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Now, I know, actually, you probably don't need this.

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Every time I see you, you're sort of like the paragon of Pacific Northwest Health.

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But I've been doing this thing.

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I always want to be a little more healthy.

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Got a lot of death by heart attack in my family.

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And I was thinking, you know, I should probably lose some weight.

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And I've discovered an amazing new program I called Eating Less.

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And it works.

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Really?

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Yeah, it's crazy.

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It's like you got this little lose it app thing that I used to use a long time ago.

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And you track your food in it.

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And it's kind of like a double pleasure kind of thing.

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Where one, you're sort of, I guess it'll be terrible when I stop losing weight, you know.

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But anyways, you actually, it works.

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And then it kind of like services this, I don't know,

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gnomic cataloger part of my head that wants to like record every piece of data in my life.

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So you can just record all this stuff that you eat.

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And then you know how much like salt you add every day.

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Now, I haven't figured out what to do with that information.

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Maybe our guests can help us go through some sort of discovery process for what I need to do with all that extra information.

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But I feel like I'm building up a corpus about my corpus.

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So that's how it works.

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Yeah, I'd like to see some charts.

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Oh, yeah.

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Yeah.

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I mean, what's your meat consumption and are you doing vegetables properly?

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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You know, we have in the house that I'm renting here in Amsterdam, we have a, I don't know if you have one of these.

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We have this thing that's like a steam oven.

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I mean, and you put, it's like heats up and you put in this big thing of water and it creates steam.

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It's really weird.

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I'm not really sure.

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And the problem is like you steam it.

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And then as you can imagine, the inside is like a normal oven and then it's just covered in water, which it's really hard to clean.

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So I don't know if you're just supposed to let that dry out.

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It seems like one of those things, like if you had a, if you had like a, a deep fryer, like built in to, to your countertop that you couldn't remove, you would use it the first time.

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And then you would be like, oh, this was a terrible idea.

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I don't, I don't know how I clean this, but so that's helping me cook.

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Before we did this episode, yeah, in like six months, we're going to have an episode.

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So I've got this giant mold problem.

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I don't know where it came from.

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That's right.

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No, no, I've, I've only, I've only used it once.

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And then I spent like way too long trying to clean it.

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Cause you know, you rent the house.

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And so you're like, I'm, I don't want to destroy anything.

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Cause I've already got two kids and a dog and who knows what's going to happen.

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But, uh, then, then I clean it out and I'm like, all right, well now this is like, uh, I don't know, however many centimeters of cubic centimeters of wasted space for the next two years.

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I'm not going to use this thing.

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I got to keep it.

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And it's, it's like, it's like that couch in the formal dining room that's covered in, uh, don't sit on me.

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That my grandparents used to have, they didn't have the plastic wrap, but it was, uh, they had like velour or something.

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I don't know.

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I don't know.

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I'm just saying, don't get one of those.

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It's weird.

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Noted.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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So why don't you introduce yourself, uh, guest?

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You got any advice on vegetables or a steamer ovens?

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Sorry, I was on mute.

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Uh, I was just talking for the last six seconds and nobody heard me.

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Uh, I have a lot of advice on steaming vegetables and a lot of advice on eating less, which I'm happy to delve into if that's what we want the focus of the podcast to be.

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Uh, but I will choose myself first.

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My name is Jonathan Serlin.

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I am a product manager at Pivotal Labs.

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Uh, I have tracked food in the past.

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I did the whole 30 in April of this past year, which is like a 30 day eating thing where you like basically only eat things that aren't super fun.

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Like, and you track, uh, that's what I've heard.

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Yeah.

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Right.

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It's just like, oh, this is, this is a way to eat less and hate food.

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So you just like, you, you make sure you're not eating any extra added sugar.

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You don't need any grains.

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You just eat like protein vegetables and like, that's it.

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And it's totally uncompromising.

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Like if you mess up, you have to start again on day one, you like get to day 29 and have a piece of chocolate by accident.

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They say you, you have, you're back to square one.

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You have to do the whole thing again.

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So I think the rigidity actually really helped me see it through.

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And my goal wasn't to lose weight, but I ended up losing like 12 pounds and I felt great and everything was awesome.

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And then the first time I ate sugar after it, I was like repulsed.

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It was like, like, I can't believe I used to eat this ever, but with enough time, I'm now back to like,

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you know, normal eating habits.

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Sugar always wins.

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Yeah.

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I'm proud of both of you.

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I'm in the middle of a 30 day, eat a cookie every day plan.

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So I'm feeling pretty good to be honest with you.

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Yeah.

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Pretty great.

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That's right.

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Sirota for life.

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That's good.

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A lot of cookies.

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So, so then, so then before we get to the news, like, uh, you know, you, we, you're in a, you're in the new pivotal labs office in Seattle, right?

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I mean, maybe not right now, but you've been in it.

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How, how is it?

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Give, give us a little, uh, little preview.

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Uh, I did very nice.

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I put some pictures on Twitter and LinkedIn and other spots just to kind of show it off.

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Yeah.

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It's a great spot, you know, a little more space, lots of natural light.

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Yeah.

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In the tallest building in Seattle.

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So if you do come down, you can stop by.

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There's a lot of restaurants in there, which is great.

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A parking lot, which it feels like a bond movie because it's super tight corners.

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And I'm really scared when I pull out of there, but, uh, yeah, it's a great, it's a great building.

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Good facility.

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We keep growing up in Seattle.

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So it's nice to have that with new space.

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Do you get, you get that thing in the parking garage where like every time you turn the wheels,

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it squeaks, I love, I love, I love a brand new parking garage and squeakiness.

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I guess it may be a parking garage.

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No, it is squeaky.

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And I haven't seen a human down there yet when I've been in my car.

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So I, you know, I'm always looking over my shoulder now because it feels like I could get murdered there,

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but it's convenient parking.

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So that seems like a trade off.

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Convenient parking, high risk of murder.

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Yeah.

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You know, that's the trade off we make as adults.

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So embrace it.

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We need a chart for that.

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Well, uh, I, I think, I think, uh, you know, since, I don't know,

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maybe around since last time we recorded the, uh, the, I guess now annual state of DevOps report

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came out run by the, uh, the door of people.

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And Pivotal was a sponsor along with several other people who were sponsors, uh, sponsors.

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And, uh, you know, as always, it was, it was fun to read through.

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There's always, uh, I forget the number except that it's a lot.

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Uh, and, uh, they do a survey of people and ask them, uh, practices they do and how they're doing.

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And so you get, I think it's been around five years or so now.

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So you get a good, like year over year, uh, idea of, uh, how things are going.

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And they have, uh, as I've perhaps incessantly joked about, they've now matched the, uh, the Marriott, uh, hotel levels.

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They have an elite platinum high performer.

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And then also just the power performers, the gold and the silver or something like that.

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Uh, you know, silver is not so bad, but, uh, anyways, they've got those new things out there.

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And, and I'll, I'll just say one more thing before, before you tell me, uh, what your impressions were, Richard.

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But, uh, you know, me being someone who works too much on, on, uh, PowerPoint, uh, the first thing I noticed is that they have it in landscape mode, which is kind of odd.

144
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Uh, because it's actually a document, uh, it's not a PowerPoint, but, uh, that's, that's, that's an interesting, uh, my theory, my theory is that everyone is on a big, like 16, nine ratio laptop screen nowadays.

145
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So someone actually just had this interesting idea of like, they're going to be reading it on a screen.

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We should make it fit in the screen.

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And, uh, I don't know.

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I kind of like it.

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I'll have to think about that for, uh, the next document.

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I, e-document I get involved in, but what'd you think about it?

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Yeah, it was good.

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You know, it's funny.

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You went to the Marriott hotel points when you thought of elite.

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For some reason, my head went to like, this is like the extreme Doritos.

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Like now we've moved to like an extreme level where you can't do anything less than that.

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Like, oh, these are regular Doritos?

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What am I, a monster?

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So like now you want to be elite as well in your, in your DevOps, but the numbers were

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good, right?

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How much customer kind of support effort time were you spending and how much time are you

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spending on effects on this elite performance level, which maps like real people.

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I thought that was interesting to see that.

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And also look, there was the number to adopt cloud characteristics, 23 times more likely

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to be elite.

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So when you do cloud like stuff, you're more elite in terms of your performance and less

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downtime and all that.

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Data, I just finished Nicole Forsgren's book, the Accelerate book, and she's behind a lot

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of this research.

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So it's been good.

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They've had four years of data.

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They can really look at these trends and put some, I think some confidence behind the fact

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that this actually does lead to better business performance.

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Yeah, it's fun.

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Yeah.

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I think there's two new sections that stand out for me.

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And that is one, there's, there's a little section on outsourcing.

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And that's one of those things where you can just, you know, the butler did it.

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You just, you just know what the outcome's going to be.

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Yep.

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They don't like outsourcing.

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Generally not cool.

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There's, there's a whole little like explanation of when it's, it's some sort of outsourcing

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methods work well.

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But in general, if you're sort of like sharding yourself out and your functionality doesn't

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really fit into their, their mold of things.

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And then I thought the best new part was there was, I don't know, three or four pages, but

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a sufficient amount amongst the 78 or odd pages of, of talk about like, so what does it actually

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mean?

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If you're like a manager and you're trying to create a culture?

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Cause we all know, uh, we all know in DevOps land, we're supposed to have a good culture,

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but heretofore, if that's a phrase, there hasn't been a lot of details, uh, about that.

