industry leaders convene to illuminate strategies on the IT building team scene. There we go. Thought leaders Bonnie Tinder. Wave hello, Paul Rose wave. Hello, Courtney Byrd wave. Hello. And Lauren Reinhert wave below. Join me. Bonnie did with their collective wisdom galore. Here we go. Bonnie Tinder has 25 years in softwares embrace from Raven Intelligence peer reviews with. Race a top 100 influencer in HR Technologies respect in 2022 and 23. Her influence does reflect Bonnie I hope. You like that? Yes.

Bonnie Tinder

It’s great.

Bonnie Graham

Good. And then we have Paul, right? You didn’t know we could summarize your whole professional experience in in a two line poem Paul Rose Way below tech. Architect with skills refined in HXM solutions. Value consistently defined. He writes on employee experience and digital transformation. The future of work and AI’s potential. Well, I hope that made you happy. He’s smiling. Yes. Good. OK, good. Courtney Byrd at the forefront of trends and tech driving innovation. She’s here on deck. Sources found. Found her with the mission so clear to drive value based outcomes. Better decisions to steer.

Paul Rose

Sounds good. Thanks.

Bonnie Graham

Courtney, I hope that honored you nice. Yeah. And Lauren, you’re welcome, Lauren Reinhart, COO with a strategic mind, fueling growth with innovate in initiatives and innovation designed from marketing to operations. Her prowess is told at Ascend Source, where enterprise successes unfold. I hope you like that. She likes it. I got a thumbs up.

So dear in this IT project, Team Quest, TuneIn listen or watch be our esteem. Guest for your ideal IT project team. Who what, where? A tapestry of insights. Wisdom we share. So what do you think we get a thumbs up from me and ChatGPT everybody there you go. Alright, let me see if I could do this. Now you know that we’ve got some. There we go. Now we have a confetti parade. That’s in honor of all of you for being here. So. Now it’s time to go around the table and let’s find out who you really, really are. The speaker order today is Bonnie Tinder and then Paul Rose, then Courtney Byrd, and then Lauren Reinhart. So. Bonnie Tinder. I’m putting you on speaker view. Please. Let’s do the honor. Us. Do us the honor of giving us about a three minute a collection of everything you’ve done. And why are you here, Bonnie? What’s this topic mean? To you welcome.

Bonnie Tinder

Yes. Well, hi, Bonnie. So glad to be here and that ChatGTP was just Pulitzer Prize worthy. So seven years ago I founded Raven Intelligence, which is a peer review site for enterprise software and really designed to help customers make a great decision in an implementation. Partner Raven has over 3000 reviews about IT projects and the partners who helped bring them to life were something like a TripAdvisor. But customers come to our site not to look at vacations, but to really find the best consulting partner for their projects. I spent my entire career in the tech industry and I worked with software vendors and implementation, sales and marketing, and I really started this company because I saw way too many implementation projects failing and I wanted to change that track record. I really wanted to help give customers a voice in the industry. And help their peers learn from the implementation that they just went through. Also, I wanted to help independently recognize these consulting firms who were doing really successful work for clients. Plans and do so in a really independent and data-driven way. So thanks so much excited about the conversation today.

Bonnie Graham

Thank you. Tell me just briefly, how did you name your company?

Bonnie Tinder

Yeah. So Ravens are the smartest bird in the animal Kingdom, and they never forget, so you can only trick a raven one time and so this idea is a raven is a bird that you can trust and yeah, likewise with our company.

Bonnie Graham

Thank you. Trust is an important word and always. Yes. We talk about trust in all kinds of IT, settings and all kinds of tech settings and all kinds of, especially AI settings today. Thank you. I’m always intrigued with how people name their companies. So thank you. Let’s move one seat around the virtual roundtable. Paul Rose, you’re up. Please introduce yourself and tell us you here. Welcome, Paul. Where?

Paul Rose

Thank you, Bonnie Dee. And it’s a tough one to follow for after Bonnie Tinder and brilliant business ideas. So I’ve worked with Bonnie in the past. So and it’s really great to see how that business has flourished over the last couple of years. And yeah, my background, I suppose, is certainly more from a hate or context. And then in recent UM. This was in my in the role I have with Rizing which is an SAP SuccessFactors solution company and where we help we implement we support clients on that. I suppose that HR transformational journey and as well looking back in terms of my own education. As I said I really my it was focused more around getting into consulting then was quite challenging. Really, Bonnie, in terms of you know a lot more of a technical focus. But one of I suppose the original CEO of Aason, back when it was then he had that vision in terms of, OK, let’s get business people consulting as opposed to that traditional it piece. So that was umm, I think that was quite innovative looking back around the time and I know there was a lot of a lot of people that benefit. Benefit from that as well. Hopefully some clients as well, and but yeah, so learned a lot and in recent years and this, I suppose this topic that you’ve introduced today is certainly one close to my heart it’s. It’s one that we talk through with clients every day. They’re starting off on that journey, starting off on an IT program and looking to see, OK, where can we get the right people engaged? What are the skills of those folks involved as well? So, yeah, really looking forward to the session, Bonnie.

