Detailed Notes
If you want real improvementânot just more dashboardsâworkflow efficiency metrics start with visibility. In Part 2 of our interview with Michael Toguchi, we dig into tool sprawl, âshadow systems,â measuring workflow ROI without micromanaging, and how AI is changing pricing models as time gets compressed.
Key takeaways ⢠How skunk works/shadow tools create silos and unreliable data ⢠âShine the lightâ: transparency-first workflow improvement ⢠Turning time saved into business value (capacity, quality, outcomes) ⢠Why AI pressures time-and-materials and accelerates value-based pricing
About Michael Toguchi Michael Toguchi is Chief Strategy Officer at eResources, guiding strategy for technology that supports complex, compliance-heavy workflows across higher education and mission-driven organizations. With 25+ years in digital transformation, Mike helps teams reduce tool sprawl, eliminate manual bottlenecks, strengthen compliance, and measure improvements that translate into real operational capacity and impact.
đ Develpreneur / Building Better Developers: https://develpreneur.com/workflow-efficiency-metrics-tool-sprawl
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Transcript Text
Hello and welcome back. We are continuing our season of building better foundations but we are the building better developers the developure podcast. I am Rob Broadhead one of the founders of developer. I am also the founder of RB consulting where we help you assess technology build a road mapap for success. Good things bad things good thing is uh we are now into a whole new year. Uh the bad thing is is there have been a lot of whole new years that have happened in my life. It is amazing that you know I am no longer 18, 19, 20 years old or within decades of any of those numbers. Um it is a just I love every new year because it's like to me I like it's like I do I I start fresh. I do have uh my New Year's resolution stuff and I stick to I I've been pretty good at sticking to like there's usually like one or two I'm going to stick to each year and a couple that are my like eh maybe that'll work. I'm going to try them out. Um, so we'll see how that goes. Uh, this year, whether I can can carry forward. I always have like a like a word of the year. I've had some really fun ones uh over the last several years, and it's always fun like diving into the year and and having that as sort of like my my focus, my thought. U you know, seeing how that evolves. Uh it's always been uh an enjoyable time. So, cool time there. Uh like I said, the downside is is like yet another year has gone by. And I am still not a trillionaire or anything like that. So, uh if there are trillion out trillionaires out there that want to, you know, just donate to us, we will be happy to take that burden on. Uh someone else who takes on the burden of being on this with me every single time is Michael. Go ahead and introduce yourself. Hey everyone, my name is Michael Malsh. I'm one of the co-founders of Developer, Building Better Developers. I'm also the owner of Envision QA where we build and test custom software that helps businesses run smoother and grow faster. Uh good things and bad things. Uh well, since this is coming out in January, uh like you said, talking about new year coming up, uh good things. It it is a new year. I I can let this year go away. It's been a rough uh some couple rough spots this year. Looking forward to next year being smoother. uh and some pivots and some changes in focus uh both intentional and unintentional uh as this year uh last year came to a close. It's just been uh resetting some perspectives because it it it just I'm my goal is to definitely have a different perspective on next year and growing the business. >> And yeah, that reminds me of like 2019, 2020. Coming into 2020, there's a lot of people like, "All right, this is going to be my year. I'm so happy that we got through 2019. We got past that year. This is going to be great." And then March hit and it was COVID and all that kind of stuff that was people are like, "Okay, 2021." But everybody was more like, "Let's tiptoe into 2021 because we didn't do it last time." And that did not work well for us. But we're going to march right into part two of this interview because the other Michael which we were talking to uh has just has got a lot of great information. Uh and this this conversation continued with some some great ideas, some great recommendations. So pencils up, grab your notepad, take some notes because it is definitely going to be worthwhile and let's get right back into our conversation. Well, and this like following up on it like on the other end of it is the uh and I'm sure you've run into this as you as you go into businesses is there's like the we'll call it like the skunk works or something that exists in almost every organization where you've got the people that are doing the jobs and they don't have the right tools. Well, now they can build their own tools. So, I mean, Excel has allowed that for years. I I don't know how many organizations where there's like Excel spreadsheets everywhere. Now you can have apps everywhere basically that do this as as this stuff's improving. So as a as a leader, as an owner, as a manager, how do you recommend maybe getting ahead of that a little bit so you even when you're building all your SOPs and you've got everything beautifully done that they don't call you back six months from now and say, "Okay, it was great, but now everybody went off and did their own thing a little bit and now we got to go do this again." >> That's what we deal with a lot again across the board. No matter what kind of client we have, we have we always end up with bigger groups that have um siloed cultures. You know, your marketing department is not the same as your IT, which is sort of in a different, you know, and same thing in in higher ed, you've got departments and tribalism and things like that. And so that's really when you asked the question about how do you work with leaders like that that is really one of the first things we're talking about is like how do you ensure that people aren't you know just kind of going off doing their own thing. Um, you know, you run into that a great deal where people are like, well, hey, I've been here 10 years and I'm, you know, I'm the expert at this. I'm going to keep it all in my little area, build my own little thing. And then suddenly, like the leadership has terrible D, no data, terrible data, unvalidated data. Like they can't, they don't have the business intelligence to make the kind of decisions they need. Um, you don't have groups that are integrated. So, it's hard to find efficiencies uh in any capacity. Um, and that's you're really like at one of our core areas is working with people through workflow and like that's where you have to like shine like the transparency light on the workflow like okay well who is you know who is doing this why is this happening like how do these parts interact within within your business or within your organization. Um, and so that that's how we really try and make sure that you don't end up with, you know, one person in their closet, another person in a cave, and they both got, you know, one person did this ASP core something or other, somebody else built this no code something, and then the third person is like, well, I bought a software as a service tool. And you're like, well, we might be making money, but uh, it's a mess. Like, that's how you create the that's how you create that technology debt disaster where it's like, we're doing okay. Like, my P&L looks okay, but it is a mess down there. like >> so we all know this happens and and this goes on but from a leadership level uh how do you work with I'm thinking more kind of like the startup people that haven't done this and maybe a little inexperienced and don't know what to look for >> um or prepare for this because you know we have all these ideas we hit the ground running and we tend to run fast but we tend to just think of the goal and just we're we're going going going and you know we could be spaghetti code we could be have many different things going on. Um what are some guard rails or maybe what kind of guidance would you give for someone starting out on how to yes stay you know hyper stay you know keep your mission in mind but how do you stay directed versus all over the >> I think that's what it is it's a there is a bit of creating creating a way for yourself to stay accountable to the vision and the goals and again It's it is our direct experience. We started we had many uh clients with extremely successful projects but it wasn't something where we in the early years and spent a lot of time investing in this is a scalable and we had partnerships. These were groups that we worked with for many many years but we didn't say like how are we going to scale this or when we want to go to version 2.0 to 5.0 you know, like what what will this look like in 2 3 4 5 years? Um, and so you have to create yourself a pathway to say like, okay, I know you need to go a million miles an hour in order to make enough money to, you know, keep the lights on in year 1. But if you don't have that strategy for, you know, year 2, three, and year four, five, and you don't have a vision for how does this look like so that I don't burn myself out or my employees out, like if you haven't created that plan to