WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:04.000 Not long ago, I introduced someone named Kevin Sutherland, who's doing really 2 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:07.800 interesting work in large-scale agility in the governmental public service 3 00:00:07.800 --> 00:00:11.000 space. So I decided to have him on the show because I think what he's 4 00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:14.760 doing and how he approaches it is something that we could all learn from. One 5 00:00:14.760 --> 00:00:18.400 of the biggest challenges we face in implementing agile is doing 6 00:00:18.400 --> 00:00:22.080 it at scale in large environments where the number of people, 7 00:00:22.240 --> 00:00:25.520 complexity, dependencies can really obstruct 8 00:00:26.020 --> 00:00:29.700 the value that we're trying to unlock. And Kevin is out there finding solutions, 9 00:00:29.780 --> 00:00:33.500 tweaking things, blowing things up and rebuilding them all in service 10 00:00:33.500 --> 00:00:37.140 of one thing, using Agile to get value to 11 00:00:37.140 --> 00:00:40.900 people who in this case desperately need it. I think you'll really enjoy 12 00:00:40.900 --> 00:00:44.740 this one. Check him out. That's this week on the Badass Agile Podcast. 13 00:00:52.420 --> 00:00:55.860 Greetings team. Welcome to the Badass Agile Podcast. 14 00:00:55.940 --> 00:00:57.770 I'm your host, Chris Williams. 15 00:01:06.080 --> 00:01:09.920 Hey Kevin, how you doing, man? Hey, good. How are you? Very good. 16 00:01:09.920 --> 00:01:13.300 Thank you for coming. I'm really excited to talk to you. Awesome. Yeah, it's great. 17 00:01:13.300 --> 00:01:16.720 Glad to be here. Now, first of all, where are you from? Like, where are 18 00:01:16.720 --> 00:01:19.720 you at right now? Where am I speaking to you at? I'm in the Des 19 00:01:19.720 --> 00:01:23.400 Moines, Iowa area in a smaller suburb called Ankeny. Very 20 00:01:23.400 --> 00:01:27.140 nice. Well, welcome. I'm just north of Toronto here in Canada. I want some 21 00:01:27.140 --> 00:01:30.820 of your background. I, I have some things to tell my listeners about how I 22 00:01:30.820 --> 00:01:34.500 know you or, or how we got to start talking, but I thought I'd let 23 00:01:34.500 --> 00:01:38.300 you go first. Tell me a little bit about your background. Sure. I, uh, 24 00:01:38.300 --> 00:01:41.860 started my career with Accenture out in California implementing these 25 00:01:41.860 --> 00:01:45.580 large organizational and system transformations. Actually grew up in Iowa, 26 00:01:45.580 --> 00:01:49.340 graduated from Iowa State, and made my way out there because my brother was out 27 00:01:49.340 --> 00:01:53.100 there Long story there, but it was probably the time I 28 00:01:53.100 --> 00:01:56.780 started was around the same time the Agile Manifesto was being signed. 29 00:01:56.780 --> 00:02:00.340 So at that time, Accenture was still all in on full-out 30 00:02:00.540 --> 00:02:03.860 waterfall methodologies. Accenture actually had a proprietary 31 00:02:03.860 --> 00:02:07.060 delivery method that everyone was trained on called 32 00:02:07.220 --> 00:02:11.060 Accenture Delivery Methodology. And it's kind of funny looking back 33 00:02:11.060 --> 00:02:14.620 now 'cause you see a lot of these people talking about SAFe and complaining about 34 00:02:14.620 --> 00:02:18.250 the structure and complexity. ADM was like thousands of pages 35 00:02:18.250 --> 00:02:22.010 of how to explicitly execute a waterfall project. It 36 00:02:22.010 --> 00:02:25.770 was really something. And so the first project I was on, we 37 00:02:25.770 --> 00:02:29.010 got to see some of the results of that. I was on the implementation support 38 00:02:29.090 --> 00:02:32.770 team, which I have a lot of crazy stories about, one of which 39 00:02:32.770 --> 00:02:36.530 was we were doing implementation support for staff in the 40 00:02:37.010 --> 00:02:40.570 offices where they were using the system that we delivered. We 41 00:02:40.570 --> 00:02:43.010 arrived at their office and the staff were outside 42 00:02:44.110 --> 00:02:47.790 picketing basically us. They had gone to the trouble of making 43 00:02:47.950 --> 00:02:51.710 t-shirts with our system name on it, a big X through it. 44 00:02:51.710 --> 00:02:54.630 They were chanting, you know, we hate your system, we won't use it, that kind 45 00:02:54.630 --> 00:02:57.910 of thing. I mean, just think of how much you have to hate a computer 46 00:02:57.910 --> 00:03:01.390 system to go to that level of trouble, right? 47 00:03:02.270 --> 00:03:05.990 Anyway, that's just a story from my earlier days learning 48 00:03:05.990 --> 00:03:09.580 about Waterfall, but around 2012, agile 49 00:03:09.580 --> 00:03:12.820 approaches had made their way to places like Accenture. 50 00:03:13.220 --> 00:03:16.980 So instead of going to this ADM training, we started sending folks to Scrum training, 51 00:03:16.980 --> 00:03:20.820 we started selling projects as agile projects. We sold one of those 52 00:03:20.820 --> 00:03:24.580 to the state of Iowa, and I relocated back to Iowa to deliver 53 00:03:24.580 --> 00:03:28.300 one of those projects. And looking back at the contract that we 54 00:03:28.300 --> 00:03:31.660 were working on, nearly the only thing that was agile about it was that the 55 00:03:31.660 --> 00:03:35.020 customer could change their mind frequently about the 700-page 56 00:03:35.380 --> 00:03:39.170 contract. The hundreds of system requirements that all still had to be 57 00:03:39.170 --> 00:03:42.890 delivered anyway. And so needless 58 00:03:42.890 --> 00:03:46.530 to say, after exhausting the entire schedule and 59 00:03:46.530 --> 00:03:49.730 budget of that project, we were about 15% complete 60 00:03:50.370 --> 00:03:53.770 with the actual contract scope. I ended up making a decision to leave 61 00:03:53.770 --> 00:03:57.610 Accenture at that point, started my own company, Strategic 62 00:03:57.610 --> 00:04:00.930 Innovation Consulting, with this mission of bringing better 63 00:04:00.930 --> 00:04:04.650 strategy to these state government contexts to improve outcomes for 64 00:04:04.650 --> 00:04:08.440 people rather than just focusing on the implementation 65 00:04:08.440 --> 00:04:12.280 of systems. And so, I've been working more on the state side as 66 00:04:12.280 --> 00:04:16.000 an independent consultant to help with this mission. You know, at the same time, I 67 00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:19.520 became much more engaged in the Agile community, which offers 68 00:04:19.520 --> 00:04:23.200 principles that I think are very aligned to that goal. And I became 69 00:04:23.200 --> 00:04:26.480 a consistent listener of this podcast, of the Badass Agile 70 00:04:26.480 --> 00:04:30.160 Podcast, which I think resonates very strongly with the mission 71 00:04:30.160 --> 00:04:34.000 and gave me the encouragement to keep trying to change the world for 72 00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:37.520 the better, even though the world isn't super interested in being 73 00:04:37.520 --> 00:04:41.200 changed. So, Chris, thank you for that. Of course. Well, thank you. 74 00:04:41.360 --> 00:04:44.200 Thank you for listening. So I want to touch on a couple of things there 75 00:04:44.200 --> 00:04:47.320 that I think will be really valuable to this audience, because when we think of 76 00:04:47.320 --> 00:04:50.800 doing agile in government, we think about resistance and we think about 77 00:04:51.280 --> 00:04:54.960 problems at scale. But I want to hear it from you. You've been doing 78 00:04:55.360 --> 00:04:58.720 work for the state of Minnesota lately. 