Rizing Evolution – The Future Proofed Enterprise Podcast
Episode 2 Transcript: From Users to Creators: The Employee-Led Tech Transformation.
(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.)
Show Intro
Welcome to a fresh perspective on business technology. This is Rizing evolution. The future proofed enterprise presented by Rizing a Wipro company you’ll hear from business and technology. Innovators who know how to use the latest technologies and business strategies to transform industries and importantly, how these technologies and strategies can be shaped to your business needs in your way. Help your organization move in exciting new directions. Now here’s your host and moderator, Bonnie Graham.
Bonnie Graham
That’s me. Welcome, welcome. Welcome episode #2 of Rizing evolution. The future proofed enterprise, so happy and proud to be here. We have another very interesting show for you. This is thought leadership with a smile. I think I’m allowed to say that. And a shout out to two ladies behind the scenes who worked so hard to bring these shows to life. Sherry Meyer and Hannah Hale, thank you very much. Before I have my guests introduce themselves, I want to read a little poem. Those of you who know me from my other shows know that I’ve been asking ChatGPT. Yes, that one. The LM. The AI thing. You know that the free one to take my text intros from my shows and to turn them into. Poetry. I didn’t say great level poetry. I just said poetry. It’s interesting and fun. What they did with this one. So I’m going to read this, and when I call your name to my guests and we have Dave Maloney, Martin standing and Jennifer McCoy, there you are just wave. Hello. When I call your name and then we’ll have you do your bio. So here we go. Everybody listen up. In our enterprise expanse circuits gleam and codes entwine A revolutions brewing future bright by design. In this era of technology, innovation asserts its right IT and business dance their boundaries, taking flight gaunt. Martin likes it. So far gone are the days of Mystic tongues of language. Think tax arcane. Now low code, no code method dawns. A shift that marks a gain no more, just a realm for techies. It’s a world for all to share, but a new question hangs in the balance beyond a whisper in the air. When functional teams grasp the reins, will results be great? Will they last? What future will it all unfold? As the enterprise destiny is. Cast on today’s live streaming platform host Bonnie D That’s me, seeks the wisdom of these four wavelet call your name Martin Stenzig, Dave Maloney, Jennifer McClure to help us write the score TuneIn closely listeners and viewers as the case will strive to make. Here’s the title of the show today from users to creators. The employee LED tech transformation. What path will your company take? Our roundtable thought leaders share the expertise. They know. Welcome to the Rizing evolution, the future proofed enterprise. Now on with the show, what do you think? Like it, Martin, what do you think, Jennifer?
Jennifer McClure
Pretty good.
Bonnie Graham
Pretty B. I’ll go for B plus. Well, it was a C until I intervened. Dave Maloney, what do you think?
Dave Maloney
It rhymed. I liked. It.
Bonnie Graham
OK. We’ll move that up to an A minus. Thank you very much. Let’s go around the table we are talking today about from users to creators. The employee LED tech transformation. And that’s the focus of our expertise today. So let’s go around the table, get a three. Minute bio. What? Who are you? What do you do? What led you to this point in your career? And what’s your passion for the topic? Martin Stenzig? It’s been a couple of years since we’ve spoken, so happy to see you again. I’m putting you on Speaker view. Go ahead.
Martin Stenzig
Excellent. Thank you, Bonnie. Yeah, my name is Martin Stenzig. I have a double title these days. I’m the chief technology officer at Rizing, but also the global head for business technology platform at Wipro and Rizing. So what am I doing in those roles? I’m essentially taking the latest and greatest technologies. And applying them to customer business problems and really driving measurable benefits. So that means we’re not just, you know, applying technology for the for the fun of it, but we’re really solving real life business problems and making people more efficient. We usually quote the sort of the SpaceX numbers. So these days, especially with the technologies we firmly believe. That we cannot just get you the typical 2 to 3% improvements in the business case, but we’re probably looking at 20 to 25% across the board that we can. Can get you with new technologies if you’re willing to buy in. So what did get me to this point? And interested in the low court, no court piece. Fairly simple. I have developers. I also work with a lot of business users so see the both sides of the coin of the Pro Codes discussion as well as the low code. Discussion and then all the way in between. So yeah, exciting topic and looking forward to discussing it.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you very much. Appreciated Dave Maloney, you’re up next. Dave, you there? Here we go. Dave, I’m putting you on Speaker view. Would you please do me the honor of introducing yourself to everybody and what’s your passion for our topic? Well.
Dave Maloney
Great. Thank you. Yeah, my name is Dave Maloney, and I’m currently the vice president for BTP or business technology platform everywhere SAP. It’s actually my 20th year at SAP and I’ve been very simple directive. It’s my role to help customers get more value out of their SAP investment, specifically through the leverage. Of our business technology platform and it’s not just limited to their SAP investment, but also a broader technology investment, making sure we play nice in the sandbox with a lot of our partners out there. Google, Amazon, Microsoft and other partners in our. System I got to this point in my career. I I, you know, started my, my career as a civil engineer working on US embassies and then over to pass this waste sites. But I got to software as fast as I could. I really started working with geographic information systems and when I joined SAP, I was involved in portfolio management as part of our product life cycle management team. But more and more just got more fascinating and loved the technology and the tech. So I moved more and more over into the underlying technology, a lot with analytics database. And when we launched the business technology platform about 11 years ago, that was really an area I wanted to focus on. So I’ve been here since about day one of our business technology platform. And yeah, I’m, I’m focused on really trying to drive adoption and success of SAP deployments through the business technology platform.
Bonnie Graham
What’s your passion for low code? No code. I want to ask you good, bad or anything in between. Just give me a one sentence of why you’re excited to be here today, Dave.
