WEBVTT 00:00:00.300 --> 00:00:04.780 Hey, what's up, Toby? We are to episode 24 of 00:00:04.780 --> 00:00:11.640 the Process Debt Podcast. I don't even know where 00:00:11.640 --> 00:00:17.660 to go. I mean, we got, well, 24, you know, Elon 00:00:17.660 --> 00:00:21.199 is running amok in the government. Oh, wait, 00:00:21.239 --> 00:00:23.800 I thought he was fixing things. I don't know. 00:00:23.940 --> 00:00:27.100 I'm not sure. What I didn't understand is when 00:00:27.100 --> 00:00:30.050 you hire your... your politicians that you just 00:00:30.050 --> 00:00:32.329 bought and paid for to promote your product and 00:00:32.329 --> 00:00:35.490 your stock goes down, what's that tell you? I 00:00:35.490 --> 00:00:37.289 don't understand what that message is for the 00:00:37.289 --> 00:00:40.909 market. I don't know, man. But my pay grade, 00:00:40.929 --> 00:00:46.250 maybe. He's doing a bang -up job, though, of 00:00:46.250 --> 00:00:49.869 really showing how value is created or not to 00:00:49.869 --> 00:00:53.490 all of his Tesla shareholders. Yeah, it's very 00:00:53.490 --> 00:00:57.179 interesting. very interesting stuff we we should 00:00:57.179 --> 00:00:59.200 we we should probably spend a couple to talk 00:00:59.200 --> 00:01:02.140 about does because i think i think the the short 00:01:02.140 --> 00:01:09.659 term um the the busyness there's a lot of value 00:01:09.659 --> 00:01:13.040 for a lot of people yeah um and you know the 00:01:13.040 --> 00:01:16.239 impact uh the long -term impact like how does 00:01:16.239 --> 00:01:18.319 that how does that play but let's not talk about 00:01:18.319 --> 00:01:20.400 that today We should, we should. You're such 00:01:20.400 --> 00:01:22.859 a tease, man. You're throwing that for our listeners 00:01:22.859 --> 00:01:24.920 in Romania. I know. Shout out to. They're going 00:01:24.920 --> 00:01:29.439 to. Now. I know. Next session. Okay. I know they're 00:01:29.439 --> 00:01:30.680 not going to listen to us. We're not going to 00:01:30.680 --> 00:01:34.299 have anybody in, you know, in Romania. No more 00:01:34.299 --> 00:01:36.799 Romanian listeners. It's terrible. I do appreciate 00:01:36.799 --> 00:01:38.680 the folks in Grayson, though, that stick it out 00:01:38.680 --> 00:01:42.120 with us. There you go. All right. So you had 00:01:42.120 --> 00:01:45.680 an idea. Yeah. My topic was people have races, 00:01:45.840 --> 00:01:49.930 right? So responsible, accountable. yeah consulted 00:01:49.930 --> 00:01:52.170 and informed consulted and informed they have 00:01:52.170 --> 00:01:53.629 them but they don't always know what it means 00:01:53.629 --> 00:01:57.150 no no your acronym yeah it is a familiar acronym 00:01:57.150 --> 00:02:02.049 um and i don't i've seen that people bristle 00:02:02.049 --> 00:02:04.329 against it i probably maybe that's because i 00:02:04.329 --> 00:02:08.050 bristle that can be yeah you put it you give 00:02:08.050 --> 00:02:11.110 out what you want back and yeah it's like i don't 00:02:11.110 --> 00:02:13.550 want to be responsible or accountable but the 00:02:13.550 --> 00:02:17.039 thought here is like on the software side which 00:02:17.039 --> 00:02:21.039 is where I believe most process debt lives. Yeah. 00:02:21.199 --> 00:02:23.879 Not because the systems are bad, but because 00:02:23.879 --> 00:02:27.780 the people don't understand what those systems 00:02:27.780 --> 00:02:33.479 are for. Like, are we stuck with crappy systems? 