79 00:04:59.120 --> 00:05:02.720 What are some of the unique challenges that you found in that experience 80 00:05:02.800 --> 00:05:06.110 and the ones prior? That large governmental 81 00:05:06.110 --> 00:05:09.670 organizations carry? Yeah, 82 00:05:09.670 --> 00:05:13.390 sure. So, you know, and actually it's interesting, I found that 83 00:05:13.790 --> 00:05:17.470 in doing both work with state governments as well as 84 00:05:17.710 --> 00:05:21.510 some work in my history of working with corporations, one 85 00:05:21.510 --> 00:05:25.150 thing that's interesting is that a lot of the same big challenges that people 86 00:05:25.150 --> 00:05:28.910 see and are concerned about are very similar across the two. 87 00:05:28.910 --> 00:05:32.640 So these you know, having outdated legacy systems, these command and 88 00:05:32.640 --> 00:05:36.440 control hierarchies, lots of bureaucracy that gets in 89 00:05:36.440 --> 00:05:40.200 the way of decision-making, long planning and funding cycles, 90 00:05:40.680 --> 00:05:44.240 you know, siloed teams that end up with order-takers as opposed to 91 00:05:44.240 --> 00:05:48.000 empowered delivery practitioners. But I think there 92 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:51.640 are a few very unique challenges that are specific to 93 00:05:51.640 --> 00:05:55.160 government that create issues that corporations don't have to deal with. 94 00:05:56.260 --> 00:05:59.980 One of those is that the impacts are different in 95 00:05:59.980 --> 00:06:03.621 how they're handled. You know, there's a lot of talk these days about outcomes, and 96 00:06:03.780 --> 00:06:07.060 if you follow someone like Jeff Patton, they have really good content on 97 00:06:07.540 --> 00:06:11.340 output versus outcomes and impact, which I think everybody should check out 98 00:06:11.340 --> 00:06:14.940 his stuff on that. But if you look at what he's saying 99 00:06:14.940 --> 00:06:18.020 there, when he describes impact 100 00:06:18.820 --> 00:06:22.660 in his content, he's referring mostly to commercial impact, so whether 101 00:06:22.660 --> 00:06:26.320 the business is profitable increasing market share, commercially 102 00:06:26.320 --> 00:06:29.440 viable, and it's pretty clear where 103 00:06:29.920 --> 00:06:33.440 everybody wants to be going in those environments. But in government, 104 00:06:33.840 --> 00:06:37.280 it's quite different. There are, you know, we often don't have 105 00:06:37.280 --> 00:06:41.120 paying customers. In some cases, we're talking about a captive 106 00:06:41.120 --> 00:06:44.800 set of people who have really no other choice than to rely on the services 107 00:06:44.800 --> 00:06:48.240 that they need from the government. And helping these people actually 108 00:06:48.240 --> 00:06:51.600 costs money. So making the experience better for them 109 00:06:51.760 --> 00:06:55.400 might mean we spend more money. And now we have this 110 00:06:55.400 --> 00:06:58.700 dilemma because there's competing outcomes depending on 111 00:06:58.700 --> 00:07:02.500 politics. If, you know, is it more important to help people or is it more 112 00:07:02.500 --> 00:07:06.260 important to spend fewer dollars? So like if you imagine working at 113 00:07:06.260 --> 00:07:09.900 a company and you had, in addition to all the typical 114 00:07:09.900 --> 00:07:13.380 stuff you're dealing with, you had half of your leadership that's launching initiatives that are 115 00:07:13.380 --> 00:07:16.420 intended to make it harder to buy your products. It's, you know, that's something that 116 00:07:16.420 --> 00:07:20.060 it feels like often in a government environment. For an agile 117 00:07:20.060 --> 00:07:23.580 practitioner who is rooted in and interested in 118 00:07:23.580 --> 00:07:27.180 helping companies get results faster, some of the challenges that you 119 00:07:27.180 --> 00:07:30.880 didn't mention that are under the hood in a governmental organization would be regulation, of 120 00:07:30.880 --> 00:07:34.640 course. You mentioned politics, but really, we can't just do 121 00:07:34.640 --> 00:07:37.880 things however. There's a strong element of 122 00:07:37.880 --> 00:07:40.920 oversight and following the laws and the rules 123 00:07:41.640 --> 00:07:45.160 and probably changing in response to changing economic 124 00:07:45.320 --> 00:07:48.920 policy, among others. So that creates interesting 125 00:07:48.920 --> 00:07:52.440 challenges specifically for agile practitioners who aren't just trying to get 126 00:07:52.520 --> 00:07:56.110 the ball across the goal line. They're trying to do this 127 00:07:56.110 --> 00:07:59.910 thing faster, better, with less waste, presumably, as a 128 00:07:59.910 --> 00:08:03.430 starting set of principles. What have been some of the interesting 129 00:08:03.430 --> 00:08:07.190 challenges in doing Agile in that environment that people who've 130 00:08:07.190 --> 00:08:10.910 never worked in government might not know? Well, I mean, 131 00:08:11.230 --> 00:08:15.070 this one's kind of interesting. When I talk a lot of these challenges that 132 00:08:15.070 --> 00:08:18.270 are unique in government, I wouldn't say that any of these 133 00:08:18.910 --> 00:08:22.670 specifically cause something that's different for Agile practitioners 134 00:08:22.670 --> 00:08:26.470 in those spaces than in other spots. And I guess I 135 00:08:26.470 --> 00:08:30.310 would say that in my experience, when I'm 136 00:08:30.310 --> 00:08:34.030 looking at Agile and its practitioners, and when I say that, I mean 137 00:08:34.030 --> 00:08:37.430 people that are bringing truly the mindset of 138 00:08:37.430 --> 00:08:41.270 Agile principles to the table, what I'm encountering 139 00:08:41.270 --> 00:08:45.110 is that most of these folks avoid these environments entirely 140 00:08:45.110 --> 00:08:48.870 because they just don't support it. And it's for that reason that 141 00:08:48.870 --> 00:08:51.670 I don't see many of those folks engaged 142 00:08:52.790 --> 00:08:56.490 in these contexts. They just don't survive, which is, Really common 143 00:08:56.490 --> 00:09:00.250 feedback I've gotten over the past 10 years when I've been really trying 144 00:09:00.250 --> 00:09:03.971 to take this question to the Agile community, you know, saying, hey, we've 145 00:09:03.971 --> 00:09:07.290 really got something here that I think could be effective and helpful in some of 146 00:09:07.290 --> 00:09:11.050 these more complex government constructs where you have a lot of the things that 147 00:09:11.050 --> 00:09:14.170 you just mentioned, the regulation and a lot of those issues, we could apply some 148 00:09:14.170 --> 00:09:17.850 of these concepts. And a lot of the main feedback I get 149 00:09:17.850 --> 00:09:21.570 is, hey, Kevin, you can't. I don't know why you 150 00:09:21.570 --> 00:09:25.130 keep trying. You should stop. Or they'll say things 151 00:09:25.130 --> 00:09:28.570 like, you know what, I'm rooting for you. Good luck, man, let me know when 152 00:09:28.570 --> 00:09:32.330 you've found a path that everyone else can follow. And so 153 00:09:32.330 --> 00:09:35.370 I do think that's one problem that all these issues cause is that 154 00:09:35.930 --> 00:09:39.210 the true concepts of principles of Agile and product just 155 00:09:39.530 --> 00:09:42.890 aren't welcome, and a lot of people are saying no thanks, which 156 00:09:43.130 --> 00:09:46.850 means we're left mostly with folks that don't understand the 157 00:09:46.850 --> 00:09:50.690 principles or don't mind them throwing them out the window, calling something 158 00:09:50.690 --> 00:09:54.410 a product that's not a product, running sprints to write requirements, basically using 159 00:09:54.410 --> 00:09:57.590 Agile and product theater and not really 160 00:09:58.390 --> 00:10:01.510 adhering to some of those underpinning principles. 161 00:10:01.990 --> 00:10:04.910 And so then the end result of that is a lot of the folks in 162 00:10:04.910 --> 00:10:08.070 these environments just end up hating those Agile words in general. 163 00:10:09.510 --> 00:10:13.030 And so one of the things that I try to do to address that 164 00:10:13.510 --> 00:10:17.190 is to apply a lot of the concepts but not use any of the words. 165 00:10:17.510 --> 00:10:21.270 Rebrand. That tends to be helpful. Well, so that 166 00:10:21.670 --> 00:10:25.510 leads into my next question. You're talking about how are you gonna handle solve 167 00:10:25.510 --> 00:10:29.210 that problem. So you mentioned, just to recap, that the 168 00:10:29.210 --> 00:10:32.770 Agile principles are not necessarily cherished there, and they may even become a bad 169 00:10:32.770 --> 00:10:36.370 word because there's been a lot of friction or maybe bad experiences. 170 00:10:36.850 --> 00:10:40.210 So what are you doing then? What's been successful for you 171 00:10:40.450 --> 00:10:43.170 that listeners might be able to leverage and try for themselves? 172 00:10:44.610 --> 00:10:47.410 Yeah, sure. So I think there's two answers to this one. 173 00:10:48.770 --> 00:10:52.530 One is around like the incremental answer that people could go and try this 174 00:10:52.530 --> 00:10:56.210 for themselves, and the other being the transformational answer that is a lot of what 175 00:10:56.210 --> 00:10:59.790 I've been working on in terms of putting strategy around how do we shift this 176 00:10:59.790 --> 00:11:03.630 entire conversation to be different. And so I guess I can jump in on 177 00:11:03.630 --> 00:11:07.390 the incremental answer. Sure. Which, you know, this is what I've found, you 178 00:11:07.390 --> 00:11:11.230 know, how I've been trying to apply these, you know, these principles in the 179 00:11:11.230 --> 00:11:14.590 way I've interacted. And I mean, I guess the easy way to explain 180 00:11:14.750 --> 00:11:18.270 my thoughts on this is be useful, right? Become 181 00:11:18.670 --> 00:11:22.270 a person that people think of when they need something to get done effectively. 