scale, uh, to automate things, to have an efficient workflow. You're going to have clients that leave. You're going to have staff that leave. Um, you're there going to be technological developments, you know, AI or whatever that show up that you're not anticipating. Like if you haven't built out a strategy, uh doesn't mean that you don't need to invest most of your energy in making sure you're, you know, doing the thing that's now now, but you have to you still have to stay true to where you're where you're headed. Otherwise, you will again get to that you will end up at that spot and say, I just lost my I was singlethreaded through this database developer. Well, they were, you know, they built this custom thing for my biggest client and they're, you know, they're gone. What do I do now? or you know any any example along those lines where it's like if you haven't made those if you haven't at least planned for those processes and put things in place you're you're inevitably going to either be miserable or you're going to fail. Yeah, that single point of failure is always the uh biggest hurdle especially in tech because especially when you're start get growing and you have like legacy projects and you don't know what to do with them but you got to maintain them because you have customers. It's yeah it can be a mess. >> Yes, it's the it's the tale we all know for sure. Yeah. >> So, walking through some of these strategies, you know, we talked, you know, single point of failure, we talked about, you know, trying to stay focused. >> Um, the accountability side of things. Mhm. >> Um how do you help these companies, these organizations assess and uh understand the importance or how to um measure the performances of their business of their strategies of their employees and their direction? How how do you how do they me you know how do you show the impact of hey if you change this this will improve on this because a lot of people don't understand what has value and what doesn't because everyone thinks everything's got value but how do you measure that? No, it's a it's a great question and that's where we're you know we're kind of working into that two layers like you have to show you know leadership or seauite folks like there's it you can't always be chasing the money that will come in immediately like you need to spend time on these processes spend time on these workflows and uh on the experimentation and the innovation and understand that those are going to have benefits to your bottom line. um but they might not have the immediate you know it's not a contract coming in and so sometimes it's it's less appealing on their side and the same thing is true for the staff where it's well hey if I you know sell this or build this or whatever else this that you know that has some tangible you know short-term thing that feels like it could be beneficial whereas uh you working within a more efficient workflow doesn't you're not really sure what that what that means for you so at both of those layers I think The measurability is saying like again we come back to the impact of time or the impact of a workflow or impact of efficiency where you're saying if you can get this much you know if you're developer if you've created this way for your developers to interact with their project team that and you've automated these elements of your of your workflow. um you know maybe you're getting back 15% of your time and what does that mean if you're a time and materials group and make sure that that number is there so that they understand both from the leadership standpoint so that they know the you know the profit side of it and then also for the staff to say like hey if you you know the example I keep using about the spreadsheet but it could be anyone it could be a it could be a developer it could be a project person who's sending the same emails over and over again like that you know everybody knows there are parts of their job that are probably wasteful like it's it it's necessary but it's wasteful. And if you can automate those things then suddenly you can be more efficient, your team can work better, you can have higher quality of life and uh and those things all have a benefit to them both qualitatively and then from the quantitative standpoint that the ownership says oh well hey suddenly we are 15% more profitable and there's raises and bonuses and things like that. So that's that's the the measurability we're looking for and the messaging we're giving is like it can't always be about the like the dollar that's right there, you know, that day. Sometimes it has to be about the the plan. So, are there any particular tools or um light measurements that you would recommend where I'm trying not to be too big brothery here because I know some organizations can just go, hey, we'll put like sniffers on everyone's machines and see what apps are open for how. What is a more balanced solution that you would suggest for organizations and startups >> in terms of like time tracking and efficiency and things like that? >> Well, and yeah, like that or like you said like they're using this tool or maybe they're >> Oh, well yeah tracking this. >> Yeah, that that constantly audit. We're we are it's I mean we build software platforms ourselves so I'm not I'm never going to say don't use tools but we are we are always trying to find like a reduction of tools like because there usually are duplicative ones. does not matter. Like we will find a group that's like wait do you have constant contact and mailchimp and Salesforce and you're sending out messages from all three like there's CRM data in multiple places like legacy database plus you know something and those kinds of things like we don't we try and root out places where even if somebody has created I think you give somebody gave an example like somebody's created their own little process for their group or themselves and like it works and it may even be profitable but it's not something that fits into the integr ated company vision. And so we're trying to we're trying to reduce tool usage or at least, you know, say it's got to have a very specific purpose and it's got to be a purpose that serves the needs of the whole company, not something that's like small division, small team, small group. >> So not so much like a a tools based, but you kind of do like a tech assessment or a >> we do a technology assessment. Um, and we kind of maybe we speak out both sides of our mouth where we're saying like it's not about the tools, but it is meaning like we don't want our team and I'm sure most people nobody wants to show up and be like, you know, you got a leader who's like give me, you know, give me what whatever, give me uh Salesforce and make it work at my company for this and that'll be, you know, that's what I'll say whether this is successful or not. That's not the way like we don't want we don't want that. We wanted it to be about the process, the workflow, how it affects all of these things. The tool is sort of like this end destination where we say this is what we're going to utilize in order to create this effect. This is what we're going to use to accomplish it. But by the same token, we always want to be auditing what's there to say like even if you have some legacy tool that that people that are there have been using for some long time, it may not be you have to be in that constant evaluation mode. And so um you know we want to we want to get rid of things that aren't necessary but you know and sort of just find those efficiencies from a platforming standpoint. >> So how do you that actually leads because it's uh yeah it's one of those things. So you mentioned like ch things change over time. What you did six months ago or a year ago may not be the best right now. But I want to sort of shift that a little bit is so now there are some tools out there and we're see I guess there have been for a while there have been tools that have changed productivity levels and now I think we're seeing actually in dramatic changes with AI with some of these tools. So how do you approach that with uh particularly from like you know companies that deal with time of materials type of an approach is when the time used to be you know an hour and now it's taking 30 minutes. How do you how do you navigate that a little bit or how do you recommend that they navigate that as as far as like you know now you're going to have to find three times as many customers or you're going to you know how do you how do you look at that? Well, I mean there's you can go to a valuepriced um billing model uh is one way to do it. You know that there and that's that's one of the things if you're if you're a company and you're selling your expertise, your time, your product, whatever it might be. Um you maybe look at something where you say, "Can I have a retainer or partnership or something where uh you're paying for the value of having access to us and our expertise? doesn't matter whether we're spending 2.5 hours like you know we're we're a certain kind of strategist or technologist or company. We're not a law firm that wants to bill you 5 minutes because we thought about you while we were going to the bathroom or something. So I I mean we do look at it a little bit like that where it's like yes like time is changing in a sense and so you can't always say hey uh it used to cost um you know let's it used to take us two weeks