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/outcome engineering: the end of feature factories
40 Plays11 days ago
What if your transformation plan is the thing holding you back?
This week, James welcomes Carol Houle, CEO of Inspire Digital Consulting, to dive into the mindset shift from rigid planning to adaptive execution. They explore how to connect OKRs to customer value, replace feature wish lists with measurable outcomes, and finally move from building more to building what matters.
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Transcript
Introduction to AI and Software Delivery
00:00:01
Speaker
I think that now with AI-assisted software delivery, I think we're moving into this era where the only limiting factor is going to be our ability to consume change.
Introducing the Forward Slash Podcast with James Carman
00:00:25
Speaker
Welcome to the forward slash podcast where we lean into the future of IT by inviting fellow thought leaders, innovators, and problem solvers to slash through its complexity. I'm your host, James Carman. And today we have with us Carol Houle. Did I pronounce that right? Houle? You did. Houle.
00:00:40
Speaker
Like cool or pool, yes. Very nice. All right.
Meet Carol Houle: The Velvet Hammer
00:00:44
Speaker
Carol is known. Thank
00:00:49
Speaker
intro here she's a transformative digital leader who pairs disruption with empathy modernizing legacy systems and mindsets without leaving teams behind with over twenty years of experience driving holistic digital transformation in financial services and insurance She builds lean, agile teams that deliver rapid, lasting value.
00:01:08
Speaker
Her leadership formula blends visionary strategy, collaborative OKRs, and lean startup execution to create engaged, change-ready organizations. Her current passion lies in leveraging technology for financial inclusion, developing solutions that promote stability for underserved Americans earning under $50,000 annually. Beyond work, she's a mentor, deacon, adventurer, and advocate for women in technology.
00:01:32
Speaker
Bottom line, she transforms both digital businesses and the people who power them. Welcome to the forward slash. Thank you so much for having me. It's great. Pleasure to be here. Yeah, I got to hear about this Velvet Hammer. fiveve I've never had someone have such a cool nickname. We had someone who had a pseudonym and that was cool. but um That's a cool nickname. What's what's this Velvet Hammer thing all about? Yeah. So so many years ago, i think it was about 15 years ago, i worked for EMC, which at the time,
00:02:01
Speaker
i They owned VMware, RSA. I don't think they had spun up Pivotal yet, but um i I worked within the sales team there and I was a services person, right? They they basically sold boxes. And yeah.
00:02:17
Speaker
And my boss's boss at the time gave me that nickname because I was able to to work with these guys who were super smart engineers. A lot of them were d one athletes, whether it was football or soccer, what have you.
00:02:33
Speaker
he said, I was gently able to to kind of get everybody in the place that they needed to be, ah you know, without without making it feel like it hurt, but to get pointed in the right direction. so believe that's a name of a drink, if I remember the poem You remember the movie Cocktail? Remember that with Tom Cruise? That was his poem that had the Velvet Hammer, the Alabama Slammer. Right.
00:02:59
Speaker
OK. And then all I could think of when I read Velvet Hammer was, you remember on SNL? I don't know why this is in my head, but like the skit with Tim Meadows is a recurring thing. The lady is the man. That's all I can think of now is the lady. Yeah. So, hey, we're spicy here on forward slash. OK.
00:03:17
Speaker
That's fantastic.
Carol's Journey in Digital Transformation
00:03:18
Speaker
You got to have fun, you know. So tell us a little bit about your background. I mean, you've been in financial services and insurance a lot. It sounds you've done lot of different stuff. Tell us little bit about your background.
00:03:29
Speaker
Yeah, ah sure. So um in the early to mid-90s, was a part of the supply chain reengineering practice at Pricewaterhouse Consulting.
00:03:40
Speaker
And so I was a developer, tester, DBA, pulled cables through a data center, you name it in technology, I probably did it. And we were applying lean principles to client supply chains. So in the early 2000s, I was an early adopter of lean agile for software delivery.
00:03:59
Speaker
I and um was always at that intersection of of you know how do you generate business value with technology. um i moved to Charlotte and ran that same time frame and ah really really learned through just you know applying. right and no No formal training at that point in time. And then in 2011,
00:04:24
Speaker
I did my first cloud strategy. And at the time, on public cloud was nascent. So we were primarily focused on internal um private cloud. And then public cloud was kind of on the on the roadmap, but a little bit out in the future. And I realized at that point, you know being an app dev person, that um infrastructure cloud was more than infrastructure.
00:04:48
Speaker
um Cloud had the ability to allow us to to create new technical products faster and in ways that were different. than what we were able to do previously. So I got really curious about everything you can imagine related to that.
00:05:04
Speaker
Learned a lot about DevOps, continuous delivery. And in 2014, I got the worked with a team, whole team of people, and um was the first team that we got to continuous delivery as an operating model so that they could go from idea to end production as rapidly as possible.
00:05:23
Speaker
And that first digital product is now a $4 billion dollar business for the company that we created it for. So um from there, I pretty much decided that I wanted to focus my life on eradicating release weekends for as many people as possible.
Leadership and Cultural Change in Technology
00:05:40
Speaker
And we're all very thankful for that. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. hi and And so I had a bunch different leadership roles. I went to Cognizant Technology Solutions and created a continuous delivery enablement like consulting team. Then I was recruited to a French tech firm to help them, really to renovate them, to help them get into that same space. i And then my my last formal corporate role was ah to head banking, financial services, and insurance globally for ThoughtWorks.
00:06:12
Speaker
um before starting Inspire Digital Consulting about 18 months ago. and Wow. You've done a lot of stuff. And you said you started out at PwC PricewaterhouseCoopers in the 90s.
00:06:23
Speaker
My math is correct here. youre You were probably the youngest person to ever to join PwC. You were six years old at the time, roughly. Your math is really good. Yeah. I it was a child prodigy. Yeah. That's as like the Doogie Howser of Cloud. I was. I was the Doogie Howser of Cloud. Yeah. Nobody knows who that is. He's the guy from my marriage, how I met your mother or whatever, right? Yeah. That guy. That guy, yes. That guy.
00:06:48
Speaker
All right. ah So cloud strategy, we're doing like on-prem cloud. And then everybody realized, man, we just got all this money laying around. Why don't we put this in someone else's computers, pay them to do it. We went through all that.
00:07:00
Speaker
Yeah. What has been like you're, you've been a part of a lot of transformations, right? And I know that's what we talked a little bit about during, we have a prep meeting for these, these episodes, but tell me about your experience there with, with transformations and how has that been going? You said you were an early adopter of lean agile. I don't think we figured lean agile out yet.
00:07:20
Speaker
and yeah You know what i mean? Like you're still fumbling around with it. What's, what's going on? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You know, the thing that I found over the course of time is that 90% of the change is between the ears. um It's,
00:07:33
Speaker
And it's not just the the teams on the ground, it's also the leaders. um You know, people need to to change, they need to change what they do, um to change how they think.
