0200 - Consulting Culture with Ian Doyle

[Music] You're listening to Design Talk, a podcast for conversations connecting design with theory, organizations, business and impact. [Music] Hi, I'm Afolabi. Hi, I'm Karina. And we're pleased to welcome Ian Doyle, consultant manager at Godwire Software. Can you tell us a little about your background on your current role please? So, I suppose my name is Ian Doyle, consultant manager in guide wire. I've been with the company 11 years and which I think is maybe kind of a point of note because I think 11 years in the IT industry is probably a lifetime. And I graduated from the IT and not at the IT anymore, Anger Street in 2006 and doing software development degree. And when traveling for a year and then joined IBM when I came back on their graduate program. And spent about six years on IBM and before moving on to a consulting role in Deloisch, spent the year there working primarily in the revenue commissioners. And just on Georgia Street there. And then I moved to guide wire in 2012, February 2012. And when at the time was a very, very small Irish operation on a much smaller company. So it was less than a thousand employees. And I was a 12th employee in Dublin to join. Okay, thank you very much. And you already talked a little bit about your career. And I guess our question would be, what does a day in the life at the guideware software look like? Yeah, I suppose, and obviously it's very dependent on roles. So the day in the life can vary and after last. And I think my role is probably quite dynamic and varied because I think the role of a manager in a large organization generally is so. And part of my role is just dealing with whatever has come up, you know, that day that week. So that could be issues with my employees. I manage a team of about 18 people. And so it's just whatever issues they have. So the role, I suppose you have to be to a certain extent. You know, open to change open to kind of things coming in open having a plan on a Wednesday and coming in. And something upsetting that plan or something overriding or becoming a higher priority. And my main role is being a people manager. So managing like I said, a team of Asian people and doing regular check ins with them. Coach coaching. So coaching through various parts of their career or if they're having issues or if they're maybe looking for. And then like a promotion or movement from one role to another kind of coaching them true that talking about kind of skills development. As well as getting feedback from peers and needs that they work with and kind of then you want to using down in their coaching conversations. And I suppose I'm also going to mention earlier on I help run our God, our base camp, which is our kind of early talent graduate program. So that takes up an awful lot of my time. So helping to organize events social events, community events, learning events activities workshops for our graduate community. And as well as the more strategic side of that, which is I suppose planning the net phase of our graduate program. So what are we going to do over the next six months, 12 months, two years, things like that? That's beautiful. So as you mentioned, you're really quite dynamic. You're doing a lot of things, right? So one thing that we would love to know is that in respect to the work that you do at Godwire, how has the Godwire methodology evolved over the years? I suppose our methodology has always been agile, but I suppose as our complexity of what we offer to our customers has increased our complexity of our methodology has increased. Obviously, as you implement any methodology, you learn lessons from that. So you learn lessons about what works, what doesn't. And also what changes over time. So obviously changes in the industry changes and what customers want and expect and what they prioritize causes us to change your methodology as well. And so I suppose to talk about maybe what's remained, you know, the most stable, the most static is our customer focus. So as an organization delivery services, which I'm part of, so our consulting part of Godwire and has always been and continues to be incredibly customer focused. So, you know, ensuring strong deep relationship with customers is probably one of our priorities. And then having a methodology to actually deliver success weaker customers is a big part of the dash and we do employ agile. So we use agile in terms of kind of those ceremonies that were talked better earlier as well. So we kind of run sprints. We do retrospectives. And we do planning, which we call inception. So we do kind of a high level plan and then actually have a backlog. And so things like that is it wasn't again, you know, if you were to look at say seven or eight years ago on the surface of a methodologies and radically different, I think the complexity has evolved and actually the lessons learned complexity of what we can offer has evolved. Does that answer the question or would you like more? Oh, absolutely spot on. Thank you in and if you think about the methodology concerning like the product development and the client delivery, would you say they differ or are they the same? I would probably say they differ not significantly again, both groups use agile and as a real kind of framework. And but I think what you have in the client services part to the client focused aspect is a lot more variability. So obviously every client is a bit different. Every client works a little bit different. Essentially, if you think about them as controllables, you have no less controllables and not kind of delivery services or professional services world. And that it's like itself causes you to have a more dynamic and more justable and more changeable kind of methodology. And also to kind of realize that that as you start implementing a methodology as you start working with a customer for the first time, what's working on what's not so having open on his conversations with that customer. And again, when I came into this, there was a very interesting conversation being had about cultures and cultures of organizations and cultures, you know, informs our behavioral norms and forms actually how we operate on what we think is normal and how we do certain things. And that has obviously an effect on