Dave Maloney
Yeah. I mean, I’ve seen an incredible evolution. I think more and more and I’ll talk more about this going forward. Enabling business users to get more from it, you know, low code, no code I think is really the path to that. It’s over here with the technology a lot of times a lot of work, a lot of effort, don’t know the business so well. That’s the same thing on the business side where they know the business very well, have a very difficult time interpreting and leveraging the tech low code. No code really brings those two together and. I I’ve seen it evolve. You know, the past 10 years and it’s come a long way and it’s an exciting future from no good, no good.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you very much. Lovely to have you here. Jennifer McClure, you’re up next. Tell us who you are, what you do, and what’s your passion for our topic. Welcome, Jennifer.
Jennifer McClure
You. Well, I am Jennifer McClure, and I have about 20 plus years of experience as an HR leader and executive in the corporate world. Then I took a little detour into executive search helping companies bring leaders into their organizations. And for the last 14 years or so, I’ve had my own business where I’m a professional speaker and trainer, talking about the future of work and. Helping leaders to thrive in the future of work and unleash the potential of their people. I also am the chief excitement officer of something called Disrupt HR. You may have heard about it depending on where you are in the world. We have 154 licensed communities and 34 countries where people will get up and go. 5 minute talks about an idea related to the workplace technology, people, talent, the future of work, and we have over 7000 videos out there online of people who’ve shared their ideas. So my passion for this topic is that I believe that the best ideas do come from your people. And I believe that this opportunity for them to participate. No code, no code environments allows those ideas to be brought to the table, and that is the future.
Bonnie Graham
Work. Thank you very much. That wrapped it up very nicely in a both. Thank you, Jennifer. Let’s go to the part of the show where I’ve asked my 3 guests to send me a quote from a fictional character in a movie or a TV show or a song lyric that they will interpret to our topic today. The quotes have nothing to do with code, nothing to do with technology, not. I don’t think nothing to do with computers and let’s see how cleverly they relate them. So Martin Stenzig has sent us a. Mode very interesting. From Martin, Sheamus, Marty, another Martin, Marty McFly, of course, played by Michael J. Fox. The movie is a classic back to the feature 1985 in American sci-fi comedy franchise. There were a lot of these movies. Interestingly enough. I don’t know if you know this Martin, but in 2019 Marty McFly. Was selected by Empire Magazine as the 12th greatest movie character of all time. Did you? Know that.
Martin Stenzig
Didn’t know that.
Bonnie Graham
Well, now you do. Now you.
Martin Stenzig
Voted for him though, so yeah.
Bonnie Graham
There you go. Who knows? So here is the quote. Wait a minute, Doc. Are you telling me you built a time machine out of a Delorian? I don’t do a good morning, McFly. Rescue me. Martin, what does this have to do with our topic?
Martin Stenzig
Well, I thought of a little bit about it and The Time Machine here is essentially the deep coding of what we’re doing and what we’ve done for years. So the DeLorean in this analogy would be your local. Tool I firmly believe that the really, really good local tools that we’re finding on the market these days are not just sort of a thing that gets you to the 80% solution, but really gets you to 80% and then allows you to take the last 20% and complement it with really the Pro code. Functionality that that you know you can’t do. As a business user or just as a as a visual designer, and that’s sort of the analogy I wanted to bring in here. So take the best of both worlds. You know, the DeLorean chassis with the with The Time Machine content. If we can combine that in the best possible way, you know, I think we’re getting the best benefits for all of them. And that’s sort of what I’m excited about, you know, not just making it look good. And having sort of what we, I mean 20 years ago, we called it what you see is what you get. And we tried this whole thing before, but we have also come full circle to say, hey, the real efficiencies is still when you when you sort of code in the Pro code fashion, I believe that there is somewhere in the middle. But that’s sort of the why I picked that quote.
Bonnie Graham
Love the quote, always happy to hear I haven’t had that quote. Usually it’s the quote from Doc Brown Christopher Lloyd that where he says where we’re going, we won’t need roads. Remember that one? Yes. That’s the quote. Usually people pick from that movie. So I was happy to have a different one. Thank you very much.
Bonnie Graham
Dave Maloney, I’m looking at your quote. This is an interesting one. I haven’t seen this one, Ted Lasso played by and the show was written by Jason Sudeikis, a comedian, actor who has spent a lot of time on Saturday Night Live. It’s an American sports comedy drama streaming TV series. It appeared on Apple TV Plus on August 14, 2020. And sadly, for those of us who loved Ted Lasso. They only wrote an arc of three seasons. And it’s too bad because it really was welcome in a lot of living rooms, wherever your TV is. Let’s see. Some follows American College football coach Ted Lasso was hired to coach an English soccer team in an attempt by its owner to get the team to fail to spite her ex-husband. Oh, as a CAD, lasso tries to win over the skeptical English. Right. They all. Always with his folksy, optimistic demeanor while dealing with his inexperience in soccer, it was nominated for 20 Primetime Emmy Awards, the most nominated freshman comedy in the history of the Emmys, and a lot of awards were won. So here is the quote Davis selected from the Ted Lasso chair. After you could fill 2 Internets with what I don’t know about football. That’s a beautiful quote, Dave. Go ahead, talk to us.