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And so I think there were some good suggestions in there of things, uh, I don't know what to

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call it, a culture you would want look like, and therefore things that, uh, that managers

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or leaders or whatever you want to call yourself, the dungeon masters of digital transformation,

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like what it, what it is they're up to and what they do.

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And I think a lot of it revolves around, uh, essentially I try to summarize it, but there's

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like have flexibility around the rules, which is to say, don't worry about your governance

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if it's harming the sort of like outcome you want to achieve.

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And, uh, don't, don't be, don't be straight laced into that and then give your, your teams

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and therefore your people, uh, a pretty, uh, pretty large amount of autonomy and how they

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go about doing their thing, their things.

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And then there was actually, I always, I always, you know, doing retrospectives and, uh, post

203
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mortem fun things always seems like intuitively good, but I've never really thought about how

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it connects to a, uh, a better culture that much.

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And they kind of go over how doing retrospectives and learnings, like they don't actually explain

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it this way, but it kind of adds to a community of, uh, of a nice culture in there.

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So, so that part was good.

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And then it's sort of like, as, as you were saying, I mean, you, you, uh, since you just

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finished reading accelerate, you must've come across one of the last chapters.

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I think ironically they outsource to some other team, uh, that's basically what is, uh, what

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is good leadership like?

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And, um, I don't, there's, there's, I'll have to go back and read, read that and see if there's

213
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some interesting stuff in there, but that's the only other place I've really seen a discussion

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of this topic that's actionable as they say.

215
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No, that's right.

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It was a good focus on learning culture and retrospectives, as you said, so that was definitely

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useful.

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So I'll plug, I think in October, early October, Nicole and I will be doing a webinar, uh, on

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pivotal property, talking about the results of this thing and kind of, you know, looking

220
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a little into the DevOps report and actually turning this into action.

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So mark the calendars.

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Wait, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey guest.

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What's, what's, what's your take on how like the system is, you know,

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second order effect of doing retrospectives, like helps out your, your culture and therefore,

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you know, makes you do software better.

226
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Yeah.

227
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Um, I think the retrospectives are really good for a lot of reasons.

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Uh, and I think having a good culture is going to be good no matter how you look at it.

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Right.

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Um, I think that the primary reason that you don't have good software development culture

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is at least in my experience, both in working with clients at pivotal and in previous jobs

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is that, uh, uh, contributors are, are treated like line cooks.

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Rather than like actually thinking problem solving human beings.

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And the fastest way to dispel that is to ask them how they're feeling and listen to them.

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And I think that the retrospective not only provides a forum where people can talk about

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the things that are bothering them or the things that they're liking and like actually convince

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them that they are an autonomous being within like the cog of the, or within the machine of

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the, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, division that they're in, but it also forces leaders to like put something

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on their calendar that forces them to be empathetic.

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Uh, and I think that by like actually putting some structure around that, you're starting to

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put good behaviors and people that can probably do a really good job of that, but just don't

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have a lot of training or experience in doing it.

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Like a lot of, a lot of business leaders like get where they are because they they're convinced

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that they've been right their entire career.

245
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And it's like, I make good guesses and good bets.

246
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And so now I get promoted.

247
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Uh, but like in doing that, a lot of times, a lot of leadership training isn't like, how

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are you cultivating a team?

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How are you making people feel?

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And so like giving them a task to actually say, like, we are going to spend an hour every

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week where we are just going to listen and like, we're not going to work on actually coding

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anything.

253
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We're not going to work on doing anything deliverable.

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That's going to, you know, drive more revenue or whatever it is that you're trying to do,

255
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but we're just going to listen to these folks.

256
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And so like, that is going to be like undeniably good.

257
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That's going to make for a better software developing culture.

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It's going to make for better developers, product managers, and designers that actually

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want to do their work, but it's also going to increase the trust they have in their leadership

260
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that like they have their back.

261
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And so they're going to want to do it together.

262
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Yeah.

263
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That's, that's, that's a good way of, uh, of putting it.

264
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You know, it makes me think, I don't, I don't think about it with, is this much, this

265
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much muddled clarity usually, but like, uh, so somewhere in our, like how to do software

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better, like, uh, mythos world of study.

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We need to like connect to this idea that like, not connect, but we should connect in

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this idea that like, if you treat people like, uh, humans, things turn out better, like, because

269
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a lot of, a lot of these little, these like practices, you know, uh, kind of come down

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to like, as you say, like listening to people is one of the most humane things you can do

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to someone as people are always telling me.

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And so it's just sort of like, you should just treat people like they're good in work

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and, and good things will happen, but it's, it's hard to, uh, I don't know if there's

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a, if there's a donut chart that you can use to illustrate that somehow.

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I think, I think the DevOps people are always trying that with their Westeria thing or whatever,

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which, which is fine, but I always find that a little bit more, uh, descriptive of things

277
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rather than, uh, prescriptive, if you will.

278
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But anyway, so, so, uh, before I chew up our time talking about donuts, you want to, uh,

279
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take us through the other interesting news that came out, Richard?

280
00:14:41,400 --> 00:14:42,000
Yeah, sure.

281
00:14:42,020 --> 00:14:42,980
A couple of quick things.

282
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Uh, what was it last week?

283
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That sounds right.

284
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Was world.

285
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And so some, a lot of announcements came out of that.

286
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Most of you might've kept an eye on that.

287
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There was some interesting partnership news with Amazon specifically kind of more of this

288
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hybrid push into supporting their relational database service on via infrastructure, things

289
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like that.

290
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So I found that interesting as we continue to embrace, I guess, the real multi-cloud world.

291
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And then I think it was Friday.

292
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That team always seems to ship Friday at five.

293
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I think they're, they're messing with us on purpose, but Riff, the next version got released,

294
00:15:12,960 --> 00:15:16,040
included some nice bits for installing the latest of Knative.

295
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If you're in the serverless world, also had some good integration with the eventing system.

296
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So if you want to emit events and consume events from your functions, that was kind of included.

297
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So I liked that.

298
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And then there was a nice stream update.

299
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That's, that's grown into a really popular library for spring.

300
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As people want to talk to Kafka and RabbitMQ and now added Kinesis, which is Amazon streaming

301
00:15:37,700 --> 00:15:40,740
processing tool, as well as some Spring Cloud Function support.

302
00:15:40,860 --> 00:15:44,800
So if you want to have functions spin up as a result of something hitting a message bus,

303
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Hey, there you go.

304
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There's a whole programming model there.

305
00:15:47,340 --> 00:15:51,600
So the neat things around, you know, the Amazon integration with VMware, I like where Riff

306
00:15:51,600 --> 00:15:53,120
and Spring Cloud Stream keep going.

307
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Constant announcements.

308
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Hopefully you all are attending Spawn where you'll see even more about that.

309
00:15:58,320 --> 00:15:58,680
Yeah.

310
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You know, I've, I've noticed, uh, I used to play, pay really close attention to spring when

311
00:16:03,200 --> 00:16:08,320
I was a Java developer, but, uh, since I started paying very close attention to it again, kind

312
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of being around here.

313
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And when I was an analyst covering Pivotal, the, uh, the spring people are pretty good at

314
00:16:13,580 --> 00:16:17,240
like, uh, predicting which buzzwords they should build a framework around.

315
00:16:17,240 --> 00:16:21,000
Now I'm sure, I'm sure if I were to look at it, there would be some buzzword frameworks

316
00:16:21,000 --> 00:16:26,120
that never like buzzed or whatever, but there's pretty good, uh, success rate and, and getting

317
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things that work out like, like the, you know, the, the, the Riff stuff and then, uh, streams

318
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and all sorts of stuff has, it's sort of comes to fruition a little bit of ahead of it.

319
00:16:35,640 --> 00:16:36,680
It's, it's always like ready.

320
00:16:36,800 --> 00:16:37,000
Yeah.

321
00:16:37,100 --> 00:16:42,080
Most people want to use that stuff in, in the pseudo mainstream, which, which is nice.

322
00:16:42,140 --> 00:16:42,880
So good job.

323
00:16:43,640 --> 00:16:45,000
Yeah, no, it's a good point.

324
00:16:45,240 --> 00:16:49,280
They definitely seem, they seem well-tuned in some of that, which is always nice.

325
00:16:49,400 --> 00:16:49,720
That's right.

326
00:16:49,720 --> 00:16:52,140
Well, well then finally, just, uh, as a self-serving reference.

327
00:16:52,140 --> 00:16:56,600
So, uh, I think, I think this week, I think it was this week, like I had, I had a few more

328
00:16:56,600 --> 00:17:00,980
little draft excerpt chapters from the, the, the book I'm, I'm always working on that I

329
00:17:00,980 --> 00:17:06,340
posted over in medium and I ended my, in medium, they have this thing called a series or as

330
00:17:06,340 --> 00:17:11,420
I like to think of it, a Snapchat ripoff, uh, where like it's some card that you click

331
00:17:11,420 --> 00:17:12,560
on and it's very confusing.

332
00:17:12,560 --> 00:17:17,060
And so I was using that to like a list all the things I have, but I just made a regular post.

333
00:17:17,060 --> 00:17:20,780
It's much easier to use than some weird little card thing.

334
00:17:20,780 --> 00:17:21,280
Of course.

335
00:17:21,440 --> 00:17:23,120
But, uh, I'll put a link to that in the show notes.

336
00:17:23,120 --> 00:17:27,580
If you're interested, I think I posted, uh, I posted something about how, like, I guess

337
00:17:27,580 --> 00:17:31,160
kind of, uh, apropos to, uh, our discussion here, if we ever get to it.