00:07:45
Speaker
um But with any kind of transformation, it's really it's really a change in what you do every day. Like if you break it down to the essence of what it is, um and people change for very personal reasons,
00:07:58
Speaker
i And so you really need to figure out what is that and how how can you have the most sustainable um adoption of the technology? And in and in my experience, if you if you really focus on something that the business cares about, you know the the example that I was giving earlier, we were rolling out a new technical product that would generate revenue for this company, right? so So anytime you can find that place to start,
00:08:26
Speaker
where you can do thin slices, um you can start, you know, start relatively small.
Challenges in Aligning Technology and Business
00:08:31
Speaker
um But it's something that's, that's important to the business. That's, that's where I found the, the success really lies.
00:08:39
Speaker
ah You said the changes between the ears. I really love that phrase. And what I was thinking, and you explained it different, where I was thinking is like, that's where you have to whack them right in the forehead to get them to do what you want them do.
00:08:50
Speaker
And it does that's not what you meant, though, right? It's it's more about the brain matter. And all right. Yeah. Well, you know, you need to get to their why. Yeah. Right. Like like you, you really need to um be at a place where um the way that you're speaking the change to people i resonates with them.
00:09:10
Speaker
Right. And so like when when, for example, early on, ah when we were trying to focus on getting engineering teams to adopt DevOps, you know having that battle cry of do you want to eradicate release weekends like that was actually really you know that was really a positive thing i will say though you know i was at this um ai forward event the last two days and i was listening to um one of the speakers talk about how they're working ridiculous hours now that they have ai assisted software delivery i'm like wait
00:09:44
Speaker
wo We were doing this so that you wouldn't work all these ridiculous hours. Like, well, what's happening?
00:09:53
Speaker
I think I'm having the same experience maybe, and it's just because I'm having a lot of fun, right? Maybe that's it. And that's a me problem. That's not and that's not the technology problem. That's a me problem. I'm having a good time with ah my little side projects. All of them are like, well, that's not so daunting anymore. I can sit down and spend an hour and make some headway on it. and Exactly. It is. It's kind of like when the ATM came out. It was like, oh instant gratification. Yes, yes. Oh, man, that's it's the dopamine drive. Yeah, for sure.
00:10:20
Speaker
Now, we we talked a little bit about like um kind of that that notion of fatigue. So you as you said, change you know, it's it's the biggest hard and the hardest part about change is culture is changing what's between people's ears and and changing their mindset and and how they think.
00:10:36
Speaker
But technology changes so fast. How do we kind of marry up those two concepts? Because it takes a long time. The culture is is very slow to change. It's very slow changing, but ah technology is just so rapid.
00:10:48
Speaker
How do we marry those two worlds together and effectively and and keep people from just going bonkers? Yeah. And i think
Effective Leadership and Team Dynamics
00:10:55
Speaker
I think if we can figure that out, I mean, that that's a human problem of prioritization. um you know if if I've said for so many years that um ah you know software is an asset that can quickly become a liability if it's not done well.
00:11:11
Speaker
And I think a big part of the problem is that companies feature chase, right? They they really don't. The business doesn't necessarily and nobody will admit this, right? but But the business doesn't really understand what's valuable to the end consumer and how to measure it.
00:11:26
Speaker
And so you end up with these like endless backlogs of work. and And then, you know, people don't prioritize like, okay, well, what's what's really most important to do?
00:11:38
Speaker
And I think if you narrow down on that, the the technology solution that will help accelerate the business value delivery will become really clear. And it's and it's a little bit more of a kind of a limited, ah you know, a limited amount of change that people would need to consume if you're picking the right things. Yeah.
00:11:59
Speaker
but But I think it all stems from, and this is something that you and I have talked about before, like how good are the leaders at protecting their teams um from just a flood of of work, right? Because if you if you can prevent the flooding, then as my friend Sally Alotta loves to say, you you get flow, right? But you've got to you've got to prioritize, you've got to prevent flooding the team.
00:12:26
Speaker
um Because small consumable chunks of change um and experiential learning, that's what people need. There's probably some sort of like physics concept Bernoulli principle or something going on there that yeah like you could apply that.
00:12:42
Speaker
and i don't remember my physics stuff, but yeah, there's got to be something there. I'll have to look that up for, um I'll opine on that and and and just be so smart on another episode. I will look forward to that. It'll be fantastic. It's going to be great. i You're going to love it. Yeah. Now, you mentioned like the feature chasing in it and it was it Melissa Perry has a book um that she talks about that whole the feature factory and everybody. We're we're just so concentrated on we've got our features, we've got our features. And one observation I've had is like, as you said, we kind of lose sight of what the the the market wants, like the the actual users want.
00:13:16
Speaker
And i've I've seen this. i was i worked for a company who was in the higher education space. So we developed software for higher ed. and One of the that's just fascinating things is you'd have people who would go to conferences and they'd see another vendor says, I've got this checkmark.
00:13:30
Speaker
And when they look at their checkmarks and they say, I don't have that checkmark. We need this checkmark. And it's like checkmark chasing. And then the whole time everybody's going back and forth, you know, competing over to all these checkmarks.
00:13:41
Speaker
Nobody ever really asked the customer, do you even want this stuff? And they're chasing each other and trying to outdo each other with all these checkmarks. And it's like, Nobody cares. Yeah. So what? Yeah. Yeah. That's why I've be i' have increasingly become a huge fan of the jobs to be done framework.
00:13:58
Speaker
Right. And I'll give you just a simple like I'm sure you've you've heard of that framework. It is an oldie but a goodie. um But I was working with a company, a financial company that um issues private label credit cards.
00:14:11
Speaker
And we were talking about the customer journey and they were trying to figure out, this is for the children's place, like why people were not signing up for the cards.
00:14:24
Speaker
And I'm like, okay, again, it helps that I'm a mom, right? Like now my kids are 17, 20 and 22. However, I remember distinctly what it was like trying to take three little kids under the age of set, right? To to shop for back to school clothes.
00:14:41
Speaker
And I'm like, listen, you've got to put yourself in in in the place of that bomb. What job is she trying to get done? She's not coming into the children's place to sign up for your credit card, right?
AI's Role in Business Alignment and Decision Making
00:14:54
Speaker
So you need to think about like how can you make it effortless and frictionless for her to get the discount that you're offering? Because she'd like to get the discount, but but you can't have the engagement experience to be so complicated that you know the kids are starting to throw a fit because it's taking too long. You know, I mean, that's just like a real practical, practical pragmatic example. But um and jobs to be done. I'm like totally simplifying it. But um but I found that to be super useful. Yeah. The last thing on that mom's mind is let me fill out a credit card application right here while my my children are running around ripping clothes off the the shelves and all of that fun stuff.
00:15:34
Speaker
ever Yeah. Now, so you it mentioned jobs to be done. ah but are some other kind of, you know, these oldie but goodie principles that you found to be kind of tried and true in your in your work as you're working with these companies?
00:15:46
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. the The other thing is um this idea of of defining objectives and key results. um Again, you know, that was created at Intel a long time ago.