Bonnie Graham

Thank you very much. Very interesting. We’re talking tech, but we’re talking people. People are really the core of our conversation. Who, what, where, how, why? Very, very important teams initiative building teams. We’re building teams, maybe with a little tech help, maybe with an AI on the side for some of the mundane, boring, repetitive tests. We don’t want human stuff to do anymore, but we’re talking about people. Thank you, Paul. I have to ask you, where’s the accent from? I. Love your accent.

Paul Rose

That’s from Cork. It’s the South of Ireland. So umm, I’m living in Dublin but down the South so and I know you probably see Killian Murphy in a few weeks and the Oscars. So that’s exact probably I would say one mile from Killa.

Bonnie Graham

Thank you. So we have a preview of how he’s going. To be speaking I love it.

Paul Rose

But he he’s probably more polished.

Bonnie Graham

Oh, no, nobody’s more polished than you. You’re a representative today. Thank you, Paul. Let’s move around the table. Courtney Byrd, welcome. And you and Lauren are here, both from your company Ascend Source. Courtney, introduce yourself, please. We’re so happy to have you here.

Paul Rose

Thank you, Bonnie.

Courtney Byrd

Thank you. And I work really hard to, uh, hide my Southern accent. So if you ask me where that comes from, but first and foremost, thank you so much for having me, Bonnie. It’s an honor to be a part of this series. Alongside of you and the rest of the speakers today, as mentioned, my name is Courtney Byrd. I am the CEO at Ascend Source. I have spent the past 17 years of my career in the technology industry helping organizations adoption of proven applications that transform their businesses. I initially began my professional journey in data and analytics. Base where I became uber passionate about business leaders being able to trust and consume information rather than having to rely on untrustworthy or inaccurate data. That core passion and fundamental pain has continued to be my mission as I led system integrators and partners to drive through change and for enterprise customers across the globe, then about six years ago with a lot of, we’ll call it energy and change the world mentality, I started Ascend Source. Our mission and goal is to bridge that gap between enterprise organization and technology partners solutions to expedite transfer mission transformation that delivers outcomes. So again, it’s an absolute honor to be here today and a part of this panel.

Bonnie Graham

We’re happy to have you and I have to ask Ascend Source, how did you name your company, Courtney?

Courtney Byrd

Well, I think that partners truly struggle to be and remain relevant in a vast ecosystem of what is, you know, in my small ecosystem 28,000 partners. So the ability to ascend that message to make it relevant, to understand exactly who you are and what you do was. Our passion statement so it really came from that. The elevation of your brand.

Bonnie Graham

Thank you very much. Very well put, Lauren Reinhart. So happy to have you here, COO. I’m always impressed with that title. Lauren, let’s hear who you are and welcome.

Lauren Reinhart

Yeah. Thanks, Bonnie. Thanks so much for having me, CEO of Ascend Source. I first got introduced to the technology ecosystem when I started working for ASUG, which is a professional organization for SAP users. And that was about 10 years ago. And it was at ASUG where I saw the power of a professional community and became passionate about connecting, you know, enterprise organizations to the partner community. From there, I went on to work for an implementation partner. And at that time, I really gained an understanding of not only the partners role in a successful project, but also the technology manufacturers themselves and really how all three parties need to be aligned to have a successful project and as Courtney mentioned started Ascend Source about six years ago where I was able to take my passion for the ecosystem and allow deeper relationships and insights to helping customers really maximize their technology investments. So I’m excited to be here today to talk on this topic because I don’t think it gets publicly discussed as much as it should, we put a lot of emphasis on evaluating the software and making the right decision, and then we just go implement it and kind of forget that we made this investment. And so I think this a really important conversation to have, you know, publicly. So thanks again for having me.

Bonnie Graham

Pleasure and thank you for bringing that up. Yes, about the people. But how do you pick the right ones? How do you know who’s going to embrace your wisdom, your mission, your goals? Who’s going to help that initiative come to fruition in the? Say that I don’t know who at the top decided they need this IT team, but somebody needs to say this where we want to go. Let’s put the right people together, right. And that’s what we’re talking about. And teams is a very important topic today. So thank you all. Let’s go to the part of the show where I’ve asked each of you to send me a fictional quote from a character in a movie or a TV show. We have two of the same characters with quotes today from the same movie, which very rarely happens and you’ll find out in a minute if the 1st and the 4th one actually, or a song lyric we might have one of those today as well. So Bonnie Tinder has sent us a quote that actually it’s a scene. Bonnie, I hope you don’t mind. I’m going to read both parts, but it’s from Pirates of the Caribbean. Or Caribbean, as some people say. Excuse me. Dead Man’s Chest, a 2006 fantasy swashbuckler film. You don’t hear that word too often. Let’s see who we got, OK. Except one year after the events of the curse of the Black Pearl, the film recounts Captain Jack Sparrow, we know that’s Johnny Depp owing a debt to Davy Jones, played by Bill Nighy, the ghastly captain of the Flying Dutchman, and is marked for death and pursued by the Kraken. I’m going to leave that alone, and here’s the quote. Pirate Josh and me Gibbs, played by Kevin McNally. As Jack steps onto the ship says not quite according to plan. I can’t do a pirate accent. Bonnie, I’m sorry. And here’s the quote that Bonnie has picked from Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow. Complications arose and soon were overcome. I don’t do a good Johnny Depp either. Bonnie rescue me. What does this mean to our topic?