338
00:17:31,320 --> 00:17:35,840
But, uh, like, like whenever you want to start off a big transformation, it's good to start

339
00:17:35,840 --> 00:17:40,160
with a small series of projects, uh, it seems like with the people that we work with.

340
00:17:40,300 --> 00:17:43,760
And then also there's a, there's sort of a roundup of like, how do you pick this initial

341
00:17:43,760 --> 00:17:44,600
team of people?

342
00:17:44,860 --> 00:17:49,060
Not only so that you like, uh, succeed at the first project, but more importantly, so that

343
00:17:49,060 --> 00:17:54,000
when you're working on project number 30 in a series of 2000, uh, you primed yourself

344
00:17:54,000 --> 00:17:58,380
well to, uh, succeed at that rather than, I don't know, not succeed.

345
00:17:58,600 --> 00:18:04,260
I guess that's the other option you could middle around if you will, but that said, so

346
00:18:04,260 --> 00:18:05,920
guest, what do you do around here?

347
00:18:06,920 --> 00:18:11,180
Uh, yeah, so I am a product manager with pivotal labs.

348
00:18:11,180 --> 00:18:16,180
Uh, I worked out of the New York office for around a year and change, and I recently moved

349
00:18:16,180 --> 00:18:17,160
to the Santa Monica office.

350
00:18:17,160 --> 00:18:19,280
I say recently, but that was like six, seven months ago.

351
00:18:19,500 --> 00:18:25,100
Um, uh, and so what I do is I work with clients and I pair with a client's, uh, identified

352
00:18:25,100 --> 00:18:29,640
product manager to, uh, help their teams figure out a better way to make software.

353
00:18:29,860 --> 00:18:34,580
Uh, and we, uh, work together to identify their goals, uh, identify the product that

354
00:18:34,580 --> 00:18:38,280
we think is going to be the best fit for, uh, the outcomes that they're looking for.

355
00:18:38,280 --> 00:18:39,440
And then we build it together.

356
00:18:39,860 --> 00:18:42,520
Uh, and personally, my main focus is on enablement.

357
00:18:42,520 --> 00:18:47,300
Like, uh, the thing about the pivotal labs model that excites me so much is that we're

358
00:18:47,300 --> 00:18:50,560
not just building them something that's going to work and then saying, here's your software.

359
00:18:50,740 --> 00:18:52,320
And like, it's done now, go home.

360
00:18:52,680 --> 00:18:57,660
But, uh, it's really much more of a, like, I'm going to teach this team to fish, right?

361
00:18:57,720 --> 00:19:02,140
So that, uh, at the end of this process, the entire team should be enabled to be able

362
00:19:02,140 --> 00:19:06,960
to, uh, head home and continue this software project, uh, into perpetuity, right?

363
00:19:07,040 --> 00:19:08,540
We don't think their products are ever done.

364
00:19:08,720 --> 00:19:12,180
And so what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to help cultivate and build a team that can

365
00:19:12,180 --> 00:19:17,120
not only bring the product into success in the future, but also help evangelize and spread

366
00:19:17,120 --> 00:19:21,160
some of those better habits back at their company so that the entire team can then,

367
00:19:21,160 --> 00:19:22,540
uh, prepare to transform.

368
00:19:22,820 --> 00:19:22,980
Mm.

369
00:19:23,100 --> 00:19:26,660
You just started sort of making the, the, the factory for making factories as it were.

370
00:19:27,320 --> 00:19:27,500
Yeah.

371
00:19:27,500 --> 00:19:28,940
We're trying to put ourselves at a business.

372
00:19:29,180 --> 00:19:29,580
Yeah.

373
00:19:29,720 --> 00:19:35,460
And, and so, so like, I think, I think, well, at least, at least probably, uh, for people

374
00:19:35,460 --> 00:19:39,700
who have worked at software vendors, the idea of like a product manager is, is pretty normal.

375
00:19:39,800 --> 00:19:40,660
No, no big deal.

376
00:19:40,660 --> 00:19:46,820
But like inside of a, uh, a company who does not sell software, let's say whatever it is,

377
00:19:46,820 --> 00:19:52,280
they're a retailer or they like sell pizza or insurance or something like to people, to

378
00:19:52,280 --> 00:19:54,220
product managers exist as such.

379
00:19:54,220 --> 00:19:59,000
You're like, what do you, how do you pull that role out of the, uh, out of the clay as it

380
00:19:59,000 --> 00:20:00,860
were and, and get someone to pair with?

381
00:20:01,600 --> 00:20:07,960
So I, I, I, and labs, uh, at large believes that there is no successful company that is

382
00:20:07,960 --> 00:20:09,380
not a software company anymore.

383
00:20:09,600 --> 00:20:14,460
Like, even if you just sold pizza, uh, people are probably not just going to call you to

384
00:20:14,460 --> 00:20:15,460
get a pizza delivered to you, right?

385
00:20:15,460 --> 00:20:19,820
There's gotta be something, uh, in either an iPhone app or some sort of web framework that's

386
00:20:19,820 --> 00:20:21,980
going to help people get a pizza to them faster.

387
00:20:22,460 --> 00:20:27,140
Um, and, uh, you know, there are actually some real world examples of like how we could

388
00:20:27,140 --> 00:20:28,460
like address that need.

389
00:20:28,940 --> 00:20:33,100
Um, but yeah, so if it's a, if it's a company that has no software development practices and

390
00:20:33,100 --> 00:20:36,820
they don't really have any product managers, what we try and do is either identify somebody

391
00:20:36,820 --> 00:20:41,200
that has a lot of context and can, uh, act as like a subject matter expert and can at least

392
00:20:41,200 --> 00:20:41,840
get us started.

393
00:20:41,840 --> 00:20:45,700
And then we can, at the end consider like, okay, is it now time to hire for this role?

394
00:20:45,700 --> 00:20:47,820
Or does this person want to transition into this role?

395
00:20:48,080 --> 00:20:51,680
Or we just find somebody that has worked with the company for a long time that is interested

396
00:20:51,680 --> 00:20:54,620
in exploring that sort of role and just bring them on.

397
00:20:54,620 --> 00:20:54,780
Right.

398
00:20:54,800 --> 00:20:55,580
We're not prescriptive.

399
00:20:55,680 --> 00:20:58,660
It's like, oh, that person doesn't have any product management experience on their resume.

400
00:20:58,920 --> 00:20:59,920
We can't take them.

401
00:21:00,000 --> 00:21:01,320
Like we will not let them into the building.

402
00:21:01,500 --> 00:21:03,320
That's like not how it works at all.

403
00:21:03,600 --> 00:21:06,620
Uh, I, you know, we, uh, we identify.

404
00:21:06,620 --> 00:21:12,020
Anybody that seems to have any, any level of interest, uh, insight or knowledge that we

405
00:21:12,020 --> 00:21:15,480
think that would fit the role well, and I'll just do what I can to enable them.

406
00:21:15,520 --> 00:21:18,920
You know, I've, I've worked with people that have been scrum masters for 25 plus years.

407
00:21:19,080 --> 00:21:22,040
I've worked with people that have never worked in technology before.

408
00:21:22,040 --> 00:21:23,720
The principles are exactly the same.

409
00:21:23,860 --> 00:21:29,460
All I'm trying to talk about is like, how does pivotal thing product management, uh, uh,

410
00:21:29,460 --> 00:21:32,700
effectively adds to a healthy software development team.

411
00:21:32,700 --> 00:21:34,060
And anybody can learn that stuff.

412
00:21:34,060 --> 00:21:38,280
You know, it's like anybody can follow a recipe and learn how to cook something.

413
00:21:38,280 --> 00:21:38,560
Right.

414
00:21:38,700 --> 00:21:42,480
But it's a matter of like, now that we've cooked this thing 12 times together, how would you

415
00:21:42,480 --> 00:21:44,000
improvise and cook it on your own next time?

416
00:21:44,260 --> 00:21:47,100
So I don't think, I don't think there's anybody that can't do it.

417
00:21:47,600 --> 00:21:47,960
Hmm.

418
00:21:48,480 --> 00:21:51,360
So what are the, what are the personality traits you look for though?

419
00:21:51,440 --> 00:21:55,440
Cause I mean, to some extent, somebody may, anybody background might be able to jump into

420
00:21:55,440 --> 00:21:59,160
it, but I'm assuming there are certain types of people that you, you see that they're either

421
00:21:59,160 --> 00:22:03,440
kind of naturally inclined to be a good product manager, or do you really feel like, geez,

422
00:22:03,440 --> 00:22:05,660
I can grab any sort of person and mold them into it.

423
00:22:05,900 --> 00:22:06,300
Yeah.

424
00:22:06,480 --> 00:22:10,780
I think the most important personality trait is a willingness to learn and to change, right?

425
00:22:11,260 --> 00:22:17,060
Like, uh, if you look at a traditional, uh, project management or scrum master role, uh,

426
00:22:17,060 --> 00:22:21,120
that person is very much like I have my 12 tasks and I'm going to get these things done

427
00:22:21,120 --> 00:22:22,720
and I need to get them done by a certain time.

428
00:22:22,780 --> 00:22:24,380
And if that happens, I've been successful.

429
00:22:25,100 --> 00:22:29,180
Um, and while those things are super important, it's also really important for us to say like,

430
00:22:29,200 --> 00:22:32,460
all right, let's question those 10 things that, uh, we are been told that we're supposed

431
00:22:32,460 --> 00:22:32,860
to do.

432
00:22:32,940 --> 00:22:34,640
How do we validate that those things are true?