Dave Maloney
Yeah. When I when I thought about what we’re talking about today with low code, no code, I come across this all the time. I work across all of my organizations. So I’m working with supply chain professionals, finance professionals, procurement professionals andHR professionals. And I’m always blown away by how much I don’t know about that topic, and I come in with the tech and I quickly try to understand what’s going on to help and add value. And it’s the same thing from the other side. I’m always amazed when I talk with people about stuff and they feedback from what they heard, you know, to realize, wow, there’s a ton of information going on here that’s brand new to them. And I’ve really got to make it digestible. I always feel that, you know, Iknow so little aboutso many things. But, you know, just working hard and being humble so I can help and not just try to, you know, know everything. Cause that’s impossible.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you. And they say the smartest people in the room know whom to ask the right questions to whom to ask the right questions. You don’t have to have the answers. You need to know who has the answers. So there you go. Thank you very much. Very interesting. Appreciate the quote. And let’s go to the quote. Jennifer McClure has selected. This is from another classic movie, The Shawshank Redemption, 1994. American drum. Film Andy Dufrane is the character played by Tim Robbins. Let me see if I can give a little. It was based on the 1982 Stephen King novella called Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. The story of the banker Andy Dufrane, who sentenced to life in Shawshank State Penitentiary for the murders supposedly of his wife and her lover. But he. Claims innocence over 2 decades, he befriends A fellow prisoner, contraband smuggler Ellis Red Redding, played by the wonderful Morgan Free. And becomes instrumental in a oh money laundering operation, led by the prison guard, warden. Guard. Yes, and a whole bunch of other people, great actors. Great. It’s a classic. I never mind watching it again. So here’s the quote. Jennifer has selected of the many good ones you could have. This is great. Hope is a good thing. Maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies. Oh, Jennifer Wax poetic could tell us how this relates to our topic. Please go ahead.
Jennifer McClure
Well, fun fact, I actually live about an hour and a half from the prison where Shawshank Redemption was fenced. So those of you that have ever been there in Ohio, you’ve been there. I’ve driven by it. But. I chose that quote because I am focused on the people side of the business. As I mentioned earlier, often working with HR leaders and people, leaders and particularly when it comes to technology, a lot of their strategy often has revolved around hope. I hope we can figure this out. I hope it helps us know where it direction we need to go and to quote somebody else famous which if you look on the Internet. It’s either Ronald Reagan, Winston Churchill, Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln said. Hope is not a strategy. I just remember Anderson Cooper saying that during Hurricane Katrina. And that’s how I think a lot of people leaders tend to approach technology with well, we hope that it all works out. And I think we’ve all seen that we need to pay more attention to how technology can enable our business, how it can enable our people to communicate and be more productive and work across boundaries. So I don’t want them to hope anymore, I want them. To believe that hope is a good thing, but to create a strategy.
Bonnie Graham
Very, very interesting. I have to give a disclaimer to the three of you. I don’t know if you know this. Martin may Remember Me telling him this years ago, but I’m considered an early woman in tech because I was a coder. I was coding in COBOL on key punch cards. The 80 column Hollerith cards that we carried around in a box 2000 at a time on a Xerox Sigma 6 CP 5 machine, which was before Honeywell. Bought Xerox and turned it in. Honeyworks. And then I graduated to coding in PLL one which was probably today a rather obscure language on an IBM 4341, and at that point we had the privilege of having monitors and keyboards to enter our text, and we didn’t have to carry around the cards. But I’ve still got my Cobalt handbook, which has a silver cover on it. I still have green bar paper and I could debug a core dump with the best of them, stack of green bar paper and you read through all the upside code and you knew where did the program abet well, mine never have ended. Of course, that’s an A code for a boarded. But anyway it was a blast writing code. And so this is listening to the three of you talk about this. This is a new world, right? Martin, it’s a brave new world where you don’t have to have years of training like somebody like me. Like I had to have to be able to sit down and write 2 to 3000 lines of code, put it through a compiler, put the cards into the machine. Hope they didn’t get tangled up. Load the disc pack into the drive. Standing on a step stool and hope that everything ran and it was. It was a different era, so this is very, very intriguing. And I know there are a lot of people. From I won’t say my era, but like me, who have been real coders and so this is very, very intriguing. So thank you all for your quotes. Appreciated. We can only hope. Right, Jennifer? So Martin, did you have something you want to say before? We go on, no.
Martin Stenzig
No, just to say that you would be surprised how similar the market still is. I mean, we have the both extremes, but. You know SAP’s programming language sometimes is you really familiar when you are coming from a coal background. So you would be surprised as in how applicable it still all is. So on the one hand changed dramatically. On the other hand, it’s still the same twenty, 30-40 years ago.
Bonnie Graham
Not so much. Out of a job as a radio producer and host, maybe I’ll go back to code and cobal.
Martin Stenzig
No.
Bonnie Graham
And. Martin would hire me. I know you would. Don’t say a word. OK, let’s go to the part of the show where my 3 guests have graciously and generously sent me 4 statements. Each discussion statements for our real round table part of the show, so I’ve picked statement one from Martin. I’m going to read it, and then what I would like is I will have David, who’s sitting Dave is sitting next to Martin on my list here. I’ll say to Dave. Agree or disagree, you don’t have to be polite. Dave Martin’s in a really good place today. I could see you smile. And then we’ll go to Jennifer McClure and say, Jennifer, agree or disagree with Dave or with Martin and or Dave. So we want to get a robust commentary and bring it to whatever level you want in terms of how you feel about the statement that Martin Unpacked. So here we go. Martin said the following. Listen up. This is interesting. And we want to provocative Martin. And you’re delivering here. The market for low code, no code is over. Stated yes, there are people out there that want to be able to develop their own applications, but not every business user is interested in building their own app. The great News, even Pro code developers love low code, no code tools if built correctly to reduce their effort. That’s interesting. Martin, unpack it. Let’s hear where you go with it.
Martin Stenzig
Yeah, I think two or three years ago when this first came up, you know, especially the coding community looked at it and said, well, you know, been here before. We firmly believe that business users have an intern. This, but I also don’t think that it’s every business user. So if I take my own organization and I look at sort of the business community, the operational leaders that are coming with a deep technology background, you know I could tell you that it’s not 90% of them that want to sort of build their own logic, but it’s probably sort of 5%. Well, do believe that there’s a market, absolutely. You know, and I think that is correct. I just don’t know whether or not the market is as big as it was stated. That, you know, a couple of years back when we sort of started to get into this. And I also don’t know whether or not local, local tools in itself without sort of other parameters are solving the development challenges that we have with not having enough senior developers. I always believe that we get a lot of good junior. Developers, but you know, local tools are a great a great piece of the puzzle. I just don’t think that they are the only piece of the puzzle, and I don’t think that necessarily as a set, the market is as big and voluminous as it was made out to be initially.
