Season 2 / Episode 1
Strategy and Governance
Season 2 / Episode 1
Strategy and Governance
Featuring
Jennifer Shannon, Mark Tiainen
Date published
May 30, 2019
Tags
Business Transformation
Also available on:
In the Season 2 premiere of 'What's Your (R)angle?' host Jennifer Shannon chats with Mark Tiainen, Rangle's VP of Digital Strategy on why digital strategy and governance needs to be at the forefront of your innovation planning process.
"Stop thinking about individual projects or individual things and start thinking about outcomes - and what are the results of those outcomes? How are we going to measure it? That's your strategy. Then figure out what are the tactics that we're going to deploy in order to achieve those results. And many times those tactics, to circle it back, involve digital tools. They involve digital solutions. They involve new ways of thinking and organizing and delivering within your organization. Be it through lean, agile methodologies. It involves new ways of collecting and processing and managing data."
In the Season 2 premiere of 'What's Your (R)angle?' host Jennifer Shannon chats with Mark Tiainen, Rangle's VP of Digital Strategy on why digital strategy and governance needs to be at the forefront of your innovation planning process.
"Stop thinking about individual projects or individual things and start thinking about outcomes - and what are the results of those outcomes? How are we going to measure it? That's your strategy. Then figure out what are the tactics that we're going to deploy in order to achieve those results. And many times those tactics, to circle it back, involve digital tools. They involve digital solutions. They involve new ways of thinking and organizing and delivering within your organization. Be it through lean, agile methodologies. It involves new ways of collecting and processing and managing data."
00:01
Jennifer: Welcome to What's Your (R)angle? A podcast by Rangle that explores thoughts, ideas, and perspectives on the digital transformation space. Each episode, we'll provide you with some key considerations for mapping your digital first strategy and our (R)angle and how we look at challenges presented. Join the conversation by using the hashtag #AskRangle on Twitter or by e-mailing us at podcast@rangle.io.
00:24
Hi everybody and welcome to What's Your (R)angle? We are on episode two of our second season and we are so excited to share with you today a little bit about a really important pillar of your innovation framework, and that is around the role of strategy and governance. And I could think of no better person to have this conversation with me than Mark Tiainen. Welcome to the show, Mark.
00:44
Mark: Yes, thanks Jennifer for having me here. Super excited to be here.
00:47
Jennifer: So listen, I just think we should start every show with a little bit about who you are. I know that you're brand new to Rangle, so tell me a little bit about your background and your mandate now that you've come to work at Rangle.
00:58
Mark: Yeah, so my time here at Rangle has been wonderful so far. I lead up the product and strategy teams here. So what that means is we get to work on a number of great innovative solutions for our clients. But more importantly, and more exciting for me, is the ability to really help our clients transform how they create value and accelerate value creation within their organizations. And we do that through implementation of what I call a 'digital first operating model', if you will.
01:29
Jennifer: All of this such chitter-chatter has been going on in the market about digital transformation, this big onerous scary thing. And we're really looking to demystify that. And so if I think about digital transformation as part of what companies will need to do to not just survive, but to really thrive in this digital-centric industry, what is the role that digital strategy will play in helping these companies get there?
01:50
Mark: Yeah, yeah. Good question, actually. And really has become a little bit of a buzz word. This concept of digital transformation. But what it really means is not standing still and it's constantly looking at and reevaluating what you're doing as an organization. I like to think of it as more of a journey that you can take and really moving from your current state filled with legacy systems and processes and moving towards a more nimble, agile vision state, if you will. And as part of that journey, digital strategy is incredibly important to get you there. It is your plan that you execute against. So it's incredibly important to have digital strategy at the forefront of your planning process during your transformative process.
02:36
Jennifer: So I'm sure every company out there is like, "Yeah, we're strategic. Of course we're strategic." What's the difference between strategies sort of the way that it's being operated right now and what you're talking about? How's that different?
02:49
Mark: Yeah, so I think one of the biggest competitive advantages that our company has right now is the ability to make rapid decision making, and decisions based on data and information that is readily available to them. When you think about it, first mover advantage in the market really requires you to make decisions quickly to get out there in front of your competitors. In order to avoid disruptions within the industry, you need to have the information ahead of you in order to make rapid decisions on your business model and adapt to changing conditions in the markets. So that is really the goal of enabling a digital first organization and implementing a digital first operating model is so that you can enable your workforce to make those rapid decisions and really defend your organization against disruptions and changes in the marketplace as they occur.