433
00:22:34,640 --> 00:22:38,840
And how do we then communicate back to stakeholders that like, uh, here's the things that we think

434
00:22:38,840 --> 00:22:41,160
are the strongest, uh, strongest way for this product to move forward.

435
00:22:41,160 --> 00:22:42,200
And here's what we'd like to do.

436
00:22:42,320 --> 00:22:47,040
So anybody that's able to like either break out of their mold of project management and say,

437
00:22:47,060 --> 00:22:49,600
like, let's embrace some new techniques here and say how it works.

438
00:22:50,060 --> 00:22:54,280
Uh, but if it's somebody that has none of that experience at all, to answer your question,

439
00:22:54,280 --> 00:23:00,160
uh, the personality traits, I mean, you, you, we want people that are kind, that can communicate

440
00:23:00,160 --> 00:23:03,860
really well, uh, that are, uh, open to listening.

441
00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:04,460
You know what I mean?

442
00:23:04,460 --> 00:23:08,420
Like a lot of product management, at least in my experience is a lot like being a camp counselor,

443
00:23:08,420 --> 00:23:08,760
right?

444
00:23:09,140 --> 00:23:13,220
Like, uh, that is the job that I had before this one that prepared me for this as much as

445
00:23:13,220 --> 00:23:13,760
anything else.

446
00:23:13,840 --> 00:23:18,640
I was in, I was a product manager for like four or five years before I came to labs and

447
00:23:18,640 --> 00:23:20,800
I, in some pretty bad environments, right.

448
00:23:20,860 --> 00:23:25,460
In some areas that were as like, it was a lot of, I'm checking boxes on Jira tickets and

449
00:23:25,460 --> 00:23:29,420
making sure that people get to work on time instead of like actually working with the product.

450
00:23:29,760 --> 00:23:33,620
And when, now that I consider myself to be in a really healthy product management environment,

451
00:23:33,620 --> 00:23:34,980
I look back at my experience.

452
00:23:34,980 --> 00:23:38,760
It's like, it was my ability to like corral 12 children and make sure they didn't drown

453
00:23:38,760 --> 00:23:43,680
that day that is actually helping us like helping me be a successful product manager at labs.

454
00:23:43,680 --> 00:23:48,000
So somebody that's going to be proactive, uh, somebody that's going to communicate really

455
00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:52,080
clearly, somebody that's going to communicate simple things that everybody thinks they understand

456
00:23:52,080 --> 00:23:56,520
in the spirit of clarity, somebody that's, you know, good writing skills are a plus, you

457
00:23:56,520 --> 00:24:00,940
know, being able to communicate, uh, uh, back to stakeholders about our status.

458
00:24:01,200 --> 00:24:06,080
Um, things like that are usually good indicators that, uh, they can then take on the heavy stuff.

459
00:24:07,080 --> 00:24:07,840
Yeah, that's good.

460
00:24:07,840 --> 00:24:14,380
So what roles then do we typically have make up a labs team or a balanced team, whatever

461
00:24:14,380 --> 00:24:18,680
we would like to call it when we work with a partner or a customer, your, you know, products

462
00:24:18,680 --> 00:24:20,040
part of that, but what makes up the team?

463
00:24:20,120 --> 00:24:20,640
What are the roles?

464
00:24:21,180 --> 00:24:21,380
Yeah.

465
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:26,560
Uh, so the traditional balanced team at Pivotal Labs has been like three pillars, right?

466
00:24:26,700 --> 00:24:30,780
There's the product manager who is primarily responsible for, uh, making sure that we're,

467
00:24:30,780 --> 00:24:35,040
uh, make building something that's going to help take, uh, take off like the business

468
00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:35,600
goals, right?

469
00:24:35,600 --> 00:24:37,720
Like, are we doing what the business needs, uh, right now?

470
00:24:38,040 --> 00:24:39,360
Uh, and are we validating those things?

471
00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:40,920
Uh, and then there's the design role.

472
00:24:41,260 --> 00:24:43,660
Uh, the design is not a step in the process.

473
00:24:43,660 --> 00:24:45,340
The design is a part of the process, right?

474
00:24:45,400 --> 00:24:50,060
The person doesn't just make things look pretty and work well, but the designer's really

475
00:24:50,060 --> 00:24:53,620
main focus is to, uh, advocate on behalf of the user, right?

476
00:24:53,680 --> 00:24:57,580
Like the designer is there to give me a gut check to make sure that the thing we're building

477
00:24:57,580 --> 00:24:59,640
users are going to actually want and use.

478
00:25:00,360 --> 00:25:03,160
And then there are, uh, the developers, right?

479
00:25:03,180 --> 00:25:06,140
The development team, which is headed up by the anchor is what we call them.

480
00:25:06,140 --> 00:25:10,780
And the, the anchor is the person that has like the most, uh, not context, but I guess

481
00:25:10,780 --> 00:25:12,220
responsibility for the code base.

482
00:25:12,340 --> 00:25:15,640
But what the developers are doing is they're building a really healthy, sustainable code

483
00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:18,960
stack that we could either add to or delete from easily, right?

484
00:25:18,960 --> 00:25:23,640
Like I trust my developer to make sound technical decisions to help us execute on what we think

485
00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:25,080
is best for the business and the designers.

486
00:25:25,600 --> 00:25:29,560
And so those three pillars together, like in the Venn diagram, you draw those three circles.

487
00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:32,260
And in the middle of those three is like, this is a really healthy product team.

488
00:25:32,520 --> 00:25:36,140
Um, I have also worked on labs teams that have a data science component.

489
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:42,460
Uh, data science is like really fascinating and contributes to all three of those disciplines

490
00:25:42,460 --> 00:25:44,220
in a very radically different way.

491
00:25:44,380 --> 00:25:49,800
Uh, but I think that, uh, we're going to see more and more data science folks, uh, be integrated

492
00:25:49,800 --> 00:25:54,440
into that balanced team and become like a fourth important part of what we do.

493
00:25:54,940 --> 00:26:01,260
So, so can you, can you give us like a, uh, like an example of like what, like a product

494
00:26:01,260 --> 00:26:06,040
you would product manage and like, you know, interesting, like, you know, one, what, one

495
00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:11,200
interesting thing that comes up that kind of represents, uh, this is what a product manager

496
00:26:11,200 --> 00:26:15,620
brings to the table other than, other than the preventing drowning, which is good.

497
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:16,000
Yeah.

498
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:16,800
You don't want that.

499
00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:16,980
Yeah.

500
00:26:17,180 --> 00:26:19,200
But like, yeah, yeah.

501
00:26:19,260 --> 00:26:22,680
But, but, but on, on, I guess maybe on an external facing thing, like when you're thinking

502
00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:28,080
about, uh, we're building this piece of software or product or whatever that is supposed to

503
00:26:28,080 --> 00:26:29,080
serve some purpose.

504
00:26:29,380 --> 00:26:34,580
I mean, unless we're just burning through someone's money for fun, but like, uh, it, it, it's

505
00:26:34,580 --> 00:26:39,340
gonna, whoever's using the software is trying to like accomplish something, whatever it may

506
00:26:39,340 --> 00:26:39,680
be.

507
00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:46,980
And so like, what are like the skills that a product manager uses to make sure that happens

508
00:26:46,980 --> 00:26:47,340
well?

509
00:26:48,060 --> 00:26:48,500
Sure.

510
00:26:48,860 --> 00:26:56,540
Um, the skills that we use are, um, manifested in a lot of different facilitation and prioritization

511
00:26:56,540 --> 00:26:57,680
techniques.

512
00:26:58,060 --> 00:27:02,720
And I'll try and, I'll try and include those as I talk about, like the example that I'm

513
00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:04,560
going to choose to talk about, like what we did.

514
00:27:04,560 --> 00:27:08,780
So I worked with a very, very large food distribution company.

515
00:27:09,200 --> 00:27:14,280
Uh, this is a company that, uh, has, uh, many thousands of employees and many, many different

516
00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:17,720
kitchens and many, many different environments all over the country, all over the world, I think,

517
00:27:17,780 --> 00:27:22,400
but I think it's mostly focused in the U S uh, they serve food in, uh, college campuses.

518
00:27:22,400 --> 00:27:24,760
They serve food in business like parks.

519
00:27:24,760 --> 00:27:26,140
They serve food in office buildings.

520
00:27:26,140 --> 00:27:27,300
They serve food in prisons.

521
00:27:27,800 --> 00:27:31,500
Uh, and for each of those kitchens, they have a standardized way of how they want to make

522
00:27:31,500 --> 00:27:32,220
their food, right?

523
00:27:32,440 --> 00:27:36,600
A turkey sandwich here should be the same as a turkey sandwich there with some like gradation

524
00:27:36,600 --> 00:27:40,980
and like different tiers of like, like we want all the college campuses to be the same.

525
00:27:40,980 --> 00:27:44,060
We want all the, uh, like office buildings to be the same.

526
00:27:44,120 --> 00:27:47,920
But the point is like, there was a lot of democratization that could happen in the food

527
00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:50,980
that they were making and in the process by which they were going through to make that

528
00:27:50,980 --> 00:27:51,180
food.

529
00:27:51,860 --> 00:27:55,840
And their solution that they came to us was where they said, we had this iPad app, which

530
00:27:55,840 --> 00:27:57,220
is going to do all sorts of really cool stuff.

531
00:27:57,280 --> 00:27:58,360
And we want you guys to build this.

532
00:27:58,860 --> 00:28:03,760
And, uh, it was a really great opportunity and there was a lot of exploratory work to be

533
00:28:03,760 --> 00:28:04,000
done.