methodology and how to actually implement the methodology. So having recognition of that, having open conversation with customers about that, I think is important. And that's I think one of the biggest changes that kind of dining and variability and methodology. And on our product development side, which I have to say I'm not hard to up. So he probably can't speak of the expert to it. But you control your situation a lot more. You don't have a client to client is, you know, the company that they're delivering pieces of software and development for the company. So they have enough a lot more control there, and which gives them some benefits, but I suppose it's, it's, you know, also means that they're slightly removed in customers, as well. So they rely on us and, you know, did it resurface to inform them actually what do customers need. Have they use our products things like that. Right. Yeah. Thank you so much for that. And so there's something that you've been consistent with is the fact that you are trying to basically manage a very good culture and you're dealing with people on the long run and does something they've been doing for over the years. So we respect to that. What good working practices can you highlight for teams? Do you mean I suppose like in general, what are my views and kind of good working practices in an organization? I suppose. Yes, more of both. Like what's your general view and what specifically have you done, you know, as yourself to just ensure that, you know, that should this is a good working practice and it should be applied to teams as well. Again, I kind of tinked this idea of a flat organization as much as possible. I think is really important. And that doesn't mean that there aren't people who have more experience that you can learn from. So it's more about that everyone has a voice. So no matter who what level someone comes in at what experience they come in action, kind of conscious and probably talking to a group of people now or maybe interviewing for gradual positions and things like that. That I think it's important whatever company come into they really mean it and they kind of connect it out and show examples when they say that you're going to have a voice. You're going to your opinion is going to be considered. You're going to have an impact on projects and things like that. It might be as much as somebody who has more experience, but ultimately that it's always there. I think that culturally is really, really important to me. And again, it's something that we really actively try and work on in guide wire and the GSC, the group I'm proud of and that we give our early time professionals responsibility. So it doesn't mean that we throw them into deep end. It doesn't mean that they don't have support, but it means that they have enough responsibility they can learn by doing they can actually, like, you know, enact the skills they learn during college. And I think that's really important to me. I think that's really important to me. So I think that's really important to me. And I think what value is different wildly for what you think value is. And you know, that can cause some real challenges. And you know, it can cause you to get into some difficult situations with customers. So I suppose it's I think it's important to always to really clarify. Value in a very specific sense sometimes, you know. So as you're starting projects to make sure you have conversation. We talk about an even kind of maybe get away from terms like valuable priorities. You know, what, why are you implementing our software? If you, if you've chosen God, where is your cloud provider, your large insurance company. What is it that you're looking to get out of this? What is your long term vision here? Are there things that you absolutely most have? Are there things that, you know, you have it in all system or system you're replacing that are pain points for you that you want to, you know, change? Are you on a wider or deeper, you know, reorganization or pivot a little bit in terms of what you do? And are we part of that solutioning and how actually can we help? So I think having those really specific conversations early on in the project where you really get the heart of what is value for customer. And what does it mean like, you know, can they deliver you a vision of a perfect implementation? I want to start look like and I think that like for any consultant to any organization, I think that's really important to get a sense of what it is that a customer is looking to get here. I think at times as consultants, it's up to us to help drive those conversations a little bit to maybe ask the right questions to, you know, elaborate on things a little or look for kind of framework that we can use for that elaboration. Because customers don't always think in this way, they think in a way of kind of running an organization day to day. So if they, you know, get a group of consultants in to implement something for them or do some kind of change management for them. Quite a unique situation for them. It's quite unusual for them, but I suppose for the group of consultants, it's kind of their day today. So I think they have to bring that experience of being able to ask those questions of have those, I guess it does frameworks and all methodologies that they talk about actually what it is a deliver value and how do we start to measure that over the course of project and any we measure at the end of the project. And if we get into a situation, maybe where we need to revisit these, how do we do that? So things like this, I suppose. You mentioned something about the fact that you are consulting manager, right? That means there are situations where you're exposed to unusual situations or change, right? So the question now is how does consulting change when a client engagement requires working with other partners? What are the situations where you have to engage external services or fellow consultants? Like what does it look like? What's direction do you take and how what's the picture like for you? And I think, you know, so first of all, this is something that I think we'll do quite commonly. So, you know, just to talk a little bit about kind of what we do. So we are essentially the largest and the preeminent kind of player