Bonnie Tinder

And. And in all honesty, he was probably a little bit half intoxicated while saying that quote as well in true Johnny Depp, Jack Sparrow Fashion. But I think the significance of that quote is that the best laid plans you know are important but challenges are going to arise in any IT project, and it’s really the way that you can be nimble and overcome them, have the right team in place that’s really going to, you know, make or break your future.

Bonnie Graham

Thank you very much. If I’d have known that the scene was done with an intoxication accent, I would have done it a little bit differently. But when I took improv and comedy training, I wasn’t taught how to do people dying or people drunk. It’s a very hard thing to do. So thank you. Buddy for that I appreciate it. Let’s get me out of the mud here. Let’s go to a landlock quote here. Literally. On land in a field Paul Rose has picked a quote from Jimmy Dugan, played by the one and only Tom Hanks, the movie A league of their own 1992 American sports comedy drama film, and Paul, we see a lot of combinations of genres and movies, but comedy drama is the only one I’ve ever seen that’s hyphenated. So it’s a comedy dash drama, not a comedy drama like a sparse buckler. Or a sci-fi action thriller. None of those are hyphenated, but comedy drama. Is A League Of Their Own, directed by the one and only Penny Marshall, written by Lowell Ganz and Babalu Mandel, from a story by Kelly Pandeli and Kim Wilson, starring wonderful cast, Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Madonna Woo, Lori Petty, Rosie O’Donnell, John Lovitz, David Strathairn and Gary Marshall. Relation and Bill Pullman. As well, it’s a fictionalized account of a real life all American girls Pro baseball team. The league AGB PBL in 1988, Dottie Hinson attends the opening of the All American Girls Professional Baseball League exhibit at the Baseball Hall of Fame. And sees former teammates and friends, prompting A flashback to 1943, which was in World War 2, so we’ll leave that alone. Here’s the quote Paul has picked. It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great. How is my Tom Hanks? Was that OK, Paul?

Paul Rose

That was good. That was good. Bonnie. Yeah. You, you have a future.

Bonnie Graham

But thank God if radio doesn’t work out, I’ll go do invitations. Go ahead, Paul. What does this have to do with our topic, please?

Paul Rose

I think it connects nicely Bonnie to umm to the point Bonnie Tinder made originally there in terms of there’ll be ups, there’ll be downs, there’ll be peaks and throughs with these IT programs, they’re too complex. There’s too many people involved. So many systems that you know that has that just happened, that’s a natural and I think I suppose from my perspective, one of the key considerations is being able to have that transparent conversation, whether that’s between the vendor and the client, the client, the partner and the vendor because ultimately it’s one team. That’s probably my biggest take away in terms of any project successes that I see are we see in industry it’s all, it’s always looking back and saying oh you know we were at least we’re honest there was down times but you know we got every on the table and then we came and we said these are some solutions. Option one, option two, option 3, but I think that umm being on the same page is key and just probably a good take away.

Bonnie Graham

Thank you very much. Appreciate the quote. And nobody’s quoted that movie in a while. So I was happy to see it pass. Yeah. Thank you. Let’s go to quote from Courtney Byrd. And she’s picked a very famous quote, Colonel Nathan R Jessup, played by Jack Nicholson. We’ve got some iconic actors in our mix today. A Few Good Men, 1992 American legal drama film. Quite an ensemble cast. Tom Cruise. Oh, Demi Moore. Kevin Bacon. Jason Pollock, Cuba Gooding, junior. Reefer, Sutherland, Omai the plot follows the court martial of two US Marines charged with murder of a fellow marine, and the tribulations of their lawyers as they prepare the case. And here’s a little back story I told you I would read this. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin. He’s certainly a prolific writer, was inspired to write the source, play the same name of few good men from a phone conversation with his sister Deborah, who was a graduate of Boston University Law School, and she signed up for a three-year stint with Jag. That’s the US Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps. She said she was going to Guantanamo Bay. To defend a group of marines who had nearly killed a fellow marine in a hazing ordered by a superior officer, the movie did very well 5 words in the quote. It’s. Panic. I’m doing my best. Jack Nicholson. You can’t handle the truth. I think that was my best one today. Courtney, rescue me. What does this have to do with our topic?

Courtney Byrd

Although it has nothing to do with murder, we can attribute it back to, you know, not being able to handle the truth when looking at an IT initiative. So when picking this quote, which I thought I was very original, it turns out it was probably top of your list. But the real meaning behind it was if we don’t. Understand that we have to change that we have to evolve that business process optimization needs to be a factor of our key IT. Initiatives. So we’re going to practice the same definition of insanity we’ve always practiced by doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Sometimes I think we have to take a look at ourselves as a team, an IT team and say, how are we going to really innovate and Dr. transformation. It means we cannot do the same things. Yet the same way we’ve been doing them.

Bonnie Graham

Thank you very much and let me go to Lauren quote and Lauren, I’m scrolling down here and you have picked from I said there would be a double here and there is this another Captain Jack Sparrow quote, Johnny Depp’s in the house. Again, Pirates of the Caribbean, Caribbean, the curse of the Black Pearl, 2003 American fantasy, a supernatural swashbuckler film we added a few more genres here. Let’s see. It was the first MPAA PG13 film, released by Walt Disney Pictures, and it defied low expectations. I didn’t think it would do much. It grossed over $650 million worldwide, the fourth highest grossing film of the year in 2003. And everybody loved Johnny Depp in this picture. Here’s the quote. And this a very interesting. The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem. Do you understand? I don’t know if he was drunk when. He said this, Lauren, what do? You think I could? I could have slurred it. Go ahead, Lauren.

