#176 | Throw Back Episode - #135 | Leading Change: Insights from Transformation Expert Matt Dragun

Jump back in with Matt Draugun!

Join us in this insightful episode as we sit down with Matt Dragun, a seasoned change leader with over 18 years of experience in overseeing transformational projects across the globe. Matt, a self-proclaimed change geek, shares his unique perspective on change leadership and the key ingredients for delivering successful transformation programs and genuine business outcomes. 

Having worked with major companies such as Chevron, Rio Tinto, and the ABN Group, Matt brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the table. He delves into the intricacies of effective leadership during times of change, drawing from his extensive experience in the field. 

In this episode we cover: 

• The symbiotic relationship between Project Management Offices (PMOs) and Change Management teams, uncovering the ideal collaboration model for driving successful transformation initiatives. 
• We dive into the impact of artificial intelligence and technology on the landscape of transformation and change management.
• Innovative ways organizations can leverage AI and technology to enhance change initiatives and mitigate potential risks.
• We explore the critical aspect of benefits realization in transformation programs.
• And so much more...

Tune in to discover more about Matt's disruptor change leadership software, Matae, and how it addresses the need for embedding change as business as usual. Plus, gain valuable advice from Matt for organizations embarking on transformational journeys based on his wealth of experience in the field.

This episode is packed with actionable insights and practical wisdom for anyone involved in leading or navigating change within their organizations.

To connect with Matt reach out to him here: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-dragun-1163b54/

Or via email here: matt.dragun@matae.io 

Learn more about Matae here: www.matae.io

Chapters

• 0:00 Host Update And New Services
• 1:29 Introducing Guest Matt Dragan
• 3:00 Is Transformation Dead Or Evolving
• 5:00 Funding Tech Vs Embedding Change
• 7:15 Why Benefits Realization Fails
• 10:10 Recalibrating Benefits In A Changing World
• 12:10 Agile, Waterfall, And Enterprise Reality
• 16:00 Operations Rhythms Vs Agile Cadence
• 18:10 How Change Managers Create Real Impact
• 22:00 AI, Data, And Change Capability
• 27:00 Avatars, Coaching Bots, And Adoption
• 30:00 The Future Skill Mix: AI Plus People
• 33:00 PMO And Change: One Team, Two Lenses
• 38:00 Shared Metrics And Executive Trust
• 41:00 Meet Matea: Activating Leader-Led Change
• 44:00 Project-To-Operations Handover Done Right

Transcript

Fatimah Abbouchi: 0:00

You're listening to Agile Ideas the Podcast, hosted by Fatimah Abbouchi. For anyone listening out there not having a good day, please know there is help out there. Hi everyone and welcome back to another episode of Agile Ideas. I'm Fatimah, CEO at Agile Management Office, Mental Health Ambassador, and your host. Before we get into today's podcast guest, I just wanted to give you a quick update on a number of things that I'm currently working on with my team. For a really long time in the consulting game, getting support on projects, programs, processes, or anything of the like is usually something that can be quite overwhelming and daunting and costs a lot of money. I know that because working in large corporates for almost 20 years, I found that when engaging consulting firms, they're often overpriced and expensive. And so we've decided to do something a little bit different. At Agile Management Office, the company I've been running now for the last eight years, we've decided to provide consulting as a service. What does that mean for you? It means regardless of whether you're a small business, medium, or a large corporate, we can provide you tailored services for as little as a day at a time based on a specific need that you might have. That means you get just in time consulting when you need it for what you need without the heavy price tag. To learn more about this, please reach out to me via LinkedIn. Now on to today's guest. Today's guest is the lovely Matt Dragan. Matt Dragon is the self-confessed change geek. He's has over 18 years of experience working on major transformation programs as a change manager, a senior business leader, a consultant, and a coach to over 100 C-suite executives. Having seen change through these different lenses, Matt brings a unique perspective on change leadership and what it takes to deliver successful transformation programs and genuine business outcomes. Most recently, Matt has combined his background in applied behavioral science, change management and technology to deliver an innovative collective leadership activation technology. Matt currently consults the top tier organizations across Western Australia and Southeast Asia and using global best practice in behavioral science to deliver effective and sustainable business outcomes. So please join me in welcoming Matt to the show. Matt, welcome to the show.