provider, for the insurance industry for the property and casualty insurance industry. So if you think about a large insurance company, we go in and we operate and implement our core systems or core policy systems and things like that. So we are really defeating out of the successfully company that we're in there. So an awful lot of order systems will integrate to ours. An awful lot of order, you know, a size service integrators, things like that will integrate into our system. So we do have these conversations and awful lot. And we do have a lot of work to work with teraparty vendors on awful lot. And I think coming back to one of my other points about kind of that cultural change and that, you know, it's like chaos to me cause by two different cultures coming together. You know, God, why and maybe an insurance company. You add to the mix a couple of order vendors, a couple of teraparty companies and that chaos just gets a bit worse or worse. And then the other work and repair is very, very, very strong program management, very, very, very strong project management. And again, you have to have those clear conversations that they have roles and responsibilities that where does my responsibility stop in terms of maybe if I'm doing an integration to a third party vendor like where does mind stop and your start. And I agree on dates to be really clearly communicating if delivery dates are going to be missed or they're going to slip ready to change. There's multiple stakeholders in my conversation. So again, really strong program management project management. And I think it's actually critical to do this. And I think as well, the customer has to have an understanding of kind of who to talk to about certain things. So, you know, customers often kind of want to single voice a single person to represent an implementation of a project. And so again, to be clear with them about who that is, I kind of walk conversations or if maybe, you know, if you're in a situation as a consultant where you're maybe not the primary group or vendor on a project that may be one of the secondary or tertiary kind of vendors. And that you have to talk to someone else, making sure that your message doesn't get modeled that you're clear that you have the clear lines of communication. And I think, you know, like anything in the consulting world, it requires just adaptability and an ability to change an ability to go in with a plan. And that plan be solid, but to realize during the course of project, what needs to change, what challenges you're seeing, what problems you're seeing, not necessary to make assumptions that because this work last time is going to work this time. And to kind of have those conversations and ask those questions as you feel they're appropriate. So thank you very much. Now that we spoke a lot about like the consultancy part and also about your role role a lot. We also wondered as the insurance industry is famously based on data and also actually centered. Would you say there's a lot of room for data scientists in the industry in general, but also especially at guide wire? I suppose the primary role that we hire our software developers put anyone kind of with data science background. And as an additional skill set, we're always very interested in I think as a company, we're we're definitely evolving. I thought print there, I think it is, you know, one of the futures areas growth that we definitely see. And I think like lots of lots of companies, it's, you know, in competitive markets gaining an edge can be difficult and actually having really good insights through their data can be really valuable for companies and gaining that insight. Especially in a highly regular, highly regulated environment like insurance, like you don't always have the scope to go and do whatever you want. And it's like banking a very, very regular environment as it should be because we want to know that there's money backing us up when our house brings in our car crashes, but. So it also means that maybe the leeway that companies have to change and pivot and offer different things is maybe narrow and I think really good strategic data insights can kind of give them an ability to kind of make those decisions. And so I think data along with a couple of other emerging technologies are going to be really important kind of to the next generation growth for these companies. Again, I know it's a real buzzword, but like, now there's language frameworks, chat GPT and I know we're probably all sick of it here in chat GPT it's like the answer to all our prayers, Bush, I do think the things like that will also become very important as well. So it's supposed, you know, if you think about data and really good data insights and that kind of space of emerging technologies. I think there's a couple of other players not kind of spaces well that are going to be really, really important to what I do, but also what lots and lots of companies do. And so I really kind of gain those insights and gain that competitive market edge that can kind of really make you kind of a leader in your space. And again, I suppose just to kind of bring it back to go where you know that's certainly skill sets that we are actively looking at. So just for example, we had him just last month we had a kind of a science fair, you know, over the course of the month around, you know, chat GPT and AI where basically we invited the whole company just to come up with. And so it's not necessarily the impact of the proposal or ideas, not necessarily to implement them, which is one proposal how we could use this to kind of grow our business and actually kind of, you know, gain a competitive advantage for our customers. And they have to present the board management and they have to present to ultimately our CEO around and you go, dear was based on kind of just innovation of the winners as opposed to actually what they implement. And so the kind of really get that mindset into the company around innovation around constant change around being, you know, being on the forefront of kind of using these technologies and using them well. That's perfect. And it's going to be from what you've said, they're obviously people, even amongst us as students that want to venture into consulting at some point in our