Lauren Reinhart

Probably. Yeah, I think, you know, problems are going to arise in any project that’s just life. They’re always going to be speed bumps no matter how much planning you do. But what we can control is how we react to those problems. Our attitude towards those problems you have to, you know, become solution oriented. You can’t hit a speed bump. And have your team, you know, running around like with chickens, with their head coming off or pointing finger. You know our attitude very much will decide, you know whether or not you’re able to stay the course and not make a problem bigger than what it is.

Bonnie Graham

Thank you very much. I appreciate everybody picking such interesting quotes. And again, we haven’t had two Jack Sparrow quotes on the same show in a long time, so thank you. It was kind of fun. I’ll learn to do better accents next time. We’re going to move to the part of the show where I’ve asked each of my esteemed guests to please send me four discussion statements we’ve already talked around the topic, but we haven’t really dived into it yet so that’s what we’re going to do now. I’m going to pick a statement from. Of you, Bonnie Tinder. I have put one already into the chat for you. I’m going to read it. I’m going to ask you to unpack it. Like they say on the news, and then we’re going to go around the table in the same speaker order. So I’ll ask Paul Rose. Agree or disagree with Bonnie? Don’t be afraid to disagree with her, Paul. Just be very nice about it, Courtney. I’ll bring you in after Paul. And you can comment on what Bonnie said and or Paul and Lauren, you get to talk about everybody. So when you’re on your, agree or disagree, keep it to about a minute, minute and a half. And Bonnie, take your time with it. And let’s go. So here’s what Bonnie said. Churn and burn. Keeping the team intact throughout the duration of the project is not easy. Almost 50% of the projects we review have some degree of turnover. It’s incredibly important to knowledge transfer and people dynamics are tough to realign when there is change on the team, so this predisposes. We’ve already got our team together. So Bonnie, let’s talk about keeping the team happy. Go ahead, Bonnie.

Bonnie Tinder

Yeah. You know, when we see a project that is rated poorly, so customer reviews a project and it comes in with a score of let’s say, a six out of 10 or less. Immediately I look at the team turnover and almost 9 out of 10 times that team on the project had significant turnover, so there was people change, whether that was an internal change of the project team or whether that was the project lead at the SI changed through the duration of a project the dynamics of that churn is super problematic during the course of a project and in some cases it can that that that can cause a project to fail. So it is so important to keep the collection of people that you have together and cohesive throughout the duration of the project, if that is possible. This idea of knowledge transfer is really hard even at the end of the project, when a, you know, system has gone live and now we’re going into a new phase with maintenance and things like that. Even then, when you’re taking and moving the responsibility of the team to another group internally, there’s, you know, potential there for gaps to happen and for things to be missed. So the people dynamics and the way that the team works together. Is so important and so at all costs if you can make sure that your team, you know does stay on for the course of the project, I think that’s really important. With that said, you know there are times that you know people are going to move or change jobs. Or they weren’t the right fit for the project. You want to minimize the amount of those during the course of project. That’s a fact of life. It’s always going to happen, but the fewer of those changes that you can make, the higher likelihood that your project is going to stay on the track and be successful.

Bonnie Graham

Thank you. Very interesting. Let’s go around the table. Paul rose. Agree or disagree with Miss Tinder? What do you?

Paul Rose

Yeah, no, uh, 100% agree, Bonnie. And I think, you know, Bonnie touched on a couple of key points there as well, one even around that’s, you know single person dependency like we see in a lot of these programs is probably too much onus maybe around it could be a project manager, it could be an architect, but almost everything is lumped on to that person. And then as you can imagine, these programs are can last maybe up to 18 months, 24 months, that’s a lot of pressure. And also it’s there’s a possibility that that person moves on. So I think you know in terms of provisions, in terms of mitigating some risk. You need. We need to think about having that back up, back up, even from an access perspective, solid documentation, even though it might be the most sexy thing, it’s, you know, that is key, and especially from any complex integrations, that’s one that we see when we when we look to and when we looked at certain projects where that integration documentation needs to be really comprehensive to give you know to give that the support team the sufficient knowledge to actually, support any issues as well. So I think that’s key as well and no. But in in general it’s such a key area. Also I think the project burnout isn’t. So people are really overworked, they’re stressed and often they put too much maybe into that initial. Design phase of the project. And they just run out of steam. And that’s what we you know, that’s what we see a lot in the industry as well. So a probably a focus on well-being as well making sure everyone is working in a balanced fashion and can actually complete the project successfully as well.

Bonnie Graham

Thank you. Interesting. Courtney, join us. Thoughts.

Courtney Byrd

Yeah, Paul, one, I think you took my response right out of my mouth. I couldn’t agree more with you. I think that Lauren will probably touch on a bit of the process side, but I love what you said. I agree with you, Bonnie as well. You know, when we look at the burn and turn, I think we have to start with the collective understanding of what are our key initiatives and goals and our desired outcomes of this project and if we kind of maintain that cultural alignment with our project teams, then we’re able to do that as people turn over and change on these big key initiatives, right? So it’s internal resources, external, but that alignment of your goals and key objectives and what you expect to see coming out of this project. Will help you ensure that you get the adoption you’re looking for. Bonnie, I definitely agree with.