Matt Dragun: 2:31

Thanks, Fatimah. It's great to be here.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 2:33

Yes, thank you for um persistently reaching out to me a few times on LinkedIn that we eventually met, and obviously I'm glad we did because we've now connected a few times and have a lot in common.

Matt Dragun: 2:42

Yeah, 100%. It um yeah, it all worked out really, really well.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 2:46

Yeah, definitely. I am really excited to talk through a few things um we've briefly touched on um in the past, but one of the things I know you're most experienced in is the transformation space. And I thought transformation was dead, but now I'm hearing transformation left, right, and center. What's your view on like how transformation is seen now compared to maybe in the past where it was always about those heavy, top, heavy, you know, three, four, five-year programs. What's transformation mean now, do you think, in industry?

Matt Dragun: 3:18

Yeah, look, uh the trends that I'm seeing is um organizations are still looking at transformation. Um, however, the way they're looking at it now, it feels like it's a transformation on transformation. So they're going from one to another, and it's almost a continual cycle. Um, interestingly enough, this morning I met with um transformation director, one of the um large uh insurance companies in Australia, um, and they're looking to scope out a major transformation program. Um, and I was on a call yesterday with um one of the big four banks who are once again going to um invest very, very heavily in a you know, or billion-dollar transformation program over five years. Um, so I'm definitely not seeing a shift away from transformation. And I think, you know, I think there's a couple of drivers there. I think AI and new technology is continuing to move at rapid speeds, and organizations are really looking to take advantage of that. So I think there's still a driver for how do we shift and transform the business that we operate to be able to leverage and get the most out of the technologies to deliver better customer experience, um, improve the productivity and efficiency of the way we operate our businesses, drive, you know, bottom line returns. And I think that that vision for transformation is um is definitely still an appetite for transformation and the outcomes is is definitely still there.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 4:54

How important do you think it is or becoming more so around the element of change management in a transformation program, which for the most part I feel like is often neglected or just put on as a different hat with project managers and things like that? What are you seeing in terms of that aspect of it?

Matt Dragun: 5:11

Yeah, so I really I find the the conversation one in the same thing, right? If you're doing a transformation, you're essentially managing the delivery of change into the business and trying to operationalize change because you can't do transformation without change. So the way I view it is it is one in the same thing. Um, I guess what I'm um really passionate about is the allocation of resource to um change to be able to support organizations operationalize solutions. So whether they be new technology solutions, whether they be org design, um, whether they be new strategies, what we see typically is a very, very large investment in the delivery of the solution into the business. And we're talking hundreds of millions of dollars, and then very, very little targeted investment in operationalizing or embedding changes that are required to realize benefit from um the investment up front. So I guess where I see the opportunity and where I see the gap is the balance of investment. Um, interestingly, I sat down with a CEO the other day. He was really, really excited about um a transformation that his business was undertaking. And he said to me, Oh, look, you know, we're spending 500 million over the next three to five years. We've got a great team delivering the technology. Um, we're really confident in it. And um, you know, my question to him was, what are you doing to de-risk that investment um in the operation space? Um, and it was a really interesting conversation from them on because I think the penny dropped for him in the context of any other $500 million investment in our business, we would have a strategy to de-risk it. But why, why don't we for the context of a technology investment or a transformation investment?

Fatimah Abbouchi: 7:15

It's interesting you mentioned benefits. One of the things that stands out for me is, and seeing this over and over again, it just seems that benefits realization is so hard and often neglected. Why do you think that is? Do you think it's around the ownership and accountability of it, considering it goes from programs and projects to BAU, or is there something else that I'm missing?