lives. So the question now I have for you is, can you share like perhaps like three tips and three questions for a consultant that is going to start out basically. Yeah, this is what I looked at to know it's just by far the way the hardest question to answer. So the first thing I would say is I think it can be and it's not necessarily a tip, but it's just a personal comment and incredibly rewarding and fulfilling career. And I think it's a career that like certainly on early on in your, you know, if you're maybe someone just coming out of college, I think being a consultant or working with a consulting role can teach you lots of about yourself can really give you an incredibly solid foundation of skills to move on to anything like so I suppose like me. I'm kind of a people manager now or there are people moving into project manager roles or even kind of strategic leadership roles. And people from that consulting background like think have a really valuable way of kind of working with customers directly, but also kind of working with very dynamic, changeable situations that gives them a real skill set and a solid ground in there. So suppose maybe the first thing is to just be open to change and not even be open to it in the sense that okay, lament it is something that happened with abrasive actually say the changes a huge big part of your job that the skills that you develop on one project, you may use some of them, but maybe in a different way in the next project and not just that ever changing nature of your role is going to become a constant. So rather than just almost fight against it just embrace it and accept and actually see the value of it so don't go in with assumptions, but absolutely go in with a framework, a foundation of skills being able to apply those as relevant to whatever customer you see or whatever situation you see with your customers and that would be the first one. And the second one is kind of back to the point earlier about just emerging technologies that you know consultants are after the forefront of kind of those technologies, they're asked by the customers about them. They're asked to implement and they're asked to implement in situations that again, we don't really know what the value of these things are, but I think you know, be very open to being well versed in your technologies, being familiar with your technologies. Don't necessarily get yourself stuck on old technologies, but see that your skill set isn't on maybe a particular technology or language or things like that, but it's more on your ability to actually provide value for your customers and path that is just by recognizing trend and recognizing updates and changes in the market technology being able to couldn't use those effectively. And the third one I think is just really very actively and consciously from early on in your career build up strong networks and really, really critical build up strong relationships, but which are customers and my colleagues and even with those terrapathy vendors we talked about and maybe and the advice I kind of give to graduates is in their first year, maybe pick one or two people that you kind of see as mentors and just almost asked would be very purposeful and asked them, look, would you like to have this mentoring relationship where it's someone you can go to, you can pens ideas off, you can talk to when I think that you'll kind of develop that habit that, you know, that regular skill, if you will, of kind of building up those kind of mentors relationships and deep relationships who can be hugely valuable. And as you develop in your career, you can then give back you can be that person to help mentors and grow what are some actually gain a lot of that experience as well. And then does that answer kind of the tree tips. Yeah, now we're talking about like what are the question are your steps that we need to take. Wow, I find this one much, much harder. As well the cautionary steps are kind of a way there to the flip side of tips like don't get yourself pitching holes a little bit. I think it's for challenging situations, I think absolutely, you know, look for those challenging customers look for those challenging environments, you know, not that you should do so much that you could bring yourself out because I think you know taking care of your mental health is a huge issue. Absolutely something to be in a prioritized but definitely early on in your career certainly look for those situations where you know the projects and red status it's on fire it's burning down a little and actually you will learn an awful lot from that at the time it will be a stressful environment. It will be chaotic but seeing both you know the circumstances that got the project into that state and also the actions that were taken to resolve the project and save the project from that state can be hugely informative. And so I think you know things like that like don't be afraid of situations like that kind of really trying to dive into them a little bit and kind of actively embraced and if you will. And then I suppose I'm struggling for kind of a third caution a little bit. So yeah, I think maybe just like is it trying to get to pigeon hold and embrace change or essentially don't be afraid of change maybe as a caution and look for it all kind of different requirements because there are sometimes the best learning environments probably will be my cautionary parts. Absolutely absolutely spot on. Thank you so much for that and yeah. Maybe there are some questions from the audience. Thank you very much and I think I have two questions for you. The first would be on when you were given tips right the third tip you mentioned was we should ensure that we build a grid network right just to purchase on that I also wanted to ask are there any tips or pointers in helping to you know help us build a grid network from the get school in consulting. Yeah, I suppose it can come process a bit cliche I think you know build a build a network it's as easy as that like take the network box and it obviously doesn't work like that like they have to be genuine connections they have to be people that you. You know you have a relationship there that's built on something and so I don't I don't think building a strong network is making sure