00:02:33.580 --> 00:02:37.939 Yeah. Because we don't have a baseline for what 00:02:37.939 --> 00:02:41.219 those systems are supposed to do. Yeah. And I 00:02:41.219 --> 00:02:43.500 guess a question, you know, this is not your 00:02:43.500 --> 00:02:46.909 first rodeo. I've been a service plumber for 00:02:46.909 --> 00:02:53.750 years. What's the worst system that you've stepped 00:02:53.750 --> 00:02:57.169 into? I'll tell you, it's also probably one of 00:02:57.169 --> 00:03:04.810 the most popular. It's SAP. I've been involved 00:03:04.810 --> 00:03:12.509 with a number of, a dozen plus ERP systems. There's 00:03:12.509 --> 00:03:14.969 a whole variety, right? SAP and Oracle are probably 00:03:14.969 --> 00:03:20.710 the two most common kind of broad base use cases. 00:03:21.069 --> 00:03:24.710 But the difficulty with these very complex systems 00:03:24.710 --> 00:03:29.229 is that the configuration requirements is so 00:03:29.229 --> 00:03:34.069 high. And to do meaningful configuration assumes 00:03:34.069 --> 00:03:39.069 you understand how your process works. Oh, yes. 00:03:41.779 --> 00:03:45.219 You and I have chatted offline at times about 00:03:45.219 --> 00:03:48.340 just they have a core piece of software and it's 00:03:48.340 --> 00:03:50.599 like financial software. And then they keep adding 00:03:50.599 --> 00:03:53.580 other crap onto it and they acquire other companies 00:03:53.580 --> 00:03:59.020 to keep showing. The difficulty is that a client 00:03:59.020 --> 00:04:02.939 gets a singular idea in their mind that the three 00:04:02.939 --> 00:04:06.699 letter acronym SAP solves everything. You know, 00:04:06.740 --> 00:04:09.680 this magical panacea and life will be grand and 00:04:09.680 --> 00:04:16.000 greener. Is it like Henry Ford's Model T where 00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:18.339 you can get it any color as long as it's black? 00:04:19.360 --> 00:04:23.480 Well, there lies the irony, right? I would say 00:04:23.480 --> 00:04:26.259 well over half the big ERP systems, one of the 00:04:26.259 --> 00:04:28.939 early conversations is always, you know, it's 00:04:28.939 --> 00:04:30.839 costly to update when you do more configurations. 00:04:30.959 --> 00:04:34.360 There's all this additional testing. The more 00:04:34.360 --> 00:04:36.779 you integrate it and really try to make it a 00:04:36.779 --> 00:04:39.800 lifeblood system in your business, every step 00:04:39.800 --> 00:04:41.660 along the way, there's more care and maintenance. 00:04:42.699 --> 00:04:45.759 Again, over half say, we're just going to keep 00:04:45.759 --> 00:04:52.800 it vanilla. The reality is, and maybe the title 00:04:52.800 --> 00:04:55.220 of this podcast is Nobody Likes Vanilla, but 00:04:55.220 --> 00:05:01.439 the reality is that a vanilla -based system It 00:05:01.439 --> 00:05:03.839 lacks any of the nuance that so many of our businesses 00:05:03.839 --> 00:05:07.300 require. Yeah. You know, a service business and 00:05:07.300 --> 00:05:09.180 a product business can use the same software, 00:05:09.259 --> 00:05:11.199 but they have to have certain considerations. 00:05:11.300 --> 00:05:14.040 What about you? What's the, what's the, you know, 00:05:14.060 --> 00:05:16.699 it's, it's interesting. Like I think in my career, 00:05:16.779 --> 00:05:18.360 I've actually never worked at a company that 00:05:18.360 --> 00:05:23.259 had SAP. Wow. You're not good. I know. I'm getting 00:05:23.259 --> 00:05:28.699 better as they would say in Monty Python. I've 00:05:28.699 --> 00:05:31.980 worked with a lot of really good software that 00:05:31.980 --> 00:05:34.939 has just been hacked so that it's just not usable. 