Matt Dragun: 7:35

Yeah, I definitely think ownership is one piece. Um, I think there's a time delay. So your benefits realization typically get defined with the business case, and that's a long way from the point of implementation. And I think businesses change from when benefits are defined in a business case to 18 months, two years later when you're deploying large-scale changes into the business. And so I think there's a couple of things that happen. One, I think the original business benefits or the business cases get lost or forgotten. Um, I think the landscape, both internally and externally, changes. So there's no check to ensure the benefits are still relevant to the business objectives in the current environment. And then to your point, I think once you get to the point of go live, there's really a big gap in handover to the business and owners within the business. So the people working day to day, one, to give them visibility of what the benefits are, but two, to give them that genuine ownership to be able to achieve the benefits associated with programs. So I think that there's you know a few different factors that influence that. And then the other thing for me is a lot of your benefit realization piece are lagging metrics, right? So at Go Live Point, you're not seeing benefits until maybe two years, three years after, um, as they were defined in the business case. So one of the things that I think organizations should really focus on is identifying the leading metrics associated with their benefit realization targets so that they can actually track and identify in real time where they're placed. Otherwise, you know, typically what we see is that they don't have the ability to course correct because they're not tracking those leading indicators and they don't know where they are in the context or the scheme of are we on track or or are we behind.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 9:38

Does this then tie into the continuous evaluation and adjustment of these metrics all the way through as opposed to we all know about those, you know, fairy tale unicorn, beautiful looking business cases to sell someone on giving you some money, and then all of a sudden it's completely the different story when you get to that endpoint?

Matt Dragun: 9:55

Yeah, totally. And I think, you know, there's been some really great examples of business landscape changed on a dime in the past few years. You know, you've got COVID, which completely shifted organizational focus and objectives. Um, you've got the shift in the economic conditions recently and the geopolitical conditions recently that have changed, you know, off the back of COVID, the supply chain strategies for business. And, you know, you might have had a business case that was two years before COVID. And, you know, that completely might be irrelevant. So I think your point about continuing to recalibrate your objectives and then check in on are our requirements still meeting the objectives? And I think, you know, the ability to be agile, to work in agile ways and adjust what you're doing on the fly as well is a real skill or capability for businesses to be able to develop, um, especially in transformations, because you know, transformations, you think about the five-year time horizon of a transformation, everything's gonna happen in five years, right? Um, everything. So how do you how do you plan around that and how do you respond to that on the fly?

Fatimah Abbouchi: 11:14

It's interesting because one of the things I've been seeing a little bit more of is, you know, there's a lot of organizations now that are, you know, embedding agile ways of working into the way that they operate. And then, you know, there will be agile purists out there that say you can't do transformation using agile and things like that. But it seems like transformation, as you said earlier on transformation on transformation, it's like a just a part of the business now. It's just like an ongoing. I mean, you've got chief transformation officers, they're not there for the length of a program, they're usually just part of the business.

Matt Dragun: 11:43

Yeah, I agree. So, I mean, picking up on your your first point about um agile practices in business, I think there's there's always going to be a need for waterfall, and there's always going to be a need for agile or a mix between, you know, agile and waterfall in regards to delivery methods. Um, and especially when you're dealing with legacy systems that are business critical, you can't switch them off and then do iterative kind of releases. So that kind of large go live point or large deployment point is going to be needed. Um, but then I think in terms of the way the business implements the changes required from deployment points or um product releases in in agile terminology, if your business can be working in an agile manner from product release, I think that is really powerful in terms of how you apply agile thinking to business operations. Um, and then I think, you know, plugging your your user base and your you know your end users into agile development teams makes 100% sense because they're going to be the ones that get the value from it and provide you the good feedback. So I think, you know, the way you apply agile in the context of transformation, you comment around continual transformation. I think that that is the trend that we're seeing and I'm seeing. And I think the context of agile is how can you be really smart about where you bring agile ways of working to actually drive business outcomes as opposed to just let's do everything agile.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 13:24

Yeah, 100%. I've seen that quite a lot in the banks. And I was talking to a re a smaller retailer yesterday, and it's interesting because they were trying to work out ways to sustain their delivery and it was really slow and clunky, and they've now decided to move into sort of weekly releases, but that doesn't change all of the legwork that was done up front with the customers to define what the product's going to look like. But they're sort of starting to iteratively roll out aspects. But you're right, and I've never seen it, and I don't know if you have either either, I've never seen an organization that isn't basically agile, really. It's either, you know, traditional project management with no agile flavor or they're a mix of both. I've not yet seen one that is purely agile because we all always see, just going back to business cases, that whole investment management piece, executives don't want to relinquish control over that. They're not going to give you money iteratively. Um, they're really, really going to control that. Is that like, is that your experience?

