1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:14,560 Hi, everyone. This week, Dorman and I chat with Mick Friedman and Joey Sabani, members 2 00:00:14,560 --> 00:00:18,880 of the Agile Practice Leadership Enablement Team, about Pivotal's work with Accenture, 3 00:00:18,960 --> 00:00:23,220 the global consulting firm. The two talk about how the Accenture Pivotal Business Group 4 00:00:23,220 --> 00:00:27,540 and the Innovation Hub in Columbus, Ohio, are helping our joint clients transform how 5 00:00:27,540 --> 00:00:29,720 they build software at scale. Enjoy. 6 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:42,660 Hi, my name's Mick Friedman. I'm a director for the Agile Practice Leadership Enablement 7 00:00:42,660 --> 00:00:46,700 Team. I've been with Pivotal for a number of years, starting out as a software engineer 8 00:00:46,700 --> 00:00:51,640 in the New York Labs office and working my way up through the ranks. I've been part of 9 00:00:51,640 --> 00:00:54,160 the Apple team now since January this year, 2018. 10 00:00:54,580 --> 00:00:58,380 And I think we should just, for the sake of our audience, go ahead and disambiguate that 11 00:00:58,380 --> 00:01:01,980 accent. I mean, it's pretty disambiguous, right? Unless you think Kiwis sound like Australians. 12 00:01:02,520 --> 00:01:04,700 I thought you were Icelandic. Or is it Icelandic? 13 00:01:04,920 --> 00:01:05,720 I thought you were from Texas. 14 00:01:07,920 --> 00:01:12,960 I am from the main streets of Melbourne, Australia, for those of you playing along at home. 15 00:01:13,160 --> 00:01:15,580 I went to a cool bar there once. Isn't it like a chemistry lab? 16 00:01:15,760 --> 00:01:19,060 That place is actually really cool. There's like fake grass on the bar. 17 00:01:19,700 --> 00:01:20,880 Joey, how about you? 18 00:01:21,040 --> 00:01:28,240 Hi, everyone. Joey Sabani. I've been with Pivotal for a couple of years, almost going on three 19 00:01:28,240 --> 00:01:34,240 years, I think. Started off as a labs engineer. Joined the Apple team with Mick in January. 20 00:01:36,460 --> 00:01:41,920 I'm not from Melbourne, Australia. Nothing else, I think, crazy coming out. But that's pretty 21 00:01:41,920 --> 00:01:42,420 much it for me. 22 00:01:42,860 --> 00:01:45,140 Okay. Yeah, we'll find the crazy eventually. 23 00:01:45,680 --> 00:01:46,900 Yeah, yeah, yeah. It comes out. 24 00:01:47,700 --> 00:01:51,760 Okay, so you guys both mentioned you're on the Apple team. We're going to set that aside. That's 25 00:01:51,760 --> 00:01:56,920 a four-letter acronym that starts with an A. And we'll get to that. But there's another 26 00:01:56,920 --> 00:02:04,020 four-letter acronym that starts with an A that I want to disambiguate first. So that's APBG. 27 00:02:04,020 --> 00:02:10,520 You might have heard APBG mentioned on the quarterly earnings call for Pivotal by our CEO, Rob May. 28 00:02:10,780 --> 00:02:15,100 It stands for Accenture Pivotal Business Group. And so it's a collaboration between our two 29 00:02:15,100 --> 00:02:18,740 companies, between Pivotal and Accenture, that sort of really kicked off in earnest late 30 00:02:18,740 --> 00:02:24,440 2017. So we signed something and it was official in the public eye November 2017. And we've been 31 00:02:24,440 --> 00:02:30,240 working on helping build out that partnership from a service offering standpoint. 32 00:02:30,840 --> 00:02:36,440 Well, so I kind of want to talk a little bit like, let's get like a practical example of what that 33 00:02:36,440 --> 00:02:41,380 means. Because it's, you know, businessy business, business, business, business. It's like a being 34 00:02:41,380 --> 00:02:42,460 John Malkovich movie. 