Bonnie Graham

Cultural alignment? Interesting. Lauren, join us. Thoughts. Go ahead.

Lauren Reinhart

Yeah, two comments. I think you know, Bonnie, you mentioned it that knowledge transfer and that change management, you know we put a lot of focus on the initial investment, but are we equally investing on the other side of the house so that when we do have that turnover, we move on to the next phase that we’re set up first. And then I think something else that folks need to consider as well as when they’re considering partners and they’re going through that vetting process. You know, what is that partners plan are these you know? Consultants that are going to be on the duration of the project or are they going to phase out? And if you can have that transparent conversation upfront. You can maybe get ahead of that, set those expectations or say you know what you’re not the partner for me. I want someone who’s gonna be here with us through our entire journey.

Bonnie Graham

Interesting. Bonnie Tinder. Thank you for starting that. Any comments you have back to your colleagues on the panel, Bonnie?

Bonnie Tinder

Yeah, I mean, just to pick up on the, you know, how can you ensure that teams don’t change to what Lauren just mentioned, you know having something written into the contract which ensures that you get the project team you evaluated during the partner selection process? Is really helpful if you can do it. You know, the other thing is find out what that partners track records for success is on team churn. It’s one of the things that we measure on a partner is the rate of change on projects. And so if you can uncover you know, what was another customer’s experience? How much change did they have in the course of the project? Those are sort of those type of questions that you can ask and selection to know which partners are notorious for churning. Team members on a project because that’s a big deal when considering who should pick.

Bonnie Graham

Thank you. I think we’re talking about doing your diligence. Aren’t we doing your investigation, not just, oh, they came highly recommended or. Yeah, they did something for a company we know or my brother-in-law used them or whoever. Yeah, very interesting. OK. And today we know there’s so much, shall we say. Transparency in who, what, why, when, where? What we’ve done, where we’ve been, who has commented, who has responded, who has maligned us for better or for worse, what our reviews are. It’s all over the place, isn’t it, Bonny? It’s very easy to research somebody.

Bonnie Tinder

Yeah. So the way we buy in 2020?

Bonnie Graham

Four, there you go. When people say privacy, I say, but the horse is already out of the barn door and you can’t put it back in. It’s gone. OK, let’s move on. Thank you Bonnie Tinder. That was a great conversation starter. Let’s go to one from Paul Rose. Paul, I put it in the chat. I saw you looking at the chat, so I know you read it. Paul asked the question. Can we work smart? Not hard. Ultimately, if we think about the last few years with the development of AI with that GPT organizations now understand they have to think about working smarter. Not harder. Companies can only truly leverage these new technologies if they have folks who understand how to apply the new technology. I’m gonna stop there and let you take over. Paul, this very interesting. Good addition to the conversation. Go ahead.

Paul Rose

Thanks, Bonnie. I think, I suppose from a program perspective it’s so key, it probably comes back to skills, but you know also and like there’s so many areas especially around data validation where companies can get ahead because it’s all very well starting a large transformation, large it project. But when the data quality isn’t great, you’re not going to be able to take advantage of. Let’s say machine learning, data analytics, ChatGTP. So it’s I suppose that and that also goes from a process perspective, it’s not just about data. You know we see a lot of things that are looking to get a project done quick and we all know ourselves, you know something on quick is often not done. And with the due diligence that are acquires especially with these complex transformational programs. So I suppose from a work smart perspective, understanding the power of these new technologies but also and it probably frustrates me at times, you know we see a lot of nice marketing and sales. Hype around and artificial intelligence, but unless those core processes are in place, and unless there’s a real readiness around. Data integrity and that data integrity often has to happen in the source system. It’s not going to happen when you guys go live. It’s just not. And no matter how, how that soul so umm, I suppose that’s. Yeah, I’d be interested to hear what, what Courtney, Bonnie and Lauren think as well as well as yourself, Bonnie.

Bonnie Graham

We’re going to go around the table and we’re going to find out, so let’s open the conversation. Courtney, you’re sitting next to Paul Rose on this round. So, Courtney Byrd, what do you think? Agree or disagree? Let’s start. Thank you.

Courtney Byrd

Well, first of all, Paul, you’re speaking to my passion statement 100%. Who wants to make bad business decisions faster, right? No one, OK.

Bonnie Graham

Let that one burn in for a second there, Courtney. Yeah. Yeah. Like they say in comedy, don’t step on the left. Don’t step on the. OK. Alright. You can go on now Courtney. Go ahead.

Courtney Byrd

Nobody wants to make bad business decisions faster, and the only way that you can achieve making better business decisions faster is really looking at your core systems and starting with that phase zero. Do you trust your data? Does it have the integrity you want and need in order to, you know, leverage all of the new technologies and applications that we have at our fingertips? Today, all that really does, if we don’t, if we don’t trust the information we’re getting is allowing us to delay making better business decisions faster and just redoing the same thing over and over again with bad, with bad data. So you spoke to the statement I probably most passionate about my career coming from the data and analytics side. I could probably talk to you for about 30-45 minutes just on this topic alone so. It is safe to say I completely agree with you.