Matt Dragun: 14:17

100%. I couldn't agree more with you. And I think you describe it really well. I think there's management of investment. Um, there's, you know, being able to have control and visibility of outcomes and ensuring that there's a return on investment. Um and then I think, you know, I I also there's a context here in regards to with agile that it takes a certain level of capability, but also context, right? Um and especially when you're thinking about talent that you're bringing into agile, no one recruits for agile, right? I don't think, um, in normal business operations. So if you wanted to be purely agile, you'd have to change your whole framework of how do you attract and retain talent, how do you develop talent to build that capability? And I just I agree with you. I don't think they're the contextually organizations have got there yet. And I'm I'm not sure whether it's the Nirvana, right, whether it's actually possible for those reasons.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 15:22

I um I can say that one of the big four banks that I've had a lot of um interaction with, and I've seen Agile play out in different ways across all of them and have experienced some exposure or access or involvement. But seeing in one particular bank just how they did try to go the full hog all up front. Um, and it really did get a lot of the sort of BAU operational areas offside. Because if you think about it, I always say that if you know, and you probably resonate with this being change management expert, but often part of the whole change management is convincing them of what projects are fundamentally because operations is their is their you know bread and butter, not projects. So now we're saying you not only have to understand project management, which they were struggling with already, but now we're going to add another layer of this thing called agile that even practitioners like us took a long time to really resonate and understand. So I think it's really difficult. Job for the change managers, don't you think?

Matt Dragun: 16:16

Yeah, I I definitely do. And also when I think about the rhythms or the cadences in a business in an operational sense, and my background in management is operations management. As an operations person, you work on quarters, half year, and annual targets and forecasts. So the the challenge there is that doesn't necessarily align with your pure, you know, big A agile delivery and iteration. Um, because you're you're aiming for something that you need to deliver within a, you know, within set time periods, and then you budget and reset. Um, so there's, you know, it's a really interesting one to how do you implement PI planning into operational rhythms or cycles of a business? Um, and then how do you implement that same level of agile delivery um and scrum and and all of those things into what are different rhythms that that operations people are used to working with.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 17:22

And then and then on that note, thinking about the poor change managers that are dealing with the influx of all of this, um, whether their role is valued or not, in some organizations more often than not. Thinking about the fact that they often don't have much involvement in the business case to begin with, or in fact, you know, really having that oversight of what's happening at that strategic level, how do you um can you give some strategies or recommendations for how a change manager, um, regardless of what position uh level that they're in at a company, can help to ensure that the business outcomes align with realizing those benefits?

Matt Dragun: 17:58

That's a really tough question.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 18:00

If there is anyway, well, what techniques have you seen or used to drive that?

Matt Dragun: 18:05

Look, I think the the best change managers are the ones that are able to develop really good relationships with their core stakeholders, right? And so, you know, if I'm coaching a change manager as to how to do that, I would be encouraging them to put time and energy into key relationships and then based on the trust that they build in those relationships, asking the questions. Um, and change managers have no positional authority in a business and they know have no authority of influence in a business because they don't um typically they're plugged into projects, so they don't have that the guy's been around or the girl's been around for forever. And and so the they really rely on their personal relationships and their ability to develop trust and reputation and demonstrate the value that they deliver with their stakeholders. And I think it's one of the underrated capabilities of a good change manager is to be able to do that. Uh, you typically think of good change managers as being able to do the analysis work around impact assessments, being able to run good communications and training programs, being able to, you know, being able to run good co-design sessions and those type of things to optimize engagement. But I think on the flip side of that, the stakeholder piece with the senior stakeholders to be able to uh ask the questions like, let's explore the business case so I can align my engagement strategies and activation strategies with the business outcomes. Like that can be such a powerful question to a project director or a transformation director, but you need to have the relationship to be able to ask that question and have you. know get get the exposure to that level of information. Um I hope that answered your question. It's pretty pretty vague and ambiguous.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 20:08