35 00:02:42,840 --> 00:02:48,360 Let me paint you a word picture. Accenture and Pivotal, we have a mutual financial services 36 00:02:48,360 --> 00:02:54,260 client here on the East Coast. They're operating at a scale that Pivotal Labs organization, which is 37 00:02:54,260 --> 00:03:00,720 our consulting business, would struggle to meet the demand of, you know, should the leadership at 38 00:03:00,720 --> 00:03:05,120 that organization decide that everyone needs to go and have a Labs experience. For those of you 39 00:03:05,120 --> 00:03:10,600 who aren't too familiar with what Labs offers, you know, it's an XP-based one-to-one pairing 40 00:03:10,600 --> 00:03:16,760 enablement model where folks come into our offices here in various cities. You know, 19, I forget what 41 00:03:16,760 --> 00:03:20,940 our account is right now, different offices and people come and meet us here. So we couldn't 42 00:03:20,940 --> 00:03:25,580 possibly hope to meet that scale, right? And so this client actually said to Accenture and Pivotal, 43 00:03:25,580 --> 00:03:31,980 Hey, you guys, we know you have a great relationship. You know, the ex-executives from Accenture are 44 00:03:31,980 --> 00:03:36,800 sitting on our board as a tight and close relationship. You need to go put your heads together and figure 45 00:03:36,800 --> 00:03:44,180 out what does it mean for you all to work together to help enable us be successful, right? And so, 46 00:03:44,880 --> 00:03:49,460 you know, we've been working very closely through our global ecosystem team with various 47 00:03:49,460 --> 00:03:54,380 global SI partners, right? And so it's a pretty well-established pattern that we use to sort of 48 00:03:54,380 --> 00:03:59,120 lead with Pivotal and deliver through our partner relationships, which makes a lot of sense. 49 00:03:59,500 --> 00:04:02,740 But this felt slightly different. And the thing that's really exciting about it 50 00:04:02,740 --> 00:04:08,300 is that there was a deliberate decision made by both of our executives to invest in 51 00:04:08,300 --> 00:04:15,360 Pivotal style, Pivotal-inspired service offerings. And I think that's the subtlety and the nuance that's 52 00:04:15,360 --> 00:04:19,360 different about this, right? So there was an acknowledgement that to deliver a lab-style 53 00:04:19,360 --> 00:04:24,000 experience of enablement for both app transformation and traditional labs work. 54 00:04:25,460 --> 00:04:31,740 You would need to invest in that to enable the Accenture people, right? Which is how Joey and I 55 00:04:31,740 --> 00:04:35,800 sort of on the ground there. So going back to that practical example of the financial services firm, 56 00:04:37,220 --> 00:04:40,900 you know, we've been jointly delivering work for that organization now for most of the year. 57 00:04:41,360 --> 00:04:49,580 And the current engagement we have underway has the client onsite in Columbus, Ohio, akin to a situation 58 00:04:49,580 --> 00:04:59,080 that you would have here in New York. You know, the client is onsite. And the APBG people 59 00:04:59,080 --> 00:05:04,960 are a combination of Pivotal employees and Accenture employees jointly enabling the client 60 00:05:04,960 --> 00:05:08,900 to successfully deliver working software, right? And the same model that Pivotal Labs 61 00:05:08,900 --> 00:05:12,520 has success with at our other clients. 62 00:05:13,280 --> 00:05:19,800 Okay. So just to sort of recap that a little bit, as opposed to sort of the handoff model where 63 00:05:19,800 --> 00:05:26,820 a client might engage with us first and sort of get things going from an Agile XP transformation 64 00:05:26,820 --> 00:05:31,040 perspective, working with Pivotal Labs, and then when they're ready to scale that, 65 00:05:31,640 --> 00:05:38,400 there's sort of a clean handoff to a global SI, for example. In this case, it's like there's a blended 66 00:05:38,400 --> 00:05:44,580 approach where they're, whether it's their first or a subsequent engagement, they're still engaged 67 00:05:44,580 --> 00:05:51,260 directly with Pivotal by way of this APBG group, but they're now starting to work with a large-scale 68 00:05:51,260 --> 00:05:56,380 global provider. You mentioned Columbus, Ohio, right? We don't have a Pivotal Labs office there. 69 00:05:57,320 --> 00:06:04,640 I remember there was an announcement back in February, so it's been less than a year since that office officially opened. 70 00:06:05,160 --> 00:06:07,160 What's been going on there? What's happened? 