Paul Rose

I stole your notes, Courtney. Sorry about that.

Bonnie Graham

I publish all your notes in the Oh my what did I do? Lauren, you’re sitting next to Courtney. You get to talk to both Courtney and Paul. Lauren, what do you think?

Paul Rose

No idea.

Lauren Reinhart

Yeah. Well, I can attest this that is Courtney’s favorite quote. So good job of tying her up for that one. I saw that one. I mean, you know, I think when we look at culture as well, you know there is a lot of innovation, AI, all of this very new. And so making sure that you have a culture where you’re encouraging people to start playing with it, to start testing it, to see what it can really do for your organization. Not all of it’s going to be good and to be able to have you know that. Culture in that conversation and the people that are willing to try new things and not, you know, I think one of the challenges on any project is when you have team members that are. You know you’re trying to rewrite and reimagine how to do things better. And they say, well, we’ve already done all we’ve done it that way. It’s not broken. What? Why are we fixing it? Right. And so to make sure that culturally, you’re willing to dabble, your toes into that space is important as well.

Bonnie Graham

Thank you very much. Bonnie Tinder. You’re going to wrap this round up. What? Do.

Bonnie Tinder

You think? Yeah. Well, generative AIs in every single conversation that we have nowadays, every meeting. And so it certainly is now prevalent in this whole idea of IT projects and implementation. And you know, as Courtney said in you know, in her statement, you don’t want to make bad business decisions faster. And the way to do that is to have bad data to begin with. And I don’t think you can underestimate the importance of starting an IT project with good data and if you don’t have good data, all you’re going to do is lift and shift your, you know, garbage system into a new garbage system that has AI and now or whatever new bell and whistle. So this idea of really taking the time to understand the data, what do you want to bring over and make sure it’s clean before you do so is going to impact the quality of whatever transformation that you have going on.

Bonnie Graham

Back in my programming days, Bonnie and everybody we used to have a term called GIGO –  garbage in, garbage out. I was a programmer analyst back in Cobol on Xerox Sigma 6 CP. Five key punching. Thousands of lines of code on 80 column Hollerith cards and carrying Paul’s like, what is she talking about? Carrying around the cards in a box. And God help you if you tripped and fell in the box. Fell down and the operator in the control room and the computer room would feed them into a card reader. And your code would get put into the computer that way. So those were the days. But GIGO was garbage in, garbage out and you didn’t want that? All this was your statement. You wanted to quick wrap up on this one. What did you think of the comments?

Paul Rose

Yeah, I know it’s good to. Good to see that it resonated. I suppose that overall topic, I guess if I look back to even starting consulting maybe about 12 years ago like those companies that had a high data analytics maturity, I can kind of I’m predicting the future to see those are the companies that have taken had a focus on data back then and have consistently. Looked in terms of that data integrity, data quality and those are the types of companies that will be able to and take advantage of AI. That would be because they’ve always had that passion on data and it’s not, you know, it’s not in isolation, I suppose, and that they’ve got, they’ve gone to source but and yeah. And hopefully some good context there. Thanks guys.

Bonnie Graham

Thank you very much. And let’s move on to Courtney Byrd. I picked statement #2 put it in the chat for you. Let me read it. Courtney says the art of a successful transformation project starts with a collective understanding of the outcomes, the impacts and the goals. That was something I said in the beginning. Recently, Courtney says she asked very strong business leaders to provide her with their definition of digital transformation air quotes, please. She asked that question to a dozen leaders. And guess what? Courtney got a dozen different answers, she says. If we don’t know what we’re trying to achieve, there is no finish line. Courtney, we got somebody got to crochet this on a pillow or put it on the side of a building. Very well done. Courtney, talk to me. Unpack this, please.

Courtney Byrd

Yeah, I mean, I think the understanding of architecture is a factor, buzzwords that our industry is a real thing. We can ask one business question and get a lot of business answers. I always say that the technology is in fact proving it’s a manufactured solution it. Whoops, how you deploy that said solution and the adoption of that solution is the determining factor of success or failure. But before we can adopt something or anything, we must understand our why? Why are what are we trying to achieve? Why are we doing this? Are we ready to shift our mindset and the way we do things today versus? How are we going to do them tomorrow? And do we have the right partner in place to help us through that journey? It goes back to something Bonnie said something Lauren said earlier about understanding who your partner is right again, that technology is driven, but how that technology is deployed is one thing. If it’s adopted is a totally different thing. So it’s just it’s past implementation, it’s looking at our change management process. It’s looking at how many people are gaining benefit and result from a key initiative like this. And I think it all starts with asking yourself the question of why are we doing this in the first place.

And what does it mean for us as a business? Yes, it was fascinating to ask those leaders to define digital transformation and get all the various answers. I definitely look forward to hearing all of your feedback as well.

Bonnie Graham

Courtney, before I move around the table, I’m going to ask you, was this a formal survey you ran? Was this something you just casually in business meeting said? Hey, I’d love to know what your definition of digital transformation. I’m just wondering the source of the pool, you don’t have to give names, but who a little bit about who these people were?