182 00:11:22.740 --> 00:11:26.340 With a good outcome and without angering everybody. And in 183 00:11:26.420 --> 00:11:30.180 these government environments, people like that are fairly rare, so you'll, you'll stand 184 00:11:30.180 --> 00:11:33.380 out if that's you. And also, in a government environment, 185 00:11:34.340 --> 00:11:38.100 urgency— urgent emergencies can come up quite a bit. And in these emergencies, people 186 00:11:38.100 --> 00:11:41.820 are often willing to forego a lot of that structure that they 187 00:11:41.820 --> 00:11:45.500 are comfortable with and willing to grant autonomy to you to get 188 00:11:45.500 --> 00:11:48.500 something done if they're backed into a corner and just are out of options. 189 00:11:49.460 --> 00:11:51.860 And so that happened to me quite a bit when I spent a lot of 190 00:11:51.860 --> 00:11:54.780 time at the state of Iowa and the PMO lead would come to me and 191 00:11:54.780 --> 00:11:58.581 say things like, hey, you know, XYZ team has been working on this 192 00:11:58.581 --> 00:12:02.341 for months and hasn't made much progress other than writing requirements. But now we're 193 00:12:02.341 --> 00:12:05.501 at a deadline, we need to get something to the legislature in a month, and 194 00:12:05.501 --> 00:12:08.261 we're going to come back and show you something in a week and get feedback. 195 00:12:08.340 --> 00:12:11.860 Cool. And, you know, at that point, 196 00:12:11.940 --> 00:12:15.700 now we're using all of the Agile fundamentals without saying any Agile words and 197 00:12:15.700 --> 00:12:19.220 starting to deliver amazing results. And I guess the 198 00:12:19.220 --> 00:12:22.820 challenging part about that is, you know, once the emergency is over, 199 00:12:23.540 --> 00:12:27.260 the culture starts to just gradually undo some of these 200 00:12:27.260 --> 00:12:30.820 behaviors and mindsets that we've instilled because it's what it's 201 00:12:30.820 --> 00:12:34.340 designed to do. And then we might have, you know, a few people that could 202 00:12:34.340 --> 00:12:37.900 keep these things going if they had support, but it's really hard to get it 203 00:12:37.900 --> 00:12:41.620 to stick. Like lasting, durable change through that incremental 204 00:12:41.620 --> 00:12:45.060 method is not something I've personally been able to make happen. 205 00:12:45.910 --> 00:12:49.190 Which really takes us to that transformational answer, which is where I've been spending a 206 00:12:49.190 --> 00:12:52.950 lot of my time and energy over the last 10 years. So before 207 00:12:52.950 --> 00:12:56.550 you get into it, and I want to hear about it, the— there's something 208 00:12:56.550 --> 00:12:59.870 important what you just said there. When I'm teaching teams, I frequently refer to the 209 00:12:59.870 --> 00:13:03.670 Apollo 13 moment. You ever see that movie? Yep. Yeah. So they, 210 00:13:03.670 --> 00:13:07.350 they realize all of a sudden, because the spaceship basically split in half in flight, 211 00:13:07.750 --> 00:13:11.310 so they had two different filtration systems, and the one that they're sitting in has 212 00:13:11.310 --> 00:13:14.820 the wrong filters for the one that they're sitting in. So they have to 213 00:13:14.820 --> 00:13:18.020 radio down and say, we have a problem, we're gonna run out of breathable air 214 00:13:18.020 --> 00:13:21.860 before we get home. So you see this wonderful scene where everyone 215 00:13:21.860 --> 00:13:25.540 just clears the table and they sit down with all the parts that they know 216 00:13:25.540 --> 00:13:28.340 that they have on the shuttle and none of the ones that they don't, and 217 00:13:28.340 --> 00:13:31.620 they come up and construct a solution. And then they go test it on the 218 00:13:31.620 --> 00:13:35.340 ground before they send the procedure or the protocol 219 00:13:35.740 --> 00:13:38.900 back up to space because they don't wanna send them one that doesn't work, but 220 00:13:38.900 --> 00:13:41.580 they have all the gear on the ground to test it. So it doesn't work, 221 00:13:41.580 --> 00:13:44.770 they reinvent, and then they finally come up with one that works 222 00:13:45.400 --> 00:13:49.120 They upload it and it saves their lives. Then 223 00:13:49.120 --> 00:13:52.800 the panic is over and we go back to regular mission control, which 224 00:13:52.800 --> 00:13:56.560 is kind of like what you just suggested. And the thing that you said 225 00:13:56.560 --> 00:14:00.200 that was so revealing was that the minute the emergency's over, 226 00:14:00.360 --> 00:14:03.960 nobody wants to let the guardrails down and work like a bunch of 227 00:14:03.960 --> 00:14:07.080 high-performance cross-functional people, 228 00:14:07.720 --> 00:14:11.560 experts dedicated to innovating and solving a problem quick. 229 00:14:11.790 --> 00:14:15.390 Which begs the question, is it the right move always to try to 230 00:14:15.390 --> 00:14:19.110 scale agile to the whole organization in every situation? Or 231 00:14:19.110 --> 00:14:22.790 do you just use it when some kind of 232 00:14:22.790 --> 00:14:26.630 urgency demands it? Because to go in and, like you've 233 00:14:26.630 --> 00:14:29.870 said, you've had trouble being successful messing up their steady state 234 00:14:30.030 --> 00:14:33.430 ops. It's really hard to do. They're going to show up and protest you, right? 235 00:14:33.430 --> 00:14:37.150 They're going to lock you out the building. So talk to me about the transformation 236 00:14:37.230 --> 00:14:40.870 part because I want to hear how you would respond to that. Is it maybe 237 00:14:40.870 --> 00:14:44.210 the strategy isn't to try to scale it everywhere, at least at least not at 238 00:14:44.210 --> 00:14:47.930 first, but to put it where it's most needed. How does transformation work 239 00:14:47.930 --> 00:14:51.370 the way you define it? You know, I think that's a great point, 240 00:14:51.530 --> 00:14:55.290 is that, you know, we can see agile potentially 241 00:14:55.290 --> 00:14:58.730 working in some of these pockets that can't be scaled to the whole 242 00:14:58.730 --> 00:15:02.330 organization. But what I think the critical thing 243 00:15:02.330 --> 00:15:05.890 that I run into is that even if we have 244 00:15:05.890 --> 00:15:09.370 agile in a smaller sense, we need an organization that can support it, 245 00:15:10.270 --> 00:15:13.310 will often require, in what I've seen, a pretty significant 246 00:15:13.550 --> 00:15:17.310 transformation to the organizational ecosystem itself, 247 00:15:17.870 --> 00:15:21.550 which really brings us to that transformational answer and has 248 00:15:21.550 --> 00:15:25.230 been what I've been trying to explore and trying to figure out ways 249 00:15:25.230 --> 00:15:29.031 to accomplish over the last 10 years. You know, really answering 250 00:15:29.031 --> 00:15:32.270 this question of what kind of strategy do we need to 251 00:15:32.670 --> 00:15:36.430 execute and shift these environments from their current state 252 00:15:36.510 --> 00:15:40.350 to one that effectively supports what you're asking about as having 253 00:15:41.120 --> 00:15:44.760 pockets of or, you know, some semblance of agile 254 00:15:44.760 --> 00:15:48.440 delivery mechanisms in the environment and providing actual 255 00:15:48.440 --> 00:15:51.920 value to taxpayers from an enterprise standpoint. 256 00:15:52.960 --> 00:15:56.520 And that overall question is probably not one about agility, but I think the 257 00:15:56.520 --> 00:15:59.840 principles are a big part of the answer of how we get from where we're 258 00:15:59.840 --> 00:16:03.680 at today to an ecosystem that does support 259 00:16:03.760 --> 00:16:07.400 that. And I've spent a lot of time in states building out 260 00:16:07.400 --> 00:16:10.870 and testing out strategies for those transformations, 261 00:16:10.870 --> 00:16:14.190 accomplishing this as part of Medicaid enterprise systems 262 00:16:14.190 --> 00:16:17.870 modernization programs. And recently, Minnesota 263 00:16:17.870 --> 00:16:21.150 published their strategy for modernization, which incorporated a lot of these 264 00:16:21.150 --> 00:16:24.870 approaches as part of a request for information, asking for 265 00:16:24.870 --> 00:16:28.470 feedback from the public and vendor community in general. And 266 00:16:28.550 --> 00:16:31.990 that was really cool because, you know, I don't think the response could have been 267 00:16:31.990 --> 00:16:35.750 any more positive. The gist of those responses was basically like, 268 00:16:36.230 --> 00:16:40.070 oh, holy crap, this is a real strategy for actually doing this. Every 269 00:16:40.070 --> 00:16:43.790 state should be looking at this and taking things away to try to shift their 270 00:16:43.790 --> 00:16:47.030 organizational ecosystem to something that can support 271 00:16:47.830 --> 00:16:51.510 agile methods. Right. So tell me, are you willing to tell us about the 272 00:16:51.510 --> 00:16:55.190 strategy? Like, how is it different from what they're doing today, what most 273 00:16:55.190 --> 00:16:58.790 people might expect or experience? Yeah, so 274 00:16:58.870 --> 00:17:02.350 there's, there's a lot to this, so I'll see if I can do this in 275 00:17:02.350 --> 00:17:05.950 a, in concise way, but, you know, I think the 276 00:17:05.950 --> 00:17:09.630 fundamental underlying premise of what we're looking at is that the way 277 00:17:09.630 --> 00:17:13.390 that states are currently looking at modernizing their systems is 278 00:17:13.390 --> 00:17:17.070 resulting in such a poor result that we should almost be 279 00:17:17.070 --> 00:17:20.110 doing the opposite of that in most cases, which is, you know, a lot of 280 00:17:20.110 --> 00:17:23.870 these agile practices actually represent the opposite of what's happening 281 00:17:23.870 --> 00:17:27.550 today. And it may start— may be helpful to start 282 00:17:27.550 --> 00:17:30.710 with, you know, what is the current state and what's typically done, because I don't 283 00:17:30.710 --> 00:17:33.950 know that a lot of folks will be familiar with, you know, how large 284 00:17:34.570 --> 00:17:37.250 state As far as the system implementations go, and there's, you know, for people that 285 00:17:37.250 --> 00:17:41.010 are really interested in reading and learning about this, there's a 286 00:17:41.010 --> 00:17:44.690 book called Recoding America by Jen Palca, which I think does an amazing job of 287 00:17:44.690 --> 00:17:47.610 describing like how did we get to the state that we're at today 288 00:17:48.170 --> 00:17:52.010 of, you know, the effectiveness of these systems and ecosystems in 289 00:17:52.170 --> 00:17:55.570 government. But there's likely, you know, lots of 290 00:17:55.570 --> 00:17:59.130 factors that have led to this. But when it comes to these large 291 00:17:59.130 --> 00:18:02.910 programs like Medicaid or SNAP, or like child 292 00:18:02.910 --> 00:18:06.550 welfare, most states are afflicted by just 293 00:18:06.550 --> 00:18:09.710 decades of policy change and layered-on 294 00:18:10.350 --> 00:18:13.630 updates that affect both policy and technology. 295 00:18:14.510 --> 00:18:18.269 And a lot of them have— they still are using the mainframes that 296 00:18:18.269 --> 00:18:21.470 were developed in the '80s or '90s and have been building that around them. 297 00:18:21.950 --> 00:18:25.630 And legislation that comes through doesn't really focus on 298 00:18:25.630 --> 00:18:29.470 removing complexity or removing rules. It just keeps adding over time. 299 00:18:29.550 --> 00:18:33.150 So the structures just keep getting more and more siloed, more and more fragmented. 300 00:18:34.780 --> 00:18:38.300 Everybody starts buying products and they all do the same thing and 301 00:18:38.380 --> 00:18:41.580 there's money being spent in a lot of different places. So it just gets harder 302 00:18:41.580 --> 00:18:45.260 and harder to maintain this. Data's fragmented and 303 00:18:45.260 --> 00:18:48.620 people want to fix it, of course, right? So the way that people 304 00:18:49.179 --> 00:18:53.020 typically approach this is seeing the problems and the 305 00:18:53.020 --> 00:18:56.820 symptoms that are coming out of the environment, which look to them like, oh, 306 00:18:56.820 --> 00:19:00.060 we have a mainframe, our people are still using this green screen, You 307 00:19:00.060 --> 00:19:03.840 know, fraud is coming up because we don't have a good understanding or grasp 308 00:19:03.840 --> 00:19:07.560 of our data. And the way that the problem 309 00:19:07.560 --> 00:19:10.841 solver instinct in all of us wants to, wants to address those is by 310 00:19:11.560 --> 00:19:15.160 having an easy button solution to that problem. So like, oh, 311 00:19:15.160 --> 00:19:18.840 we're still using a mainframe, replace the mainframe, or we don't understand our data, 312 00:19:19.160 --> 00:19:22.610 let's implement a data governance program, whatever, whatever that means. And then 313 00:19:22.920 --> 00:19:26.720 in government, like, these massive efforts take a really long time to 314 00:19:26.720 --> 00:19:30.540 stand up. So we'll spend couple of years asking for funding to do that. 315 00:19:30.540 --> 00:19:34.220 We'll spend a couple of years writing these large procurements to buy someone 316 00:19:34.220 --> 00:19:37.780 or a solution to go do it, and we'll spend a couple of years delivering 317 00:19:37.780 --> 00:19:41.420 it and then spend no time actually fixing 318 00:19:41.420 --> 00:19:45.060 or addressing the actual reasons that we have those problems in the 319 00:19:45.060 --> 00:19:48.860 first place. And based on, you know, the conversations I've 320 00:19:48.860 --> 00:19:52.540 been having with states over the last 10 years, I would say that probably 90% 321 00:19:52.540 --> 00:19:55.960 of these either stop before they go anywhere or fail massively. 322 00:19:56.440 --> 00:20:00.160 And when it comes to the 10% that make it across the finish line, you 323 00:20:00.160 --> 00:20:03.840 know, we're really not hearing from people, we're getting the value 324 00:20:03.840 --> 00:20:06.921 for the money we spent. And, you know, we spend, we spend a lot of 325 00:20:06.921 --> 00:20:10.720 money on this. And so, you know, the prevalent thinking over the last 20 326 00:20:10.720 --> 00:20:14.160 years has been fixing this problem using like enterprise architecture 327 00:20:14.160 --> 00:20:17.840 methods or capability maturity models, which, in my opinion, 328 00:20:17.840 --> 00:20:21.390 just provide like a more structured, more expensive way to step through that 329 00:20:21.620 --> 00:20:25.060 failure lifecycle. And so, you know, that's a lot 330 00:20:25.460 --> 00:20:28.940 of what's typically done. And so just to get into, let's 331 00:20:29.260 --> 00:20:32.820 contrast that with the transformation strategy work in the state of 332 00:20:32.820 --> 00:20:36.620 Minnesota. You know, I'd say a first difference is the challenges that 333 00:20:36.620 --> 00:20:39.540 are targeted by that strategy. With these typical 334 00:20:40.540 --> 00:20:43.980 approaches focused on treating those symptoms, like the staff using the 335 00:20:43.980 --> 00:20:47.620 mainframes, instead what Minnesota's put together is 336 00:20:48.100 --> 00:20:51.580 looking to really unearth the root cause challenges that are causing those 337 00:20:51.580 --> 00:20:55.020 symptoms and then addressing those using a strategic 338 00:20:55.020 --> 00:20:58.860 framework that focuses on that enterprise transformation, using 339 00:20:58.860 --> 00:21:02.340 more of an end-to-end outcome-driven use case model 340 00:21:02.580 --> 00:21:05.780 to learn about better ways to structure the organization itself 341 00:21:06.180 --> 00:21:09.380 with like outcomes and principles as that primary focus. 342 00:21:09.860 --> 00:21:13.540 And then really working through a backlog of those end-to-end use cases 343 00:21:13.540 --> 00:21:16.930 in more of a discovery mode allowing the governance, the 344 00:21:16.930 --> 00:21:20.570 architecture, the solutions to be more emergent and part of the learning 345 00:21:21.050 --> 00:21:24.490 rather than prescribed up front until we've got something that 346 00:21:24.490 --> 00:21:27.850 works. And then really pushing these decisions about 347 00:21:27.850 --> 00:21:31.410 architecture and governance to the point of execution where this learning is 348 00:21:31.410 --> 00:21:34.730 happening. And like you're saying, maybe we can't scale 349 00:21:35.290 --> 00:21:38.970 agile to the organization, but we can create an ecosystem in which 350 00:21:40.490 --> 00:21:43.450 the folks can execute following a lot of those principles. 351 00:21:44.470 --> 00:21:47.830 So is that— is it this like a specialized unit where you come to for 352 00:21:47.830 --> 00:21:51.110 certain outcomes when you need that pressure to get them 353 00:21:52.150 --> 00:21:55.950 done and in market quicker? Or is this— do 354 00:21:55.950 --> 00:21:59.470 you sit at the table of an enterprise architecture board, or what's the 355 00:21:59.470 --> 00:22:02.790 strategy? It might be best if you can think of one without 356 00:22:02.790 --> 00:22:06.310 betraying any confidence or confidentiality. Is there an 357 00:22:06.310 --> 00:22:10.070 example of you walk in and everything is siloed 358 00:22:10.070 --> 00:22:13.770 and everything is complex and everything takes 3 to 5 years to build, But 359 00:22:13.770 --> 00:22:17.530 we want change. We want to do differently. Change is not going to spread through 360 00:22:17.530 --> 00:22:21.210 the whole culture overnight, but we could start getting some results in 361 00:22:21.210 --> 00:22:25.010 little pockets of high priority or high urgency. Can 362 00:22:25.010 --> 00:22:28.490 you walk us through an example of how you found that problem or 363 00:22:28.490 --> 00:22:32.290 opportunity, how you addressed it using more agile means and 364 00:22:32.290 --> 00:22:36.090 got a result much quicker that made or might make the organization 365 00:22:36.090 --> 00:22:38.370 go, oh, we should maybe do more of this? 366 00:22:39.900 --> 00:22:43.620 Well, yeah, so one thing, this is all still being rolled out in a way 367 00:22:43.620 --> 00:22:47.340 that we haven't gotten to the execution yet. But the, the example 368 00:22:47.340 --> 00:22:50.820 that Minnesota published as part of their RFI for 369 00:22:50.820 --> 00:22:54.539 accomplishing this was starting with, you know, picking 370 00:22:54.539 --> 00:22:57.660 out an outcome focus area within the enterprise. So they chose 371 00:22:59.580 --> 00:23:03.367 new Medicaid enrollment and ongoing benefit maintenance. So basically, you know, 372 00:23:03.367 --> 00:23:06.940 making it easier and quicker for someone who's seeking assistance to 373 00:23:06.940 --> 00:23:10.490 to get and maintain their benefits in that space. 