03:39
Jennifer: So if we're talking about this operating model, who fundamentally is involved in creating this operating model that ... So I'm sure that you are obviously working with companies on how they're going to plan this out and the reason that they're hiring you is because, "Hey, where do we start, Mark?"
03:53
Mark: Right. Right, right.
03:53
Jennifer: So when you walk into the organization, how are you explaining it to them about how the different silos or people within the organization will be a part of this operating model?
04:01
Mark: Right, and this is really where the importance of your governance model comes into play. So many times we see organizations fail to meet their expectations with their digital initiatives because they operate within the silos, just as you mentioned. There's a business unit or perhaps a digital team that's in charge of bringing digital solutions to market, but they're operating within the confines of that unit. And really what's necessary for success is a governance model that has three components to it.
04:30
The first one really is that top down mandate that is required to enable companies to reinvent themselves, if you will. So whether that comes from the board or the executive suite or even from the CEO, this is the first step necessary to allow the company to embrace change. So you need that top down mandate. But most companies get this part right. They recognize that they need to implement changes within the organization.
05:03
And the CEO will step in and say, "We're going to become a digital-first organization." But that's not enough for success. And that's where usually most companies start and end in their transformative journeys. So, really, there's two other components that we've seen that are required for continued success, if you will.
05:22
And that the second part is that bottom up approach, which is hugely important. So you need to enable and empower teams to quickly deploy digital solutions to really energize them and provide the quick wins that an organization needs to further bring about additional adoption and an additional willingness for change within the organization. And you need to do that. Too many organizations focus on very, very long, drawn out planning cycles, trying to come up with these big digital initiatives. And, really, that starts to really drain a company and their employees when they don't see results happen quickly.
06:04
So really enabling quick, nimble teams from a bottom up approach to quickly deliver quick wins within the organization is a critical component to success in changing your operating model, if you will. And what's more is that we found that that's an important part of change management and the change management process, as well. It's part of organizational readiness to embrace further change when you actually bring in your employees and help them be part of that process.
06:35
So that's the second part. The third part, and this is the part where many people overlook, as well, is the true need to have what I call cross functional teams embrace this change. When you think about how value is created within an organization, it's rarely within one business unit. The processes within a company touch upon multiple business units, multiple teams, multiple people and divisions. And they all need to be part of this effort, this initiative. So in order to be successful with your digital transformation, you really do need to have three important components in place at once. That top down mandate to enable change and embrace change, you need to have small, quick, nimble teams delivering rapid progress and rapid wins to further fuel that willingness to embrace further change, and you need to deliver that in a cross functional way involving multiple teams.
07:40
Jennifer: So it's interesting when you're talking about implementation because ideas are easy, right?
07:44
Mark: Yes.
07:45
Jennifer: Well, easy for some but, but also ideas are easy [crosstalk 00:07:47], right?
07:48
Mark: Right.
07:48
Jennifer: Implementation is hard. So what are some of those pain points that you're seeing within the organizations that you're working with? What are the pain points and how are you helping them to mitigate it? So you mentioned the cross functional teams, early wins, and getting started people aligned. But if you're talking about a huge industry like a bank or a healthcare organization, how are you helping organizations get through that implementation stage?
08:10
Mark: Right, right. And that's really the key is the execution that is so difficult. So there's a number of things, we see this all the time now in the industry where many organizations a few years ago deployed innovation labs, for example. And there was this big push on innovation and driving innovation in their efforts. Well, what we see now is these innovation labs are starting to close down after two, three years of investment. Nothing meaningful has come out of them. And why is that? Because it's quite simply due to a lack of execution, a lack of an organization's ability to scale some of the [POCs 00:08:48] that they've come up with. And that is a fundamental challenge that many people have, is scaling some of these concepts that they've come out with. So there's a number of different means that companies could, or tactics that they can do to embrace the scaling of some of the ideas and implementing that change throughout their organizations.
09:12
The first one is really, and you'll see me talk about this a lot within our engagements within our clients and with any effort bigger small, is the risk of handoffs. Handoffs are incredibly dangerous within any engagement. It introduces risks, it slows things down. It removes accountability from the process. When your efforts don't realize the visions that you had, you end up with finger pointing between the parties involved with delivery. And so we try and mitigate that with our projects through our lean agile delivery, moving away from some of the more traditional waterfall gated methodologies where you have handoffs between teams. But we also need to look at that within the organizational change and the transformative efforts that we do as a company, as well. So one of the things that you can do is bring in your partners and your implementation teams early on into the planning process.
10:13
And this is where there's, we see this a lot of times where companies struggle with this, is that the leadership team, for example, we'll take a look a number of time and effort to do the planning, to come up with the vision and the goals of what their digital transformation will look like. And then they'll hand that off to an implementation partner, right?