71 00:06:08,660 --> 00:06:14,260 What's going on in Columbus, Ohio, beautiful Columbus, Ohio? I think since February, Mick and I have been 72 00:06:14,260 --> 00:06:20,080 on site with other colleagues of ours, actually a bunch of pivots throughout the time, and one of our other 73 00:06:20,080 --> 00:06:24,280 colleagues, Daniel, that's not here with us right now, but is enjoying the beautiful beaches of Australia 74 00:06:24,280 --> 00:06:31,620 somewhere. We went on site, and our goal was basically, like we would with any one of our labs, 75 00:06:31,720 --> 00:06:38,780 we wanted to help Accenture build up their lab and have their lab with, I don't, we don't have like 76 00:06:38,780 --> 00:06:44,400 a term, like we have pivots for Pivotal folks, but just Accenture folks that could deliver products 77 00:06:44,400 --> 00:06:48,280 and the product team in a balanced team setting like we do, so helping them scale up their XP practice 78 00:06:48,280 --> 00:06:54,020 or build an XP practice from the ground up, helping them build a lean product practice, and instituting 79 00:06:54,020 --> 00:06:58,440 new roles like product designers. While we were doing that, we were helping them build and shape 80 00:06:58,440 --> 00:07:03,060 their organizational structure and kind of enabling them on some of the skills that we have in unique ways 81 00:07:03,060 --> 00:07:08,620 that we source work to be the right kind of work for us in labs, which is, you know, things like 82 00:07:08,620 --> 00:07:13,600 scopings or the pre-sales activities that we do, where Mick and I were working with the leadership team 83 00:07:13,600 --> 00:07:21,780 there to ensure that they could source and deliver the work in a way that represents how Pivotal would 84 00:07:21,780 --> 00:07:27,120 if it was one of our labs. Yeah, I think that's the really key point there. If you think about where 85 00:07:27,120 --> 00:07:31,440 Columbus is geographically, Dormean, you're exactly right, like we don't really have even an office 86 00:07:31,440 --> 00:07:38,540 that's terribly close to there, right? So, you know, New York is 800, 900 miles away or whatever it is, 87 00:07:38,640 --> 00:07:44,780 right? And that's probably one of the closer offices. And, you know, so it represented an area of the 88 00:07:44,780 --> 00:07:51,080 country where we had clients who had presence and we had people who we'd worked with and partnered with 89 00:07:51,080 --> 00:07:56,540 on delivering, you know, capabilities around the platform and other services, on-site services, but we 90 00:07:56,540 --> 00:08:00,500 didn't really have that sort of Pivotal Labs experience for that sort of, call it Midwest 91 00:08:00,500 --> 00:08:07,820 slash Great Lakes region. And so the Columbus office that Accenture had begun to create represented an 92 00:08:07,820 --> 00:08:12,180 amazing opportunity for both our companies, right? So it was an area where they were already invested 93 00:08:12,180 --> 00:08:20,060 in building what they call an innovation hub. And we had a white space gap or a gap in our coverage 94 00:08:20,060 --> 00:08:25,000 of the country in that region. And so we were able to, exactly how Joey described, we were able to go 95 00:08:25,000 --> 00:08:30,360 there, work with them to see that office as if it were a new labs office being kicked off. 96 00:08:30,500 --> 00:08:35,820 And that's the thing, again, to sort of go back to like what differentiates this partnership 97 00:08:35,820 --> 00:08:41,260 from other partnerships that we may have. You know, it's that extra level of 98 00:08:41,260 --> 00:08:45,560 education and enablement around what it means to run an office in the Pivotal style. 99 00:08:47,020 --> 00:08:55,140 And so help me understand the, how Accenture helps scale, helps our customers scale. So in this particular 100 00:08:55,140 --> 00:09:01,660 environment, there's both Pivotal and Accenture folks. Is the idea that the customer will come 101 00:09:01,660 --> 00:09:05,500 there and do some engagements there and eventually there will be a handoff to Accenture? I'm just 102 00:09:05,500 --> 00:09:08,820 trying to understand the life cycle. 