00:05:35.480 --> 00:05:40.579 And so I think the Atlassian suite oftentimes 00:05:40.579 --> 00:05:45.680 can lend itself to, you know, someone had a bright 00:05:45.680 --> 00:05:48.959 idea to add a custom field and, you know, someone 00:05:48.959 --> 00:05:51.040 else had a bright idea to add a custom field 00:05:51.040 --> 00:05:53.800 and a thousand fields later, you're stuck with. 00:05:54.329 --> 00:05:59.250 which which what's the due date i'm scrolling 00:05:59.250 --> 00:06:03.610 yeah yeah i i think it's interesting because 00:06:03.610 --> 00:06:06.189 i think most people don't realize that that to 00:06:06.189 --> 00:06:10.389 add to anything like any single software adding 00:06:10.389 --> 00:06:15.550 is so easy and oftentimes it's so wrong and you 00:06:15.550 --> 00:06:19.370 can almost never take it away no like if like 00:06:19.370 --> 00:06:21.569 if you if you look at our wrists like our you 00:06:21.569 --> 00:06:23.589 know if you look at our wrists we have all these 00:06:23.589 --> 00:06:25.449 bones on our wrists what are they for we're not 00:06:25.449 --> 00:06:27.649 really sure that's right but they were added 00:06:27.649 --> 00:06:31.290 they're really hard to take away yeah i'm not 00:06:31.290 --> 00:06:33.069 experimenting with that i'll take your word for 00:06:33.069 --> 00:06:38.329 that but but you're right it's it does seem like 00:06:38.329 --> 00:06:42.170 it's easier to add layers and typically when 00:06:42.170 --> 00:06:47.029 process changes we We do our best to offer some 00:06:47.029 --> 00:06:49.350 measure of change control, but then we tweak 00:06:49.350 --> 00:06:53.589 what's in place. Yep. And there's a whole host 00:06:53.589 --> 00:06:57.689 of really good arguments for doing that. Yeah. 00:06:58.009 --> 00:07:01.930 To do a wholesale tear out of a process is expensive 00:07:01.930 --> 00:07:05.029 and can put your businesses at risk. Yeah. Yeah. 00:07:05.230 --> 00:07:07.649 You know, talk to me about there's probably some 00:07:07.649 --> 00:07:10.490 elements. Maybe it's not an ugly acronym like 00:07:10.490 --> 00:07:15.730 RACI. But there's some elements that. When you 00:07:15.730 --> 00:07:18.149 bring this up and thinking about how SOC plays 00:07:18.149 --> 00:07:20.709 a role in organizational process, what are some 00:07:20.709 --> 00:07:23.089 of those elements that come to mind? Yeah, I 00:07:23.089 --> 00:07:24.970 think there's workflow, right? So you've got 00:07:24.970 --> 00:07:27.509 Jira Service Management, you've got Zendesk, 00:07:27.509 --> 00:07:34.810 you've got reporting, and I delineate between 00:07:34.810 --> 00:07:38.329 reporting and analysis. Whereas reporting is 00:07:38.329 --> 00:07:40.290 something that's delivered on a regular basis 00:07:40.290 --> 00:07:43.189 from a system. It doesn't change. Yeah. Whereas 00:07:43.189 --> 00:07:49.230 analysis is single one time and can't be reproduced. 00:07:49.290 --> 00:07:52.230 However, within business, that is a nuanced thing 00:07:52.230 --> 00:07:55.550 that most people don't understand in that like 00:07:55.550 --> 00:07:58.689 an executive asked for something and they get 00:07:58.689 --> 00:08:03.829 delivered something that's subpar or semi made 00:08:03.829 --> 00:08:06.680 up. But now the executive says, we want you to 00:08:06.680 --> 00:08:09.079 reproduce this. And so it gets reproduced, right? 00:08:09.240 --> 00:08:13.279 That's right. And then I think there's a prediction 00:08:13.279 --> 00:08:16.480 component or prediction slash roadmap, right? 00:08:16.620 --> 00:08:21.699 Like how do we do things? And then planning. 00:08:22.579 --> 00:08:26.000 And then the last thing that kind of gets lost 00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:29.180 is status updates. Like I've been thinking a 00:08:29.180 --> 00:08:32.000 lot about like how many tools we use and how 00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:35.620 we use them. And it's crazy. Like, we literally 00:08:35.620 --> 00:08:38.100 don't realize that probably in a given day, we 00:08:38.100 --> 00:08:41.460 probably touched 30 to 40 different tools. Wow. 00:08:42.419 --> 00:08:48.139 Like, what's email for? Yeah. Like, it's not, 