10:32
Jennifer: Right.
10:33
Mark: They'll come back after the fact and hire a partner or a vendor, somebody like Rangle for example, or a consultancy, if you will, and expect that knowledge transfer to be seamless in that handoff. And that's rarely the case. To really, as a best practice to drive success in your efforts, you really need to bring that partner, your implementation team early on into the process to be part of that planning process. Leverage your partners and their digital expertise to help you identify what that goal is, what your vision state is, and implement the measurement framework and the necessary guidelines, if you will, and the support networks to ensure that you're constantly moving towards your vision state.
11:18
Jennifer: And I love that idea that you bring up here, Mark, too, which is about sort of almost like mass communication to the organization about don't just take the innovation and take it out of the building and have everyone go, "Well, you're doing all of these exciting things and I'm still over here pushing paper," to be simplified. But one of the things I've seen one of your clients doing, too, are hosting things like hackathons, where you're working on a design system and you get all of the designers and the developers in the building to get in there and take it for a test drive right?
11:45
Mark: Right.
11:45
Jennifer: So that early championship within an organization, what role does that play and generally who plays the part of that champion or that Community of champions within that organization to ensure the adoption is seamless or as seamless as it could be?
11:59
Mark: Right, right. Yeah. And it's never just one single person. You can't have that single point of failure. I love seeing this emphasis around customer experience with everything that we do and what people are embracing right now, the importance of the customer. With the digital solutions that we're putting forward. But they often forget the importance of the employee within that process. The employee is your internal customer. They're the ones that create value internally. And, and so your efforts really need to factor in your employees.
12:34
I know it's a little trivial when I put it this way, but you know, happy employees, employees that are motivated, engaged, and they have the right tools, they have the right information, the data to make rapid decisions and move things along, that actually shows off on your customers. It rubs off on your customers and they can pick up on that. And happy customers drives profits and revenue for your organization, which then you can use to invest right back into your employees. It's a virtual cycle that really works well.
13:03
So when I look at is there a single champion or such, I really do look at your organization and making sure that you, again, you bring your people, and in a cross functional way, into the process. It really starts with that. And then look at those processes that your people use to create value in your organization. Those processes, again, are cross functional. Once you're looking at that and then you began to quickly realize that there are policies that govern those processes. And then that work is created in platforms and that platforms must scale. And this is where you start to look at scaling those POCs or those early ideas across your entire organization.
13:45
So you need to have platforms that can rapidly scale and continue to drive value creation. I guess if I start to summarize all that, I'm starting to sound a little bit like a consultant here. But you really have a four P's approach. You've got to start with your people. It starts with your people. The processes that they use to create work, the policies that govern them, and then the platforms need to scale within your organization. There's not one single piece that you can focus on. You need to incorporate all of those into your governance model.
14:15
Jennifer: Absolutely. And I think I've seen some really interesting things happening in the Toronto tech community. I think about the program that TD has, it's really, really interesting. They call it their central innovation agency. And essentially they create field trips for their employees to be able to go to tech companies around Toronto and just learn about what's going on out there with the idea that if you inspire people at all levels of the organization, people will look to influence with that inspiration, which is so special.
14:42
Something that, as soon as you talk to me about governance, the B word comes to mind. What role does budgeting play in all of this, Mark?
14:53
Mark: Yes. Oh, budgeting has a critical role, and it's actually really important to consider how decisions are made within an organization. You're constantly evaluating priorities based on limited resources, and you're continuing to evaluate and reprioritize work and where your company's investing their efforts in based on those limited resources, based on the information that's available at any given time. And so when you're looking at the digital solutions that you're creating, if you're looking at your digital operating model and transforming your organization, it's incredibly important that you have the right information available to actually make those informed decisions on where to invest. And that's part of that budgeting process. You need to understand that. Now in order to be effective, though, and this is the difficult part, is that many people continue to focus on projects or things, they don't necessarily look at the outcomes that they're looking to drive.
15:50
And this is where a fundamental shift in budgeting can actually help drive further successes. If you look at the outcomes you're trying to drive, you can actually measure them based on ROI. And you need to have that understanding of if we achieve these outcomes, this is what it's gonna mean to our business. And if you can start to demonstrate positive ROI into your business, then you can actually start to determine how much of your overall budget you want to invest into this initiative. So before you can make these decisions, you need to understand what your outcomes are. You need to understand how to measure those outcomes. And then you need to understand how you can make decisions based on what you want to drive. That's all part of your digital strategy. That's all part of having the right information available as part of your digital-first operating model. And it's a continuous process.