to design a UX UI for a website and now it's you can snap and it's 50% of the time. Well if it's 50% of the time and you're getting 50% less money like it's not going to be realistic for you to to just always double the number of customers you have as you as you said in your example. And so you kind of have to find and that's where some of these efficiencies are so crucial like it's it is there is a little bit of adapt or die because the old models of working and the old models of pricing don't really apply in the same ways that they did before. So I mean we look at more like you have you have to show your val you have to have value um and you have to potentially get pricing from your you know cost and pricing from the value of the work that you're doing as opposed to the actual time itself. Yeah, I'm seeing some of the same things. I think it it really is. I think the value model is probably going to it's just forcing us into it. And yeah, like I think the legal law firms are the ones that are like the brunt of this because that's so much of this is based on ours and now people are pushing back and saying I don't think it takes your you know your your people that long to research that anymore because we can go research that ourselves and you know 10 minutes instead of 3 hours and yes we don't have the same view but obviously time needs to change so that portion of it needs to be adjusted. >> Absolutely. I think there I mean there was a Wall Street Journal article about McKenzie a couple months ago and they were you know it's a project used to take X number of hours and Y number of staffers and that percentage is you know and they've adapted but you know we all kind of have to understand that that the formula and calculation has has changed dramatically um you can apply that anywhere it doesn't matter is it you used to need a certain number of programmers and designers for a website you don't need that many you know from a law firm standpoint like I can take you can take a document and vomit it into chat GPT and suddenly like you've got 60% of what you need. Um, so it doesn't mean that the attorney is not needed any milk, but you, you know, or the law firm is not needed, but you don't need them as much and for as great of volume. And so that is going to reduce everybody's need to spend in those areas, but it doesn't mean that there won't be money to spend on something else. And so there is just a little bit of like redistribution and recalculating like how can I use my SAS time or what can I sell that might be different or how can I price this differently? >> Yeah. with that and and that's interesting. So when you're doing the assessments and that it you're it's like you said, you know, it's more the value. What is the value that you're giving? Because you can use these tools to speed that up. Um you mentioned chat GPT. Um, are there any other AI tools that you see that are kind of closer to that point that where people could go to look at to help streamline their processes or help them figure out their assessments even? >> Yeah, I mean there I mean there's so many now like from a coding standpoint, we really like Claude. So I mean that's that's probably the se the one that we utilize the most from from that side of it and chat PT really from the that's the one that I think those of us in the Gen X um you know boomer area were we're best at using but that's why it's such an interesting time is that like what what was good even in AI 6 to 12 months ago like so many new things have have sort of emerged and like uh even what is good is like it was like oh well this was the the gold standard, you know, a year ago and now suddenly something has surpassed it. Like, you know, these groups are in just an arms race, you know, like the the browser based ones, though there's some security concerns with them, but like what Google's doing is they're customer of ours, but what they're doing is, you know, some pretty amazing stuff with Gemini and things. And so, we're it's just really exciting time to see all of it. Uh, mildly terrifying, but also just very interesting to watch. I would say for some people it's more than mildly terrifying because it's it is it is it is literally I hate you know it seems cliche but it literally is gamechanging. There is a lot of areas that now like for example I I think like the virtual assistant industry may just completely disappear because you you have that in your you know in the palm of your hand in the form of of some of these AI agents and stuff like that. Now there's, you know, what they can do is is limited to some extent, but honestly, so is what you can get out of a lot of your, you know, virtual assistants and that. So I think if you're lower-end commodity kind of stuff, I think uh it's going to change what are commodities and uh what people are willing to pay for some of those commodities as well. I think there's, like I said, so I think it may be a little more than mildly terrifying for a few because people have settled in and they're like, well, this is the way it's been for my lifetime and now it has changed dramatically and and the adopt or die hits a a a broad swath of people at this point. I think >> I I I see the same thing and it's it kind of hits each industry or vertical differently. You know there are a lot of in sort of that nonprofit or C501c3 area there are people who are lifers and like it's that is it's change is very hard generally this kind of change which is like it's beyond seismic is extremely difficult for for some folks to adapt and I think to your point earlier like from the entrepreneurial side like it's so it's such hyperdrive that some some folks are have a hard time just kind of focusing on you being great at one or two things that they're just kind of all over the place and trying to always adapt to the latest thing and um they're too busy doing that. They're just kind of spinning. So it's uh yeah it is a challenging time um uh you know from a leader standpoint in terms of trying to like run things and structure things and figure out like you know do I need to cut or you know how do I how do I stay ahead of this and from a staffing and employee standpoint where you're like I I want to I want you know I want to invest in this and I want to learn this but like am I just getting replaced and then what happens to me then? So yeah, it's not uh not the most not the most fun for some folks. Yeah, I think in the IT world that's something that we have in the past talked at length at at developers that are wanting and technologists that want to build out their career. One of the things is you have you know you broaden your horizons in different languages and platforms and things like that and I was looking at something just the other day and it's like I I don't know that that matters as much. Like if you can if you've got the core then you don't really need to learn the language anymore because you can go like you can build it out enough that you can have something built as an example and now you can you can sort of figure it out from there and you can even have stuff assessed. can I I mean like I can flip and and flop applications and have done it now a couple of times where I'll take something like okay go write this in React and I'll take the same thing like okay go write this in just like a standard HTML JavaScript go write this in Java go write this in Python go write and and you can take the same thing and you can very quickly especially if you've got the foundations you can see how those pieces work and now you can basically say sure I can write an I've never written a Python application in my life I can go write one because you know enough to build you know you know the basic building blocks which I think goes back to and it's a long way to get to a question here is like the SOPs and stuff like that is that's like the lifeblood to me that is and I think to that's like the lifeblood of the the organization this is your secret sauce somehow in here this is what makes your business uniquely your business and so have you have you had those conversations particularly in like the last six months or year as AI has moved very quickly about the value of those processes even in this rapid change environment. >> Yeah, you just have to you just have to bake in the knowledge that they can change rapidly and quickly. Um they still have to be created and still many of the like top level 30,000 foot pieces of those processes are going to stay the same. It doesn't matter whether it is cla or chat GPT. It doesn't matter whether it is Python or React. Like there are things like that where you don't have to fill in, you know, the granular level of it, but you do have to have a mapped out, you know, way for your business to be effective and successful, for your employees to have a roadmap for what they're doing and how they're fitting into it, to have a workflow that allows them to interact efficiently and, you know, be profitable for you. And so, uh, yeah, it it makes it harder, I think, from both like a sea level and just like kind of a manage managerial level to know that like these SOPs you're going to have to kind of be going back to more often than you want to fill in certain kinds of details, but the main like the foundational blocks of them should stay the same. If you're true to what your, you know, vision, mission, or, you know, goals are like