374 00:23:11.050 --> 00:23:14.650 And they chose an existing, a single first use case of someone 375 00:23:14.730 --> 00:23:18.490 seeking Medicare Savings Program assistance, and then published 376 00:23:18.490 --> 00:23:22.130 a series of subsequent use cases that could be attacked once that first 377 00:23:22.130 --> 00:23:25.970 one met a full definition of done. And the concept there 378 00:23:25.970 --> 00:23:29.370 is, you know, not to try to change the existing 379 00:23:29.370 --> 00:23:32.970 organization, but to create an incubator discovery mode 380 00:23:33.690 --> 00:23:36.690 within which that Medicare Savings Program end-to-end 381 00:23:38.590 --> 00:23:41.790 use case could be applied from, you know, the point of 382 00:23:42.990 --> 00:23:45.950 I need to— of someone saying like, I need to apply for this benefit, to 383 00:23:46.270 --> 00:23:49.870 I'm enrolled, I can get assistance, I can manage it effectively. 384 00:23:50.750 --> 00:23:54.590 And doing that in a way where that can be demonstrated and shown without risk 385 00:23:54.590 --> 00:23:57.870 to the existing environment and built until a point 386 00:23:58.510 --> 00:24:02.150 at which we can expand with other use cases and then start to 387 00:24:02.150 --> 00:24:05.940 identify where and when a transition from the current state could 388 00:24:05.940 --> 00:24:09.740 be possible. It's more of a transition strategy as opposed to an immediate 389 00:24:10.060 --> 00:24:13.700 need fix, if that makes sense. Yeah, for 390 00:24:13.700 --> 00:24:17.380 sure. How, how do you inspire the people 391 00:24:17.380 --> 00:24:21.100 on the teams who are not used to agile ways of working to 392 00:24:21.260 --> 00:24:24.140 snap into line and do this? Because they might be thinking, I'm going to lose 393 00:24:24.140 --> 00:24:27.220 my job, you're going to get me fired, I'm going to lose my job. How 394 00:24:27.220 --> 00:24:31.020 do you change the way that that institution thinks? Because 395 00:24:31.020 --> 00:24:34.440 there's a cultural thinking to a legacy 396 00:24:34.440 --> 00:24:38.200 organization who's done things that way? That's how they got all those silos and all 397 00:24:38.200 --> 00:24:41.800 that complexity and all that rigidity. How do you, how do you move 398 00:24:41.800 --> 00:24:45.640 those hearts and minds, or is that part of it? No, that's definitely 399 00:24:45.640 --> 00:24:49.280 part of it. And I think you've talked about this in the past, which 400 00:24:49.920 --> 00:24:53.360 I will— I'll get the phrasing wrong, but something to the effect of start with 401 00:24:53.360 --> 00:24:57.200 the willing and the minds that fit. You probably can recall it 402 00:24:57.200 --> 00:25:00.890 faster than I can, but start with the willing and incubate 403 00:25:00.890 --> 00:25:04.610 with a group of people that are 100% bought in. And those 404 00:25:04.610 --> 00:25:08.010 will most likely be people that are acknowledging 405 00:25:08.490 --> 00:25:12.290 what's, what's happening today is not working for them and are interested in trying something 406 00:25:12.290 --> 00:25:16.050 different or, or have seen something that demonstrates that 407 00:25:16.050 --> 00:25:19.530 this is something they want to try. And showing a result back 408 00:25:19.690 --> 00:25:23.330 and communicating a success back to the organization is critical 409 00:25:23.330 --> 00:25:27.140 to continue growing that incubation mode So we haven't 410 00:25:27.140 --> 00:25:30.940 gotten there yet, but I think that's a key part of this 411 00:25:30.940 --> 00:25:34.540 is getting an identification 412 00:25:34.540 --> 00:25:38.260 of who are those hell yes people who want to try something different and new, 413 00:25:38.500 --> 00:25:42.139 and then engaging in that. Another thing that's a little different in state 414 00:25:42.139 --> 00:25:45.220 environments is that there are very few, 415 00:25:48.020 --> 00:25:51.700 very little capacity of people that can execute these transformation types 416 00:25:51.980 --> 00:25:55.580 types of work. And so what's typically done is states are bringing in these 417 00:25:55.580 --> 00:25:59.420 massive vendors to do this. And in this case, there 418 00:25:59.420 --> 00:26:02.860 is likely an element of needing to bring in outside 419 00:26:03.020 --> 00:26:06.860 expertise to be part of that incubator environment, which is a 420 00:26:06.860 --> 00:26:10.300 lot of the strategy work that's been put into what Minnesota's published, 421 00:26:10.540 --> 00:26:13.900 because one of those big challenges is procurement takes 2 years. 422 00:26:14.220 --> 00:26:18.060 So if procurement takes 2 years, that doesn't work. And so we've 423 00:26:18.060 --> 00:26:21.790 been spending a lot of time thinking through How do we make procurement take 424 00:26:21.790 --> 00:26:25.470 a week and how do we iterate and how do we assess and performance 425 00:26:25.630 --> 00:26:29.430 manage, which is a little bit of a different beast from how 426 00:26:29.430 --> 00:26:32.990 do we execute with an in-house team? Yes, definitely, 427 00:26:33.310 --> 00:26:36.270 definitely. And that's when you would get— even if you were working in a bank, 428 00:26:36.270 --> 00:26:39.190 people will say we can do agile all day long, but I got a vendor 429 00:26:39.190 --> 00:26:42.670 here who won't do anything without a 6-week runway and they want a full spec, 430 00:26:43.070 --> 00:26:46.850 right? Yeah. So what are some I'm 431 00:26:46.850 --> 00:26:48.970 going to back up for a second, come back to this question, because I want 432 00:26:48.970 --> 00:26:51.370 to know what are some of the ways that you get vendors on board when 433 00:26:51.370 --> 00:26:54.450 they have no motivation really other than their contract 434 00:26:55.090 --> 00:26:58.890 to play ball. But when I did some governmental work on and 435 00:26:58.890 --> 00:27:02.410 off throughout the years, I remember one of them was for a department of the 436 00:27:02.410 --> 00:27:05.410 government that basically made sure people who needed money 437 00:27:06.210 --> 00:27:09.410 got it, and they were responsible for enforcing, you know, family 438 00:27:10.290 --> 00:27:13.650 obligations, for example. But they wanted to make sure that, 439 00:27:14.210 --> 00:27:17.930 that single parents and kids got the resources they needed. And so 440 00:27:17.930 --> 00:27:20.530 every day we would sit down and we would say, okay, we want to do 441 00:27:20.530 --> 00:27:24.330 this better, but we can't. Why can't we? Well, because you got to check 442 00:27:24.330 --> 00:27:28.050 here and do this, and we have a process for that. Okay, 443 00:27:28.050 --> 00:27:31.090 well, why don't we take a moment and remember who we're here for? 444 00:27:31.730 --> 00:27:35.530 Because there is a mom out there who's worried that she's not 445 00:27:35.530 --> 00:27:38.290 going to be able to feed her kids, and work is hard to find. And 446 00:27:38.290 --> 00:27:41.410 even if she could get a job, she can't pay 447 00:27:41.410 --> 00:27:44.610 $3,000 a month for daycare. This isn't going to work. 448 00:27:45.170 --> 00:27:48.450 She's entitled to this help. She's legally entitled to the help and she can't get 449 00:27:48.450 --> 00:27:51.890 it. How are we going to help her? Because if it's not 450 00:27:51.890 --> 00:27:55.530 tomorrow, then it's the next day. But the next day her 451 00:27:55.530 --> 00:27:58.570 rent's due and the next day her kids haven't eaten. So how are we going 452 00:27:58.570 --> 00:28:01.570 to fix this problem? That's the— that was the attitude that we sat down. We 453 00:28:01.570 --> 00:28:05.330 visualized who we were helping, the pain that they were going through, 454 00:28:06.050 --> 00:28:09.890 and what would be a bare minimum answer to 455 00:28:09.890 --> 00:28:13.170 get her the help that they needed. Do we need people to sit down in 456 00:28:13.170 --> 00:28:15.930 front of a bunch of screens and go, oh, look, oh, look, there's a payment 457 00:28:15.930 --> 00:28:19.110 here that's late. Hey, we can't have that. Like, can we unlock that payment? Can 458 00:28:19.110 --> 00:28:21.870 we do it now? Why is it on hold? Can we clear this block today? 