00:16:02
Speaker
i And it's a simple but beautiful and elegant you know concept of really establishing at different levels in the organization, starting with at the highest level, what what is really the ah the objective? right And then the key results are like, how do you measure that you've actually achieved the objective? And so what I typically do is I pair that concept um with the concept of value stream mapping right because if you think about an end-to-end business value stream and let's follow along with the i'm signing up for a credit card you know uh value stream right someone goes from being interested in actually signing up for the card purchasing something on it all the way to servicing it right so like that's an example of of of an end-to-end
00:16:55
Speaker
ah value stream. Well, there's a certain objective from a business standpoint ah that the company is going to have for that value stream,
Starting a Consulting Firm and Future Trends
00:17:04
Speaker
and that should line up to the overall objectives and key results that but kind of the company strategy has. if you think of this in kind of terms of a traceability, if you will, um and then the jobs to be done framework, that marries up like What is it that your end consumer is trying to get done? And when those two meet, that's where you get a successful product if you can execute on that. and
00:17:28
Speaker
And if you're doing that, you're not feature chasing because it's not based on who's got the brightest idea. It's based on where there's alignment between what your end consumer needs to get done from their perspective and what you're trying to drive from an overall company perspective.
00:17:45
Speaker
And as we, you know, engage with clients for these these kind of these transformation efforts, a lot of the things that we're but trying to change or or, you know, behaviors we're trying to fix, if you will, those are going to come from leaders. And and and it's not their fault. I mean, we they grow up in an industry that's flawed. We were always flawed. But I mean, you you learn as you go, you evolve and you get better through time.
00:18:09
Speaker
But they grew up in an industry working one way and now they're the leaders. That's the way they know. So how how do you get leaders to unlearn some of those old habits and and start to think differently?
00:18:20
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's tough. you know Awareness um of of what you need to change and how you think and what you believe is something that's really, really challenging to get to. So we've actually created a 360 review process and we call it our Inspired Leadership Assessment and and Growth Planning exercise, but but basically, you know, you can get feedback from your peers.
00:18:52
Speaker
Because if you think about like how you, you know, the the community, the ecosystem within an organization to actually go from it's an idea to it's in production, you've got peers that you're working with, you've got, you know, the team that works for you.
00:19:07
Speaker
You know, you have the the leaders that you you work under, like you're in an ecosystem. You're not just kind of independent by yourself. And many times um people are either harder on themselves or not maybe hard enough. Right. Or maybe there's some things that are just complete blind spots.
00:19:26
Speaker
And interestingly, um you know, I'm a huge fan of of David Marquette, who wrote the book Turn the Ship Around. Great book. man Yeah, love it.
00:19:37
Speaker
yeah Love it. and And, you know, what he talks about is really getting to more of an evolutionary worldview. Yeah. And if you think about um how we've organized over the course of time to get things done, you know, like the early, early way of organizing was you know, of course, like caveman or, you know, the, the, the, the strongest person, right, is the one that, that kind of comes in, makes the decisions because they're physically, you know, capable.
00:20:07
Speaker
um But then we moved into an era where we had hierarchy, right? So like, think of like how the Catholic church works. and And in many ways, a lot of corporations took pieces of that. And then you had the meritocracy. um i And then, you know, we've we've evolved over the course of time in terms of our thinking about how to organize and ah to get things done.
00:20:29
Speaker
But some of the older ways of thinking that were very like hierarchical in nature or even the strongman way of thinking, leaders, they they visualize like how they can get things done in in the kind of the the the frame in their head for how they how they believe is the right way to get things done.
00:20:50
Speaker
Very regimented. yeah Yeah, very regimented. And and there's this belief in many of the leaders that I've worked with that, you know, you have to be in control. And the truth of the matter is, is that control is an illusion, right? Like, like, right?
00:21:06
Speaker
yeah even Like, even, even if people are your direct reports. So you really have to, you have to give people um some exercises to go through and some, some you know, kind of ah feedback, right? 360 feedback from from different parts of their organization for them to come to the realization that, you know what?
00:21:27
Speaker
i I thought that, um you know, that I was communicating with what in a way that was respectful to people, but actually I thought these people were idiots over here and it was coming through, whether I was actually saying that directly or not.
00:21:42
Speaker
Everything I said was dripping with, I don't think you know what you're doing. Exactly. Like smiling, saying the the appropriate words, but everybody knows. yeah Yeah. Yeah. you right through. I got it.
00:21:58
Speaker
Guilty as charged. I know, right? Like we all fall into that, all of us guilty. So, yeah, I think it's interesting because like a lot of those structures kind of, I don't know, I'm going to kind of go off on a little bit of a tangent, but those structures were kind of built into us in ah in in a time when the world was You know, could be very regimented. It was predictable. And there was a lot that that just happened the same way every single time. But like since like the Industrial Revolution, like things that are different. We're accelerating very quickly.
00:22:26
Speaker
And being able to kind of, as Marquette allowed, what's like that empowerment notion to the team, to let them be thinkers and not just do what I say and and don't ever question. ah it We have to adapt that in order to be able to keep up with the world around us, I think.
00:22:40
Speaker
It's true. And, you know, that reminds me, I um i listened to ah the podcast you recorded with the CIO of Fifth Third. And one of the things that he mentioned, which I thought was, was really, um really wise um to point out, because he came from GE, that, that the business cycle for what GE does is very long.
00:23:05
Speaker
And the business cycle for a bank is shorter. It's much more transactional. And so, you know, even like the way of thinking in the paradigm within the industry that you work in is going to impact how you think about leading um and and how you think about software delivery.
00:23:25
Speaker
Yeah, and I remember, and I have it jot down here in my notes, and I thought it was kind of an interesting thing. You mentioned HR, this may be completely off topic, but I remember you you were talking about like ah HR can like define your architecture. And then because of just the way it's organizing things, because of these hierarchies that we think this is the way to do things. And it ends up kind of the Conway's law kind of taking effect. And what we darned our software systems start to look like the org chart that HR drew up, right? Tell me little bit about that.
00:23:55
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So, um yeah, so I've i've been a fan of team topologies since I read their first book and how they just came out with, don't if it's a second one or a second edition of the same one, but, um i you know, that that idea that um you need to organize teams around the flow of business value ah is is really wise.
00:24:23
Speaker
um and And the idea that, ah you know, you you have the hierarchy that you you know you you perhaps need, right, in order to do expense reports and, you know, time reporting, and all that kind of good stuff. but But the way that teams are organized to actually get work done should really be aligned to to value streams,
00:24:45
Speaker
um i And, um you know, there are some teams that are enablement teams, like architecture is not frequently thought of as in as an enablement team, but they they could and should be, right, if they're following evolutionary architecture principles, right, and practices.
00:25:03
Speaker
um And then, you know, then you've got platform teams, right? So you've got the the platform engineering team, whether it's data platform or you know, the the team that's focused on, ah you know, helping to ensure the value stream aligned team have all the right kinds of, you know, pipelines and such that they need to to move code through from idea to end production. You know, that if you think about the the way that those teams are set up and structured um ah versus how they used to be structured, right, the old way is that, you know, you'd have the Workday team and you'd have the Salesforce team and you'd have, you
00:25:39
Speaker
you know and And I've had people argue with me that, oh, well, Salesforce is a platform. Okay, well, that's true. However, um it fits ah fits it fits into an end-to-end business value stream that actually has other issues.