534
00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:07,780
And so our approach was basically like, thank you for bringing us all this research that

535
00:28:07,780 --> 00:28:08,300
you want to do.

536
00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:11,280
Thank you for bringing us, uh, all these awesome prototypes that you had.

537
00:28:11,540 --> 00:28:16,060
Please let us as a team familiarize ourselves with your domain by validating this and by learning

538
00:28:16,060 --> 00:28:16,640
as much as we can.

539
00:28:17,220 --> 00:28:21,920
Uh, in the app, they had like video training modules for like how to better make chicken

540
00:28:21,920 --> 00:28:22,340
salad.

541
00:28:22,700 --> 00:28:27,820
Uh, and they had like diagrams that would show you like where you're putting your food in

542
00:28:27,820 --> 00:28:28,200
your bin.

543
00:28:28,360 --> 00:28:31,920
And again, the challenge was like all the food bins across these different sites were just

544
00:28:31,920 --> 00:28:32,920
totally different, right?

545
00:28:33,120 --> 00:28:35,100
So you couldn't be like, here's a picture.

546
00:28:35,280 --> 00:28:36,240
Here's where you put all the food.

547
00:28:36,600 --> 00:28:40,740
Uh, just do it exactly like this because being in site a would be like L shaped and been in

548
00:28:40,740 --> 00:28:44,740
site B would be, I don't know, like a very, very long rectangle or something.

549
00:28:45,140 --> 00:28:48,460
Uh, so they had to like come up with a way to actually make it easy to follow without being

550
00:28:48,460 --> 00:28:49,240
too prescriptive.

551
00:28:49,740 --> 00:28:51,460
And they, so they had all these ideas, right?

552
00:28:51,460 --> 00:28:55,320
Like all these things they wanted to do to help, uh, uh, their kitchen workers.

553
00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:59,840
And they did some interviews and they had a really good, uh, a pretty good idea.

554
00:28:59,840 --> 00:29:03,000
I should say of like what people actually wanted, uh, much better than a lot of

555
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:03,800
clients that come to us.

556
00:29:04,340 --> 00:29:06,420
Uh, but what we said was we're going to learn as much as we can.

557
00:29:06,540 --> 00:29:11,700
So we identified some sites, uh, that we could go to and actually like show up at 5am and

558
00:29:11,700 --> 00:29:15,000
be in the kitchen and watch people work and learn from them and talk to them.

559
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:18,600
So we had a lot of very early mornings where like the software development team was putting

560
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:23,520
on hairnets and like an aprons and we were showing up and we were watching people like

561
00:29:23,520 --> 00:29:27,680
who's day in and day out is like show up, clean the kitchen, prep everything, serve food,

562
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:28,280
go home at two.

563
00:29:28,480 --> 00:29:32,260
Um, and what we observed was that there are a lot of tasks that they were doing.

564
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:36,900
They were highly reliant on paper, uh, lots of paper binders everywhere.

565
00:29:36,900 --> 00:29:40,620
You know, like you had instructions in this binder over here on how to make salads and you

566
00:29:40,620 --> 00:29:43,860
had instructions in this other binder over here for how to clean the stove.

567
00:29:43,860 --> 00:29:49,320
And like, here's how you effectively, uh, sterilize your steam oven to make sure that you don't

568
00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:50,240
like get mold everywhere.

569
00:29:50,500 --> 00:29:55,420
And then you, um, but another thing that they had was they had to record the temperature of

570
00:29:55,420 --> 00:29:59,900
their food bins, uh, uh, every 20 minutes or so.

571
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:03,000
And this is like a strict health regulation thing was like, do they need to make food that

572
00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:05,560
the cold food stayed really cold and then the hot food stayed hot.

573
00:30:05,980 --> 00:30:09,400
Uh, and the way that they do that is they walk around the temperature, they took the temperature,

574
00:30:09,400 --> 00:30:13,220
uh, and then they would write it, uh, in one of their paper binders.

575
00:30:13,220 --> 00:30:17,080
And what we were finding in all of the sites that we were going to was that because of the,

576
00:30:17,080 --> 00:30:22,620
uh, pain as it was to like, go find the binder, take your gloves off, uh, and take all those

577
00:30:22,620 --> 00:30:22,960
temperatures.

578
00:30:23,260 --> 00:30:25,260
That was something that was falling to the wayside a lot.

579
00:30:25,740 --> 00:30:29,140
Uh, they were taking temps and checking it, but they weren't necessarily recording it.

580
00:30:29,240 --> 00:30:34,220
And so, uh, I was taking in all sorts of different data points of like, what are the things

581
00:30:34,220 --> 00:30:35,920
that we could help improve through software here?

582
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:40,700
And so, uh, the team, uh, me and along with my designer and as few of the developers that

583
00:30:40,700 --> 00:30:43,760
would come with us as well, we'd write all sorts of notes as we went out there and then

584
00:30:43,760 --> 00:30:45,480
we'd identify different pains and post-it notes.

585
00:30:45,900 --> 00:30:49,740
And then I don't know if you guys have been to a lab's office, but there's typically, uh,

586
00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:52,680
many, many whiteboards that are just like filled with post-its.

587
00:30:52,680 --> 00:30:57,120
Like it looks like a beautiful mind, but like about like much more boring stuff.

588
00:30:57,360 --> 00:31:00,900
Uh, and it seems like there's a lot less red string and last.

589
00:31:00,980 --> 00:31:01,340
Yes.

590
00:31:01,420 --> 00:31:01,620
Yeah.

591
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:01,920
Yeah.

592
00:31:02,100 --> 00:31:04,220
And in such insane boards.

593
00:31:04,700 --> 00:31:05,060
Yeah.

594
00:31:05,160 --> 00:31:05,360
Right.

595
00:31:05,460 --> 00:31:10,820
Less string than like a detective's office, but more post-its and like blue painter's tape

596
00:31:10,820 --> 00:31:11,800
for like prioritization.

597
00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:13,040
And I'll talk to that in a second.

598
00:31:13,360 --> 00:31:15,800
And so basically what we did was we identified a lot of different pain points.

599
00:31:15,880 --> 00:31:19,740
And like one of those pain points was like, like people don't know, uh, always had to

600
00:31:19,740 --> 00:31:22,260
make the sandwich correctly, you know, correctly as per the business.

601
00:31:22,380 --> 00:31:25,560
But then there was also like, people are not recording the temperature of their food.

602
00:31:25,740 --> 00:31:29,660
And when you do is you weigh out like, okay, so here are these different problems.

603
00:31:29,660 --> 00:31:34,420
Like what is the impact of the, uh, the severity of like, I wasn't able to record the temperature

604
00:31:34,420 --> 00:31:37,960
of the food versus like, I wasn't able to make, uh, the exact right turkey sandwich.

605
00:31:38,180 --> 00:31:40,780
If you're not making the exact right turkey sandwich, that's not good for the business

606
00:31:40,780 --> 00:31:45,440
because they could be losing money per turkey slice or like people are going to be dissatisfied

607
00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:48,740
if the sandwich is like, uh, not the same from one side to the other.

608
00:31:48,920 --> 00:31:53,200
But if you're not recording your food temperatures and there's like ever a health problem and the

609
00:31:53,200 --> 00:31:55,520
health department comes and says like, let me see your records.

610
00:31:55,660 --> 00:31:58,380
Like you get fined and like you could get closed.

611
00:31:58,900 --> 00:32:02,580
And so what the business really wanted was we need more turkey sandwiches and eventually

612
00:32:02,580 --> 00:32:04,440
we'll make it easier for them to take temperatures.

613
00:32:05,300 --> 00:32:08,520
And so what we did was we went to them and we said, this sounds great.

614
00:32:08,600 --> 00:32:11,180
And we're going to give you guys the videos, but we want to start with temperatures because

615
00:32:11,180 --> 00:32:13,080
we don't want your sites to close if something goes wrong.

616
00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:19,100
Um, and so like as a PM, it was my job along with the rest of the team to sort of synthesize

617
00:32:19,100 --> 00:32:22,360
all the different things we were learning and identify like, what's the most important

618
00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:23,520
thing that we should do first.

619
00:32:23,700 --> 00:32:27,320
And in my mind, anytime I talk about it, uh, or like if I'm talking to friends about

620
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:28,820
it, they say like, yeah, but that just seems really obvious.

621
00:32:28,820 --> 00:32:31,500
Like, why didn't you just like, why is that a whole role?

622
00:32:31,500 --> 00:32:33,280
And why did that take so long to get to?

623
00:32:33,520 --> 00:32:38,260
And my answer is always like, it's like the more obvious it seems after the fact, the better

624
00:32:38,260 --> 00:32:38,920
job we did.

625
00:32:39,100 --> 00:32:42,780
Like it is not obvious when you're sitting in it and it is not always the immediately,

626
00:32:42,780 --> 00:32:47,260
uh, apparent thing that this is like the first thing that we should do, especially when

627
00:32:47,260 --> 00:32:51,200
you're not, uh, only juggling the priorities of the user in front of you, but also what the

628
00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:56,420
business needs, like we knew that the business also needed a platform to release videos because

629
00:32:56,420 --> 00:32:59,320
their HR team wanted to be able to give training videos to everybody in the field.

630
00:32:59,320 --> 00:32:59,540
Right?

631
00:32:59,800 --> 00:33:04,560
Like that's a business need that I was weighing against the user need of like, it's not easy

632
00:33:04,560 --> 00:33:06,420
or easy for me to record my temperatures.