the foundational pieces shouldn't be changing. It should just be more the details of how you're doing it. >> Nice. Now, with the So, I'm kind of go back to like the startup ideas and for those that don't know what they don't know, what are some since we're talking AI here, what are some good questions that you would offer uh these startups or these individuals to start with Chat GPT, you know, or AI in general? What are some questions that they should start asking themselves to get the right process started? >> Like prompts that they should be using in AI or how to start approaching AI for their for their business. >> Um or >> probably both really >> little bit of all. Little bit of both. Well, I mean that that's the thing, right? Like much when we were talking about like legal briefs or whatever it is like you you can go into you can go to Chat GPT and say like, "Hey, I'm a company that does X. I have this number of employees. These are our primary services. And I'm trying to create a workflow that has, you know, these kinds of statuses. Can you help me think through this? And you know that it's going to it's almost like a brainstorming friend that uh will start to learn over time like you know for chat GPT for me or for any of these like they know like oh hey uh Mike with orchestrate and you know workflow platforms and application systems and higher ed like it will learn those things and so you really want to be able to utilize it you know not not in the weird buddy way but in the like you know here's something where I can offload information and and get some interesting feedback. I don't think it gets you the whole way there, but I think it helps you it helps you. I think you had said what what what do you not know like help you understand some of the things that is very, you know, obvious for a for a young entrepreneur for a startup company that's in in its infancy like uh some of the obvious things to find, you know, potentially community help or or other resources that are going to help them start structuring things. Um, so those are the kinds of things we would use from a prompt standpoint. From like an introduction to AI, I think that's where it is, if you're new to it, it is better to have help to say cuz it there's so much you like people have a hard time with like is it is this generative? Is this a gentic? What what does orchestration mean? Like there's so many terms that are out there that can get complicated. like it's better to have uh whether it's an advisor or somebody that's had that experience to kind of help introduce them to the concepts and understand how it might apply to their business. And so um you know we kind of focus on like do you have your business plan your strategy in place like now let's look at where can AI like where can you create efficiencies and where can AI be part of that. >> Uh excellent. Now, I loved how you laid out the the first part because it um traditionally we've talked about this in the past uh on the software side. Uh I'm a test-driven developer, so I like writing user stories and what you just defined there was like the perfect user story to go in and get introduced to AI for uh defining your processes and and I love that. That is such a great example. Thank you. >> Awesome. Well, as uh as I put the challenge out to before that like you know, everybody we've every guest we've had has just sucked up the time and and it's always been a great conversation and once again we have suddenly gotten the end of our time together. Uh it's been a great conversation. What are the best ways for people in the audience to reach out to you and and learn a little bit more about what you do or or ask questions? >> Yeah, absolutely. Um I'm on LinkedIn. Uh there's not a lot of Mike Taguchi's floating around the world, so it shouldn't be too hard to find. Or you can, you know, find us online. e-resources.com is our company and the website or plat the platform orchestrate that I mentioned uh you could look up. But yeah, I think LinkedIn's probably your easiest bet. >> Excellent. Well, thank you so much for your time. Appreciate having you here and uh this great conversation and uh we look forward to even the conversations that started out in holiday movies and all that kind of stuff. we have definitely gone uh we have gone far and wide in this uh in this interview. So, thank you so much for for entertaining our whims and in doing so as well. Um and uh we will wrap this one up. Thank you so much for your time and we will catch you again next time out there on the web and we'll just do one of those real quick. All right. Well, think uh we have like a bonus period uh that we do in our on the YouTube side. So, what would be like this is where it puts you a little bit on the hot sheet, but like more people people that are out there that are like, "Okay, >> I feel like I need to do something with my processes and that's about where they're at. They don't really know where they're at. What would be like your like your one recommendation of like where to begin before they even call you or anything else? like what would be something that's like this is something you could do maybe today to to take that first step. >> Pick one is and that's that's that's my advice is that you know again we work with a lot of groups that have multiple departments, multiple divisions, multiple whatever. And they often have version layers of silos to them. They aren't always integrated. There's no way for a person to just get overwhelmed if you're trying to like, you know, go into VO and create this entire map of the way to fix it. That's impossible. Um, pick one process where you're like, I think I've got some room for improvement here. I think I have a way that, you know, maybe this team or this staff, this unit or this product offering, I think I can we could get more out of this area, but they seem to be, you know, either, you know, drowning in manual tasks or using a tool that doesn't work for them, whatever it might be. Pick one where you think you can have where change could have an impact and start working or fixing that one. you know, kind of mapping out where where you can save time, uh, where a new tool might be able to help, whatever it might be. >> I love that. I think that falls under the category like don't let perfect be the enemy of good and things like that. It's like I think too often you're like, well, which is the most important or where do I get the best ROI? And I think like you said, I think choosing making any decision is better than being stuck in indecision, particularly in a a situation like this. It's like you got to start somewhere. So, grab a shovel and start digging basically. Exactly. Exactly. Well, thank you so much. Uh, and thank you for the for the bonus material as well. Um, as wrapping this up, we will I think those will come out Januaryish time frame, like early January. We will get you the links when they're available. It'll be >> uh we we throw it out on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So you'll you'll sometime that week before probably get the links and then they'll go live and feel free to share them out however you can. Uh between now and then I will reach out and if I haven't already I will connect to you on LinkedIn and you know if there's anything that we can do that anywhere that we can help you uh let me know if you have any questions as sometimes questions come up after you leave it's like hey what do you guys do this shoot us you know contact us and we'd be happy to answer those. We this has been great. Uh thank you so much for your time. >> Yeah. Thank you. It was nice to meet you guys. I had a great time. >> Yeah, thank you. And uh best of luck moving forward. >> Yeah, thanks. And uh enjoy all your Christmas movies. So, you know, send send me a message if you find a new one. That's fun. >> We'll definitely do that. We will we'll get that at you. We'll build an app to keep up with >> Yeah, exactly. >> All right. Take care. Bye. Bye.
Transcript Segments
Hello and welcome back. We are
continuing our season of building better
foundations but we are the building
better developers the developure
podcast. I am Rob Broadhead one of the
founders of developer. I am also the
founder of RB consulting where we help
you assess technology build a road mapap
for success. Good things bad things good
thing is uh we are now into a whole new
year. Uh the bad thing is is there have
been a lot of whole new years that have
happened in my life. It is amazing that
you know I am no longer 18, 19, 20 years
old or within decades of any of those
numbers. Um it is a just I love every
new year because it's like to me I like
it's like I do I I start fresh. I do
have uh my New Year's resolution stuff
and I stick to I I've been pretty good
at sticking to like there's usually like
one or two I'm going to stick to each
year and a couple that are my like eh
maybe that'll work. I'm going to try
them out. Um, so we'll see how that
goes. Uh, this year, whether I can can
carry forward. I always have like a like
a word of the year. I've had some really
fun ones uh over the last several years,
and it's always fun like diving into the
year and and having that as sort of like
my my focus, my thought. U you know,
seeing how that evolves. Uh it's always
been uh an enjoyable time. So, cool time
there. Uh like I said, the downside is
is like yet another year has gone by.