459 00:28:22.270 --> 00:28:25.750 I don't care what the solution is. This is a bunch of engineers and astronauts 460 00:28:25.750 --> 00:28:29.470 sitting in a room saying, look, we don't fix this, these 461 00:28:29.470 --> 00:28:33.230 3 guys don't come home. And that's not acceptable. It's not even on your 462 00:28:33.230 --> 00:28:37.030 radar. So let's get to work. That was kind of the attitude and the 463 00:28:37.030 --> 00:28:40.550 spirit that we approached it with. And the people that were selected for that team 464 00:28:40.550 --> 00:28:44.270 were, as you said, a coalition of the willing, like people who already 465 00:28:44.270 --> 00:28:47.560 wanted to do this kind of work. Because they could see their end 466 00:28:47.560 --> 00:28:51.240 customer. So back to your, back 467 00:28:51.240 --> 00:28:54.560 to your point, how do we then help? That's like, that's easy to do inside 468 00:28:54.560 --> 00:28:58.360 an organization. But if you got someone from, you know, KPMG or Accenture sitting 469 00:28:58.360 --> 00:29:01.760 there outside, they may not get it. They may not want to play ball. How 470 00:29:01.760 --> 00:29:05.120 do you handle that? Yeah. So, so that was one of the big 471 00:29:05.120 --> 00:29:08.600 questions that came up as we were starting to plan this 472 00:29:08.920 --> 00:29:12.440 strategic work, which is in many ways very different from the way vendors 473 00:29:12.440 --> 00:29:16.260 behave in the space. And so You know, people were 474 00:29:16.260 --> 00:29:19.780 asking the question, would vendors even do this crazy thing? 475 00:29:20.340 --> 00:29:23.940 Which was, which is why we put out the RFI, which asked two basic questions. 476 00:29:24.020 --> 00:29:27.380 One, you know, what do you think of this strategy? Give us your feedback. 477 00:29:27.700 --> 00:29:31.420 And two, would you do this? Is this something you would be interested in 478 00:29:31.420 --> 00:29:35.260 participating in? And, you know, I think given the way 479 00:29:35.260 --> 00:29:39.060 the strategy is structured, it resonated very well with the 480 00:29:39.060 --> 00:29:41.780 vendors. And I think it's for a lot of the reasons that you mentioned. 481 00:29:42.880 --> 00:29:46.640 You know, one, it's focused on the strategy, is focused on outcomes instead of just 482 00:29:46.800 --> 00:29:50.560 deliver this system no matter what happens, whether it's good or bad. So I think 483 00:29:50.640 --> 00:29:54.320 that's appealing to vendors that they actually get to make a difference, 484 00:29:54.320 --> 00:29:57.760 which they're not used to in these environments. Second, 485 00:29:58.480 --> 00:30:02.240 it, it's looking at intentionally clearing away a lot of the 486 00:30:02.320 --> 00:30:06.040 red tape and the hurdles that vendors often have to go through and saying, 487 00:30:06.040 --> 00:30:08.640 we're going to give you the autonomy, we're going to give you the empowerment 488 00:30:09.740 --> 00:30:12.620 We're going to, we're going to work with you to build this together in a 489 00:30:12.620 --> 00:30:16.460 collaborative sense, as opposed to making you an order taker and giving you requirements. 490 00:30:16.460 --> 00:30:20.060 So I think that's very appealing to people as well. 491 00:30:21.260 --> 00:30:24.500 And, you know, so there are lots of questions around how the procurement approach would 492 00:30:24.500 --> 00:30:27.980 work, which is, you know, a lot of what is going on right now is 493 00:30:27.980 --> 00:30:31.820 continuing to have engagement with the mechanics and logistics 494 00:30:31.820 --> 00:30:35.460 and how does payment work and how do we make sure that we're 495 00:30:35.460 --> 00:30:39.260 incentivizing correctly and performance managing correctly. And, 496 00:30:39.260 --> 00:30:41.760 you know, I've got a lot of content that's out out there that would love 497 00:30:41.760 --> 00:30:45.600 engagement from everyone that's listening to say, you know, 498 00:30:45.600 --> 00:30:48.360 here's some stuff you've put out there that makes sense. Here's some stuff that doesn't, 499 00:30:48.760 --> 00:30:52.440 right? And we'll keep working through it. I don't know if everyone caught that out 500 00:30:52.440 --> 00:30:56.160 there as you're listening to this, but sometimes as Agilists, we feel like we're expected 501 00:30:56.160 --> 00:30:59.400 to know all the answers. Like you're not a consultant if you can't come in 502 00:30:59.400 --> 00:31:03.080 and say, oh, do this, this, and that. And that leads to the 503 00:31:04.520 --> 00:31:08.360 often comical McKinsey report where there's a whole bunch of 504 00:31:08.360 --> 00:31:12.210 recommendations in there that nobody would ever be able to execute. So they don't, 505 00:31:12.210 --> 00:31:15.850 they just leave you with the report. Right. So what's 506 00:31:15.850 --> 00:31:19.570 happening with you is, okay, how are we going to manage vendors differently 507 00:31:19.570 --> 00:31:23.330 so that they plug into this kind of initiative and ambition? And your answer is, 508 00:31:23.330 --> 00:31:26.650 I don't know, let's go find out. Why don't we go ask them? Let's start 509 00:31:26.650 --> 00:31:30.330 there. And so that's a really important thing that Agilists need to 510 00:31:30.330 --> 00:31:34.130 remember is that you don't need, especially when you're facing a big challenging 511 00:31:34.130 --> 00:31:37.620 problem like this one, you don't need all the answers up front. The 512 00:31:37.620 --> 00:31:41.300 framework allows us, the principles allow us to say, I don't know, 513 00:31:41.380 --> 00:31:44.020 but we're gonna experiment until we figure it out. 514 00:31:45.380 --> 00:31:49.100 You got it. And that's like underpinning this entire strategy is this 515 00:31:49.100 --> 00:31:52.940 notion of when it comes to the solutions, the architecture, the 516 00:31:52.940 --> 00:31:56.700 governance, the things that we need, the answer is we don't know, but we're gonna 517 00:31:56.940 --> 00:32:00.100 create a mechanism by which we can find out, be 518 00:32:00.740 --> 00:32:04.500 confident about those things before we invest heavily in big decisions. 519 00:32:04.500 --> 00:32:07.750 Yes. Which is very different from the way this happens today. 520 00:32:07.990 --> 00:32:11.790 Evidence-based management, empirical learning, those kinds of things that we always talk about 521 00:32:11.790 --> 00:32:15.510 but often don't do well. Let me ask you this. Anyone listening now 522 00:32:15.510 --> 00:32:18.910 might be saying, well, this sounds great. I'm going to try this. Willing minds and 523 00:32:18.910 --> 00:32:22.550 projects that fit. Let's start there. Let's not worry about having all the answers. 524 00:32:22.550 --> 00:32:25.550 Let's acknowledge that this will be complex, but we're going to find a way or 525 00:32:25.550 --> 00:32:29.390 make a way. Wonderful. What goes wrong? Like, 526 00:32:29.390 --> 00:32:33.030 to be— let's be brutal and honest. What are the biggest challenges that have 527 00:32:33.030 --> 00:32:36.420 been hard for you to address that maybe you're still working on? 528 00:32:36.900 --> 00:32:40.540 Well, yeah. So the challenges in this space are really also 529 00:32:40.540 --> 00:32:44.260 the same things that cause the 90% of those efforts to fail that I 530 00:32:44.260 --> 00:32:48.100 talked about earlier that are solution-driven. And, you know, the strategy tries to 531 00:32:48.260 --> 00:32:51.500 call those out and come up with mitigations for them. But I would say that 532 00:32:51.500 --> 00:32:55.180 there's two that are primarily in the way at the 533 00:32:55.180 --> 00:32:58.100 moment, one being just 534 00:32:58.980 --> 00:33:02.620 that something that's transformational really requires the ability 535 00:33:02.620 --> 00:33:05.940 and capacity for leadership to commit to and support something 536 00:33:06.580 --> 00:33:10.100 that that can move forward. And specifically in 537 00:33:10.100 --> 00:33:13.820 Minnesota, many might be aware that the state is under a particularly 538 00:33:13.820 --> 00:33:17.581 intense set of pressures right now, which is putting, you know, just everyone 539 00:33:17.581 --> 00:33:21.421 in the organization into more of a reactive mode rather than a strategic 540 00:33:21.421 --> 00:33:25.020 transformational thinking one. So it's possible that something like this 541 00:33:25.340 --> 00:33:28.620 might be on a little bit of a hold mode until some of that subsides 542 00:33:28.620 --> 00:33:32.220 or we get to a bigger tipping point of things. 