you say to hide everyone in the kitchen on a certain day or in the office like that's great now but it's it's not going to do you huge amount of thinking along her. I think sometimes actually the best networks are built in situations maybe outside of a project environment so certainly I think you know just for me anyway some of the best networks and some of the kind of best relationships I built up and on things like extra critical activities and work so we have a very active football team. It's a great leveler so maybe when you come in and you know you're more than a junior member of a team actually going and I'm playing football or doing an extra critical activity or being on a committee with someone and we're going to some social event where brings everyone to the same level everyone's picking up later on the beach everyone's playing football everyone's doing on a charity event or something that can be really good and just getting to know people that way can be really beneficial. I think as well sometimes seeking out people can be really good and so if you if you maybe have a talk from a leader or someone quite inspirational even just approaching them afterwards and just asking you know what they be willing to kind of have this relationship can be good as well if you think there's kind of something in common with them if they maybe come from the same background or you know have some of the same challenges that you may have faced in your previous career I think that could be good as well and so things like that I think are good and then I think as you. As you kind of grow in your career what I would say is also be very conscious of I'm looking for those people that you can support as well and obviously like you know you're possibly going to be enrolled or the sure roles in future where your future leader so you're going to be in charge of things and there's a big element of coaching and mentoring to that but maybe just pick those kind of individuals that you feel you can really do something where you can really help out not the loss and going to actively look at that and really you know almost again some of the approach to them if you feel that like you know they could use your your advice and support. Yeah it was really helpful I'm going to share the images of the tips going forward thank you very much all right so my second question would be this kind of not confusion between data analytics being part of software engineering or not right so I just wanted to ask do you think the data analytics is treated as software engineering. It's a great question actually I haven't I haven't thought about that coming up but it's a really good question in a way actually there's maybe a broader question there that people see themselves what is your identity so you know ultimately someone who's a software developer now or a data scientist they're going to learn a language skill set a technology skill set but is that their identity like you know I would have come from to a job development background. And I think I kind of learned after a couple of years that I wasn't a job developer and after that I wasn't just a developer I was a consultant so I think ultimately the skills you have the technical skills you have are great. But I think there's probably a deeper value to people about what your problems are skills are what your ability to develop relationships what your ability to kind of go into complex environments and see a situation for what it is actually the right value out of it is. And in terms of kind of that specific question around software developers and data scientists I think there is clearly a distinction in the skills they learn I think that distinction is imposed by kind of universities and things like that in courses. But I think as you come in like I think you know the technology industry changes so quickly and we'll continue to change that don't pigeonhole yourself into just being a data scientist. And you get on a path that maybe leads to different place but you're very good at it and your skill resuted absolutely embrace it. And I think as well certainly in my world you know the technical skills you have are just as important as not slightly less important than those consulting skills but all the technical skills in the world. And it's not going to be great but if you can't actually you know influence or build a relationship with a customer or in some way kind of like actually kind of deliver them the value they want your technical skills really going to matter for all that much. And flip side of that if maybe you're not the strongest technical person but you can really go and build a relationship with a customer deliver value. And you're going to be like well he's an excellent consultant but he's only 95% of the text skills they need they're not going to care. Like that excellent consultant that conversation stops they're going to ask for you again they're going to look for you to be extended that's what their value is that's what they see as being important. And so again it's not to say the technical skills aren't important but I think there's a more holistic way of kind of looking at your identity in your career. Beyond maybe just a relatively narrow view of technology stack I don't have much I answered your question there it's it's not a yes or no answer right to be honest I think you did right and I totally agree with you in the sense that. It's it's it's it's way more than on the technical bit of things right we need to look at it as a whole and see if you know we're actually solving a problem and helping the customer so it's more than thinking of all do you have this technical skill or do you think this technical skill is going to walk right is thinking of it as a whole so that was really helpful and very insightful thank you very much once again. I'm just as I think as well a huge huge team for us when we're interviewing our hiring or important to get our team is that ability of the team to work together so you know it people didn't bring different things to different teams so I think really focusing on as well as kind of part of your identity and value of the team player of being that our value is part of a team and essentially kind of removing that ego part of it I think is really important