And I am still not a trillionaire or
anything like that. So, uh if there are
trillion out trillionaires out there
that want to, you know, just donate to
us, we will be happy to take that burden
on. Uh someone else who takes on the
burden of being on this with me every
single time is Michael. Go ahead and
introduce yourself. Hey everyone, my
name is Michael Malsh. I'm one of the
co-founders of Developer, Building
Better Developers. I'm also the owner of
Envision QA where we build and test
custom software that helps businesses
run smoother and grow faster. Uh good
things and bad things. Uh well, since
this is coming out in January, uh like
you said, talking about new year coming
up, uh good things. It it is a new year.
I I can let this year go away. It's been
a rough uh some couple rough spots this
year. Looking forward to next year being
smoother. uh and some pivots and some
changes in focus uh both intentional and
unintentional uh as this year uh last
year came to a close. It's just been uh
resetting some perspectives because it
it it just I'm my goal is to definitely
have a different perspective on next
year and growing the business.
>> And yeah, that reminds me of like 2019,
2020. Coming into 2020, there's a lot of
people like, "All right, this is going
to be my year. I'm so happy that we got
through 2019. We got past that year.
This is going to be great." And then
March hit and it was COVID and all that
kind of stuff that was people are like,
"Okay, 2021." But everybody was more
like, "Let's tiptoe into 2021 because we
didn't do it last time." And that did
not work well for us. But we're going to
march right into part two of this
interview because the other Michael
which we were talking to uh has just has
got a lot of great information. Uh and
this this conversation continued with
some some great ideas, some great
recommendations. So pencils up, grab
your notepad, take some notes because it
is definitely going to be worthwhile and
let's get right back into our
conversation. Well, and this like
following up on it like on the other end
of it is the uh and I'm sure you've run
into this as you as you go into
businesses is there's like the
we'll call it like the skunk works or
something that exists in almost every
organization where you've got the people
that are doing the jobs and they don't
have the right tools. Well, now they can
build their own tools. So, I mean, Excel
has allowed that for years. I I don't
know how many organizations where
there's like Excel spreadsheets
everywhere. Now you can have apps
everywhere basically that do this as as
this stuff's improving. So as a as a
leader, as an owner, as a manager, how
do you recommend maybe getting ahead of
that a little bit so you even when
you're building all your SOPs and you've
got everything beautifully done that
they don't call you back six months from
now and say, "Okay, it was great, but
now everybody went off and did their own
thing a little bit and now we got to go
do this again."
>> That's what we deal with a lot again
across the board. No matter what kind of
client we have, we have we always end up
with bigger groups that have um siloed
cultures. You know, your marketing
department is not the same as your IT,
which is sort of in a different, you
know, and same thing in in higher ed,
you've got departments and tribalism and
things like that. And so
that's really when you asked the
question about how do you work with
leaders like that that is really one of
the first things we're talking about is
like how do you ensure that people
aren't you know just kind of going off
doing their own thing. Um, you know, you
run into that a great deal where people
are like, well, hey, I've been here 10
years and I'm, you know, I'm the expert
at this. I'm going to keep it all in my
little area, build my own little thing.
And then suddenly, like the leadership
has terrible D, no data, terrible data,
unvalidated data. Like they can't, they
don't have the business intelligence to
make the kind of decisions they need.
Um, you don't have groups that are
integrated. So, it's hard to find
efficiencies uh in any capacity. Um, and
that's you're really like at one of our
core areas is working with people
through workflow and like that's where
you have to like shine like the
transparency light on the workflow like
okay well who is you know who is doing
this why is this happening like how do
these parts interact within within your
business or within your organization.
Um, and so that that's how we really try
and make sure that you don't end up
with, you know, one person in their
closet, another person in a cave, and
they both got, you know, one person did
this ASP core something or other,
somebody else built this no code
something, and then the third person is
like, well, I bought a software as a
service tool. And you're like, well, we
might be making money, but uh, it's a
mess. Like, that's how you create the
that's how you create that technology
debt disaster where it's like, we're
doing okay. Like, my P&L looks okay, but
it is a mess down there. like
>> so
we all know this happens and and this
goes on but from a leadership level uh
how do you
work with I'm thinking more kind of like
the startup people that haven't done
this and maybe a little inexperienced
and don't know what to look for
>> um or prepare for this because you know
we have all these ideas we hit the
ground running and we tend to run fast
but we tend to just think of the goal
and just we're we're going going going
and you know we could be spaghetti code
we could be have many different things
going on. Um
what are some guard rails or maybe
what kind of guidance would you give for
someone starting out on how to
yes stay you know hyper stay you know
keep your mission in mind but how do you
stay directed versus all over the
>> I think that's what it is it's a there
is a bit of creating creating a way for
yourself to stay accountable to the
vision and the goals and again It's it
is our direct experience. We started we
had many uh clients with extremely
successful projects but it wasn't
something where we in the early years
and spent a lot of time investing in
this is a scalable and we had
partnerships. These were groups that we
worked with for many many years but we
didn't say like how are we going to
scale this or when we want to go to
version 2.0 to 5.0 you know, like what
what will this look like in 2 3 4 5
years? Um, and so you have to create
yourself a pathway to say like, okay, I
know you need to go a million miles an
hour in order to make enough money to,
you know, keep the lights on in year 1.
But if you don't have that strategy for,
you know, year 2, three, and year four,
five, and you don't have a vision for
how does this look like so that I don't
burn myself out or my employees out,
like if you haven't created that plan to
scale, uh, to automate things, to have
an efficient workflow. You're going to
have clients that leave. You're going to
have staff that leave. Um, you're there
going to be technological developments,
you know, AI or whatever that show up
that you're not anticipating. Like if
you haven't built out a strategy, uh
doesn't mean that you don't need to
invest most of your energy in making
sure you're, you know, doing the thing
that's now now, but you have to you
still have to stay true to where you're
where you're headed. Otherwise, you will
again get to that you will end up at
that spot and say, I just lost my I was
singlethreaded through this database
developer. Well, they were, you know,
they built this custom thing for my
biggest client and they're, you know,
they're gone. What do I do now? or you
know any any example along those lines
where it's like if you haven't made
those if you haven't at least planned
for those processes and put things in
place you're you're inevitably going to
either be miserable or you're going to
fail. Yeah, that single point of failure
is always the uh biggest hurdle
especially in tech because especially
when you're start get growing and you
have like legacy projects and you don't
know what to do with them but you got to
maintain them because you have
customers. It's yeah it can be a mess.