633
00:33:06,980 --> 00:33:10,540
And there's also a business need that I identified there, which is like, you're going to lose

634
00:33:10,540 --> 00:33:11,540
a lot of money if you get fined.

635
00:33:11,540 --> 00:33:16,160
So the first thing we built that we prioritized our first MVP, our first release was like,

636
00:33:16,500 --> 00:33:20,440
let's make it really, really like stupidly easy for people to record their temperatures.

637
00:33:21,100 --> 00:33:25,080
And what you do is you do all sorts of ideation around like, what are the many different ways

638
00:33:25,080 --> 00:33:25,520
we could do it?

639
00:33:25,620 --> 00:33:27,420
And we're like, how about Bluetooth thermometers?

640
00:33:27,520 --> 00:33:28,980
Like you don't have to actually write anything down.

641
00:33:29,040 --> 00:33:31,700
You just like stick a thermometer and it'll wait two seconds and then go to the next one.

642
00:33:32,140 --> 00:33:36,900
Uh, and it turned out that like nobody really was super psyched on like pairing a Bluetooth

643
00:33:36,900 --> 00:33:38,120
thermometer every eight minutes.

644
00:33:38,120 --> 00:33:42,200
And like that the actual, the chore of getting those two things together was harder than actually

645
00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:42,900
just writing it down.

646
00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:46,200
And so what we did was we just said like, all right, let's still use the regular temperature

647
00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:49,260
thermometer, but instead of writing it on a piece of paper that they're going to lose,

648
00:33:49,340 --> 00:33:53,660
let's just make a very, very ultra usable way for them to input that temperature into their

649
00:33:53,660 --> 00:33:53,900
iPad.

650
00:33:54,820 --> 00:33:58,120
And that was the first thing we built and we put it out to a bunch of test sites.

651
00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:02,740
And within a week they had recorded like 600% more temperatures than they did before.

652
00:34:03,240 --> 00:34:07,580
And the following week in one of those sites, they had an incident where somebody got sick

653
00:34:07,580 --> 00:34:09,940
and the health department came and looked at their temperatures from the prior week and

654
00:34:09,940 --> 00:34:11,160
they had it on the iPad right there.

655
00:34:11,580 --> 00:34:15,820
And like, that was something that they would have been ill prepared for if that hadn't been

656
00:34:15,820 --> 00:34:16,060
done.

657
00:34:16,240 --> 00:34:19,780
So like the client comes to us, says, we need a better way to make sandwiches.

658
00:34:19,780 --> 00:34:21,520
And we say, we can help deliver on that.

659
00:34:21,580 --> 00:34:25,260
But first here's your most pressing need and let's build that software together.

660
00:34:25,400 --> 00:34:29,940
And in doing so, we helped instill some really, really healthy software development practices

661
00:34:29,940 --> 00:34:34,720
so that when they were next moving on from Pivotal to go back home and build the thing where

662
00:34:34,720 --> 00:34:38,720
they could distribute videos and make these diagrams for how to place your food, they were

663
00:34:38,720 --> 00:34:41,440
going about it in a very different way than they would have done before.

664
00:34:41,700 --> 00:34:45,260
And I'm still in touch with this client and I've seen the app that they built and it's

665
00:34:45,260 --> 00:34:45,620
awesome.

666
00:34:45,940 --> 00:34:50,240
And their users felt listened to and they're gathering feedback all the time and they're building

667
00:34:50,240 --> 00:34:52,140
this thing that is actively making their kitchens better.

668
00:34:52,740 --> 00:34:56,940
So like what I said before is like, we don't really feel like there's any company that's

669
00:34:56,940 --> 00:34:57,820
not a software company.

670
00:34:58,180 --> 00:35:04,780
You know, this company is not like, they don't make like iPhone apps or games before like

671
00:35:04,780 --> 00:35:05,440
this process, right?

672
00:35:05,460 --> 00:35:06,700
What they do is they make salad.

673
00:35:07,160 --> 00:35:10,380
But now they're understanding that like software is an essential way to make sure that they're

674
00:35:10,380 --> 00:35:11,240
making better salads.

675
00:35:12,700 --> 00:35:14,640
And so I don't know if that answers your question.

676
00:35:14,720 --> 00:35:16,100
That was a very long winded approach.

677
00:35:16,460 --> 00:35:16,580
Yeah.

678
00:35:16,780 --> 00:35:17,140
No.

679
00:35:17,260 --> 00:35:21,440
And I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's a, that's a prototypically in a good

680
00:35:21,440 --> 00:35:22,580
way, like great story, right?

681
00:35:22,700 --> 00:35:27,900
Especially the part where it's like, uh, I mean, you know, as people like to disclaim, you

682
00:35:27,900 --> 00:35:30,780
don't want to say you're lucky this happened, but then you're lucky that your temperature

683
00:35:30,780 --> 00:35:32,660
thing was actually very much so needed.

684
00:35:32,980 --> 00:35:33,840
Like, oh my God.

685
00:35:33,920 --> 00:35:39,140
So that, that, that, and that, that creates a kind of a snowball of like, oh, this is a

686
00:35:39,140 --> 00:35:39,760
good idea.

687
00:35:39,860 --> 00:35:41,560
Like, like this approach of doing things.

688
00:35:41,560 --> 00:35:48,480
And, and, you know, I, I, I, uh, uh, I often, and, and I hear stories like this cause they're,

689
00:35:48,560 --> 00:35:49,460
they're, they're good, right?

690
00:35:49,480 --> 00:35:51,680
Everyone likes a twist at the end.

691
00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:52,080
Right.

692
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:53,560
Uh, which is fun.

693
00:35:53,920 --> 00:35:58,280
Um, but, uh, you know, like, like anyways, I hear a lot of stories like this and I wonder

694
00:35:58,280 --> 00:36:03,360
like how, so, so before I ask the question, like, it seems like one of the primary

695
00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:07,720
things that the team as a whole does, but that, uh, I think probably the product manager

696
00:36:07,720 --> 00:36:12,000
with the help of kind of like the designers and other people, if they want to pitch in,

697
00:36:12,060 --> 00:36:18,660
but with the primary job that kind of the PM does is sort of like, uh, unmasking the real

698
00:36:18,660 --> 00:36:19,660
problem to solve.

699
00:36:19,660 --> 00:36:26,120
And, and the way to, to kind of, I think, summarize a little bit of what you're saying is you observe

700
00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:31,600
like the problem space, like, like the things happening and what's going on.

701
00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:36,460
And then also, of course, uh, you bring into account, like, what is the point of all of

702
00:36:36,460 --> 00:36:36,760
this?

703
00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:38,060
And like, what are we trying to accomplish?

704
00:36:38,060 --> 00:36:39,240
And all of that kind of stuff.

705
00:36:39,460 --> 00:36:46,380
But then I think, I think, I think the angle that, that, um, that, uh, I guess, I guess

706
00:36:46,380 --> 00:36:49,740
people would assume sort of like you're saying this happens all the time, but I think it mostly

707
00:36:49,740 --> 00:36:55,380
never happens in, unless you're mindfully doing it is, is you find out like the first three

708
00:36:55,380 --> 00:36:58,940
problems you thought you needed to solve actually don't need to be solved right now.

709
00:36:58,940 --> 00:37:02,900
And it's, it's like something else that you just kind of like stumble on, right?

710
00:37:02,920 --> 00:37:03,860
Like, like the temperature.

711
00:37:04,380 --> 00:37:09,680
Um, and so, so I wonder, like, as I was kind of rambling at the beginning, I think I hear

712
00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:11,960
those kinds of stories all the time cause they're cool.

713
00:37:12,420 --> 00:37:16,460
But I wonder if in reality, like, does that happen every single time?

714
00:37:16,460 --> 00:37:21,060
Or sometimes are you just like, yeah, you know, a pipe's a pipe, right?

715
00:37:21,060 --> 00:37:22,260
Like they need better pipes.

716
00:37:22,540 --> 00:37:25,240
There's no mystery or anything that we need to uncover.

717
00:37:26,200 --> 00:37:29,480
So that's definitely, it's, it doesn't happen every time.

718
00:37:29,480 --> 00:37:29,700
Right.

719
00:37:29,740 --> 00:37:34,480
But what does usually happen is like the thing that you thought you needed to solve, you do

720
00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:38,000
need to solve, but the method by which you were solving it is actually pretty myopic.

721
00:37:38,260 --> 00:37:38,460
Yeah.

722
00:37:39,080 --> 00:37:41,120
And like, let's take a step back from this problem.

723
00:37:41,120 --> 00:37:44,060
That is a huge need for you and see if there's other ways that we can solve it.

724
00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:46,320
Uh, that will also help you solve other problems.

725
00:37:46,320 --> 00:37:46,540
Right.

726
00:37:46,540 --> 00:37:51,200
Or will more effectively address the root cause, like instead of like putting a patch

727
00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:56,160
on the pipe, why don't we replace the entire pipeline or like instead of, or the vice versa,

728
00:37:56,160 --> 00:37:59,200
like instead of replacing the entire pipeline, let's just put a patch here and like, we'll

729
00:37:59,200 --> 00:37:59,980
solve all your problems.

730
00:37:59,980 --> 00:38:00,260
Right.

731
00:38:00,440 --> 00:38:05,540
So it's not always that like people come to us thinking one thing and like, we do this

732
00:38:05,540 --> 00:38:09,160
anthropological study of everybody that's involved and realize like, actually you guys were

733
00:38:09,160 --> 00:38:09,440
wrong.

734
00:38:09,560 --> 00:38:11,160
You know, it's not about them being wrong.