00:25:55
Speaker
applications, other platforms, you know, that that are a part of it. You know, because if you're going from contract to cash, right, Salesforce is just a piece of that. it's it's not It's not the whole thing. And I think, you know, in the way that you design organizations and the way that you think about um enterprise architecture, you really need to to learn how to see from from really from end to end, from the system of gate of engagement back through the system of record.
00:26:23
Speaker
um and And think about how you organize teams to get work done, you know, so that it flows more smoothly. Because what you're trying to do is back to the Conway's Law um point is you're trying to organize the team so communication is really simple and seamless. Absolutely. And you don't have to get approvals and, you know, ah decision points, et cetera.
00:26:45
Speaker
Yeah, I love how you run into that so much ah in consulting the the teams that name themselves after their tools, you know, that sort of thing. like People are like, but but that's what we do. Salesforce stuff. That's that's that's what what our team does. like but we don't Business doesn't just buy Salesforce. Well, hold on. i They shouldn't. They shouldn't. Some businesses do Salesforce for Salesforce's sake.
00:27:09
Speaker
Some do. They shouldn't. And most don't. But, ah you know, it's it you're you're using Salesforce to solve a business need, not because it's Salesforce. You know, again, some people do, but it's a business need. So what what if we wanted to switch to another tool? Does that mean all of you people go away? Like you still serve the same function and in the business. It's just a different tool.
00:27:32
Speaker
Exactly. And they did that. that It's hard to get them to kind of shake loose of that. Well, um' I just I'm in Salesforce all day long. So we must be the Salesforce team. or whatever. Yeah. And, you know, um I'm really hoping that with um with the the evolution of AI, we can finally get to a place where um we can actually track the the business value that is delivered in a value string across multiple applications. Because when you have that instrumentation in place and you can really tell, okay well, we were trying to let me use a quick example.
00:28:08
Speaker
um well we were trying to ah figure out how to get um more um motorcycle application policies from someone being interested to actually signing up for policy.
00:28:21
Speaker
And so we were actually able to to track like, what was that conversion rate and were we actually shipping the right software, the right features to improve that conversion rate? Like we were instrumenting it and looking at it from what's the business value that we're trying to deliver. um And that went across a bunch of applications like that little, you know, that that kind of that value stream went,
00:28:45
Speaker
across a few things that were in-house and then, you know, SaaS-based solutions. But I think we need to get into that lens, right? where Where we're really, you know, looking across all applications, right? From the perspective of what's actually going to either make us money or solve a client's problem or like, you know, and and really being able to instrument and articulate the value.
00:29:09
Speaker
yeah It's interesting you brought AI up in that context. I like that idea. and You were like, let me give an example, because i I think you can see my face. We do video while we're recording. She could see my face. and I'm like, huh? You know, like i'm I'm thinking through it. She's like, I think I need to explain it to this dummy.
00:29:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:26
Speaker
But ah um the the question I have is there seems to be this like, I don't know, there's there's like we're like swirling the drain. of That's the only way I can think kind of think of it. It's like so we have extreme programming and then we had agile and then we have scrum and then we have safe and we have lean and we have all of these things. and But they're all kind of in DevOps. Now we've got platform engineering and all these things are like swirling together and we're kind of like,
00:29:49
Speaker
reaching this like Voltron structure and we're putting all these things together. is AI going to be that final piece of that puzzle that lands us at this kind of like aha moment for our industry?
00:30:02
Speaker
that's ah That's what i'm i'm i'm I'm believing that is the trajectory. And um i think I think you know that i'm I'm friends with Nick Kirsten, who created Tasktop, and and and this is something he's been really passionate about for years. And we've had lots of conversations around how do you get to that place? And and they actually started ah integrating ai into their platform a few years ago.
00:30:31
Speaker
And so they're already doing some of that like predictive, you know, um ah you know, work to fit, to use the data to figure out, okay, what is actually the value?
00:30:43
Speaker
You know, it's, it's one thing to be able to measure, you know, lead time to change, et cetera. But like and actually looking at what is the value that you're delivering versus what was the cost to serve, right. For, for that software that you just created. And I think,
00:31:00
Speaker
I think when we get to a place where we've got better information, it will help with the decision process for what you really should do versus, um you know, what's happening today, which is the the strongest voice in the room decides what happens.
00:31:16
Speaker
Dang it, that's gonna be bad for me because I'm always that, you know, that bully in the room who gets his way. No, I'm kidding. I try not to. Well, I'll tell you what, Mick, if you, you know, next time you run in, tell him he's got a definite fan. And like that book of his, um the project or product of his as awesome. And it was the first book I've ever seen anybody kind of lay out like, hey, dummy, you can't just do feature feature, feature, feature, feature all the time. You got to kind of bake in some of those. So that all the time we always were like begging.
00:31:46
Speaker
And the business, hey, can we actually do the software engineering that we need to do to keep this thing running smoothly? You know, like that's like Ken, like saying to a race car, you know, a race car driver trying to ask the pit crew, can we maybe, you know, change the oil on this car every now and then? So, you know, it doesn't blow up in my face.
00:32:01
Speaker
But that book, it outlines like you have, you can't just be, you know, feature, feature all the time. You can do it for periods of time, but you have to kind of pay the piper every now and then. and and make yeah to the Yeah, I love that. There was like four types of work.
00:32:12
Speaker
yeah yeah, yeah. No, you're spot on. There's the only book who ever like codified that and explained it so that people can understand you have to do this stuff. Yeah, you need non-functional requirements, right? You need non-functional things that are in your backlog and you have to balance that, right? Can't be just feature work. Can't be just...
00:32:30
Speaker
defect work. It's got to be, you know, some of that has to be fixing how we just operate as team. Well, give Mick a high five or a fist bump or whatever next time you see him. will. From me. um I will. I will. From you. yeah that's That's a fantastic book.
00:32:43
Speaker
I showed it to my brother. He's in the same kind of work. And he was like, oh, my gosh, that's i I've been trying to explain this for years. And it's it's fantastic. So, yeah. I do want to hear a little bit about, I know you're, so you mentioned that you started your own consulting company about 18 months ago or so. So you come from a background of being with some of these like just monoliths of companies. You've been at ThoughtWorks, you've been at PwC, you've been at EMC.
00:33:07
Speaker
Like, What led you to to from that path all the way to like, let me start my own company, a small company and go kind of, you know, grassroots this thing like what would walk through that?
00:33:20
Speaker
Yeah. So so um when I went to Cognizant, I made the decision that um I was going to be in the business of are renovating right parts of larger companies. um and And so that's what I was doing there. That's what I was doing at the French tech firm I worked at. That's what I was brought into ThoughtWorks to do.
00:33:45
Speaker
And i was um I was complaining, honestly, to a friend of mine um who's the CTO for Bread Financial about um just about the things that were fundamentally broken in the consulting model.