to. Thank you. So your opinion is data analytics managed the same as the soft software service yeah I think for the most part you know in terms of kind of what we do broadly speaking you know we will have you know people working on data projects are working kind of in a data on a liquor data scientist role essentially and they will do much the same job and as our technical was working in kind of you know a software. So they will talk to customers got requirements I suppose you could argue maybe in that data side because of the nature of the work it's a little bit more specific at times so they're talking about very specific sets of data they generally if you're working with someone who's you know a data expert on the customer side they would be quite specific and you know direct terms of language they use around the consulting side we can kind of sometimes you've a terms a little bit more but ultimately I think the skill set is still there that you need to be a strong consultant you absolutely need to bring. Technical skills but you need to be able to marry those technical skills to a consultant skill to communication skill to an understanding of what the customer wants to at times when appropriate challenging that customer if they think you know if you think something is a better idea of your better suggestion you can use your expertise to. But I think fundamentally but roles are kind of managed in the same way you think you. So I think that the only thing we know for certain is it will impact them in some way and like I said I suppose where we are now is a company and is that like everyone else this is essentially something that like you know six months ago we were talking about but not I think to the same levels we're talking about now so I think we have an acknowledgement and a realization that it will impact us that there will be a change that customers have already started to talk about it a little bit. But even there unsure about you know how to use it and how it will be used in what impacted us I suppose ultimately as a company we are a market leader so we see ourselves and deliver on that market leadership so I think you know as a culture for us it's incumbent on us to start talking to our customers about what we think to actually provide insights to them strategic insights about where we think that you know AI is going to be used. And I think in terms of a technical skill set like obviously the technical skill set for us to start developing but there's also a suppose an understanding skill set for us to start developing in this and not like you know for things that chat you be tea. And not a lot of it is but how you ask those questions how you phrase those questions so this was the idea behind our science fair was to really start embedding this you know expectation within our employees and I just introduce our employees today's idea of AI and actually for them to start to use it a little bit to explore it. And just to start building the skills that even if we do not 100% sure that I will implement that know all the next coming years so again not a not a direct answer but I think for a lot of companies it is quite new I think the only thing we know that is going to have an impact and just to be ready for whatever that impact is essentially. Thank you. Hi I'm Alina. What are the go to tools in your technology toolkit. So shame to say I don't actually do that much technology stuff anymore so I suppose my minute like I I was a developer that's probably okay developer and but I suppose go to tools and my technology till kid now or mainly you know Google meetings zoom and things like that I think. To broad the question head a little bit like my go to tools are kind of just to be up to date wish. Emerging trends and obviously like as a people manager one of the major things that's coming out of the last two years is just hybrid working and things like that so maybe to kind of pivot away a little bit from a technology toolkit but a general tool kit that's okay as an answer to a question. And in my role like that's been one of the biggest changes over the last couple years as a manager is how people react to hybrid working what it's like to get people back in the office being quite deliberate about when we get people in the office that we're doing the deep collaboration work that does no point in coming in and doing the work you could do from home. How to have those conversations reading up on things like that understanding what other companies are doing like you know getting you know feedback and ideas from peers and other people and like you know LinkedIn and things like that I think are really important so right now I suppose that's kind of the main kind of toolkit if you will that I kind of be utilizing and that's generally the main way of learning of just of looking at go behaviors that other people have of trying things out seeing what works of being very open and honest with my team having regular retro that's asking what works what not what doesn't. What could we change what could we do differently and another playlist I suppose that that graduate program worked as well. Thank you. That's working in the insurance industry impact your mind site as a technology company. And I suppose it does in the same way that like I think any industry you work in essentially colors review to a certain extent and I think one of the things actually that you know people maybe think about the insurance. I suppose I probably did before I kind of joined guide wire not just to clarify suppose we absolutely say ourselves as a as a software company so principles are in agile at fast development around emerging technologies and things like that but obviously we serve an industry that is quite highly regulated. And I suppose traditionally now I don't think it's a fair it's a fair comment now what traditionally would have been seen as relatively conservative quite bureaucratic at times maybe and I think one of the interesting things coming out of the insurance industry over the last decade is just a rate of change and just the appreciation of the need to change within what has been quite a slow moving industry at times and actually think that's quite an exciting place to be as a company who works directly with insurance companies who