735
00:38:11,540 --> 00:38:15,740
And it's more about us saying like, how do we more effectively address these problems in

736
00:38:15,740 --> 00:38:20,440
a leaner, in a leaner way, or it's in a way that's going to help you solve like other problems

737
00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:20,740
as well.

738
00:38:20,980 --> 00:38:21,060
Yeah.

739
00:38:21,140 --> 00:38:25,200
And I imagine there's a bit of, uh, especially if you use something like, I don't know, a

740
00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:28,260
value stream map or a little bit, something more soft and cuddly.

741
00:38:28,620 --> 00:38:32,620
Uh, it's kind of like what you were talking about earlier, where you need to have a forcing

742
00:38:32,620 --> 00:38:37,940
function that makes you sort of like do your homework, like sort of, like sort of pay attention

743
00:38:37,940 --> 00:38:42,500
to the whole process and not just go in with your, uh, your assumptions about, about

744
00:38:42,500 --> 00:38:43,520
what totally solved.

745
00:38:44,240 --> 00:38:45,120
And that's really hard.

746
00:38:45,120 --> 00:38:48,960
Like, like, like it's really difficult to have clients come to us and for us to say

747
00:38:48,960 --> 00:38:51,560
like, it's our job to challenge your assumptions right now.

748
00:38:51,600 --> 00:38:52,440
We're putting it on the calendar.

749
00:38:52,560 --> 00:38:53,080
Let's do it.

750
00:38:53,780 --> 00:38:57,820
Because a lot of them are used to hearing like, yes, ma'am, like you got it.

751
00:38:57,880 --> 00:38:59,900
Let's go and build this thing that you want.

752
00:38:59,940 --> 00:39:00,120
Right.

753
00:39:00,140 --> 00:39:04,300
And that's a huge part of the job too, is convincing clients that like what we're doing

754
00:39:04,300 --> 00:39:08,240
is in their best interest and that we are only challenging their assumptions so that

755
00:39:08,240 --> 00:39:09,520
we can make sure we're doing the right thing.

756
00:39:09,980 --> 00:39:16,900
Um, you know, ideally, uh, the client is already prepped before even getting to my desk that

757
00:39:16,900 --> 00:39:18,240
like, that's going to be part of the process.

758
00:39:18,240 --> 00:39:21,480
But even when that's the case, there's tons of stakeholders and people within the company

759
00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:23,980
who are like, wait a minute, why aren't you just building the thing that we want to build?

760
00:39:24,320 --> 00:39:28,780
And like, my response is like, we can do that, but all I'm asking is for some times to make

761
00:39:28,780 --> 00:39:29,740
sure that that's the right thing.

762
00:39:29,940 --> 00:39:31,380
And then they'll say, I already did that.

763
00:39:31,460 --> 00:39:32,660
I'll say, I know that.

764
00:39:32,780 --> 00:39:36,300
And I'm like, I hear you and I'm sure that you're right, but I don't know enough about

765
00:39:36,300 --> 00:39:36,560
it yet.

766
00:39:36,580 --> 00:39:38,800
So let me learn about it and validate it at the same time.

767
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:45,060
That's really hard because, you know, these engagements are not cheap and like people want

768
00:39:45,060 --> 00:39:47,020
to make sure that they're not wasting their time.

769
00:39:47,180 --> 00:39:51,920
And so like part of the education at the beginning is, is showing that it's not a waste, that

770
00:39:51,920 --> 00:39:55,380
even if you come out with the same outcome, it was for a good reason.

771
00:39:56,060 --> 00:39:56,820
Uh, but that's tough.

772
00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:00,920
So, I mean, that is a great story.

773
00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:03,960
And as I think about that, I was going to ask you kind of follow up of how you do the convincing.

774
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:08,880
I think you explained that pretty well, but how do you keep showing that ongoing value during,

775
00:40:08,940 --> 00:40:12,040
I think you kind of described during these processes, like product doesn't disappear.

776
00:40:12,060 --> 00:40:14,940
Like you're, you don't disappear once you incept the plan and move on.

777
00:40:15,040 --> 00:40:17,540
So what are you doing over the lifespan of that?

778
00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:21,360
Are you continually doing different experiments or trying to figure out what the priorities

779
00:40:21,360 --> 00:40:22,760
are for the next sprint of work?

780
00:40:23,080 --> 00:40:26,680
Like what do you do over the life cycle of one of these more extensive projects?

781
00:40:27,260 --> 00:40:27,440
Yeah.

782
00:40:27,880 --> 00:40:32,780
Um, so upfront is this big discovery and framing process where we're learning a ton.

783
00:40:33,200 --> 00:40:37,620
Uh, like that is three weeks of going to kitchens and learning that temperatures are the most pressing

784
00:40:37,620 --> 00:40:37,940
issue.

785
00:40:38,220 --> 00:40:42,680
After that, I've written stories in my, in my backlog that can start to address that.

786
00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:46,420
But my next thing is like, all right, when the developers are done with those stories, what

787
00:40:46,420 --> 00:40:47,260
the hell are we going to do next?

788
00:40:47,620 --> 00:40:52,100
And so I'm now going back out into the field or doing more interviews or doing whatever it

789
00:40:52,100 --> 00:40:54,140
is I need to do to discover what's coming next.

790
00:40:54,240 --> 00:40:56,860
And that's not just me like plucking ideas out of thin air.

791
00:40:56,940 --> 00:41:01,200
That's me constantly evaluating and reevaluating the software that exists or the questions I

792
00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:02,400
didn't get to ask last time.

793
00:41:02,840 --> 00:41:07,980
Um, when you have live software, you can also take analytics and data from you, from the

794
00:41:07,980 --> 00:41:12,600
way people are actually using it to, uh, inform those decisions and course correct anything

795
00:41:12,600 --> 00:41:13,140
that you've built.

796
00:41:13,340 --> 00:41:15,900
And then the question becomes, how do I prioritize those things?

797
00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:19,900
Because I'm not, you know, I'm not waiting until everything's done to release it.

798
00:41:19,900 --> 00:41:22,520
Like in an ideal world, I'm releasing things to production constantly.

799
00:41:22,780 --> 00:41:26,520
So my decisions matter because the thing that we're doing next is actually going to lie

800
00:41:26,520 --> 00:41:27,640
that people are going to use it.

801
00:41:28,020 --> 00:41:32,600
So are we, are we spending our time and money most effectively, uh, to make sure that the

802
00:41:32,600 --> 00:41:34,880
next thing that's going out is very, very valuable.

803
00:41:35,480 --> 00:41:41,760
Um, so it's just another, it's, it's another more miniature, miniaturized cycle of, uh, of

804
00:41:41,760 --> 00:41:44,700
learning and discovering and prioritizing and then making decisions.

805
00:41:45,180 --> 00:41:51,280
Um, and the way I convince stakeholders that that is valuable is just by presenting as much

806
00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:52,160
evidence as I can.

807
00:41:52,580 --> 00:41:56,340
Sometimes the evidence to provide is just that our developers are happier than they were before

808
00:41:56,340 --> 00:42:00,020
they started working with Pivotal that like, that they like pairing and that TDD is like

809
00:42:00,020 --> 00:42:03,800
making for a better code base and that the team is happier because we're doing weekly

810
00:42:03,800 --> 00:42:04,260
retros.

811
00:42:04,660 --> 00:42:07,760
And if I can say like, we're still learning a lot, but your employees are happier and the

812
00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:11,680
enablement is going well, then that can be enough for them to like say, all right, like

813
00:42:11,680 --> 00:42:12,440
keep going.

814
00:42:12,840 --> 00:42:16,260
Uh, but ideally I'm showing evidence of like, these are the 10 interviews we did this week.

815
00:42:16,340 --> 00:42:17,020
Here's what we learned.

816
00:42:17,200 --> 00:42:21,960
You know, it's remarkably difficult to actually listen to customers and Pivotal designers do such

817
00:42:21,960 --> 00:42:26,860
an amazingly good job of it that nine times out of 10, the business, no matter how good

818
00:42:26,860 --> 00:42:32,240
they have been doing a job of actually talking to users, like we're connecting with their users

819
00:42:32,240 --> 00:42:32,900
on a different level.

820
00:42:33,140 --> 00:42:36,940
And so what we're showing is hard evidence to show them things that they didn't know was

821
00:42:36,940 --> 00:42:37,840
actually happening before.

822
00:42:38,300 --> 00:42:40,600
And so that's enough to usually get us enough clout to keep going.

823
00:42:41,960 --> 00:42:42,320
Yeah.

824
00:42:42,500 --> 00:42:44,840
I mean, it sounds like obviously the listening aspect's huge.

825
00:42:44,940 --> 00:42:46,220
So where does it ever go wrong?

826
00:42:46,260 --> 00:42:50,760
And maybe not for us because we do it quickly each time, but where, uh, where in general

827
00:42:50,760 --> 00:42:53,340
does the product management process sometimes veer sideways?

828
00:42:53,340 --> 00:42:56,640
Like when does a PM, where do you have to course correct because something didn't go

829
00:42:56,640 --> 00:42:56,900
right?

830
00:42:57,480 --> 00:42:57,700
Yeah.

831
00:42:58,000 --> 00:43:04,300
Um, usually I have a bias as a PM to listen to the user more than to the business.

832
00:43:04,300 --> 00:43:06,000
And that's a problem that I'm always working on.