>> Yes, it's the it's the tale we all know
for sure.
Yeah.
>> So,
walking through some of these
strategies, you know, we talked, you
know, single point of failure, we talked
about, you know, trying to stay focused.
>> Um, the accountability side of things.
Mhm.
>> Um how do you help these companies,
these organizations assess and uh
understand the importance or how to um
measure the performances of their
business of their strategies of their
employees and their direction? How
how do you how do they me you know how
do you show the impact of hey if you
change this this will improve on this
because a lot of people don't understand
what has value and what doesn't because
everyone thinks everything's got value
but how do you measure that?
No, it's a it's a great question and
that's where we're you know we're kind
of working into that two layers like you
have to show you know leadership or
seauite folks like there's it you can't
always be chasing the money that will
come in immediately like you need to
spend time on these processes spend time
on these workflows and uh on the
experimentation and the innovation and
understand that those are going to have
benefits to your bottom line. um but
they might not have the immediate you
know it's not a contract coming in and
so sometimes it's it's less appealing on
their side and the same thing is true
for the staff where it's well hey if I
you know sell this or build this or
whatever else this that you know that
has some tangible you know short-term
thing that feels like it could be
beneficial whereas uh you working within
a more efficient workflow doesn't you're
not really sure what that what that
means for you so at both of those layers
I think The measurability is saying like
again we come back to the impact of time
or the impact of a workflow or impact of
efficiency where you're saying if you
can get this much you know if you're
developer if you've created this way for
your developers to interact with their
project team that and you've automated
these elements of your of your workflow.
um you know maybe you're getting back
15% of your time and what does that mean
if you're a time and materials group and
make sure that that number is there so
that they understand both from the
leadership standpoint so that they know
the you know the profit side of it and
then also for the staff to say like hey
if you you know the example I keep using
about the spreadsheet but it could be
anyone it could be a it could be a
developer it could be a project person
who's sending the same emails over and
over again like that you know everybody
knows there are parts of their job that
are probably wasteful like it's it it's
necessary but it's wasteful. And if you
can automate those things then suddenly
you can be more efficient, your team can
work better, you can have higher quality
of life and uh and those things all have
a benefit to them both qualitatively and
then from the quantitative standpoint
that the ownership says oh well hey
suddenly we are 15% more profitable and
there's raises and bonuses and things
like that. So that's that's the the
measurability we're looking for and the
messaging we're giving is like it can't
always be about the like the dollar
that's right there, you know, that day.
Sometimes it has to be about the the
plan.
So, are there any particular tools or
um light measurements that you would
recommend where I'm trying not to be too
big brothery here because I know some
organizations can just go, hey, we'll
put like sniffers on everyone's machines
and see what apps are open for how. What
is a more balanced
solution that you would suggest for
organizations and startups
>> in terms of like time tracking and
efficiency and things like that?
>> Well, and yeah, like that or like you
said like they're using this tool or
maybe they're
>> Oh, well yeah tracking this.
>> Yeah, that that constantly audit. We're
we are it's I mean we build software
platforms ourselves so I'm not I'm never
going to say don't use tools but we are
we are always trying to find like a
reduction of tools like because there
usually are duplicative ones. does not
matter. Like we will find a group that's
like wait do you have constant contact
and mailchimp and Salesforce and you're
sending out messages from all three like
there's CRM data in multiple places like
legacy database plus you know something
and those kinds of things like we don't
we try and root out places where even if
somebody has created I think you give
somebody gave an example like somebody's
created their own little process for
their group or themselves and like it
works and it may even be profitable but
it's not something that fits into the
integr ated company vision. And so we're
trying to we're trying to reduce tool
usage or at least, you know, say it's
got to have a very specific purpose and
it's got to be a purpose that serves the
needs of the whole company, not
something that's like small division,
small team, small group.
>> So not so much like a a tools based, but
you kind of do like a tech assessment or
a
>> we do a technology assessment. Um, and
we kind of maybe we speak out both sides
of our mouth where we're saying like
it's not about the tools, but it is
meaning like we don't want our team and
I'm sure most people nobody wants to
show up and be like, you know, you got a
leader who's like give me, you know,
give me what whatever, give me uh
Salesforce and make it work at my
company for this and that'll be, you
know, that's what I'll say whether this
is successful or not. That's not the way
like we don't want we don't want that.
We wanted it to be about the process,
the workflow, how it affects all of
these things. The tool is sort of like
this end destination where we say this
is what we're going to utilize in order
to create this effect. This is what
we're going to use to accomplish it. But
by the same token, we always want to be
auditing what's there to say like even
if you have some legacy tool that that
people that are there have been using
for some long time, it may not be you
have to be in that constant evaluation
mode. And so um you know we want to we
want to get rid of things that aren't
necessary but you know and sort of just
find those efficiencies from a
platforming standpoint.
>> So how do you that actually leads
because it's uh yeah it's one of those
things. So you mentioned like ch things
change over time. What you did six
months ago or a year ago may not be the
best right now. But I want to sort of
shift that a little bit is so now there
are some tools out there and we're see I
guess there have been for a while there
have been tools that have changed
productivity levels and now I think
we're seeing actually in dramatic
changes with AI with some of these
tools. So how do you approach that with
uh particularly from like you know
companies that deal with time of
materials type of an approach is when
the time used to be you know an hour and
now it's taking 30 minutes. How do you
how do you navigate that a little bit or
how do you recommend that they navigate
that as as far as like you know now
you're going to have to find three times
as many customers or you're going to you
know how do you how do you look at that?
Well, I mean there's you can go to a
valuepriced um billing model uh is one
way to do it. You know that there and
that's that's one of the things if
you're if you're a company and you're
selling your expertise, your time, your
product, whatever it might be. Um you
maybe look at something where you say,
"Can I have a retainer or partnership or
something where uh you're paying for the
value of having access to us and our
expertise? doesn't matter whether we're
spending 2.5 hours like you know we're
we're a certain kind of strategist or
technologist or company. We're not a law
firm that wants to bill you 5 minutes
because we thought about you while we
were going to the bathroom or something.
So I I mean we do look at it a little
bit like that where it's like yes like
time is changing in a sense and so you
can't always say hey uh it used to cost
um you know let's it used to take us two
weeks to design a UX UI for a website
and now it's you can snap and it's 50%
of the time. Well if it's 50% of the
time and you're getting 50% less money
like it's not going to be realistic for
you to to just always double the number
of customers you have as you as you said
in your example. And so you kind of have
to find and that's where some of these
efficiencies are so crucial like it's it
is there is a little bit of adapt or die
because the old models of working and
the old models of pricing don't really
apply in the same ways that they did
before. So I mean we look at more like
you have you have to show your val you
have to have value um and you have to
potentially get pricing from your you
know cost and pricing from the value of
the work that you're doing as opposed to
the actual time itself.