No, no. I think it's it's a it's it's a you're right on point with regards to those relationships because I think it's two things. One, you're right about asking the questions, but if you have a really good relationship, they usually the information comes to you as well. So the other way. But um a good case in point um that I just reflected on is that we were part of a really large program, a government program last year. And I and I and my team had come in at the test phases to really clean up their governance. And they were really highly audited and scrutinized program. That's why and it was really interesting because coming in during the test phase I was finding out that the benefits case had been was being rewritten in that phase like at that time and I started questioning why not being in the change space. And they realized that part way through the program which was by by the way their third attempt that they weren't going to meet certain benefits and there were other benefits that were going to that come in that were new. So they were resetting that but because of the relationship the change team and the change manager had with the program director and the executives and being part of those conversations they didn't even have to ask they were actually given that insight and being part of that conversation made all the difference for that program.

Matt Dragun: 21:16

Yeah and I mean in in my experience um once you're able to develop really strong relationships you get engaged in conversations that just I guess enable you to unleash your talent um in it or in the other areas of you know developing your your different activities and your interventions. All change people will advocate for coming in earlier in the process. And I think there's a couple of points of value of that it gives you a longer lead time to demonstrate value and build relationships and it gives you a greater visibility of what's happening in the project so you can actually you know um really tailor um what you're doing to to help um enable the organization to adopt new ways of working.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 22:10

Yeah I agree completely. So program directors transformation directors who are paying attention bringing your change manager at the beginning don't wait to the end and expect that that's the only time you need them that's the lesson of the day for them. I wanted to circle back to you mentioned AI. So I wanted to circle back um we're seeing a lot of um change happening in this space um and we spoke about it recently at one of your events but um from your perspective how do you see um AI and technology influencing like transformation and change management so I'll go very very high level first.

Matt Dragun: 22:44

So I think um there's really three components for businesses to get value out of the direction of where technology is heading um the first is data. So technology or organizations need to have really good data structures and they need to have access to their data sets to then be able to leverage AI. And I think AI is going to be a technology game changer for a whole number of reasons. However the challenge is once you've got the data in place and you've got the AI, because the technology is moving so fast, you need to have the agility in your business to shift your organizational structures, your decision making processes, your ways of working to actually leverage the technology and the benefits of the technology and the the missing link there is change. So I think strategically if I look at the future for business I would be investing in data AI and change capability. So I think that's the high level picture. So and I think with change capability I see change as an extension of project project delivery. So I think when I talk about change I talk about projects will deliver solutions and then change will enable the business to embed and adopt the solution. So but I see that as being project you know one in the same thing. And then I think in terms of the actual day-to-day practices themselves, I think there's great opportunity for for change managers in doing their work. So you know I think generative AI tech all has already started to enable change teams and change practitioners to really generate highly engaging content and leverage data sources that they might never be able to get access to or have time to dig into and research and those type of things. So I think from a content perspective that the content is more enriched and it's broader through AI. I think you know the idea of driving productivity so to be able to plug into a chat GPT, develop me a you know change on a plan framework, what that looks like and the key components and use it as a starting point or a template I think is you know a really cool use and adoption of the technology as it already is. I think there's some really interesting work that's going on in I guess the more sophisticated application of AI which takes once again the data sets and then the ability to leverage the technology to deliver things like nudging I think there's opportunity and I was heard of a situation this morning about um almost a feedback channel that takes and it's beyond just a predetermined chat bot, but a feedback channel that takes the sentiment of the feedback, responds in real time, accesses the data sets from your change applications and your business applications and be is able to actually you know essentially um work like a an avatar and I don't know and this is probably a really good um analogy uh one of our developers um they were telling us a story because I asked the question this is this is going right off topic but I asked the question because um Mark Zuckerberg came out and said and meta's working on these avatars it's going to be amazing you can be best friends with Sam Kerr and you know sit on the other end of the computer and develop a friendship over time and communicate with Sam Kerr via a chat bot and she'll respond back or a video bot she'll respond back with the same facial expressions, all the rest. And I'm like, okay, cool but I I get the novelty of that at one time but but you always know it's a bot, right? So how engaged can you be? And I ended up asking my dev team because they're a lot younger and a lot more tech savvy. And um one of my lead developers she said oh I'm already on it love it. Like I got so addicted to a chat bot um that literally you know our friends were all doing it and we find it really fulfilling the engagement that we get from it. And I was just blown away because I didn't actually feel that that was humanly possible right with a machine. And her funny comment was part of her comment was I also wanted in the back of my mind to see how far I could push where the where the bot would go. So there was a novelty aspect there. But I think where I was going with that was the analogy of can you imagine a you know a change coach that is a bot but has the human characteristics to be engaging and to draw you back into a conversation and to be able to put you at ease and to actually do something that we didn't believe was capable with technology and that is build a genuine connection or or empathy and trust and and those type of characteristics. And I think that's where we're seeing it go um in some aspects. So you know I'm excited to see the application of those things because I think um I think they're they're exciting but I think they're also you know especially for young people in the workplace right I know when I was young in a workplace I was sitting around boardroom tables and I was too scared to ask the questions because I didn't want to be judged right 100%. When you're sitting with a chatbot who can read you and can you know empathize um with what you're communicating to them it removes that barrier. So I think you know there's some real upside in in what it can do. Anyway that that's a a really long answer.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 29:00