16:38
Jennifer: And a positive ROI, you talk about influence, there's no better way to have a positive influence on a C suite or a board by saying we're actually making money, right?
16:47
Mark: Exactly.
16:47
Jennifer: We're investing, but we're also making money.
16:48
Mark: Exactly. And so the advice I have is stop thinking about individual projects or individual things. We need to build a mobile app for something. And start thinking about outcomes and what are the results of those outcomes, how are we going to measure it? And then that's your strategy. Then figure out what are the tactics that we're going to deploy in order to achieve those results. And many times those tactics, to circle back, involve digital tools. They involve digital solutions, they involve new ways of thinking and organizing and delivering within your organization. Be it through lean, agile methodologies, it involves new ways of collecting and processing and managing data. And all of those are governed by your governance model that we were talking about earlier.
17:35
Jennifer: So something that's interesting and as part of the Rangle model, is I know that you deeply partner with our clients and sit alongside them and help them through these things. But at some point there's that, "Okay guys, you're ready to fly. We think you're good to go." And given that they've got this dogma of sort of the way that their company ran for so many years as an example, how do you help them mitigate the slip back? How do you help them, to say, "Here's some of the things that you need to look for to know that you are slipping back," and what do you do about that?
18:08
Mark: Right. So this is the test of a true value ... The true value of the partners that you bring in. And I encourage everybody out there to evaluate the vendors and the partners that they work with on how they embrace enabling you as an organization to stand on your own two feet, if you will. And this is what I'm incredibly proud of, of the approach that Rangle takes, is that we partnered deeply with our clients and their organizations in order to enable them to make these decisions, in order to enable them to become digital-first organizations, to empower their teams with the best practices and the tool sets available that we as an organization have created in the frameworks and so forth. Because that is the ultimate goal. We don't want them to be dependent on us. It's not, it's not scalable. It's not sufficient when a customer is dependent on a vendor or a partner. And so we look right from the start to partner and work very closely with our clients to ensure that there is ongoing learning and knowledge transfer throughout the engagement. And it's a critical component to success.
19:16
Jennifer: Just to go back a little bit, so you've handed it off. You've taught them all the things - Here's how you ride a bike. You got this. And all of a sudden if they're thinking about putting the training wheels back on because they're not so sure, how do they know and what do they do at that point?
19:33
Mark: Right. So let's bring it back up to making decisions and having the right information to make decisions. Again, this is one of the most important competitive advantages that a company has, is that rapid decision making based on informed information. So one of the goals is to ensure that, as part of your digital-first operating model, that you have the right information readily available for your employees to continue to make those decisions. Now remember, technology moves very quickly and your competitors move even faster. You're never standing still and you're constantly bringing in learnings and reevaluating where you are as a company in the marketplace and, and what threats are coming about. And so in order to really enable companies, you need to make sure that the right analytics, the right information, the right dashboards, all of that is part of the solution that you deliver.
20:25
So there's a constant pulse on what's happening within the company. So you can continue to reevaluate and make rapid decisions to adjust as you need to be. So any solution that gets handed off, look to see what type of tools and information is being surfaced to track your progress against your goals. If it's not there, if you can't measure your success, if you can't define and track towards your outcomes, you don't have a complete solution in place.
20:57
Jennifer: Easy peasy, right?
20:59
Mark: Not always, but it's like I said before, it's a journey to get there. And part of that process, again, you're never resting on your wins. Everything is constantly moving. And so, if anybody out there is thinking that this is a three month or six month or even a year's initiative, that's not the case. We want very quick wins, remember, so we want to empower teams and energize them through quick wins, through small little proof of concepts, through digital solutions that are delivered rapidly, that continue to build on your transformative efforts. But you're never really done. And you're constantly reevaluating where things are going and that's part of the journey. And really that mindset is thinking about the journey that you're on. And you're bringing in partners to help you along the way. And you're constantly evaluating based on new information that's coming.
21:51
Jennifer: This is a whole new terrain and a whole new bike that's needed.
21:53
Mark: Right, right. I love it.
21:55
Jennifer: So some of the things that you're seeing with your clients in adopting this model, but there's a lot of folks that are not. Like they're sitting on this and they're still nope digital customers are one thing and bricks and mortar are another thing, or I don't see how this is going to help me or how I need to change strategically. What are you seeing that will be the catalyst for change in the next, let's say, 18 months to three years that will kickstart this with most industries?