Bonnie Graham
Interesting. Let’s go to the group. Dave Maloney. Agree or disagree with Mr. Stenson? What do you think?
Dave Maloney
I hate to say this, man, but I actually, I kind of disagree. And the reason why I’ll say is because of this. In my vision of low code, no code tools they start out being like prototype tools. And I think too often one of the big problems in it is the backlog of stuff. To do and too often business raise your hand. They ask for something, it goes off and builds it takes a long time as fast. They want a code and it turns out being maybe not a really good request and something that the business sent off and they weren’t really bought into it. And so I see low code, no code as paying a critical part where the business has to go through a prototype and exercise with low code, no code. To validate and verify the requirements so they’re further along when they go to it. To me, every project could kind of start the business, raises their hand to ask for something, throw it back at them and say this means something to you. You build it out for a bit, you test it and prototype in your group. You know, in a couple of days or a couple of weeks. Then let’s talk because too often I think the requests come in, there’s a backlog that’s a mile long and it takes it’s, you know, it’s as good as our tools. Aren’t as fast as they are. We get there. I also think a subset. Of. Certain tools work well in low code, no code. I can give. Example, I have a colleague of mine I hired and he went to his first trade show. For COVID and he didn’t have any business cards and they were in a big facility with like 40,000 people, they couldn’t get to the Internet to get the LinkedIn. So he went back and wrote a really quick low code, no code contact, card transfer program. And I was like, that’s perfect. That’s brilliant. You thought of something. You did it. You delivered it without ever involving it. And it’s something that we’re all using now on my team. So I think there’s our I. The reason I think I think it’s the definition the market could be broader if it’s used not to deliver a finished. But rather to take it part of the way there so that they’ve better thought about it, they’ve fought through it and then IT can pick it up and things are better defined, better validated. So I think it’s more of a definition thing, but I can’t think of an IT organization, but I don’t think could benefit from low code, no code as a way to, you know, kind of give the business what they. Want and make them verify what they’re asking for upfront.
Bonnie Graham
Interesting. Thank you. That was. So raising the bar. Jennifer, join us. Agree or disagree with either or both? Go ahead.
Jennifer McClure
Probably agree and disagree with a little both. I do believe that within your organization there are people you know to the point that was made earlier. Not everybody wants to be involved with this to jump in and you know, get in the no code low code kind of environment and create solutions. But if we as leadership and maybe it is the IT leadership in the organization can at least let people know what our priorities are. What we’re working on, what we’re looking for solutions there are probably people in your organization that will step forward and have the opportunity. You know, if given the opportunity. We have the skills or the desire or the will to help push through some of those things. So I think there’s a big piece of leadership that’s saying. Here’s what we’re working on as a team. Here’s what our senior developers, our junior developers are focused on. If you have ideas or something to share, we want to hear from you. But then there’s also, I think room for should be made for. You know, what’s the crazy idea that you’re working on? What’s the new thing that you think we need that we didn’t know? Needed so giving people both the freedom to create but also the focus to place their talents I think is where we can really benefit as leaders and organizations.
Bonnie Graham
Sounds like grassroots, right? You have an idea? Bring it to the front. But you don’t have to do it. Reminds me of conversations I’ve had on some of my HR focused shows when I was doing a lot of game. Ranger shows for ASAP. Not everybody wants to be promoted to a point of leadership, do they? Not everybody wants to run the team. Not everybody wants to have 20 people reporting. To them, they want to advance in their career. They want to grow, they want to learn, they want to do a good job, they want to be excited, to come to work, but they don’t all want to be that person whose name is on the door has the bigger business card, if you will. So yes, not everybody wants to coat very interesting, Martin, anything you’d like to say back to your two colleagues before I move on?
Martin Stenzig
No, I think that’s that’s exactly the. I think that’s exactly the framing. I think as I mentioned. The market is there and Iagree with all the statements that were made. I personally have people in my organization that have shown that it can be used very, very well. But what we’re finding is that and not to turn to turn this into a generational discussion, but that that sort of all the business users. I’m more in this mindset of hey, that’s why I’ve got your organization for they need to build it. And to Dave’s point, you know, we firmly believe that sort of a prototypical stage is the right stage to weed out good, good from bad ideas. But what we’ve found is that especially sort of the younger generation that is, is more in tune with technology that is grew up on an on an iPhone, wants to have their own user interface, things that they can do better than what’s there. They’re the first ones that that sort of lean into the local technology and want to build their own applications. So yeah, no, II see the value. I just don’t think it’s as easy and as clear cut clear cut as a black and. Discussion.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you very much. That’s why we like the round table get we get provocative. Dave Maloney, I’d picked a statement from your list and when you responded to Martin, you used it and that’s fine. I’m paying attention. So I have decided to go 22 doors down in your list of topics and let’s do #3. So I’ll read it you say with the maturity of cloud. And the advent of AI. Yes, we do want to talk about AI. We’re encroaching on architecture that enables us to deliver business users, users, a low code, no code development environment that is visual. That is simple and that guides them. They don’t have to think about language performance, architecture, UI containers, just what they need, the business rules, the data they need, how they want to interface, and what it needs to do well. I think I just read a primer or a primer on how to do this. Dave. Thank you, Dave. Unpacked this. Take your 3 minutes and then we’ll go to Jennifer and then we’ll go to Martin.