00:34:01
Speaker
um that that I thought needed to change. But because of the way that most of those firms were set up, it was just so foundational that you couldn't change it because it would it would literally, and you know, kind of rip apart the fabric of of of how how their business model worked. And there were a few things. Like one of the things that I said is, you know, consulting firms should be about digital value creations.
00:34:27
Speaker
Right. Like we should not be about just delivering PowerPoints. We should be about delivering outcomes. My my second beef was that I, you know, most consulting firms do a pretty good job at top down transformation, like getting executives on board.
00:34:47
Speaker
But to make sustainable change happen, you have to have both the top down and a bottom up, you know, movement. and And they either weren't willing or weren't able to to to operate in that way.
00:35:00
Speaker
um People with the C in front of their title are the ones that can sign those big checks. I know. See, that's the thing. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. and um And then and then i also said, you know, aye if you really want to drive sustainable change, right, that's really like everybody says it.
00:35:18
Speaker
But if that's really what you want to do, then you should be enabling experiential learning. Right. So it's not just the old model where you come in and and you do it for them. You've got to do it with them because that's the only way that people learn.
00:35:32
Speaker
Um, and then last but not least, um, I can't tell you how many times, and I love, i love young people. Okay. But, but if you have the, the experts who are selling and then you, then you bring in the rookies to deliver and the client ends up training your rookies, that's just not, that's just bad.
00:35:52
Speaker
That's, that shouldn't be happening. And so I was complaining all about all these things and she said, why don't you start a consulting firm and I'll be your first client. And I said, okay, let's go. Man, that's just a ready-made company right there. I love it. That's awesome.
00:36:06
Speaker
Well, your friend gave you good advice because those are all like those instincts are spot on That whole thing of like, okay, we're going to come in here and tell you exactly how we think and what we believe and how we approach problem solving and all of that.
00:36:18
Speaker
and then we're going to bring in a bunch of people who don't know us at all off the street. And can you train them to do what we just told you we think? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But you got to feed the beast, right? You got to feed the beast. Like, like you look at how big and I won't name names, but you look at how big some of these companies are and, you know, for them to achieve growth, you know, the growth percentages that they're looking for.
00:36:41
Speaker
You there's decisions that they have to make that are not always in the customer's best interest. And and I just ethically, I just couldn't, I couldn't do that anymore. i just needed to, I needed to be able to, to, um you know, create a business model that actually helped organizations drive sustainable change for me, you know, for me to feel good about what I was doing.
00:37:03
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And that's that's important as a business owner to be able to, you know, put your head down on your pillow at night. Okay. um This has been great. So we're going to move on to our um next segment of the show. um But any sort of like, you know, what are you seeing like the future kind of trends, opportunities, what sort of practical takeaways from kind of all what we've just said? What are we? Yeah, mean, think this is...
00:37:30
Speaker
i think this is um This is just, and i and I feel like I say this every few years, but um it's just an amazing time to be in technology. and it It really is. And, um you know, i i think that um if we can just help organizations ah really kind of nail down their why,
00:37:55
Speaker
Like, if i why do they want to do what they're what they're trying to do with whatever new digital product or, you know, change effort that they're that they're trying to deliver? i think that now with AI-assisted software delivery, I think we're moving into this era where, um you know, the the only limiting factor is going to be our ability to consume change.
00:38:20
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Yeah. So and and and that becomes the bottleneck. Right. I mean, crazy enough, like ah one of the guys I was talking to yesterday, they changed their work structure so that because they're doing AI assisted software delivery now that they have a product manager.
00:38:38
Speaker
i And then like a bunch of engineers and the the product manager is actually the bottleneck now yeah because they can create the code much faster. when the The product manager is a bottleneck and the testing, automated testing.
00:38:54
Speaker
is a bottleneck. But, you know, I think that we need to we need to think big. We need to dream big about, like, what are the real problems that that we can actually solve now? then That limitation of speed of software delivery um is maybe not as much of a factor. However, having said that, we need to be able to do it in a way um that doesn't rapidly create a bunch of junk.
00:39:21
Speaker
um You know, because the other thing I found is that, you know, ah ai assisted software delivery, it's kind of it's it like a amplifier. So if if what you're doing is really good, it's going to amplify that. If what you're doing is really crappy, it's going to amplify that.
00:39:39
Speaker
yeah I mean, i've I don't know if I said this or something. that I heard this recently with like, it's just a way ah of letting you do stupid things much faster. Yeah. You know, like that's that's what we can do now.
00:39:51
Speaker
i mean, I think you you're hitting the nail on the head. There is a complete recalibration that's going to have to happen in our industry technology. Like forever, it was always like the idea people were always kind of sitting around twiddling their thumbs, waiting on us to do their ideas.
00:40:06
Speaker
And now we can implement those ideas very fast. It's going to be like, the I don't think the idea people are used to this this notion of like, i got to keep coming up with ideas on a rapid pace now. like they They're not it. And they didn't have to because we couldn't keep up with them.
00:40:23
Speaker
But I think the it's changing and we we are going to be able to. So i'm I'm really excited to see like once we do get kind of the ideation engine revving again, or i don't know if it ever did, but let's rev that engine and really crank that. Let's redline that engine and see what happens because now that we can keep pace, we're going to be able to go.
00:40:41
Speaker
But we got to go smartly. Yeah. But like, like, what are, what are those bigger problems that we just couldn't solve before that, you know, now we should be able to, to actually solve. So I'm, I'm excited. I'm excited for the future. i think there's, there's, ah there's definitely going to be bumps in the road, but I think we'll be able to, to accomplish things in the next 10 years that we, we wouldn't have thought,
00:41:07
Speaker
humanly possible. I mean, just one, I know we're running out of time, but one example. So Dr. Fei-Fei she created ImageNet, you know, she thought that, you know, her whole like life aspiration was to get machines to be able to see.
00:41:24
Speaker
And she thought it was going to take like the rest of her life ah to to be able to get to what we have now. it to it took like five years.
00:41:36
Speaker
um And so that rapid innovation cycle is just super, super exciting. Yeah. It's it's going to be, as you said, it's ah it's a wonderful time to be alive in technology because...
00:41:48
Speaker
It is going to be crazy for the next five years to try it because it's ah it's a complete recalibration. All of the estimation and all of those, throw it all out the window. It's just, it's all gone. There's first principle thinking, yes, but I think that all of the kind of the the calculations are are, they need, everything needs to be recalibrated. and I do think there's there's something to that.
00:42:07
Speaker
Okay. Well, fantastic. Well, now we're going to move on to our ship it or skip it section. Ship or skip, ship or skip, everybody, we got to tell us if you ship or skip.
00:42:18
Speaker
Excellent. I'm excited. i'm I am ready. um Let's go. Okay, so we've talked about kind of organization organizational change. And there's one thing, and we mentioned Conway.
00:42:31
Speaker
One thing people bring up in this this whole thing is like when when you're doing organizational change, this notion of the reverse Conway maneuver, right? And the idea there is like, let's let's say yeah let's redo our organization and then our our software architecture will just miraculously. I was just doing a yoga pose yes for for those who are just listening. Well, it was a bad yoga pose, but I was trying to do a yoga pose. Yeah.