provide services for them because. I think we it is forced off some made us kind of be quite innovative and actually how we talk to our customers what services we offer to my technology offer things like that and and I suppose it's it's a huge massively complex industry that is going through quite a transformational change I think as demographics change as people's relationship with insurance changes as technology changes such as things that self driving cars and IOT and stuff like that you know it's cause it goes down to you know innovation to actually reflect those changes in our products so I think it's a really exciting place to be in a really exciting kind of part of this industry as well. Okay my second question is that you must also face this kind of situation you have never encountered all understood the customers problem before maybe and how will you deal with this kind of situation. So I just I like it's like you maybe don't understand the challenge of the problem the customer has is. Yes, you're just a meat eight or how to do it the first thing you do is you admit it like you certainly to pretend that you understand something you don't understand I don't know like I think this is like a buy by this kind of it's not consulting on a one or work one on one it's life one I would you don't know what's going on you put your hand up on ask about the hell's going on and it's not always an easy thing to do is not always a comfortable place to be I think you have to do it appropriately that if you're if you're if you're if you're if you're first day on a project is going on for six months and you're in a meeting. Where low to stuff is being discussed and you don't know what I need to terminologies you probably don't raise your hand that every single terminology point and say what does this mean but afterwards you grab someone on your team and say look can just give me a room there and what we're talking about here because I'm finding finding it hard to follow these conversations so I think after the battle is just meeting you don't know what they're talking about I think fundamentally to really your question is if if you don't understand the problem of customer has or if you don't understand why they're trying to solve something or if their solution seems clunky. Clunky to you are on the necessary or just easier solved by something else I think have that conversation with them it may be that the mindset you're coming from makes an assumption that they don't have it may be that there's an assumption they make that because they do this job day today because they run their company day today they work in a certain environment or certain industry in a certain way that requires them to act a certain way or the solve a problem in a certain way true regulatory means or whatever and it could just be a communications mismatch it could just be the same thing. It could just be that you need some more context understand it if ultimately it gets to the stage where you don't understand why they're solving a problem or the problem they're solving and you don't understand their solution you don't think it makes sense you don't think it's a good solution for them I think it's incumbent on you as a consultant to talk to them better and the first of all have put into time to build up that relationship that you can have that at times difficult conversation but also to bring your expertise to talk about you know what you're doing. You know what you may do to reference maybe different projects you've been on where something different has had like a really successful impact at much less cost perhaps and I think if you bring them this I think if you just say I don't like that without a follow up without a solution without some kind of further follow on thought it's it's going to be a really hard conversation because you're just the no person you know you need to come with a solution that's ultimately has consultants what we do we solve problems you know we get into customers we integrate situations and we solve the problem. We solve the problem and that does a time is mean having challenging conversations with them it does a time is mean bringing your expertise maybe where they are you know true cultural means are just true years of doing the same thing they think a certain way of it something and they have a hard time taking outside that box but bringing that alternative suggestions and be a true approval concept true demo true bringing in an expert maybe from your team or external to your project who can kind of talk to them a little bit about this. But I think ultimately you know it is a moment I must have those conversations to try and deliver value that way and but certainly to come back to my original point if you don't understand what's going on if you don't understand what's going on if you ask them and I think if you don't you never got to get to the further on you never got anywhere else and you'll actually you regret not doing it later on because the harder the longer it goes on the longer you're in situations and meetings where you don't understand what's being talked about the harder it is to be like oh five meetings you'll we talk to people. Five meetings you'll we talk to this and I have still have no idea what's happening it's awkward you know so I would just say try and build up resilience to that it can be hard it's difficult to do to put up your hand and say I have no clue what's happening here even if it's in a private setting but just kind of try and do it my fact she's some of the best leaders and very senior leaders I've worked with our people who do that I will almost stop the meeting and say look I'm just going to have someone's going to have to give me a 30 second primer here because I might be a senior director but I've no clue what we can talk about you know you know so I guess we'll wrap up there. Thank you so much Ian for sharing your insights and all the ideas today with us and thank you also from the audience to answer all the questions. Look thanks very much for the invite thanks for the great questions everyone and this time for taking the time to chat to me really enjoyed it. Thank you for listening the music used is well-taped fluctuations by Ben Brunny and used with his permission. (upbeat music)