That's a really interesting thing when you were saying that I was thinking okay how would I feel about you know having this chatbot there I think on a one-on-one basis like you said in a coaching perspective I can see how that would work that though not having exposure to it but maybe in from a group setting um I can't see that it's interesting because one of the things that I hear a lot my husband's a carpenter and he's always telling me that oh you know your your pro your your days are numbered in your in your industry you know because you know you know robots are never going to replace all of my job and we always have this debate. But um I was I was at an event that um Stephen Butler from Dragon's End was hosting in Melbourne the other day and interestingly he said to a room of 4,000 people that the two biggest skills he believes are relevant for the next 10 years are AI and people skills. And I just think that that is absolutely hits and all in here when it comes to change managers and doing change management well.

Matt Dragun: 29:52

Yeah and I 100% agree and I think I think the the change managers that will be successful will be the ones who invest in developing their knowledge and understanding of AI and how to apply it and who have the great people skills right because that mix is dynamic and it's right on point for where organizations are going to go. I mean I I think there's a real opportunity for change managers to upskill in their understanding of technologies so that they can be really well positioned to be the conduit. Because the other way I describe a change manager is they are the conduit between the project team and the business. They are that connection point and as the conduit they need to be able to have a detailed enough understanding of the technology and what it can do but then be able to have the people skills to put it into the context and make it understandable and consumable for the people that are working in the business, right? Absolutely and I think you know if change managers continue to grow that capability on understanding tech and deep understanding tech, then coming to answer questions in an empathetic way that considers how people feel who are on the receiving end of the tech and who need to be doing things differently or who are involved in organizational restructures that are the result of tech deployments becomes a really really different conversation. So I just think that those two elements are yeah are gold they'll they'll be gold dust. They'll be unicorns.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 31:33

And and and it's so interesting because you're right that the role of the change manager is effectively deciphering what we talked about before the project management jargon that often operational teams don't have you know some do but for the most part that's not their bread and butter. It's not the you know where they spend their time. So yeah absolutely agree with that it's interesting change management's definitely becoming a lot more I think personally from observation being in projects a lot more prevalent and a lot more important than ever before and maybe that is because of the rise of you know new technologies as well so um watch this space but on that note um let's settle a debate so I'm a PMO expert you're a change expert and I has a lot of content online about the relationship between the project management office and the change management and I think it's um one that should absolutely be celebrated because they are um effectively work together collaboratively can deliver great results but what's your perspective on the change management role in relation to PMO and you know how they effectively work together or what examples that you maybe have experienced.