543 00:33:33.630 --> 00:33:36.910 So yeah, executive commitment and ability to support, protect, 544 00:33:36.910 --> 00:33:40.510 defend, and, you know, remove blockers is a really important 545 00:33:40.590 --> 00:33:43.470 thing that is tough to get in this space. 546 00:33:44.430 --> 00:33:48.110 I think every Agilist out there would be listening to this and saying, okay, great. 547 00:33:48.110 --> 00:33:51.910 How do you get that leadership commitment and support? Great 548 00:33:51.910 --> 00:33:55.310 question. In terms of how we're 549 00:33:55.550 --> 00:33:59.310 approaching it is we keep at it, right? So, I mean, the RFI was 550 00:33:59.310 --> 00:34:03.050 a big step that I think should turn people's heads to 551 00:34:03.050 --> 00:34:06.650 say, you know, even though this is very different, it's something that we should be 552 00:34:06.650 --> 00:34:10.250 paying attention to and listening to. It was public. So there are 553 00:34:10.250 --> 00:34:13.850 legislators out there that are, you know, seeing it, are able to watch the 554 00:34:13.850 --> 00:34:16.930 videos, are able to read the content, are able to advocate for it. 555 00:34:17.890 --> 00:34:21.650 Just being out there and communicating on it, I think, is important. And 556 00:34:21.650 --> 00:34:25.370 then, you know, just continuing to tell that story as we're working through things 557 00:34:25.370 --> 00:34:29.011 that aren't working and, you know, holding up examples of ways we could try 558 00:34:29.011 --> 00:34:32.129 this differently. Is something we're trying. But again, 559 00:34:33.089 --> 00:34:36.849 in a current reactive mode, it's really tough. And 560 00:34:36.849 --> 00:34:40.449 speaking of reactive, something else pops to mind. We're in an age of great 561 00:34:40.449 --> 00:34:43.809 technological change, probably one of the biggest technology changes, 562 00:34:43.969 --> 00:34:47.409 meaning AI, to really impact us in, 563 00:34:47.649 --> 00:34:51.009 I don't know, a couple of decades maybe. And 564 00:34:51.809 --> 00:34:55.649 if that's the case, what I talk about these 565 00:34:55.649 --> 00:34:59.439 days is the fact that I wouldn't try to solve the AI problem because you 566 00:34:59.439 --> 00:35:02.999 talk about lack of guardrails and lack of consistency and 567 00:35:02.999 --> 00:35:06.599 strategy. And those things are all true, but we're really in the gold 568 00:35:06.599 --> 00:35:10.319 rush days of AI. It's not going anywhere, but we really haven't figured out the 569 00:35:10.319 --> 00:35:14.039 important stuff yet. And when you're in that state, the only thing that's 570 00:35:14.039 --> 00:35:17.159 true, the only thing you have to figure out is the fact that it can 571 00:35:17.159 --> 00:35:20.959 already do some things faster, which means people are getting 572 00:35:20.959 --> 00:35:24.760 prepped around the idea that technology should work 573 00:35:24.760 --> 00:35:27.720 for us quickly. Yeah, like it used to be the case 574 00:35:28.600 --> 00:35:31.640 if you, I don't know, sent a request out 575 00:35:32.120 --> 00:35:35.920 somewhere to a, like a SaaS system or something like that, maybe you, maybe you 576 00:35:35.920 --> 00:35:38.920 don't get an answer overnight or you don't get it till the next day. And 577 00:35:38.920 --> 00:35:42.120 now everyone's expecting very, very high levels of low 578 00:35:42.120 --> 00:35:45.920 latency and immediacy. So one of the things that we need 579 00:35:45.920 --> 00:35:49.560 to help when it comes to AI is not knowing the implementation strategy 580 00:35:49.560 --> 00:35:53.260 so much as What are you going to do about the fact that people now 581 00:35:53.260 --> 00:35:56.660 want things even faster than they did yesterday? 582 00:35:57.140 --> 00:36:00.660 So how are all of these rapid changes in tech swarming around you 583 00:36:00.820 --> 00:36:04.660 factoring into this while you wait for some of the political landscapes 584 00:36:04.660 --> 00:36:08.180 to calm down and the, the moment to be right to 585 00:36:08.180 --> 00:36:12.020 really— like you had said earlier, we kind of got into the 586 00:36:12.020 --> 00:36:15.700 RFI process, but we had to pause it or hold it while we 587 00:36:15.700 --> 00:36:19.400 work on the real burning fire bleeding neck 588 00:36:19.400 --> 00:36:23.200 problems. How, how do you see those kinds of rapid changes in 589 00:36:23.200 --> 00:36:27.000 tech factoring into what you're doing? Well, I definitely think 590 00:36:27.000 --> 00:36:30.522 that, that they're, you know, this— the, the pace of change 591 00:36:30.920 --> 00:36:34.280 right now really only increases the need to 592 00:36:34.520 --> 00:36:38.240 figure out different ways to, to achieve some of this transformation and is, 593 00:36:38.240 --> 00:36:41.760 is very relevant to the, the procurement innovation that I talked about that's 594 00:36:41.760 --> 00:36:45.520 necessary, right? If we're locked a 6-year contract for something that was 595 00:36:45.520 --> 00:36:49.280 built 6 years previously, it is just very much out 596 00:36:49.280 --> 00:36:52.480 of date and something that could be done way more effectively if we had the 597 00:36:52.480 --> 00:36:56.320 ability to engage something new and different quickly, 598 00:36:56.320 --> 00:37:00.080 which most states currently do not have. And so, you know, being 599 00:37:00.080 --> 00:37:03.760 able to take advantage of some of the capability that's coming out, it 600 00:37:03.760 --> 00:37:07.587 will be a huge game changer for states. I mean, 601 00:37:07.587 --> 00:37:11.430 just, I mean, just looking at the pace of software development is nuts. 602 00:37:11.430 --> 00:37:15.270 I mean, not long ago, a non-developer couldn't create any software 603 00:37:15.270 --> 00:37:18.910 at all. Today, a non-developer can build and maintain about any isolated 604 00:37:18.910 --> 00:37:22.630 capability. And it's, you know, my prediction is, you know, we're 605 00:37:22.630 --> 00:37:26.390 1 or 2 years away from enterprise-grade stuff being possible 606 00:37:26.550 --> 00:37:30.150 without a huge amount of technical knowledge. I mean, of course, that's always going to 607 00:37:30.150 --> 00:37:33.471 be necessary, right? But well, we're having people just having people 608 00:37:33.471 --> 00:37:37.310 clickety-clacking keys to comment their code and things that even a developer 609 00:37:37.310 --> 00:37:40.470 would say, I don't want to do this anymore. So fast. I mean, 610 00:37:41.110 --> 00:37:44.950 the pace that it takes to develop and deploy something that's 611 00:37:44.950 --> 00:37:48.670 good and high quality and works very well and can 612 00:37:48.670 --> 00:37:52.510 incorporate user feedback, 'cause you can show 'em several options and 613 00:37:52.510 --> 00:37:55.950 get their opinions. I mean, the pace of being able to do this with 614 00:37:55.950 --> 00:37:59.590 software is just exponential right now. And 615 00:38:01.030 --> 00:38:01.990 it's really amazing. 616 00:38:05.230 --> 00:38:09.070 I think it's— if I'm correct about how fast 617 00:38:09.070 --> 00:38:12.590 this is going, which if it stays on the trajectory it's on, I mean, we're 618 00:38:12.670 --> 00:38:16.350 only a little bit of ways away from being able to create 619 00:38:16.510 --> 00:38:20.310 entire Medicaid enterprise systems very rapidly 620 00:38:20.310 --> 00:38:23.390 or even multiple options of those that could be 621 00:38:23.390 --> 00:38:27.150 evaluated as part of transforming from what 622 00:38:27.150 --> 00:38:30.750 we have today to something new. And there— you 623 00:38:30.750 --> 00:38:33.990 know, a strategy like the one that Minnesota's put out is a way that, that 624 00:38:33.990 --> 00:38:37.470 we could really take advantage of that, and very few are prepared to do it. 625 00:38:37.470 --> 00:38:40.750 I want for people to understand better what it is you've 626 00:38:41.070 --> 00:38:43.830 done. Is there a place where they can go and look at what you have 627 00:38:43.830 --> 00:38:46.950 built? And, you know, you shared some videos with me, and I was really happy 628 00:38:46.950 --> 00:38:50.791 to engage with some of these meetings just out of interest. Is there, is there 629 00:38:50.791 --> 00:38:54.550 a place where people can go and look at all this stuff? Yeah, absolutely. 