Dave Maloney
Yeah. In the past 12 months, it’s been unbelievable how this has changed and you know, 12 months ago I would have stuck to my guns about the thing about, you know, push it back to business. User doesn’t have to be every user, but every business area should have a, you know, a lead or a person or that interface with IT and make them kind of do that development just to really prototype, not really build the code. But you know, just now, like, you know, I’m seeing the AI components making into our own our own tools and now you know the codes. Rated it can be inspected, tested, looked at. You know better than it could before so I think we have obviously still a ways to go and a lot of things happening, but it’s been a quantum jump in the past literally 12 months where low code tools are now using Gen. AI to generate the code, check the code and make sure it’s relevant and it’s taking care of things that that it didn’t take. Take care before that will require pro coders to come in and kind of tune up the code and tweak it because the low code tools were so primitive and really didn’t take into account a lot of those. You know higher level requirements around performance and security and things like that. And they’re doing a lot better job now.
Bonnie Graham
You mean we’ll still need humans to do their jobs, Dave?
Dave Maloney
Quite some time.
Bonnie Graham
Breaking news. Everybody applauded. We all knew that. Why do you think I tweaked the poems that ChatGPT writes for me? Because it didn’t quite get it right. Human intervention. Jennifer McClure, take your time. Let’s have your agree or disagree, please. Jennifer, I think you’re a year ago we were. Muted, go ahead.
Jennifer McClure
I think you know the thought that things have exponentially you know. Changed over the last 12 months and certainly over the last three years, I always like to remind leaders, think about where you were. It’s hard to do it. Think about where you were in 2019 versus where you are today and what we’ve accomplished in terms of technology and its adoption rates and how people are more comfortable with using it. And that was because we were forced to in many ways. And you know, was mentioned earlier about generational differences in the. Place. Certainly I think the younger generations are very comfortable with the technologies and will create things and I agree that we need our coders and others to go in and review them for security etcetera. But there’s just so much potential out there that we have to spend some time thinking about, whether it’s AI or other tools. How are are people using these tools outside of work? That then they might bring into the workplace. So if they’re using chat bots or AI or tools, and not even really realizing that they’re doing that in their daily life and ordering food online or booking a ticket to go somewhere or going to a movie, etcetera, then they’re probably thinking about that when they come to the workplace and wanting to make their work life easier as well. So I think it’s helpful for us to be thinking about how our people are navigating the world outside of work and how they’re bringing those attitudes into the workplace.
Bonnie Graham
Interesting bringing attitudes into the workplace and that’s been going on for a while since they said to people you have more functionality on your device, you’re holding in your hand that you’re taking at home and in your car and everywhere. And people went to work and said, but it’s not as easy to use the stuff you’re giving me at work. I want to bring my own devices and then bring your own device to work. Yes, we know, like, bring your own something somewhere. Martin, let’s get you to chime in on what Dave said and or what, Jennifer added. Please.
Martin Stenzig
Yeah. No, I think I fully believe that, especially the generative AI component that that we’re seeing these days sort of amplified dramatically amplified the local no code discussion that we’re having to the point where we’re seeing developer efficiency being increased by, as I said, SpaceX factors we, you know 20 percent, 30% and we see that in our own teams. So it goes to the point where I always to describe it as an addiction. They don’t know when you give them the tools, these generative AI tools to supplement their. Look, they don’t, they don’t necessarily perceive it as a game changer, but then two or three months later, try to take them away again. At that point in time, you will get the wave going through the organization. I can’t do my job without that anymore. So that’s the interesting part that shows you sort of how integral that that augmented development. As I want to call. Good is today that has sort of moved into even the proco generation. But coming back to the local tools, I think that’s sort of where we’re seeing a. Lot of. Drive to fixing business problems that that were sort of, let’s call them Level 2 business problems. They’ve never gotten the attention. You know these days because IT has sort of only the priority one items, but business can now go into those priority two items themselves and deal with them because they have the tools at their disposal. They got the green light from IT that they’re allowed to do that. We might talk later about, you know, what does it mean for support? And you know governance etcetera. But in general, I think it’s a, it’s the right move in the right direction absolutely.
Bonnie Graham
Interesting Dave Maloney, this was your topic. What do you think?
Dave Maloney
Yeah, you know, I mean both are pretty good there. I thought was interesting with what Mark without Jennifer was say. Thing was that the things used at home when we saw that I think a lot of times you leave work you take your iPhone or your Droid or whatnot and you search for movies or dinner reservations whatever the case might be and you’d be able to do this great thing where you could find any information at your fingertips and then you go into work and you’d be like taking a time machine you know to marry the class comment back a decade ago. Where you’re stuck behind, you know, query tools and a cryptic UI. And you didn’t have that consumer experience that you got from home. And so I agree, I think a lot of things we experience outside the workplace definitely drive the IT departments and our business software. To do better and to make more of a consumer experience for business users.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you very much. Good topic. Jennifer, I’ve decided to pick statement #3 from your list. This is interesting and I’ll tell you where I’d like you to go with this. You say the integration of cloud platforms with business applications will break down the silos between IT and the business departments, leading to a more collaborative and efficient approach to technology development and delivery. Let’s talk about those silos. Let’s talk about that collaboration used to be ivy tower, right? IT was here. Business users were here, right? You can’t have it now. You can’t have it today. You want it when you want it. How you want it? What? This is what we did. Deal with it. How is that changing? Jennifer talk to us. It’s an interesting statement.
Jennifer McClure
I think it’s, you know, you said just think back 5-10 years ago and said you had to go into the office to use the technology or you had to have a certain device to be able to do things where I can think back in my HR career at one point the CIA CIO and the CFO came into my office one day and sat down and told me they wanted me to fire our best salesperson with our top accounts and I looked around and I saw, well, first of all, where’s sales VP? Why are we talking about this person without him? And second of all, why? And they said, because he’s hacked into our system. Using a VPN, no. And it turns out he was sitting in waiting rooms with his other, you know, competitors at Walmart, at Target, at others he’s in. Airports. He’s not able to work because all of our systems were locked down and he had to be in the office to be able to communicate. So people being people, he found a way to get into the system so he could work like our competitors were doing. So that’s an example. Again, that was more than 10 years ago, but. Very shortly thereafter, my CEO came in. He’d been to play golf with a bunch of young presidents. For the young presidents organizations he comes into the organization and throws a BlackBerry on my desk and says, look at this thing, it’s so cool. I want everyone in the executive team to have one, and he was able to tell the CIO we’re doing this. So it takes, I think sometimes people. Saying first of all, the right people have to say we are doing this and that’s it. It really needs to lead the strategy, the governance, the oversight, but really opening it up to people and saying what do you need? What tools do you need to do to your work? How can we support you? What are you not able to do today that you need to do? It really has broken down those silos because no longer do you have to have a place in the office to use the technology or a certain device. It is everywhere. It’s ubiquitous. And so how can we now enable people to use the tools?