00:42:54
Speaker
It was like you were voguing but got stuck. Something like that. like its Exactly what it looked like. It was it was almost like an Elaine dance move.
00:43:05
Speaker
that Just not that elegant, right? so It was a full body dry heave set to music is what I believe George said, right? Yes, yes. Right. Oh, so the the the reverse or inverse Conway maneuver. i now You know, I do think that there is something to be said for um designing teams in the way that ah so software needs to flow along a value stream.
00:43:34
Speaker
So this idea that, um you know, that that will will drive your architecture, i think it's a balance, honestly. Like,
00:43:45
Speaker
you know i think the the problem that they were trying to solve was um you know kind of getting getting the the enterprise architecture to more accurately reflect the value streams.
00:44:01
Speaker
i think i think it would be messier. right like like Theoretically, this inverse Conway, like i can see where they were going with it. um But I think practically, it's better to think about enterprise architecture from an end to end business value stream lens um at that level, right? Instead of instead of like trying to think about forcing a structure of a team, because there's a lot of dimensions and why you organize, um you know, the the way that that teams organize, you know, so it's
00:44:37
Speaker
I can see their logic, but I'm not 100% there. i do think that um there is a place i you know to achieve what they were what they were thinking to achieve with the inverse Conway effect with using an ai agent um to to to help with the architectural patterns, right? Because an architect, it's an enabling team, they're not gonna be able to be everywhere, right?
00:45:08
Speaker
But if you had some way to have ai agents set up to help facilitate, um you know, evolving the architecture and really understanding what it what really it was today um and and helping to enforce standards. I think maybe that's a more practical way to to get to evolutionary architecture than um what was recommended in the inverse Conway.
00:45:31
Speaker
Yeah. For a long time, I was, I really liked the idea of the whole, you know, inverse, reverse, comment, however you want to phrase it. But like in, you know, one of the things we noticed like we in Agile, right, one of the reasons why we don't write down these big plans and everything is is because it can be stifling, right? So especially like, remember how much time you invest in these beautiful architecture diagrams and you print them off and you put them up on the wall and you're like, and then as you start to develop software, you're like, this architecture is this architecture's not really working. It's not meeting the business need. were like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
00:46:00
Speaker
But I got a big diagram. ah That cost me 150 bucks at Kinko's to print that thing. It's a beautiful diagram. We're not changing. It's a big, beautiful diagram. Yeah, we're not changing. Not happening. Think about that with an organization.
00:46:13
Speaker
Like if you get it wrong, they're not malleable. Moving people around and and messing them around like that, it doesn't work. So it's like worse than the big, beautiful diagram. its are the big, beautiful organizations. And now you're stuck in that. Well, and the the thing is, and and I've actually talked to to Nick Kirsten about this because, you know, he runs a software company, like, or like part of a software company. and And, you know, he he he said that he's frequently like redesigning the teams based on where he sees the bottleneck.
00:46:42
Speaker
And so i think I think thinking about how you organize teams based on on flow um and based on identifying where the bottlenecks are and removing them, I think maybe that's more an effective way to to kind of look at how you design tech organizations.
00:47:00
Speaker
Yeah. yeah Okay. So it's great. You have great consulting answers of like, it depends. And i think, yeah, I love it. yeah that's That's the test. Okay. so we talked to a little bit about this, but I wanted to hear more like your take on, um you know, a lot of times we we strive so much in software delivery because it is expensive, and right? It it it is to to do software development. it's getting less expensive. but yeah Traditionally, it has been very, very expensive. People cost a lot of money. ah It takes a lot of people.
00:47:30
Speaker
So we're we're constantly trying to reduce the cost out of technology and drive all the cost out of technology. Do you think that's, is that short-sighted? What what you is your take on that? Yeah, I think it totally is. And, and you know, I um i have ah you know spent many years working in financial services and insurance.
00:47:49
Speaker
And so I guess in my mind, i I thought that this was a phenomena that happened in banking, financial services, and insurance because they they view technology as a cost center and a cost center needs to be managed down to as as small as possible, right?
00:48:08
Speaker
they don't see They don't all see technology in there. Of course, there are yeah some companies that don't don't see the world through the suns, but they don't always see technology as a strategic lever to help them win in a market.
00:48:22
Speaker
and And I think that should be more of the thinking. And if you have the philosophy that software is an asset that can be a liability and your objective should be to deliver less software better um and better software to to achieve your your business al outcome and to to really you know set yourself apart from a business strategy standpoint, that's the right way to think about it, right? Not not cost takeout.
00:48:51
Speaker
Yeah, i I think once a lot of organizations, you know, kind of make that leap to, wait a minute, you mean this technology thing can actually drive a revenue for us? Then that's that's when things start to take off, especially in the modern economy, right? I mean, that's just thats just the way it is.
00:49:05
Speaker
Every company is a technology company in one way or another, as whether they want to admit it or not. True. They have to be. Yeah. So that's a and say skip it on cost, basically treating IT t as a cost center kind of a thing, right? So yeah, I'm i'm with you on that. I'm going to skip it. I would not ship that.
00:49:21
Speaker
All right. And then i think I know where you where you would go with this, but I want to ask. Digital transformations, agile, you know, transformations in general, any of these transformations, cloud, whatever. A lot of times we take it...
00:49:32
Speaker
ah Like there's this big um front design, right, when it comes to transformation. We spend months and months and months and months and months and we come up with this big, beautiful plan. Again, we i'll probably draw a big diagram, right, and put it up on a wall. And we even make the coffee mugs with with some little and quippy phrase that says, let's do this or whatever. Yeah.
00:49:51
Speaker
What's your take on that, that whole process? And is is there a better way? Okay. So, and that is a ship it or skip it, right? Ship it or skip it. Like, is it, is it i do you need to go through the big upfront for that?
00:50:02
Speaker
I say, I say, skip it. i I think that, I think that you do need to take some time to to make sure that the business strategy is understood.
00:50:14
Speaker
um But my belief is that and in my experience is that you need to have more an adaptive business strategy. Right. And and and this is this is, um you know, many years of of doing this kind of work. It's.
00:50:30
Speaker
and it's akin to bringing lean startup to the enterprise, right? So instead of having a strategic plan that's like three to five years out and too much changes, like back to your point when we started the conversation, like how quickly the technology and businesses is transforming now and, you know, constantly new things coming out with market shifts happening that quickly, you you can't really have a set it and forget it strategy.
00:50:58
Speaker
you have to have more an adaptive strategy. And so you don't want to spend, you know, six months, right? um You know, focused on creating some big upfront piece of work.
00:51:10
Speaker
I'm pretty convinced that the only reason why that ever happens is because some consulting firm comes in and tries to sell a piece of work for a certain amount of money. and it takes that much time and that much money. and I don't necessarily think it's the the right thing for organizations to do to actually drive results.
00:51:29
Speaker
Yeah, it's, it's ah you know, kind of the whole perfect is the enemy of good or whatever kind of concept, right? I mean, we we feel like we have to get the the that diagram up on the wall perfect before we start.