00:08:48.220 --> 00:08:51.460 like, and where this stuff breaks down oftentimes 00:08:51.460 --> 00:08:57.139 is you see Excel being your reporting slash analytics 00:08:57.139 --> 00:09:00.960 slash workflow slash everything tool because 00:09:00.960 --> 00:09:03.610 it's flexible. Yeah. And then you have email 00:09:03.610 --> 00:09:06.649 being the planning and notification. And yet, 00:09:06.750 --> 00:09:09.909 I don't think email was ever meant for that. 00:09:10.289 --> 00:09:13.789 No. In that way, we're kind of like cavemen, 00:09:13.830 --> 00:09:18.269 right? We've got a stick and a rock, and we use 00:09:18.269 --> 00:09:22.149 them to hunt, and we use it for a pillow, and 00:09:22.149 --> 00:09:28.529 it's our toy and entertainment. It's just we 00:09:28.529 --> 00:09:32.009 don't have other alternatives. Yeah, you're right. 00:09:32.269 --> 00:09:36.190 I personally use email as really kind of my hub 00:09:36.190 --> 00:09:39.950 of communications and tracking. Yeah. Yes, it 00:09:39.950 --> 00:09:41.710 does have some of those fundamental things like 00:09:41.710 --> 00:09:44.789 reminders. But in any given day, I may use email 00:09:44.789 --> 00:09:48.350 and provide updates inside of a shared piece 00:09:48.350 --> 00:09:52.230 of software. Yep. And use Slack and text and 00:09:52.230 --> 00:09:54.809 then all the variety of meeting platforms that 00:09:54.809 --> 00:09:57.580 we use now. Well, and one of the things to think 00:09:57.580 --> 00:09:59.740 about as you're thinking about process debt is 00:09:59.740 --> 00:10:04.759 we are oftentimes being sucked into these like 00:10:04.759 --> 00:10:08.580 time suck warps. Meaning if you go into your 00:10:08.580 --> 00:10:12.559 email, are you focused? Oh no, it's just a distracting, 00:10:12.659 --> 00:10:16.899 distracting area of landmines. Oh, and then you 00:10:16.899 --> 00:10:19.620 just got a text on your phone. Why am I playing 00:10:19.620 --> 00:10:27.620 Angry Birds now? There's this really weird thing 00:10:27.620 --> 00:10:31.899 where it's like, where does the work live? Where's 00:10:31.899 --> 00:10:35.019 my process? Where's my workflow? And the thing 00:10:35.019 --> 00:10:37.159 is, we just don't talk about it. And so we all 00:10:37.159 --> 00:10:39.500 assume that we're right and we're all doing it 00:10:39.500 --> 00:10:42.740 differently. And our core tenets of like, is 00:10:42.740 --> 00:10:45.379 it discoverable and is it transferable? Right? 00:10:45.539 --> 00:10:48.379 We actually don't know, but we believe it is. 00:10:48.500 --> 00:10:52.879 And therein lies the problem. Yeah. Yeah. For 00:10:52.879 --> 00:10:56.600 a country of less religious folks, we have a 00:10:56.600 --> 00:10:58.860 high degree of faith that things will magically 00:10:58.860 --> 00:11:04.519 happen. Oh, yeah. You know, and when it comes 00:11:04.519 --> 00:11:07.480 to process, we take the handoff from person upstream 00:11:07.480 --> 00:11:09.399 and then we give it to the next person downstream 00:11:09.399 --> 00:11:13.500 and we walk away and said we did our job. But 00:11:13.500 --> 00:11:17.899 that's, you know, that's not a finished thing. 00:11:18.620 --> 00:11:21.000 gotten so expert, especially in larger organizations, 00:11:21.259 --> 00:11:23.860 that we rarely see a transaction tip to tail. 00:11:24.700 --> 00:11:28.220 Yeah, for sure. I don't know that we've talked 00:11:28.220 --> 00:11:31.259 on this, but I've been recently doing some work 00:11:31.259 --> 00:11:34.940 around real estate renovation for a client. And 00:11:34.940 --> 00:11:38.600 this is an opportunity to really see in a very 00:11:38.600 --> 00:11:41.259 physical way what happens when those handoffs 00:11:41.259 --> 00:11:44.620 break. What happens if you don't get your permits 00:11:44.620 --> 00:11:47.440 or inspections or what happens if... The cement 00:11:47.440 --> 00:11:49.720 guy shows up and nobody's there to see him and 00:11:49.720 --> 00:11:52.899 get stuff poured. Like so many places stuff breaks. 