Bonnie Graham
Interesting. Let’s go around the table. Martin, you’re sitting next to Jennifer around this round, so go ahead. What do you think? Agree. Disagree.
Martin Stenzig
I totally agree. I think to build on that though is what we’re finding that and I might age myself, we’re finding that the first generation of IT projects, you know, the first time people rolled out, big business systems was really driven by IT. So but what we’re finding now a days is that the same guys that participated in round one of these big rollouts are now business users. Now those business users have learned the business users have consumed and understood what they liked and what they didn’t like about the first time the roll comes and the shift that we’re seeing is that the budgets, even though there are, you know, business applications that are procured rolled out implemented are not hanging with it anymore. It is now the implementing authority, the entity that does the work and that also owns the people that support it. But businesses have largely maintained the ownership of the overall project, so it’s not anymore that the CIO is necessarily the big stakeholder. The CEO is still a big part of it. Don’t get me wrong and there will always be, but in a lot of organization we’ve found is that just to Jennifer’s point, the CEO. Now that he knows what IT can do and it has become such an integral part of the business model, it’s not any more. So if you have a business and you’re using IT to do your accounting, it’s like without it in the mix today, you can barely run your business. So and I think that has changed sort of that that paradigm of it versus the business today. You know it is with the business. It is a business enabler. It is really the foundation for the business. So it’s an interesting point that we’ve seen as well. To say, OK, business is actually driving more. And more of this discussion. And it is certainly the enabler and the cyber security team and you know making sure is that all the systems are interacting with each other, but it’s not anymore the that they are the ones that that provide the creativity as we’ve seen it 20 years ago.
Bonnie Graham
Interesting Dave Maloney, join us please.
Dave Maloney
You know it is more, I think, where it has some baseline things they’re bringing around cost of ownership, security, you know, keeping the lights on and things like that, but really more of the requirements and the priorities come from the business and yeah, and I think it’s resulted in better, better overall outcomes. And you know we’re seeing that too and. Like I said, my focus helping people get more out of their investment, not helping decide which investment to make, but rather help reduce the cost of ownership. So yeah, I think you’re spot on Martin and Jenny.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you very much. Dave. I noticed that you switched to your audio on your PC. It’s a little garbled, but we can hear you. But now we can see you on individual screenshot for the first time in case anybody was wondering. So dealing with this wonderful voice activated zoom cameras. There we go. So thank you all. Jennifer, anything you want to say back to your two colleagues on the panel, it was an interesting round. What do you think?
Jennifer McClure
I love to hear that IT is seeing it that way as well, that it’s about listening to the needs of the business and providing lanes for them to be able to get what they need in order to accomplish.
Bonnie Graham
The objectives let me give you all a little sidebar story here. Years ago, I was hired by a correspondent bank in New York. They had an office on Long Island, and they had a main office. In Manhattan, and we did all of the check processing the vault, all the back end office processing for the savings banks of New York State. So you didn’t come to the window and say I need a money order or how’s my checking account? This was back off. Banking and I was hired because I spoke 2 languages. I spoke computer and I spoke English and just what you were saying. Jennifer and Martin and Dave, they said to me, you’re going to go into the office in Manhattan, you’re going to sit with Bob in check processing and you’re going to sit with Mary in the vault section and you’re going to sit with this one and whatever it was, and you’re going to find out what do they need. From it, but it wasn’t called it. It was IMS information management systems. In the old days, they said you’re going to come back to the Long Island office and you can sit with the programmers. What a thought, Jennifer, and you’re going to tell the programmers this is what Bob and accounting needs and this is what Mary involved processing needs. And you’re going to be the translator from the business to the what was it? So my job role was called systems liaison and they created it just for me based on when I walked in and they wanted me to be an assembly programmer. I said I don’t do assembly language. And they said, oh, well, we’ll just make up a new job for you. You start on Monday. And that was it. So they created this role. But this was it was prescient. Wasn’t it to be able to see? He we’re talking years ago that business and IT needed to cooperate and collaborate and understand each other. So just want to throw that in. Thank you very much. So let’s go to another statement from Martin. And this is interesting. Martin, companies want to know what’s going on. They need a lot of trail. They got a right stuff called documentation, so that’s what this is about, Martin says project documentation will become largely automated.
Like the sigh of relief in the next five years, generative AI can do the work of creative creating work specification and project documentation. Progress in that will reduce project efforts by significant amounts. You want to give us a percent? Martin unpack, please go ahead.