Matt Dragun: 32:35

Interesting so um one I think it comes down to you know the willingness and intent to collaborate um and I also think it's the acknowledgement of value. So when you ask about my experience I've seen PMO directors who um are all about on time and on budget um in terms of delivery and the reality of how the business uh derives value from the solutions that they deliver on time and on budget isn't even on their radar. And I feel that that's a significant um gap and also a real shame um because it it shows a bit of disregard for for the business that they're working in. On the flip side of that I've seen um PMO um managers and directors who absolutely love the insights that their change team bring them and value the ability of the change team to extend their reach and influence in the business. And I often talk about change as being you know the eyes and the ears for the project team in the business. They're the ones that are having the conversations they're the ones that are doing the presentations they're the ones that are setting up the project delivery teams to deliver their, you know, their workshops and those type of things. And I think they're also the ones that in those situations sit on the sideline and be can be can be really objective in regards to identifying potentially where barriers are, where resistance might be identifying and shedding light on some of the blind spots that the project team and the PMO might have because the PMO typically is one step removed from the business. So once again it's that conduit role and I think for you know I've seen some amazing PMO directors who 100% get that and who are really good at leveraging the the value of their change team to to be that connection point. I just think it it does depend on the individuals um and I think one of the examples that I've seen that's really driven closer relationships has been when PMOs and change teams have been required to deliver combined reporting to exec so when you you when you bring change metrics into PMO reporting metrics as a component and as a dual responsibility um it really shifts the dynamic because it brings an accountability there. And you know uh what get gets measured gets done right um and gets done well. So I think there's an element of that as well. But look I think there's always room for improvement. I think there's always room for growth in understanding on both parts. When I look at the PMOs and the technical team I mean they also sit on the opposite scales of um the personality types to change managers right your change managers are typically your highly high personal people right they're into their relationships all that kind of stuff your PMOs are typically come from a project delivery background and they're comfortable in Excel sheets and Gantt charts and those type of things. And so the the other one of the other things I think that good um PMO directors and change directors are mindful of is how do they need to adapt their own natural styles to come together. Because you know I can I can bang on all day about the workplace psychosocial hazards associated with the volume of change that's happening and I'm talking the total wrong language to influence a PMO director who's really driven by on time and on budget. So that that's um and and also the the other thing that I see drives PMO directors is the um the feedback that they get from senior stakeholders in the business. So I mean if I've got advice for change managers on how to get a PMO director on the hook um be their be their conduit to the senior stakeholders because that um that judgment on how they're driving um projects in the business and how they're affecting the the people that are running the business is a huge consideration for the way I guess I see PMO directors valuing and and judging their own work.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 37:33

That's a really really good summary of the the relationship with a really good summary. I don't think I can add anything I I can um echo a lot of what you said I like two call-outs that really stood out for me in that example there is um you're right the change managers is forward facing into the organization which is something that typically as PMOs we generally don't have too much involvement in particular when it comes to the execution of the projects and programs. But we do have that sort of internal facing to the program and project which change managers often don't have the time for. So effectively by PMO and change working together we're both capturing the external to the program and the internal and if we can align on those messages and the outputs that are needed I think that that's more likely to lead to success. So firsthand I can agree to that for sure. And then the other part that really stood out is around the sort of the reporting so one of the things I've seen work really well is where the change management team's obviously gathering data and metrics around engagement from projects and sorry from the business stakeholders for the program. And then the PMO is gathering that from the internal particularly on large transformation programs that are going three, four, five years and you need to capture that data to assess how things are going to you know minimize um you know uh uh retention of staff and and turnover and all those sorts of things so the reporting element completely agree and then I definitely agree you want to get the PMO director on the hook um executive stakeholders because that is literally their almost number one driver um in making sure they're a success and and some of them um do care a lot more about everybody in the program as well but sometimes when you're limited on time you're gonna focus on the top.

Matt Dragun: 39:07

Oh 100% and when you're you know accountable for hundreds of millions of dollars of budget and um you know that that creates a whole lot of stress and a whole lot of dynamics. And I think as change people we sometimes um miss the context of the pressure that the PMO directors are under, right? And the context of their accountabilities. And I think you know there's there's a real um as with all relationships there's a real path to understanding to be able to work effectively together.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 39:40

Yeah absolutely um and and just to to circle back to technology now that we've settled that debate and I think we need to you know put that on a billboard because everybody needs to know that um thinking back to technology so you and I met because you have invented a very innovative technology that um has obviously been um very successful So far, in its, you know, I think early days with some of the work that you're doing. But can you tell us about it's Matae? Can you tell us a little bit about it? What does it do? What's it for? And how does it help businesses?