00:11:53.159 --> 00:11:56.919 But I think in our digital corporate world, there's 00:11:56.919 --> 00:11:59.159 not that same sense of urgency. We don't have 00:11:59.159 --> 00:12:01.379 the weather beating on us to keep us focused 00:12:01.379 --> 00:12:03.580 and on the timeline. And so things kind of drift, 00:12:03.659 --> 00:12:07.200 you know? Yeah. Well, and the other thing is 00:12:07.200 --> 00:12:09.480 like the just definition of done oftentimes is 00:12:09.480 --> 00:12:13.120 unclean. It's like, you know, where, and I think, 00:12:13.120 --> 00:12:14.419 you know, one of the things that we've talked 00:12:14.419 --> 00:12:16.580 about is like, what are you doing? Are you just 00:12:16.580 --> 00:12:18.440 drafting something up? Then just do a crappy 00:12:18.440 --> 00:12:23.580 video. And then we'll figure out if it's important 00:12:23.580 --> 00:12:28.360 later. Yeah. Well, I think on this notion of 00:12:28.360 --> 00:12:31.039 is there a race for software, where should the 00:12:31.039 --> 00:12:36.399 technology be the system of record? Oh, yeah, 00:12:36.460 --> 00:12:38.299 for sure. That's that kind of accountable piece. 00:12:38.480 --> 00:12:44.059 Where is it consulted? And so oftentimes... We 00:12:44.059 --> 00:12:46.559 put process into technology, but then when we 00:12:46.559 --> 00:12:49.120 build out the access model, we strip out people 00:12:49.120 --> 00:12:51.279 that need to consult the very data we capture. 00:12:51.759 --> 00:12:55.700 And so now we've artificially separated them 00:12:55.700 --> 00:12:59.940 and made their lives harder. But then the informed 00:12:59.940 --> 00:13:04.200 piece, too, back to reporting and analytics, 00:13:04.600 --> 00:13:09.220 they are not the same. Oh, it's interesting. 00:13:09.539 --> 00:13:11.539 I think it would be very interesting. it would 00:13:11.539 --> 00:13:13.320 you know not that you could do this but like 00:13:13.320 --> 00:13:17.360 if every single report you just simply had a 00:13:17.360 --> 00:13:21.919 stamp of this is a one -time analysis or this 00:13:21.919 --> 00:13:24.840 is repeatable yeah and what you would find i 00:13:24.840 --> 00:13:28.299 think what you would find is you would find that 00:13:28.299 --> 00:13:32.779 most processes are driven from a report down 00:13:32.779 --> 00:13:38.799 then versus a process up yeah You're talking 00:13:38.799 --> 00:13:43.519 hierarchically in the organization. Yeah. Something's 00:13:43.519 --> 00:13:46.320 missing in a report and therefore we need to 00:13:46.320 --> 00:13:49.299 add this thing to the report. Yeah. And so then 00:13:49.299 --> 00:13:53.820 we manufacture that into our process. And the 00:13:53.820 --> 00:13:57.080 process is really good until they ignore the 00:13:57.080 --> 00:14:02.299 report. But the report lives on for decades. 00:14:02.440 --> 00:14:07.529 Yeah. And then. But that process either stops, 00:14:07.570 --> 00:14:11.149 there's entropy, or you get a who's on first 00:14:11.149 --> 00:14:13.049 type thing where it's like, I don't know who's 00:14:13.049 --> 00:14:16.110 doing the report. It just magically shows up 00:14:16.110 --> 00:14:18.389 in the spreadsheet. And they realize that that 00:14:18.389 --> 00:14:21.129 data is stale from, you know, 94 or something 00:14:21.129 --> 00:14:25.850 like that. Chris, we're coming up on the end 00:14:25.850 --> 00:14:28.710 of time. And so one of my favorite memes going 00:14:28.710 --> 00:14:31.669 around right now is a guy's girlfriend is losing 00:14:31.669 --> 00:14:35.460 her mind. And