Yeah, I'm seeing some of the same
things. I think it it really is. I think
the value model is probably going to
it's just forcing us into it. And yeah,
like I think the legal law firms are the
ones that are like the brunt of this
because that's so much of this is based
on ours and now people are pushing back
and saying I don't think it takes your
you know your your people that long to
research that anymore because we can go
research that ourselves and you know 10
minutes instead of 3 hours and yes we
don't have the same view but obviously
time needs to change so that portion of
it needs to be adjusted.
>> Absolutely. I think there I mean there
was a Wall Street Journal article about
McKenzie a couple months ago and they
were you know it's a project used to
take X number of hours and Y number of
staffers and that percentage is you know
and they've adapted but you know we all
kind of have to understand that that the
formula and calculation has has changed
dramatically um you can apply that
anywhere it doesn't matter is it you
used to need a certain number of
programmers and designers for a website
you don't need that many you know from a
law firm standpoint like I can take you
can take a document and vomit it into
chat GPT and suddenly like you've got
60% of what you need. Um, so it doesn't
mean that the attorney is not needed any
milk, but you, you know, or the law firm
is not needed, but you don't need them
as much and for as great of volume. And
so that is going to reduce everybody's
need to spend in those areas, but it
doesn't mean that there won't be money
to spend on something else. And so there
is just a little bit of like
redistribution and recalculating like
how can I use my SAS time or what can I
sell that might be different or how can
I price this differently?
>> Yeah. with that and and that's
interesting. So when you're doing the
assessments and that it you're it's like
you said, you know, it's more the value.
What is the value that you're giving?
Because you can use these tools to speed
that up. Um you mentioned chat GPT. Um,
are there any other AI tools that you
see that are kind of closer to that
point that where people could go to look
at to help streamline their processes or
help them figure out their assessments
even?
>> Yeah, I mean there I mean there's so
many now like from a coding standpoint,
we really like Claude. So I mean that's
that's probably the se the one that we
utilize the most from from that side of
it and chat PT really from the that's
the one that I think those of us in the
Gen X um you know boomer area were we're
best at using but that's why it's such
an interesting time is that like what
what was good even in AI 6 to 12 months
ago like so many new things have have
sort of emerged and like uh even what is
good is like it was like oh well this
was the the gold standard, you know, a
year ago and now suddenly something has
surpassed it. Like, you know, these
groups are in just an arms race, you
know, like the the browser based ones,
though there's some security concerns
with them, but like what Google's doing
is they're customer of ours, but what
they're doing is, you know, some pretty
amazing stuff with Gemini and things.
And so, we're it's just really exciting
time to see all of it. Uh, mildly
terrifying, but also just very
interesting to watch.
I would say for some people it's more
than mildly terrifying because it's it
is it is it is literally I hate you know
it seems cliche but it literally is
gamechanging. There is a lot of areas
that now like for example I I think like
the virtual assistant industry may just
completely disappear because you you
have that in your you know in the palm
of your hand in the form of of some of
these AI agents and stuff like that. Now
there's, you know, what they can do is
is limited to some extent, but honestly,
so is what you can get out of a lot of
your, you know, virtual assistants and
that. So I think if you're lower-end
commodity kind of stuff, I think uh it's
going to change what are commodities and
uh what people are willing to pay for
some of those commodities as well. I
think there's, like I said, so I think
it may be a little more than mildly
terrifying for a few because people have
settled in and they're like, well, this
is the way it's been for my lifetime and
now it has changed dramatically and and
the adopt or die hits a a a broad swath
of people at this point. I think
>> I I I see the same thing and it's it
kind of hits each industry or vertical
differently. You know there are a lot of
in sort of that nonprofit or C501c3 area
there are people who are lifers and like
it's that is it's change is very hard
generally this kind of change which is
like it's beyond seismic is extremely
difficult for for some folks to adapt
and I think to your point earlier like
from the entrepreneurial side like it's
so it's such hyperdrive that some some
folks are have a hard time just kind of
focusing on you being great at one or
two things that they're just kind of all
over the place and trying to always
adapt to the latest thing and um they're
too busy doing that. They're just kind
of spinning. So it's uh yeah it is a
challenging time um uh you know from a
leader standpoint in terms of trying to
like run things and structure things and
figure out like you know do I need to
cut or you know how do I how do I stay
ahead of this and from a staffing and
employee standpoint where you're like I
I want to I want you know I want to
invest in this and I want to learn this
but like am I just getting replaced and
then what happens to me then? So yeah,
it's not uh not the most not the most
fun for some folks.
Yeah, I think in the IT world that's
something that we have in the past
talked at length at at developers that
are wanting and technologists that want
to build out their career. One of the
things is you have you know you broaden
your horizons in different languages and
platforms and things like that and I was
looking at something just the other day
and it's like I I don't know that that
matters as much. Like if you can if
you've got the core then you don't
really need to learn the language
anymore because you can go like you can
build it out enough that you can have
something built as an example and now
you can you can sort of figure it out
from there and you can even have stuff
assessed. can I I mean like I can flip
and and flop applications and have done
it now a couple of times where I'll take
something like okay go write this in
React and I'll take the same thing like
okay go write this in just like a
standard HTML JavaScript go write this
in Java go write this in Python go write
and and you can take the same thing and
you can very quickly especially if
you've got the foundations you can see
how those pieces work and now you can
basically say sure I can write an I've
never written a Python application in my
life I can go write one because you know
enough to build you know you know the
basic building blocks which I think goes
back to and it's a long way to get to a
question here is like
the SOPs and stuff like that is that's
like the lifeblood to me that is and I
think to that's like the lifeblood of
the the organization this is your secret
sauce somehow in here this is what makes
your business uniquely your business and
so have you
have you had those conversations
particularly in like the last six months
or year as AI has moved very quickly
about the value of those processes even
in this rapid change environment.
>> Yeah, you just have to you just have to
bake in the knowledge that they can
change rapidly and quickly. Um
they still have to be created and still
many of the like top level 30,000 foot
pieces of those processes are going to
stay the same. It doesn't matter whether
it is cla or chat GPT. It doesn't matter
whether it is Python or React. Like
there are things like that where you
don't have to fill in, you know, the
granular level of it, but you do have to
have a mapped out, you know, way for
your business to be effective and
successful, for your employees to have a
roadmap for what they're doing and how
they're fitting into it, to have a
workflow that allows them to interact
efficiently and, you know, be profitable
for you. And so, uh, yeah, it it makes
it harder, I think, from both like a sea
level and just like kind of a manage
managerial level to know that like these
SOPs you're going to have to kind of be
going back to more often than you want
to fill in certain kinds of details, but
the main like the foundational blocks of
them should stay the same. If you're
true to what your, you know, vision,
mission, or, you know, goals are like
the foundational pieces shouldn't be
changing. It should just be more the
details of how you're doing it.