630 00:38:54.550 --> 00:38:58.310 So the, the RFI content was all posted on a mural board, 631 00:38:58.310 --> 00:39:02.030 which kind of steps through the videos, the documents, the feedback from all the 632 00:39:02.670 --> 00:39:05.630 vendors. That's, that's, I mean, that's an easy place if someone wants to really go 633 00:39:05.790 --> 00:39:09.550 deep. I mean, people can look at my website, which does have examples 634 00:39:10.030 --> 00:39:13.830 of some innovative procurement contracts and RFPs that we've 635 00:39:13.830 --> 00:39:17.470 put out there for feedback. And again, interested in anyone's comment 636 00:39:17.470 --> 00:39:21.230 and thoughts on, on anything that's there as well. Is the 637 00:39:21.230 --> 00:39:24.030 best way just to give you links and put them in the— Yes, absolutely. I'll 638 00:39:24.030 --> 00:39:27.760 put them in the show notes. But what I wanted to say is that 639 00:39:27.760 --> 00:39:31.280 agilists out there who are struggling with these problems, government or 640 00:39:31.840 --> 00:39:35.680 not, would be really, really interested in hearing how you've managed to overcome 641 00:39:35.680 --> 00:39:37.960 them. And what I like about you is that you don't pretend to have all 642 00:39:37.960 --> 00:39:41.760 the answers, but you are willing to share what you 643 00:39:42.240 --> 00:39:45.760 tried, what worked, and what didn't. I think that's how we learn. I think that's 644 00:39:45.760 --> 00:39:49.400 how we learn best as agilists, right? Stop pretending that we're some kind 645 00:39:49.400 --> 00:39:52.680 of Sherpa on the mountain and we have answers, because when you get into the 646 00:39:52.680 --> 00:39:56.420 field, we often don't. And that's okay, as long as we 647 00:39:56.420 --> 00:40:00.220 take to heart the principle that that failure creates an opportunity to 648 00:40:00.220 --> 00:40:03.980 learn and do better. And that's the opportunity most people don't take, but you're 649 00:40:03.980 --> 00:40:07.780 doing it. Any last thoughts, Kevin, about, you 650 00:40:07.780 --> 00:40:10.580 know, we're in a time where the state of Agile is very much in question. 651 00:40:10.580 --> 00:40:13.940 It's shifted. Agile coach, Scrum Master is no 652 00:40:13.940 --> 00:40:17.540 longer necessarily even a role, but the duties 653 00:40:17.540 --> 00:40:21.380 and the philosophy still remain, even if it's in fragmented 654 00:40:21.380 --> 00:40:24.540 format. What is your take on that as your organization is really just 655 00:40:25.270 --> 00:40:29.070 starting? With agility, a lot of other companies and practitioners are feeling, 656 00:40:29.070 --> 00:40:32.830 oh, maybe this is ending. What's your take on that? Well, I 657 00:40:32.830 --> 00:40:36.390 think that also comes back to some of the AI question a little 658 00:40:38.950 --> 00:40:41.590 bit. And when I look at LinkedIn and a lot of the people that are 659 00:40:41.590 --> 00:40:44.750 talking about the end of agile, what I'm really hearing them talk about is the 660 00:40:44.750 --> 00:40:48.230 fact that roles like the Scrum Master role are no longer in 661 00:40:48.790 --> 00:40:52.500 demand, things like that. And that makes total sense. Makes tons of sense 662 00:40:52.500 --> 00:40:56.280 to me because, you know, I can now build an entire software product as 663 00:40:56.440 --> 00:41:00.080 the user, the developer, the tester, the BA, you know, all things. And 664 00:41:00.080 --> 00:41:03.720 so if a Scrum Master role was— has a 665 00:41:03.720 --> 00:41:06.360 big element of it is coordinating lots of people that are going to need to 666 00:41:06.360 --> 00:41:09.960 build that product, and that can all be done now by one person, that 667 00:41:09.960 --> 00:41:13.520 role is much less needed. Yes. But 668 00:41:13.520 --> 00:41:17.120 the principles of Agile still apply in however 669 00:41:17.120 --> 00:41:20.120 this software or this environment needs to 670 00:41:20.850 --> 00:41:24.370 evolve. To take advantage of technology because it's, it's 671 00:41:24.370 --> 00:41:28.210 an emergent thing that we only learn once we try 672 00:41:28.530 --> 00:41:32.210 something. And having a mindset where we know the answer 673 00:41:32.210 --> 00:41:35.850 up front is not going to serve us well. And so however that, however that 674 00:41:35.850 --> 00:41:38.890 turns into roles and things that people need to be employed doing, you know, I 675 00:41:38.890 --> 00:41:42.650 think that's going to look extremely different. Yeah. But the principles 676 00:41:42.650 --> 00:41:45.570 are, in my opinion, won't go away because 677 00:41:46.380 --> 00:41:50.100 the, The problem still exists. You know what's interesting is one of 678 00:41:50.100 --> 00:41:53.780 the crew in Forge Genesis, which is the entrepreneurial side of 679 00:41:53.780 --> 00:41:57.140 what I do, was just saying the other day, all of a sudden, for reasons 680 00:41:57.140 --> 00:42:00.700 I can't explain, there's like a resurgence of demand for 681 00:42:00.700 --> 00:42:03.500 agile coaches. Slightly different context. It was more of a 682 00:42:04.300 --> 00:42:08.140 hardware kind of implementation as opposed to pure software. But the 683 00:42:08.140 --> 00:42:11.900 point is, I don't think the principles are going anywhere once we've 684 00:42:11.900 --> 00:42:15.460 lifted the curtain. And said, you know, we can deliver stuff a 685 00:42:15.460 --> 00:42:18.820 lot faster than we are now. And as more eyes are on speed 686 00:42:18.820 --> 00:42:22.460 and ROI, a slight shift of focus on 687 00:42:22.460 --> 00:42:25.860 our part towards ROI, yes, but most 688 00:42:26.100 --> 00:42:29.060 importantly, not ROI in terms of your velocity 689 00:42:30.420 --> 00:42:33.900 or how many more stories you can complete in a sprint compared to 690 00:42:33.900 --> 00:42:37.660 last sprint. It's more about the ROI for the end user, 691 00:42:37.660 --> 00:42:41.140 the stakeholder, the organization. Yep, 692 00:42:41.700 --> 00:42:45.420 outcomes. Outcomes completely. But one of those outcomes in government, as you mentioned before, is 693 00:42:45.420 --> 00:42:49.180 these are people needing services. They need help, right? We're not 694 00:42:49.180 --> 00:42:52.500 making widgets. We're not making widgets where you can take it or leave 695 00:42:52.820 --> 00:42:56.340 it. We've got a system that is put in 696 00:42:56.660 --> 00:43:00.260 place to help and serve the people. And if the pace 697 00:43:00.260 --> 00:43:04.020 of change raises the bar, then 698 00:43:04.020 --> 00:43:06.820 we have to raise ours too. And all of a sudden people are like, oh, 699 00:43:06.820 --> 00:43:09.700 maybe we shouldn't have fired all those agile coaches. I don't know, it might just 700 00:43:09.700 --> 00:43:13.330 be a blip. Maybe, maybe it was just specific to his company 701 00:43:13.330 --> 00:43:17.050 or this moment, but I feel like we might start seeing 702 00:43:17.050 --> 00:43:20.570 a demand for some of the great things that we were a little too quick 703 00:43:20.570 --> 00:43:23.170 to lay off. We threw a lot of baby out with a little bit of 704 00:43:24.370 --> 00:43:28.131 bathwater. My thought. Yeah, I think it does depend on the, on the value that 705 00:43:28.131 --> 00:43:31.651 those coaches bring. If there's someone that can isolate an outcome, that 706 00:43:31.730 --> 00:43:35.490 can mobilize people around achieving that outcome, can show it, demonstrate 707 00:43:35.490 --> 00:43:39.050 it, and expand upon it once it's, once it's there and get 708 00:43:39.050 --> 00:43:42.690 people moving. Yeah, those people are employable at any 709 00:43:42.690 --> 00:43:46.170 point, any time, using anything. If it's agile coaches that 710 00:43:46.650 --> 00:43:50.490 are talking about how you should run Scrum ceremonies, unlikely 711 00:43:50.490 --> 00:43:54.170 that those coaches, in my opinion, will continue to be employable. I 712 00:43:54.250 --> 00:43:58.050 agree. Kevin, thank you so much for spending time today. I 713 00:43:58.050 --> 00:44:01.250 really enjoyed just getting to know you these past couple of months and learning more 714 00:44:01.250 --> 00:44:04.250 about what you're doing. I think it's fascinating. I hope you keep it 715 00:44:05.210 --> 00:44:08.860 up. Any final thoughts before we close? No, I think we covered it. 716 00:44:08.860 --> 00:44:12.260 Awesome. Thanks for having me, Chris. Good luck. Good luck with the initiative, man. And 717 00:44:12.260 --> 00:44:15.460 thanks for making time to come on the show today. Good to see you. Thank 718 00:44:15.460 --> 00:44:19.020 you. Good to see you. I hope you enjoyed that one. I've been talking to 719 00:44:19.020 --> 00:44:22.380 Kevin on and off lately, and I've really enjoyed our conversations. And 720 00:44:22.380 --> 00:44:25.980 most importantly, you can go and check out his work, as he mentioned, and I 721 00:44:25.980 --> 00:44:29.660 put the links to those resources in the show notes below. If you'd like 722 00:44:29.660 --> 00:44:30.930 to find out more, check him out at 723 00:44:30.930 --> 00:44:36.010 worldwideweb.si. 724 00:44:36.220 --> 00:44:39.980 Delivery.com. I think this stuff is the future of Agile, where the badge 725 00:44:39.980 --> 00:44:43.740 doesn't matter, but the work that we do and the change that we make and 726 00:44:43.740 --> 00:44:47.500 the value that it delivers still lives on and burns 727 00:44:47.900 --> 00:44:51.060 bright. My friend, thank you for joining. I look forward to seeing you next time, 728 00:44:51.060 --> 00:44:53.190 and until then, stay badass.