Martin Stenzig
The percent is something that we’re still working on because we’re still sort of validating that it is as good as it seems, but customers already coming to me today and saying a generative AI can create all these documents. Can you know, look at what code you have written. Why is it not doing more in regards to project documentation we have the first customer is actually going live with that sort of functionality, so I know it’s real. It’s not something that we’re just dreaming of. So it also plays into something that. You know, Bonnie, if you have been a developer and no developer likes documentation, so it’s sort of a win win for all. Of us if project documentation or even other documentations can be done automatically, that’s fantastic. So what we’ve seen is that scenarios of taking transcripts from meetings that have been recorded and feeding it to a generative AI machine, machine learning model and combining that with existing documentation that has done before. You know, we can do markups of documentation based on the transcript. So we’re seeing a lot of a lot of activity in that in everything that has to do with documentation, document generation, to the point where we are where we believe that. It will have a dramatic impact on our own, our whole industry, not just you know us as a company to the point where you know it’s getting interesting because for years we have we’ve sort of you know we needed to create documentation as part of a project and sometimes that became the long pole in the tent that drove your overall project. Creation. So you had to have a six months project duration because one month at the end was just project documentation. So if we can dramatically shorten that timeline, we can you know, reduce the time to what we call business benefit realization to the time we’re going live. But also we’re reducing the effort in the project without the cost to implement what rollout software. So all of that is massive, there is a massive game changer that we’re seeing in the industry and the good news is Bonnie, you know I talked about it 2-3 years ago when we talked about AI. Yeah. No, it’s not. There’s not fiction anymore. We’re right there. I think the challenge we have. There’s so much possibility that we don’t even know what’s possible and how we should leverage this in the business world. And that’s really the biggest challenge right now. Uh. So where is it applicable and where? Where is it over hyped? And I think that sort of to figuring that one out is gonna take us the next two or three years. That’s my prediction.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you. I’ll take yours instead of presents any day. Thank you, Martin. Let’s go around the table. I hope we got here. Dave, you’re next to Martin. So Dave, on mute and we’re going to take you back. I’ll keep you on Gallery view because the speaker was garbled. So talk to me.
Dave Maloney
That’s fine. Yeah. So I wrote at that com Martin. The first thing I would say is, man, let’s go to all the productive systems today and have Jenna. Jenny, I helped build the documentation cause a lot of documentation out there built by people who might be near in retirement or leaving the company. Any is not very good on a lot of occasions and I mean I’d be a great proving ground to get the language models built better and whatnot and then for new projects going forward of course could be a great starting point and help some of the people who are very technical and maybe not the best writers you know do a better job and have less of their time spent doing documentation because it’s always an afterthought. I’ve never really seen great documentation, especially when a developer moves on and you inherit a system and you’re trying to figure out what was going on and whatnot. So on that, that’s a huge area of benefit that I think you know will probably buy as much benefit as the overall low code. No code environment as getting really good documentation so teams can pick things up and take it. Forward so yeah. I’m excited for that, that on the solution.
Bonnie Graham
Dave, I was asked by a listener viewer to ask you to go easy on the retirement on people retirement and leaving bad documentation comment. I won’t tell you who on this group who is not on camera, asked me to tell you that, but you can figure out. Yeah, she will stay. She will stay anonymous for this group. But yes, some people who may or may not. Ever think about retiring? Could have done really great documentation that still might have some value, so let’s be careful where we tread there. I’m gonna go to Jennifer McClure comments on what Martin said and what Dave offered. Go ahead.
Jennifer McClure
Nothing really to add other than I think the opportunity that the generative AI with this documentation in this example. We as leaders really need to be emphasizing to our people what the opportunity that creates. Yay. It took that, you know, burden or that, you know, busy work off of us that nobody likes to do. But now we really need you to be thinking creative like, we need you to be thinking about what we should be doing next. We need you to be interpreting the data. So helping people to see that. There are opportunities created by the work that AI is taking away from us. Again, in this case we’re using the example of something that maybe is people would see is a good thing. But there are a lot of people out there that are seeing AI as a real threat to their jobs and to their environment and what it is doing, at least in my world. And what I see with both my clients as well. There’s so much opportunity that it creates to remove some of this work that in reality anybody could do anybody. That’s trained or skilled to focusing on what only you can do as a human. What you can bring to the table. And so it really opens up opportunity and we have to help some people see that.
Bonnie Graham
Boring, repetitive, busy work. Do we all want to be Charlie Chaplin on the assembly line? Some people may find it very comforting to just keep pushing the dot dots and those widgets and other people want to do something else. So there is a human element to it that I don’t think people are covering enough right now. But that’s just me talking. Martin, anything you want to say, back to your colleagues before I pick up a statement from Dave.
Martin Stenzig
No, just to build on what Jennifer is saying and I think that’s kind of what we’ve seen with everything that came out in the last few years on the AI side. Initially, it’s always the discussion of is my job gone, you know is it is it sort of eliminating everything I do? And I think the reality is no, the job is not gone because the high quality delivery of. Of people that are creative, know what they’re doing, have years of experience. Well, I believe will. Will go away because that’s the that’s the input vector that actually you need to put into AI in order to get better and better over time. And I’m I for one, you know, I’m not worried about my job nor off the job of so many of my colleagues. I think the repetitive side is going away and if it’s applied in in what I call the augmented commission so that it’s supporting people to do their job. Yeah, I always bring the reference of I don’t have to go to google.com anymore and try to figure out you know, an algorithm that I’ve done 16 times but I’ve yet again forgot. So there is AI there that just helps me. But AI also, you know, in more than one case provides this code that is either bad or incorrect. And if I don’t have that knowledge, if I’m not the senior guy that has done this over years and I just want to apply what AI thinks is the right answer. I might a create some really bad environments and, but be also it’s not getting me the intended outcome. That is the efficiency gain, right? It’s actually doing the reverse. It’s sort of now making me chase my tail on. Hey, hey, I told me this, but it’s not correct. So what’s really the correct answer? So I firmly believe that for. What I would call sort of senior talent AI can be really a game changer. What I also believe is that for junior talent I don’t want to say let’s turn AI off. But all I’m saying is I think we need to get better at taking young talent and getting them better and better, quicker. So shorten the duration and not just have A and maybe Jennifer that’s one for you and not just having on a tenure based on time, but you know or recognition based on time, but recognition really based on work product and qualification. That we’ve seen in some companies where you know you can only get promoted because you’ve been there for four years, whether or not you’re good, bad or indifferent, doesn’t really matter. And I firmly believe in the in the recognition based on really outcome, you know, so let’s reward people that want to sort of get to the next level of their of their career very, very quickly. And not just because they have, you know, been around for the longest.