Courtney Byrd

Well, it was. It was really interesting. So I actually started a podcast a couple of years ago and we got so wrapped up on in again this architecture these buzzwords. And I would just start asking people questions like, hey, what does digital transformation mean to you, whether they’re a leader at a big technology company or a giant flooring manufacturer, it doesn’t really matter to ask, CIO, CFO, those types of questions to really understand their position. So we actually ran a series on our podcast and at the end of every episode we asked that question. What is digital transformation to you? And it was fascinating. Again, never got the same answer twice.

Bonnie Graham

Thank you. I was wondering about the source of the question and that answered a lot of a lot of information for everybody here and for everybody watching and listening as you can run in formal surveys just by asking a very specific question and noting and logging the answers. Thank you, Courtney. Good business practice. Lauren, you’re sitting next to Courtney on this one. What do you think it was?

Lauren Reinhart

Couldn’t agree more digital transformation has become such a buzzword in our industry. I’m ready for the new buzzword, to be honest. But you know, just like you know, we talked to partners and to CIO’s and business leaders and all got different answers. You know, I would encourage you to talk to your project team and ask the same question. If everyone has a different answer, how are you working towards the same goal? It’s also really important that you keep in mind you know what the business drivers are for this digital transformation. It’s not just about the technology that you’re implementing, it’s about what is that technology and the process that you’re putting in place going to do for the business and what is that ROI, what is the benefit? Because if you can’t point to where you’re trying to go, why did you make the investment in the first place?

Bonnie Graham

Interesting. Very interesting. Bonnie Tinder. You’re next on this round. What do you? Think.

Bonnie Tinder

Yeah. You know, as Courtney and Lauren were talking it, it made me think about the parallels between the idea of digital transformation and let’s say, a kitchen renovation. And you can say kitchen renovation and everybody sort of knows what you’re talking about. It involves a lot of you know, new cabinetry and appliances and things like that, but you can’t just paint that with a broad brush. If I, if I said to a contractor, I wanna renovate my kitchen. Well, OK, so there there’s a lot of lot of details that we need to cover. What is it? Why are you doing it? How much? Money and time. Do you have? How big is your space, etc? So you know I think it is really important to you know digital transformation, you know enables an outcome, it enables a you know an after picture, but you can’t just say I want to renovate my kitchen without really having a good idea of what that after picture. Looks like and you know and how much you know and you have to go in also with a reality check to say, you know, I don’t have unlimited time and resources to do this as well. Maybe I’m just going to, you know, put in a breakfast bar as opposed to rip out all my cabinets. So there’s different. They’re different ways to approach a project or a digital transformation. And I think before you start, you know, throwing around that terminology, you really need to understand what are the business outcomes I’m solving with the change in technology.

Bonnie Graham

Thank you. I love the kitchen renovation metaphor, because a friend of mine is doing a kitchen renovation and they just found out it’s gonna take six weeks. It took a year to get the appliances don’t even ask and they found out that the venting in the kitchen was improper and they had to drill holes in the wall and put in a 10 inch pipe for proper venting for the new stove. Don’t even ask. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I want to go to Paul now, Paul comment, and then we’ll go back to Lauren for a second. Go ahead.

Paul Rose

Sure. Yeah. No, it’s a really interesting area and that Courtney brought up, I suppose from just uh, maybe tag on to what Lauren mentioned as well from a business perspective. It’s very much, you know what function as well, so it may have a certain perception of what and you know what’s going, what’s going to be successful. Perhaps it’s a clean technology stack, perhaps it’s, you know, applications move to the cloud or it might be a slicker intuitive, hey employee experience or for recruiting would be the candidate experience. And so and then business will have different, I suppose, ambitions around this transformation. So you’re the measures of success are key and defining those early big. Because as you say, you know they could, it could in in one way be a successful project, but you get to the end and there’s no measures. So it’s very much, uh subjective so and no really interesting topic.

Bonnie Graham

Thank you, Courtney. I’m going to give you one minute wrap up for this and then Lauren, I’ve got your statement in the chat. We’re going to go to Lauren. That’s our last round. Courtney, quickly, go ahead.

Courtney Byrd

No. Again, I just want to reiterate, the technology has proven right how we deploy it and if it’s adopted, is that true success or failure criteria, right. So laying that foundation, putting that plan together, making sure everybody is aligned, whether it’s your partner IT the business that alignment is imperative for success. If we’re all rowing in the same direction, we’re all going to achieve success together, right? Something.

Bonnie Graham

I love the metaphors. We’ve gone from kitchen renovation to rowing in the same direction. It’s the only. Way to get to.

Courtney Byrd

You can’t handle the truth.

Bonnie Graham

That’s right. And what is the finish line? What is the fishing line finish line, Lauren, I’ve picked statement number one, it’s brief and to the point. And I think this really is important. Lauren says the best internal talent is going to be the people you don’t want to divert from their primary responsibilities. But these are the people who are the most willing to think outside the box. These are the people you can’t afford not to put on the project. Oh my goodness. Inside out, upside down and wow and not afford to not. OK, Lauren, let’s unpack this please. 2 minutes.

Lauren Reinhart

Yeah, we can all picture in past careers and team members that we have today kind of your best and brightest stars and you know you have this fear of if I move them off of, you know, their day job and put them on this project, what is that going to mean for the business. But when we’re making these big investments into these digital transformations you need that. Top talent. That voice, that person that is. Willing to bring, you know, the right energy. And right culture. To the team and really kind of challenge the status quo I mentioned earlier, kind of getting out of that. This how we’ve always done it mentality. So when I say, you know, you can’t afford not to put them on the project, you know, yeah, you don’t want to lose them and kind of their primary responsibilities. But what does? It look like when you don’t have their voice heard on your project.