00:51:41
Speaker
But you can do some of these things incrementally. it's it's not It's not a wholesale thing that you have to get everything perfect for you. You have to get feedback. Yeah, absolutely. Like you have to get feedback. Like sitting a bunch of executives in a room and coming up with, you know, strategies and You know, it's just I don't I don't think I've ever seen that be effective.
00:52:00
Speaker
So funny. This is two people from consulting companies saying the reason these things don't work is because of consulting companies. We're we're a different kind of consulting company. We're different. We really are different. We've got to come up with a different name.
00:52:13
Speaker
Right. Like like that'll be a next episode where James and Carol riff on what we should be called. so Yes, i I would like that very much. Because, yes, it it does. you There's kind of that consulting is almost and a bad word in the industry. And, you you know, there's kind of those negative content connotations. But there can be some some good work coming out of that. We're out all of our were outcome generators, right? Yes, exactly.
00:52:38
Speaker
Outcomineers. I don't know. I don't know what to Whatever. Sounds like Mucketeer. Yeah, exactly. Like they do at Disney, right? Like the... um Yeah. All right.
00:52:49
Speaker
ah All right. This was this was good. So that's where skip it. Both of us on that one. All right. um Now we're moving on to, ah you know, all this again was our warm up. ah So far, well everything we've done, we can kind of throw that away.
00:53:02
Speaker
That means nothing now is the the meat of the or the juicy stuff. This is the real stuff. This is really where the rubber meets the road. Whatever analogy you want to use. Our lightning round.
00:53:17
Speaker
It's time for the lightning round. Rapid fire, don't slow down. Hands are quick and make count. In this game, there's way out. It's time for the lightning round.
00:53:31
Speaker
So this is, we we do have correct answers for these questions. we will have We do a grading process, a scoring algorithm. Do I have like a phone a friend option? Like if it's really hard, I've got my little furry friend here. on You can use Claude or your cat.
00:53:50
Speaker
i was goodnna Yeah, right. I don't have a cat, but I have a dog that's like a cat. So that's enough. I have one of those that crawls but behind me on the couch. so Yeah. He's a 70-pound golden retriever, and he does that Yeah.
00:54:02
Speaker
Yeah. No. Not a cat. No. No. He thinks he is, though. um But yes, we so well we we have a ah proprietary algorithm we use for scoring the lightning round. that we ah we have to run it through.
00:54:14
Speaker
It's a lot of compute. ah We have to do it when the electricity is cheaper at night, those sort of things. You know what i mean? Because it just costs a lot of money if we don't. But we'll get back with you on the results once that process is completed. It takes about six, seven weeks.
00:54:27
Speaker
All right. Are you ready? I'm ready. Yes. Now that we've completely overhyped this thing. um Ariel or Jasmine? Can I say neither? my My favorite princess is Tiana because she's the one that had a job. Yes, she did.
00:54:43
Speaker
She made great beignets. I'm a girl dad. I'm going to go toe-to-toe with you on this now. I know these stories. So, all right. I think that was the one. Yeah, she was the one that beignets. Tiana, you're right. Yeah, she did.
00:54:54
Speaker
Nice. but Uh, are you a sourdough or a wheat kind of a person? Oh, neither. more of like, um, brioche. Brioche. Okay. Man, so so far has it been a neither for both answers. so You may throw off our algorithm. I don't know that we know how to score this. This is, and since you're a, I don't know if this is Disney or not, but a Ratatouille fan, maybe. Are rat are rats cute?
00:55:19
Speaker
Do you think rats are cute? Not at all. No. I think people who think rats are cute probably have never lived anywhere where there are rats. Yeah, they've actually never seen the rat, I don't think. Right.
00:55:31
Speaker
Yeah. yeah What's your ideal outdoor outside temperature? 70. 70. That's a good number. We usually use, ah you know, within so many standard deviations of the right answer on that. yeah Close enough. I think it'll be okay.
00:55:45
Speaker
I think it'll be okay. Unless it's skiing weather, and and then it's like more like 30, but... Now, do you get out and do snow skiing? Oh, yeah. assume you meant snow since you said 30 because it's kind of hard to water ski 30-degree water. I do water ski, too, but water ski is more like has to be 90 outside.
00:56:03
Speaker
Yeah. yeah Yeah. You'll have to ask ah Miss Laura, you know, from our company about water skiing. She was a competitive water skier. Whoa. Okay. She's really, really good at um She's a woman of many talents.
00:56:16
Speaker
Absolutely. Played in a band. This is anyway. um If there is a spider in your house, do you kill it or do you set it free? I set it free in the house.
00:56:27
Speaker
No, I actually I put a cup over it. I put a piece piece of paper under it and then move it outside. It's like a magic trick. It is ah is magic. I don't touch it, you know, wow but I will move it outside. Yeah. You guys don't have any crazy spiders down there in North Carolina. Oh my God. We've got the biggest spiders you've ever seen. They're not tarantulas.
00:56:46
Speaker
They're huge. Like, like big, big spiders. They're beautiful. Yeah. But you let them outside. I'm with you. Yeah. Because ah they're good. They're they're beneficial. i I try to do that. unless Unless they see, I say that, but the other night one really scared me and I got mad and I killed it.
00:57:01
Speaker
So, well, you know I mean? Hey, I can't help it. I get it. I'm a flawed human being, Carol. um but Aren't we all? Yes. Can't help it. Okay. um What is the lamest dessert that people try to pass off as a dessert? Really anything that's not chocolate.
00:57:17
Speaker
Okay. Okay. the not The not chocolate desserts. Anything not chocolate. Yeah. Well, no, my husband, I hate to say this, but he loves carrot cake. And I just, I mean, it's a vegetable, right? Yeah. Like, it's cool.
00:57:30
Speaker
Well, that that is one of our questions. You seem very astute at your vegetable versus fruit but identification. Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable? Supposedly, it is a fruit, but like, it doesn't taste like a fruit to me. Not even the heirloom. Like, I don't know where that came from, but.
00:57:45
Speaker
right. Now this one could be interesting. If Tupac appeared before you right now, what's the first thing you would ask him? ah What would I ask him? don't know.
00:57:56
Speaker
I would probably i would probably ask him, you know, i don't know. That's a hard one. You know, I love that kind of music. I'd probably ask him to to just write something quick for me. Who shot you? I think someone asked before. all know.
00:58:13
Speaker
All right. What? Okay. This one's an interesting. And this one's a controversial topic. This one really, kind of lights people up. ah It really gets the emotions going. what are your What is your take on cranberries? see They're medicinal. Yeah.
00:58:29
Speaker
Okay. Medicinal. that the right? Medicinal? Medicinal. Yeah. No. Yeah, yeah. Like, that's like a medicine. I i never understood, like, people try to put that in pastries. I think they, like, try to pass it off with something because they, like, had extra, but...
00:58:44
Speaker
No. What if it were chocolate covered cranberries? Well, that would be OK because then you wouldn't really actually taste the cranberry. But supposedly there's a beneficial, you know, um ah element to cranberry, especially for women. So I think I might be OK with that.