Bonnie Graham
People forget that often it’s the bean counters who eliminate jobs way before AI reared its head in the workplace, right? It’s well, we need to downsize, throw the cards up on the stairs. Let’s see who sticks and who comes down to the spaghetti against the wall. Nothing against good, Al Dante’s spaghetti. But anyway, this has been going on for a long time. They’ve just got somebody else to blame. I’m sorry. We have time for just one more topic and I just want to bring up one from Dave Maloney. Dave, I we’ve covered this a little bit, but I want you to just hone it a little bit for us. You say having business users first SUS. Out what they need, along with the complexity of their requests, will reduce unrealistic asks they make of IT. It will build business, user appreciation, a reliable data and sound business rules, a bigger constraint to successful IT systems than the technology. Dave we’ve got, oh, about 6 minutes total. So you can take three and then we’ll do a quick comment around the table – go ahead, Dave.
Dave Maloney
Great. I’ll take less than that. I mean, but I think we’ve all seen this in our in our career working with business users. I just get requirements like I need all the data and I need to ask a question. I need to come back in a split second, you know, and I was in like, you know, back in the day. Hey, that’s, you know, several megabytes or terabytes or terabytes or petabytes, you know. And of course we get more and more data available all the time, but there’s just been some unrealistic expectations. And I think often if you can put it back to the user and they can see what the implications of their requests are they could hone it and make it better and really get what they need without trying to get all things for all possible scenarios. But focus on the 80/20 rule. You know, if we do this, I can get the top customers and then search in there. That’s a good thing. I don’t need to see actually everything. So I think low code note code helps out a lot with that where it gives the users the ability to see the impact of what they’re asking for so they can refine it further based on their, their priorities and not just push it off to IT and say give me what I need and we have to be kind of soothsayers to figure out what they really want for the answer, because too often it’s not the first question they ask. The second or third question, once they get the answer to the first is we’re really kind of getting get into what they need and if we can kind of hone it down with that first question, you get them further along the line. It’s easier for us to address the second and third more tertiary requirements than that that that initial.
Bonnie Graham
Well put. Quickly around the table, Jennifer comments on what Dave shared.
Jennifer McClure
I think it’s really important, again as leadership that we help people to see what good looks like and what not good looks like if we’re asking them to do this type of, you know, tell us what they need and also really scope it out. So I think back to when social media became kind of on the scene. Organizations we’re trying to figure out, you know, we don’t want our employees to use social media because they’ll say bad things about us. Well, we had to show people what good tweets look like and what bad tweets look like, you know, so you’re talking about what you’re doing and why it’s great to work at our company and what you enjoy about where you’re great here, talking about your coworker on social media. Not great. So similar for projects like this, there is a lot of talent, a lot of ideas. People know what they want, but they may not know how to put it into the guardrails that you need in order to make it sink. So helping people to see, here’s what good looks like. And here’s what is not helpful or what is too much. I think that will really help us to get from them what?
Bonnie Graham
We need wise and excellent insights. Thank you, Jennifer Martin comments.
Martin Stenzig
Yeah, I think the more we can get the business users involved in the upfront definition of what they want, the better is the summary. And I firmly believe. That that is what gets you to the to the ultimate goal, which is, you know, improved business outcome. So whether or not you know that is the business user taking ownership as Dave said and I’ve fully subscribed to it, but that is the ultimate goal. So let’s focus on that. And what however path we can get there, you know. I’ll take it.
Bonnie Graham
OK, I’m going to pose a question to the three of you and I just need a one or two word answer. We’ve got about 2 1/2 minutes. So our topic toda was from users to creators. The employee LED tech transformation. Now transformation implies to me that something is moving in another direction. It’s changing. It is evolving with Rizing evolution revolution. We did that last week on future proofing, but the question is transformation the right word? Is it the employee LED tech trend? Is it a groundswell? Is it a revolution? Is it a? Trickle where it an employee led implies that they are employees are taking charge of this movement this trend. So this flow so quickly. Martin, what would you say is it an employee LED tech transformation transition, what would you call it briefly?
Martin Stenzig
Transformation, in my opinion, is overdone. I would call it employment empowerment. What? Give them.
Good one, Jennifer, any comments, any word you want to add, Dave will go to your last, Jennifer.
Jennifer McClure
I’d say it’s a revolution because it is kind of a, you know, as similar as the steam engine was, you know, the world is. Changed. It will look different next year and five years and it did dramatically. So employee LED I think it’s more employees are certainly a big driver of it but it’s environment led the world is changing so fast it’s global even if you’re a small town Iowa manufacturer you have global customers or you get parts through the global supply chain so. The fact that we’re all in this together and things are changing and we need to communicate across people, cultures, technologies, I think it’s a.
Bonnie Graham
Revolution. Thank you, Dave. You get one word, that’s it. Cause we’re out of time.
Dave Maloney
I would say skate to the puck that’s we’re doing here. We’re looking ahead and trying to go where the future is bringing us, whether it’s an evolution of paradigm shift, the transformation.
Bonnie Graham
Thank you, Martin Stanza G, Dave Maloney, Jennifer McClure, it has been a pleasure and a privilege speaking with the three of you, getting your insights, pulling all. This stuff out. Of your brains and your hearts, there’s a lot of heart that goes into a conversation like this again. Thank you. To Andrew at voice America business channel for hosting us well. We’re engineering us. I’m hosting us and I will tell you that people say the future is already here and I say no. No, no, that was yesterday’s future. That was 30 seconds ago. The future didn’t happen yet, and I know the three of you and all of us are doing our best to make it a better one. Bonnie Graham signing off. We’ll see you next week. Paddle. Go where we can take pictures. We’ll see you next week here on the business channel on LinkedIn and on Facebook at 1:00 PM Eastern. Go figure out your own. Time zone with Rizing evolution. Everybody wave goodbye. Andrew clear. Great job today everyone.