833
00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:10,420
Like if there's a business priority for good reason, that carries a lot of weight, but it

834
00:43:10,420 --> 00:43:15,020
took a long time for me to, to actually realize that and acknowledge that like a lot of times

835
00:43:15,020 --> 00:43:17,800
business leaders want to do things just because they said they were going to do it eight months

836
00:43:17,800 --> 00:43:18,080
ago.

837
00:43:18,360 --> 00:43:20,760
And if I'm sitting there and I'm saying like, the user doesn't actually want this.

838
00:43:21,140 --> 00:43:26,420
And if I convince them great, but if I don't like, it's still a business need to build that

839
00:43:26,420 --> 00:43:26,740
thing.

840
00:43:26,740 --> 00:43:28,040
And I need to take that seriously.

841
00:43:28,220 --> 00:43:34,700
So PMing for me can go off the rails when I, uh, am trying to convince the business that

842
00:43:34,700 --> 00:43:38,820
what the users want is more important than what they want, rather than striking the balance

843
00:43:38,820 --> 00:43:43,780
between those two things and saying like what the users needs is super important, but also

844
00:43:43,780 --> 00:43:48,260
I understand that you have deadlines and budgets to fill and projects that you promised you'd

845
00:43:48,260 --> 00:43:48,520
deliver.

846
00:43:48,740 --> 00:43:50,360
And so like, we can also help with those things as well.

847
00:43:52,580 --> 00:43:52,980
Yeah.

848
00:43:53,100 --> 00:43:56,580
That's that we, we should have you back on to, to talk.

849
00:43:56,740 --> 00:43:57,900
You may make our job easy.

850
00:43:58,160 --> 00:43:58,640
You just explain.

851
00:43:58,640 --> 00:43:59,120
Yeah, sure.

852
00:43:59,520 --> 00:44:03,760
But, uh, you know, I, I think, I think you're hitting on like, uh, just to, just to sort

853
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:07,540
of get to closing out, like something I'm always fascinated with, which you alluded to there,

854
00:44:07,540 --> 00:44:13,320
which is the, uh, the, uh, sometimes to do the right thing in a business, you have to

855
00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:14,300
do the dumb thing.

856
00:44:14,840 --> 00:44:15,240
Right.

857
00:44:15,560 --> 00:44:20,300
Which, which, which, and I think oftentimes it's just a straight up dumb thing that does

858
00:44:20,300 --> 00:44:20,540
harm.

859
00:44:20,540 --> 00:44:25,180
But sometimes it's a wise decision to just like, as you say, we said, we were going to

860
00:44:25,180 --> 00:44:26,220
do this eight months ago.

861
00:44:26,220 --> 00:44:29,660
And if we don't do it, people aren't going to trust that we can't do anything next week.

862
00:44:29,780 --> 00:44:30,140
Right.

863
00:44:30,240 --> 00:44:30,580
Exactly.

864
00:44:30,580 --> 00:44:31,060
Yeah.

865
00:44:31,080 --> 00:44:31,860
Deliver this thing.

866
00:44:31,980 --> 00:44:36,840
And maybe it's nice too, but yeah, I was thinking, you know, uh, I've been waiting for

867
00:44:36,840 --> 00:44:42,020
my kids to have a cameo as we record this, but I think so far everything's going well.

868
00:44:42,020 --> 00:44:47,560
We should get you to go a product manage, like the parental controls in the iOS world, because

869
00:44:47,560 --> 00:44:51,380
I feel like maybe none of the people at Apple have kids.

870
00:44:51,380 --> 00:44:54,740
They don't quite like, uh, understand what's going on there, but it'd be great.

871
00:44:55,800 --> 00:44:57,580
We can find the real problem.

872
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:03,240
Uh, yeah, I don't, I, uh, I will choose not to comment on the state of iTunes and Apple

873
00:45:03,240 --> 00:45:06,600
product management over the last like five years, but just to go back to something you

874
00:45:06,600 --> 00:45:10,280
were saying earlier, uh, about like, sometimes it's not the dumb thing to do with the business

875
00:45:10,280 --> 00:45:10,620
themes.

876
00:45:10,620 --> 00:45:16,980
Like I just want to reiterate that like, there's a lot, like there's a lot to be said there.

877
00:45:17,020 --> 00:45:20,560
And like, I don't want to carry hubris into every conversation with the business and

878
00:45:20,560 --> 00:45:22,140
say like, you guys don't know what you're talking about.

879
00:45:22,140 --> 00:45:25,900
Cause there have been plenty of times when a business has said, I want to do this thing

880
00:45:25,900 --> 00:45:26,940
and it's not apparent why.

881
00:45:27,080 --> 00:45:30,260
And then a year later, you know, their experience in the field has made it very clear.

882
00:45:30,260 --> 00:45:31,040
It's like, oh, okay.

883
00:45:31,040 --> 00:45:33,080
I see now why that was a smart thing to do.

884
00:45:33,080 --> 00:45:34,520
It's like balancing those two things.

885
00:45:34,680 --> 00:45:38,000
And, and I mean, I mean, your, your temperature example is a good example of that, right?

886
00:45:38,060 --> 00:45:42,740
Like it seems like it's, it's, it's a, it's a classic, like a pea and the princess thing,

887
00:45:42,940 --> 00:45:43,180
right?

888
00:45:43,240 --> 00:45:46,940
Where it's just like, who, who knew that would be such a big deal, but now we didn't shut

889
00:45:46,940 --> 00:45:48,140
down the operation.

890
00:45:48,300 --> 00:45:48,460
Right.

891
00:45:48,980 --> 00:45:49,300
Exactly.

892
00:45:49,460 --> 00:45:49,620
Yeah.

893
00:45:49,620 --> 00:45:50,340
The kitchen's still open.

894
00:45:50,520 --> 00:45:50,920
That's right.

895
00:45:50,960 --> 00:45:51,280
Well, great.

896
00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:53,220
Well, well, well, uh, this is, this is great.

897
00:45:53,320 --> 00:45:53,860
Thanks for being on.

898
00:45:53,900 --> 00:45:57,120
Like I said, we'll have to, uh, we'll have, we'll have to have you come talk to us more

899
00:45:57,120 --> 00:45:58,280
about product management stuff.

900
00:45:58,280 --> 00:46:03,100
And I think, uh, I, I think, I think what's most valuable is, uh, just hearing the, uh,

901
00:46:03,100 --> 00:46:08,560
the stories of what's happened or not, because it all, uh, it all sounds so simple when, when,

902
00:46:08,560 --> 00:46:12,700
uh, you read some fancy book on it, but, uh, I guess, I guess if you're having to stick

903
00:46:12,700 --> 00:46:15,720
a hairnet on, that's, that's where interesting things happen.

904
00:46:16,200 --> 00:46:19,680
That was not something I had expected to ever be doing in this job, but I was very grateful

905
00:46:19,680 --> 00:46:20,420
for the opportunity.

906
00:46:20,600 --> 00:46:21,040
That's right.

907
00:46:21,140 --> 00:46:21,600
That's right.

908
00:46:21,760 --> 00:46:23,660
Well, uh, well, thanks again for being on.

909
00:46:23,660 --> 00:46:28,260
If, if people want to, uh, I don't know, follow up with you or like pull on threads

910
00:46:28,260 --> 00:46:30,060
of this more, what, what would you point them to?

911
00:46:30,620 --> 00:46:35,960
Uh, they can, I have a Twitter account that I never look at or use, uh, J S I R L I N.

912
00:46:36,040 --> 00:46:41,280
They can hit me up there or they could just, uh, email me, uh, at the same handle at pivotal.io.

913
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:42,180
I'm always happy to chat.

914
00:46:42,460 --> 00:46:43,900
Sounds like you're using Twitter, right?

915
00:46:44,840 --> 00:46:45,520
Yeah, right.

916
00:46:45,660 --> 00:46:46,300
Yeah, right.

917
00:46:46,560 --> 00:46:46,920
Right.

918
00:46:47,160 --> 00:46:48,840
Just a thing to have and not use.

919
00:46:49,000 --> 00:46:49,420
That's right.

920
00:46:49,480 --> 00:46:49,880
That's right.

921
00:46:50,040 --> 00:46:52,720
Well, uh, as always, this has been Pivotal Conversations.

922
00:46:52,840 --> 00:46:56,460
If you want to find the show notes for this episode, we post them about every Thursday

923
00:46:56,460 --> 00:46:59,120
or so depending on how well my memory is working.

924
00:46:59,240 --> 00:47:02,200
And those are posted over at pivotal.io slash podcast.

925
00:47:02,200 --> 00:47:04,140
And we got the, uh, the back catalog.

926
00:47:04,440 --> 00:47:07,180
I think Richard and I have been doing this for about 23 years now.

927
00:47:07,240 --> 00:47:08,880
Does that, does that sound about right, Richard?

928
00:47:09,420 --> 00:47:10,840
At least in cloud years.

929
00:47:10,940 --> 00:47:11,780
Oh, yes, that's right.

930
00:47:11,780 --> 00:47:12,660
That's right.

931
00:47:12,660 --> 00:47:13,460
In cloud years.

932
00:47:13,540 --> 00:47:15,080
We're, we're on the hockey stick years.

933
00:47:15,480 --> 00:47:20,680
Uh, but anyways, if you want to find the, uh, the back catalog, uh, you can go to soundcloud.com

934
00:47:20,680 --> 00:47:22,260
slash Pivotal Conversations.

935
00:47:22,700 --> 00:47:24,700
And with that, we'll see everyone next time.

936
00:47:24,820 --> 00:47:25,400
Bye-bye.

937
00:47:27,820 --> 00:47:28,900
There, see, now you can hear him.