00:59:03
Speaker
yeah say like you're having like urinary tract infection, they do drink cranberry so juice, right? That's what they say. That's what they say. That's that's the thing. Well, I'm taking antibiotics. That would be a hell of a lot faster. Yeah, what the heck? Let's let's maybe go with some modern science on this one.
00:59:18
Speaker
They have a good modern science on it. How many cups of coffee do you drink per day? Two. but And it's it's it's really like lattes. So it's like a it's basically four shots of espresso. Okay. I don't know what that counts as. what there's a There's a conversion algorithm we have. it's that Yeah, we can we can run the numbers on that.
00:59:39
Speaker
Yeah. No problem. Yeah. ah Do you know how to salsa dance? You know, um i tried to take lessons with my husband, and the only thing he could do is disco. Yeah.
00:59:50
Speaker
We tried. i was actually pretty good at it, but you kind of have to have a partner that's doing that with you. So and I can disco though with him. you Yes. You can disco. I can disco. Yeah.
01:00:02
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, man. And for those of our audience that don't know, most of our audience knows what disco is. so we are yeah We have ah disco knowers in our audience. So. who That's impressive. John Travolta. You don't hear a lot of folks.
01:00:14
Speaker
yeah Yeah. I just saw something last night. Staying alive. Yeah. He ran like a 5K every day and did all this work out out to like get in that shape for that movie.
01:00:26
Speaker
John Travolta did. Because he was really skinny in that movie. He was. A little too skinny. I felt like he was a little too skinny. He was very skinny for that movie. um But what do you know? if Wasn't it written by Sylvester Stallone or something? Or was that Saturday Night Fever?
01:00:39
Speaker
It was one of one of those was written by him. Okay. We are, yeah, we're getting way off. I have a list of these here and I usually just kind of thumb through them. Have you ever worn socks with sandals?
01:00:53
Speaker
Birkenstocks, man. Yeah. Birks. Got to get Birks on. Absolutely. Especially if it's like a little cold outside. Yeah. Okay. All right. And we'll we'll finish on this one. What was your... And this is because it's kind of a timely thing. We are recording on October 29th, which is two days before Halloween. So what...
01:01:13
Speaker
is the last Halloween costume you can remember wearing. So um I usually every, cause I bring out the same thing cause I did, I created this once and I am just kind of lazy about it.
01:01:27
Speaker
So um it's a good witch. So think witch's hat, but like beautiful flowers and, you know, it's like a happy good witch. But I'm not a fan of Halloween because I don't like scary stuff. So I'm usually like, you won't see me dressed as something really freaky.
01:01:44
Speaker
You know, it's this morning I was ah went to update Zoom. There was an update and i looked at the dialogue and it said the version number was 6.6.6.
01:01:56
Speaker
I took a screenshot and posted that to X. And I was like, not today, Satan. Like, ah no, I'll wait for the next one, you know? Not getting me on this one, buddy. So, yeah. You mentioned being lazy about it. My Halloween costume, though, was I was very lazy about this. I had to take my daughter out. Well, didn't have to. I wanted to take my daughter out. Of course you did. Because it was always a fun.
01:02:17
Speaker
Yeah. And I... I didn't have anything. And she's like, you're not going to dress up as anything. was like, I'll be right back. So I took a Sharpie and I wrote on a t-shirt. I just wrote, I love ceilings.
01:02:29
Speaker
And I walked around with her and people would be like, you know, what, what is, what is that? I'm like, I'm a ceiling fan. That's like that's like a wearable dad joke.
01:02:41
Speaker
That's what that was. that was what i was a we That was a wearable dad joke. That is fantastic. Yeah. And ah and the the drunk soccer mom, my neighborhood, they they would always drink and give out candy. But the drunk soccer moms were like, huh, what are talking about?
01:02:55
Speaker
Like they didn't get it. So it didn't land. Just like most of my dad jokes. I guess it served its purpose. exactly okay again we will compile the scores and whatnot uh and did i win like what do i win ah well don't get ahead of yourself you know mean like we've had a lot of lot of contestants here on the lightning round and um there've been some pretty good scores are you gonna like record that on my answering machine like you know don't call us we'll call you
01:03:27
Speaker
We're having a good time. i yeah All right. the lightning round is over. I'm going to declare it done. And any closing remarks, anything you got coming up? um Are you speaking anywhere? you going to be doing any sort of books or any any anything you got coming up that you'd like to share? Yeah. ah So um I am. ah Well, I've been working on a book for years and years and years, but it's hopefully going to come out in the next year.
01:03:52
Speaker
And it is on the topic of digital business leaders and how you create inspired leaders. so We don't have a name for the book yet, but it's really going to get at what are the underlying beliefs that need to change in leaders so that they can really drive leadership.
01:04:11
Speaker
you know, more inspirational change in teams and organizations. And it's really focused on how do they ah kind of shift their leadership style so they lead with humility and wisdom, you know, communicate from the heart and build high trust teams with unity of purpose. So really looking forward to that. um I'm collaborating with that with John Willis, who wrote the DevOps Handbook and a bunch of other books, because in the era of a ah ai It's going to be much more important if we're all, know, people are managing a lot of AI agents.
01:04:47
Speaker
It's going to be essential for us to, you know, be very conscientious about how we, how we you know, interact and engage with with people, right? Because, you know, ah being truly human and, you know, leading from a place of heart is going to become more important. I fancy myself a creative namer of things.
01:05:07
Speaker
And but i and so I'm going to give you a name for your book, but I will tell you I get fired from our marketing team probably on a daily basis. So this one is for our marketing director, Taylor. But I think your book should be called Inspirationators.
01:05:23
Speaker
Oh, I like that. Yeah, you're like, yeah, no. i like Somebody else said that I should call it the golden thread. Oh, mean, we'll see. We'll see. You don't actually get to name your book. Publisher gets to name your book. You just write your book. and so we'll see.
01:05:37
Speaker
We'll see. That one's for Taylor. She'll crack up on that. The Velvet Thread is what our producer just typed in the chat. That's pretty good. Damn, that's pretty good. I love that book, The DevOps Handbook. That's the one I tell people, read um the Dr. Forsgren's book, um and then I say, read The DevOps Handbook. or you want Why is Accelerate. what Read that to understand why. And you want to know how DevOps Handbook.
01:06:02
Speaker
Exactly. That's your one-two punch. Yep. That's all you need. And then you got to, you know, all the other books we mentioned today, you should read those too. All right. Well, this has been so so much fun. it's It's been great having you on the show. Thank you so much for joining us today.
01:06:17
Speaker
Thank you so much for having me this has been This has been a huge amount of fun. So we're we're really aligned and we both like to laugh. I love your dad jokes. It's good. It's been good. but All right. Well, if you'd like to get in touch with us here at the forward slash, please drop us a line at the forward slash at Caliberty.com.
01:06:34
Speaker
See you next time. The forward slash podcast is created by Caliberty. Our director is Dylan Quartz, producer Ryan Wilson, with editing by Steve Berardelli. Marketing support comes from Taylor Blessing.
01:06:46
Speaker
I'm your host, James Carman. Thanks for listening.