he comes to him and says, hey, 00:14:35.460 --> 00:14:38.159 I can't keep up with all the laundry. You know, 00:14:38.200 --> 00:14:40.460 the house is a mess. He's like, oh, wait, come 00:14:40.460 --> 00:14:43.120 here. Let me show you. He walks her into the 00:14:43.120 --> 00:14:44.960 laundry room. He says, I just dumped my dirty 00:14:44.960 --> 00:14:48.240 laundry in this basket. And a day later, it shows 00:14:48.240 --> 00:14:52.600 up in my dresser and it's clean and folded. And 00:14:52.600 --> 00:14:55.799 you can see her like starting to boil. And he's 00:14:55.799 --> 00:14:58.940 like, come into the kitchen. I leave my crap 00:14:58.940 --> 00:15:03.039 all over. But when I walk away, it gets cleaned 00:15:03.039 --> 00:15:05.379 up and it's back in the cupboards. And I think 00:15:05.379 --> 00:15:08.419 that people kind of expect process to work like 00:15:08.419 --> 00:15:11.419 that. You know, if I ignore it long enough, somebody 00:15:11.419 --> 00:15:14.860 else will magically, the fairies will come in 00:15:14.860 --> 00:15:17.159 and they'll fix it. You know, they'll put things 00:15:17.159 --> 00:15:23.500 back in the proper places. So, yes. And the closer 00:15:23.500 --> 00:15:27.399 you get to the root of whatever it is, it's just 00:15:27.399 --> 00:15:30.669 nuanced. solely wants and like it takes so much 00:15:30.669 --> 00:15:33.970 like i like it takes so much of that slow thinking 00:15:33.970 --> 00:15:38.169 of like why do we want this how do we use this 00:15:38.169 --> 00:15:41.129 right which is why like anytime anytime someone 00:15:41.129 --> 00:15:43.470 asked me about a report i'm like or creating 00:15:43.470 --> 00:15:45.590 specifically a new report like i had someone 00:15:45.590 --> 00:15:47.090 asked me today i was like they were like hey 00:15:47.090 --> 00:15:49.450 i need to create this report and i was like do 00:15:49.450 --> 00:15:54.100 it as simple and as easy as you can And if it 00:15:54.100 --> 00:15:57.039 gets used, they will tell you if you want more 00:15:57.039 --> 00:15:59.159 information. Yeah. And then you will find that 00:15:59.159 --> 00:16:00.940 the information that you're providing is not 00:16:00.940 --> 00:16:02.379 that good. And so you're going to have to clean 00:16:02.379 --> 00:16:04.480 it up. But the reality is, is they're probably 00:16:04.480 --> 00:16:06.480 not going to want to clean it up. And so it's 00:16:06.480 --> 00:16:09.320 significantly easier to ask for more and more 00:16:09.320 --> 00:16:12.159 reports and more metrics that you don't have 00:16:12.159 --> 00:16:14.399 to think about. And so in some ways it becomes 00:16:14.399 --> 00:16:17.860 this easy out for management. Yeah. It's really 00:16:17.860 --> 00:16:20.259 like there's nothing more frustrating, and I 00:16:20.259 --> 00:16:23.120 like data, but there's nothing more frustrating 00:16:23.120 --> 00:16:27.039 than just grinding and being asked to deliver 00:16:27.039 --> 00:16:31.440 data, delivering data, and have it be dismissed 00:16:31.440 --> 00:16:37.559 because the data doesn't match the confirmation 00:16:37.559 --> 00:16:42.240 bias that they want. Yeah, that must be wrong 00:16:42.240 --> 00:16:44.730 because that's not what I thought. There you 00:16:44.730 --> 00:16:48.129 go. You know what? I think on our 24th session, 00:16:48.289 --> 00:16:53.429 we may have just created the longest. Oh, love 00:16:53.429 --> 00:16:56.649 it. Yeah. This podcast also not brought to you 00:16:56.649 --> 00:16:59.070 by the assholes at Fabletics. That's correct. 00:16:59.210 --> 00:17:01.289 We do not like them. They're not our favorite. 00:17:01.429 --> 00:17:03.710 All right, dude, we will catch you, catch you 00:17:03.710 --> 00:17:05.970 next week, man. It's a deal. All right. Thanks.