22:23
Mark: Yeah, so I don't know if there's ever going to be kind of one major catalyst, but what I'm seeing over and over again is that companies are starting to recognize that they need to modernize their systems, whether they have old green screens in place, you know, old systems, they have legacy processes, they're pushing paper, like you mentioned before. And so they have this sudden realization that we need to modernize and we need to invest in our applications. We need to invest in how we process work. And so they look at how they create value right now and they digitize that. All right. And that's not a recipe for failure. So now you're taking your company that is perhaps eight years or 10 years behind the curve and you're bringing them up to only being five years behind the curve.
23:14
So don't look for that kind of, that magic pill where you invest in and come up with a new modern version or a web version of your legacy mainframe system. That is not transforming your business and that's not a recipe for success. So, really, is there any one catalyst? I think there needs to be that recognition that business never stands still. That generational change is always a constant. When you look at what happens with ... Or the purchasing habits and the behaviors between, the baby boom generation, gen X, millennials. Now there's been constant studies about that. Generational change is always a constant and it's gonna happen again when Gen Z comes on.
23:59
How we work, what it means to work, is constantly evolving. And companies need to recognize that and adapt their business models for that. The great thing about digital is it allows you to adapt rapidly and constantly evolve your business model to continue to meet changing conditions in the market and with workers and so forth.
24:21
Jennifer: And Mark, that's interesting, right?
24:23
Mark: Yeah.
24:23
Jennifer: Which is you're not just ... It's not like in the past where you're like, "Okay, I'm going to get some project funding, I'm going to do this nifty little project, I'm going to make a bunch of money, and then next year I'm going to do another project." Like this really is about fundamentally shifting your entire organization so that it's not just project based going forward, it's just the new way of doing business.
24:41
Mark: Right, right. We see this all the time. I mean there's this whole new resurgence of the maker economy and the craft economy and we see the popularity of shared workspaces within the industry and flex time and the importance of travel and stuff. I mean, what's important throughout the generations is changing. And it's going to continue to change and your business needs to adapt to that. Having traditional retail models or traditional ways of delivering value within your organization will have to change. And if you think that it's enough just to digitize legacy systems, then you're going to wake up to an ugly realization when the market has changed and your competitors have moved ahead of you.
25:32
Jennifer: Right. So if there's someone out there listening and asking themselves, "Okay, I get it. Where do I start?" Like short of connecting with you directly, where does that champion or that person that does get it, where do they start, Mark?
25:46
Mark: Right. So the best piece of advice I can give have is don't try and do it alone. Don't be that hero. It's not gonna work out. So we've touched upon a number of themes throughout this conversation where it's you got to be cross functional, you got to bring in multiple teams and business units in order to enact that change that's necessary with your processes and with how you create sound business.
26:09
You've got to bring in your partners, your implementation partners, in early, right from day one and have them be part of the goal setting, the vision setting, the planning process. Avoid handoffs in the work that you do. And how do you do that? Well, you got to assemble the right team, you got to assemble the right mindset, and you got to have the right governance model in place to encourage that.
26:34
And so it's not an individual effort. And so I really do, as one piece of advice that I could possibly give is don't try and do it alone. Assemble, get the right buy in from leadership, assemble the right team, bring in your partners early, and tackle this together.
26:52
Jennifer: Have a conversation.
26:53
Mark: Yeah.
26:53
Jennifer: At least have the conversation.
26:55
Mark: Like what we're doing.
26:55
Jennifer: Yeah.
26:56
Mark: I love it.
26:56
Jennifer: Yeah, me too.
26:57
Mark: Yeah.
26:58
Jennifer: Thank you so much for joining us today on What's Your (R)angle? We hope that you got some insights and some learnings. I know I did and I'm really appreciative. Thanks so much to our guest, Mark Tiainen. Really appreciate you being here.
27:08
Mark: Yes, thank you so much. This was my pleasure. Thanks.
27:10
Jennifer: We'd love to hear your thoughts on what we discuss each week or even about the topic that Mark and I discussed today. Please do connect with us on Twitter or do reach out to us podcast@rangle.io with your feedback. Definitely like and subscribe to get further notifications about when we'll be publishing our next episode in this innovation framework. Once again, thank you so much for joining us. We hope you have a great day.
27:29
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to What's Your (R)angle? We hope you found some moments that made you think, taught you something new, or sparked a conversation. Follow us on iTunes and Spotify to get notifications for all future episodes. We'd love to hear your thoughts on what we discuss each week and hear your point of view on the topics. So be sure to let us know what your Rangle is by using the hashtag #AskRangle on Twitter or by e-mailing us at podcast@rangle.io.
Other Episodes in This Season
Strategy and Governance
Episode 1 • Now Playing
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
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