Bonnie Graham

Thank you very much and let’s go around the table. Bonnie Tinder, you’re sitting next to Lauren on this one. Go ahead. Thoughts.

Bonnie Tinder

Yeah, your A-Team internally is going to be your a team that you have on the project. So you want to get the absolute top talent that you possibly can muster on your project team as well. And these are the people that. You’ll have some history with the organization, enough to know the way things have been done in the past, but we’re not afraid to, you know, start off with a blank sheet of paper and to break the mold. They’re some of the people who are going to sort of challenge the way things always been done. But also, you know, culturally know what’s going to work internally and how much change the organization can handle without sort of disrupting the apple cart just for the sake of disruption so. 1,000,000% Warren, like getting your A team on the project if you can possibly do it is going to, you know, set you up for success in the long term.

Bonnie Graham

How much change the organization can handle? I’ll remember that one. Bonnie Paul, you’re sitting next to Bonnie. What do you think about Laurence statement and or Bonnie’s comments. Go ahead. Cool.

Paul Rose

Yeah, I agree. I suppose it’s back to that condition, though, as long as that resource is freed up, as long as that because what’s going to happen if it’s not, if they’re not freed up, they’re going to become overloaded, they’re going to become stressed. They may leave the organization. I think we’ve probably all seen it 100 times, so I on 100% from a skills perspective, you want your, you want your folk with the best and brightest. Skills, especially around some of the newer technologies, but I would really caveat that with the fact that the business has to ensure they have to make they have to be very cognizant of the fact that. This project is a lot of the time it’s going to be full time if you’re working on global process. If you’re working on data migration integrations, it’s difficult to kind of come in and out. Alright, maybe there’s certain phases in the project, but uhm yeah, I think just with that caveat. But it’s, uh yeah, it’s a really nice topic.

Bonnie Graham

Thank you. It is Courtney Byrd. What do you think?

Courtney Byrd

I couldn’t help but kind of laugh when I read Lauren’s comment cause I was like guilty as charged. I cannot afford to not have Lauren on any big key initiative with innocent source and I had to take a look in the mirror there. But what I think has happened as we mature as an organization is we’ve also matured in our ability to create. Really impactful teams with touch points and milestones and metrics that allow us to understand where we are from a success perspective within any key and you know project or initiative, no, I can’t afford for Lauren or some of my other team members to not do their day job and I can’t afford them to not be a part of that. So I think it’s a balance of trust and creating that right team truly understanding what you’re trying to achieve and then putting those milestones in place so that they can be tracked and you can leverage that talent well also growing new talent as well.

Bonnie Graham

Interesting. That’s a whole other topic. A whole other show, Lauren, great conversation start out and give you one minute to wrap up on what your colleague said. What do you think, Lauren?

Lauren Reinhart

Yeah, I agree. With Paul and I think that’s really you know, kind of what today’s discussion has been about there is this right mix. There’s no perfect formula, but finding the right internal people, the right external people to fill those gaps with the right partner does, you know, create this equation for success, you know, married on top of that. Some good you know best practices, documentation, change management. There’s a lot of components that go into the the team and it’s really important that organizations give it that proper conversation and not make those decisions hastily.

Bonnie Graham

Thank you. I want to thank you all. We have obviously hours and hours more to talk about this, but I promised at the beginning of the show we would give the listeners and the viewers insights we would explore what the topic. Us and we will come up with best practices and I want to thank you all for delivering on the promise of what we were trying to cover today. I want to thank Michael, our engineer at voice America today. I want everybody to wave hello and goodbye. We’re not done yet. To LinkedIn. To Facebook twice. That’s two waves to Facebook and to YouTube. I added a YouTube channel recently. I want to say thank you to Bonnie Tinder. Always nice to have another Bonnie on the show. It’s very rare. As I told you, I grew up in the era of I won’t even tell you when. But there were no Bonnies mentioned on TV when I was growing up. And then I went to junior high school. And I just dated myself and there were three bunnies, and I was mad because I wanted to be the. The one I don’t know. We get used to that Paul Rose. It was just a pleasure. And thank you for bringing the accent and telling us about who’s going to be on the on the award show soon. Courtney Byrd and Lauren Reinhartz. Applause to both of you ladies. Thank you for coming on and sharing so many insights and so much direct. Courtney, I love that you did the survey of people you were talking to on your blog, that’s I think that’s an important tip for everybody who’s doing a podcast or a blog or doing something with the in the public eye in terms of the tech ecosystem, if you will. To be able to ask questions and collect your own data and see what’s happening, what are people thinking? What are people doing? It’s a great way to do it. So Bonnie Dee signing off, and I want to say this has been Rizing evolution, the future proofed enterprise. And if you think the future is already here, I say no, no, no. That was yesterday’s future. Today’s future. Hasn’t happened yet, and we’re all here. Bonnie and Paul and Courtney and Lauren and me and Sherry and Hannah. We’re all here to make it a better one. Everybody wave goodbye. Bye. Bye. See you next week. OK.