Matt Dragun: 40:11

Yeah, sure. So, Fatima, look, Matae, um, in terms of the way we describe it, is we help organizations move faster by getting their people leaders to move together. Um, and look, to distill that down, essentially, um, in my experience, what I've found is project teams are really good at delivering solutions into business and change teams are really good at readying organizations to adopt changes. However, the success of programs or the benefit realized really relies on leaders in the operations of the business being supportive of their frontline workers to actually adopt changes and new ways of working. So, our technology connects project teams with leaders across all levels of an organization. It provides the leaders with visibility of what's coming down the pipeline so they can plan for deployments. Um, and it also provides leaders with the tools that they need to really simplify leading change and to be able to provide a level of support for their team members so that you can drive adoption and embedment of new technologies and new ways of working. And ultimately, so you can track the benefit realization piece post-go live. Um, we've got some other features that help with that transition or handover from project team to operational owners in regards to leading indicators for benefit realization. And in terms of the platform itself, we're integrated with Microsoft Teams. So the concept there is that we're not asking leaders to go to another application for change. The idea is that we're bringing change into the flow of leaders' everyday work. So one, it's really accessible, it's on demand for them in a place that they're already playing and they're very familiar with. And also it is about making change easier for those that have really got to make it happen in the business.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 42:17

I really like that. And particularly the thing that stood out the most was around that project to operations handover, which we mentioned before, never happens. And then, um, as you mentioned early on, talking to some executives, they've often spending hundreds of millions of dollars and calling out all these benefits. But unless that sort of transition process and is well managed, which the change can support, um, I think having that visibility, and like you said, I really liked your analogy, move faster, get people leaders to move together, um, really helps to do that. I was saying to you last time we met, I haven't seen anything out there like it at all. And its emphasis is on that focus of handing from project to operation. So I think that's really cool. The MS Teams plugin, you know, most companies are running MS Teams, so that makes it easy. So, you know, if anyone wants to learn more about that and get started to actually experience using the product, where can they find out more information?

Matt Dragun: 43:07

Yeah, so they can visit our website at mateamatae.io, um, or they can hit me up directly um via email or on LinkedIn, and um I'll be happy to share Fatimah with you or get you to share with the um the podcast my details.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 43:25

Amazing. I'll definitely do that. All right, wonderful. Well, before we wrap up this very interesting conversation, which I'm sure we can have many more of, is there anything else that you'd like to share with our listeners, a call to action, a piece of advice, or a question to ponder?

Matt Dragun: 43:40

I think we covered it, but I think, you know, summary is really embrace AI and um try and learn as much as you can about the technology and the opportunities that it presents. And I think, you know, while I run a technology company that is about um improving change um outcomes, um, it's really about enabling people. And I want to emphasize the importance of the relationships in the business. And, you know, from the perspective of getting change teams working with PMOs more effectively, I think that investment of time in building those relationships and building the trust to actually drive better outcomes is is really important. Um, and we often uh, and I'm ridiculously um guilty of this, get so busy in the doing that we we just don't make time for for that component. So I think, you know, business and organizations are about people, and I don't think that's going to change no matter the technology, whether it's Mate or another technology. So um I guess it's not the thing that I should be saying as a technology provider, but um, you know, you and that use the technology, get the most out of it, but make sure you're continuing to invest heavily in in your relationships and in people.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 44:57

Very well said. I think it's the time to embrace II, or we're gonna get forgotten and our competitors are gonna out, you know, outbeat us, out compete us. Thank you so much, Matt, for your time. Um, it's been a pleasure having you on the podcast today.

Matt Dragun: 45:09

Yeah, it's always awesome to see you, Fatimah. Thank you so much for having me and um yeah, look forward to seeing you soon.

Fatimah Abbouchi: 45:15

Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. Please share this with someone or rate it if you enjoyed it. Don't forget to follow us on social media and to stay up to date with all things agile ideas. Go to our website www.agile managementoffice.com. I hope you've been able to learn, feel, or be inspired today. Until next time, what's your agile idea?