>> Nice. Now, with the So, I'm kind of go
back to like the startup ideas and for
those that don't know what they don't
know, what are some since we're talking
AI here, what are some good questions
that you would offer uh these startups
or these individuals to start with Chat
GPT, you know, or AI in general?
What are some questions that they should
start asking themselves
to get the right process started?
>> Like prompts that they should be using
in AI or how to start approaching AI for
their for their business.
>> Um or
>> probably both really
>> little bit of all. Little bit of both.
Well, I mean that that's the thing,
right? Like much when we were talking
about like legal briefs or whatever it
is like you you can go into you can go
to Chat GPT and say like, "Hey, I'm a
company that does X. I have this number
of employees. These are our primary
services. And I'm trying to create a
workflow that has, you know, these kinds
of statuses. Can you help me think
through this? And you know that it's
going to it's almost like a
brainstorming friend that uh will start
to learn over time like you know for
chat GPT for me or for any of these like
they know like oh hey uh Mike with
orchestrate and you know workflow
platforms and application systems and
higher ed like it will learn those
things and so you really want to be able
to utilize it you know not not in the
weird buddy way but in the like you know
here's something where I can offload
information and and get some interesting
feedback. I don't think it gets you the
whole way there, but I think it helps
you it helps you. I think you had said
what what what do you not know like help
you understand some of the things that
is very, you know, obvious for a for a
young entrepreneur for a startup company
that's in in its infancy like uh some of
the obvious things to find, you know,
potentially community help or or other
resources that are going to help them
start structuring things.
Um, so those are the kinds of things we
would use from a prompt standpoint. From
like an introduction to AI, I think
that's where it is, if you're new to it,
it is better to have help to say cuz it
there's so much you like people have a
hard time with like is it is this
generative? Is this a gentic? What what
does orchestration mean? Like there's so
many terms that are out there that can
get complicated. like it's better to
have uh whether it's an advisor or
somebody that's had that experience to
kind of help introduce them to the
concepts and understand how it might
apply to their business. And so um you
know we kind of focus on like do you
have your business plan your strategy in
place like now let's look at where can
AI like where can you create
efficiencies and where can AI be part of
that.
>> Uh excellent. Now, I loved how you laid
out the the first part because it um
traditionally we've talked about this in
the past uh on the software side. Uh I'm
a test-driven developer, so I like
writing user stories and what you just
defined there was like the perfect user
story to go in and get introduced to AI
for uh defining your processes and and I
love that. That is such a great example.
Thank you.
>> Awesome. Well, as uh as I put the
challenge out to before that like you
know, everybody we've every guest we've
had has just sucked up the time and and
it's always been a great conversation
and once again we have suddenly gotten
the end of our time together. Uh it's
been a great conversation. What are the
best ways for people in the audience to
reach out to you and and learn a little
bit more about what you do or or ask
questions?
>> Yeah, absolutely. Um I'm on LinkedIn. Uh
there's not a lot of Mike Taguchi's
floating around the world, so it
shouldn't be too hard to find. Or you
can, you know, find us online.
e-resources.com is our company and the
website or plat the platform orchestrate
that I mentioned uh you could look up.
But yeah, I think LinkedIn's probably
your easiest bet.
>> Excellent. Well, thank you so much for
your time. Appreciate having you here
and uh this great conversation and uh we
look forward to even the conversations
that started out in holiday movies and
all that kind of stuff. we have
definitely gone uh we have gone far and
wide in this uh in this interview. So,
thank you so much for for entertaining
our whims and in doing so as well. Um
and uh we will wrap this one up. Thank
you so much for your time and we will
catch you again next time out there on
the web
and we'll just do one of those real
quick.
All right. Well, think uh we have like a
bonus period uh that we do in our on the
YouTube side. So, what would be like
this is where it puts you a little bit
on the hot sheet, but like more people
people that are out there that are like,
"Okay,
>> I feel like I need to do something with
my processes and that's about where
they're at. They don't really know where
they're at. What would be like your like
your one recommendation of like where to
begin before they even call you or
anything else? like what would be
something that's like this is something
you could do maybe today to to take that
first step.
>> Pick one is and that's that's that's my
advice is that you know again we work
with a lot of groups that have multiple
departments, multiple divisions,
multiple whatever. And they often have
version layers of silos to them. They
aren't always integrated. There's no way
for a person to just get overwhelmed if
you're trying to like, you know, go into
VO and create this entire map of the way
to fix it. That's impossible. Um, pick
one process where you're like, I think
I've got
some room for improvement here. I think
I have a way that, you know, maybe this
team or this staff, this unit or this
product offering, I think I can we could
get more out of this area, but they seem
to be, you know, either, you know,
drowning in manual tasks or using a tool
that doesn't work for them, whatever it
might be. Pick one where you think you
can have where change could have an
impact and start working or fixing that
one. you know, kind of mapping out where
where you can save time, uh, where a new
tool might be able to help, whatever it
might be.
>> I love that. I think that falls under
the category like don't let perfect be
the enemy of good and things like that.
It's like I think too often you're like,
well, which is the most important or
where do I get the best ROI? And I think
like you said, I think choosing making
any decision is better than being stuck
in indecision, particularly in a a
situation like this. It's like you got
to start somewhere. So, grab a shovel
and start digging basically. Exactly.
Exactly.
Well, thank you so much. Uh, and thank
you for the for the bonus material as
well. Um, as wrapping this up, we will I
think those will come out Januaryish
time frame, like early January. We will
get you the links when they're
available. It'll be
>> uh we we throw it out on Tuesdays and
Thursdays. So you'll you'll sometime
that week before probably get the links
and then they'll go live and feel free
to share them out however you can. Uh
between now and then I will reach out
and if I haven't already I will connect
to you on LinkedIn and you know if
there's anything that we can do that
anywhere that we can help you uh let me
know if you have any questions as
sometimes questions come up after you
leave it's like hey what do you guys do
this shoot us you know contact us and
we'd be happy to answer those. We this
has been great. Uh thank you so much for
your time.
>> Yeah. Thank you. It was nice to meet you
guys. I had a great time.
>> Yeah, thank you. And uh best of luck
moving forward.
>> Yeah, thanks. And uh enjoy all your
Christmas movies. So, you know, send
send me a message if you find a new one.
That's fun.
>> We'll definitely do that. We will we'll
get that at you. We'll build an app to
keep up with
>> Yeah, exactly.
>> All right. Take care. Bye. Bye.