103 00:09:08,820 --> 00:09:14,860 Yeah. I mean, the great thing is that, you know, when we set the partnership up, we were fairly open-minded 104 00:09:14,860 --> 00:09:21,820 as to the form that it could take. So the contracting between our company allows for a very flexible 105 00:09:21,820 --> 00:09:29,460 approach to delivery of that work. And so it could well, you know, we would, the genesis of it was to 106 00:09:29,460 --> 00:09:34,500 allow our customers to leverage existing relationships for either company rather than have to 107 00:09:34,500 --> 00:09:38,360 negotiate with a new entity that had been created, right? So it was very much meant to operate in that 108 00:09:38,360 --> 00:09:45,040 transparent way. And so, you know, to that end, we have many different service offerings that the hub 109 00:09:45,040 --> 00:09:51,220 offers to our clients, right? We have folks from that hub who are on site with customers delivering, 110 00:09:51,980 --> 00:09:58,560 helping to deliver dojo work, you know, Pivotal-led and that traditional partner play or approach. 111 00:09:58,560 --> 00:10:02,520 We also have people on site at Columbus being enabled as if they would, you know, as they would 112 00:10:02,520 --> 00:10:09,760 be at a Chicago Labs office or an SF Labs office. We also have teams in Columbus who have no client 113 00:10:09,760 --> 00:10:14,940 present who aren't focused on enablement, but rather focused on delivery, providing those clients with 114 00:10:14,940 --> 00:10:20,460 some extra capacity that they need to sort of get them through this period as they build new software. 115 00:10:21,300 --> 00:10:25,780 Yeah. And when we think about like how, you know, Jeff, how does this, how are they helping our 116 00:10:25,780 --> 00:10:29,540 clients, our partners and customers and stuff like that? And we think about a global organization 117 00:10:29,540 --> 00:10:34,160 that has reach that far expands and extends ours. And, you know, what we're trying to do is we're 118 00:10:34,160 --> 00:10:39,280 trying to, we're really trying to show people a new and exciting way to build software on a platform 119 00:10:39,280 --> 00:10:44,620 that allows you to move really quickly. And this is all in service of enabling Accenture the same way 120 00:10:44,620 --> 00:10:50,500 where we kind of help our labs and engineers and developer or product teams to like to help people 121 00:10:50,500 --> 00:10:56,800 really push forward on the platform. What Mick was talking about, you know, like helping drive workload 122 00:10:56,800 --> 00:11:01,000 and all those kinds of things. So kind of helping our customers achieve some of those goals and some 123 00:11:01,000 --> 00:11:04,780 of those pivotal goals that we have as well. But yeah, they have the scale and the reach that 124 00:11:04,780 --> 00:11:11,380 that pivotal does not have as a services team. So, so what kind of progress have you guys seen 125 00:11:11,380 --> 00:11:18,180 come out of the engagements that are happening there? I mean, Ryan Johnson from the APPG group 126 00:11:18,180 --> 00:11:23,340 spoke at Spirman platform. And I mean, I remember he had a really hilarious story about in order to 127 00:11:23,340 --> 00:11:29,320 kind of force this change amongst some of the developers on his team, he literally had to steal their 128 00:11:29,320 --> 00:11:35,440 keyboards, like half the keyboards that they were forced to pair and stuff like that. I mean, it was 129 00:11:35,440 --> 00:11:44,040 great. But stepping back, where, how far have things come in the less than a year in the sort of 130 00:11:44,040 --> 00:11:48,400 building out? And as you said, kind of enabling Accenture in the same way as you enable labs? 131 00:11:49,320 --> 00:11:53,980 Yeah, I think, yeah, Ryan is actually someone that I work closely with every day when we were over 132 00:11:53,980 --> 00:11:59,780 there and stuff. And just as like a peer to me and the PL practice lead, the practice lead for 133 00:11:59,780 --> 00:12:04,680 engineering. So yeah, when, when we kind of started and everything was getting going, we were trying 134 00:12:04,680 --> 00:12:10,320 to just like when a client comes to pivotal labs, they they're trying to learn a new way to kind of 135 00:12:10,320 --> 00:12:16,180 develop software and build products. And so the lab itself was not used to this. So yeah, we had to do 136 00:12:16,180 --> 00:12:21,700 some pretty drastic things like, you know, removing keyboards just to kind of encourage pairing as XP was 137 00:12:21,700 --> 00:12:27,500 as top of mind. And that development cycle, but other things that are really exciting is like the look and 138 00:12:27,500 --> 00:12:31,980 feel and how we kind of started building this to, to kind of echo and resemble another pivotal labs 139 00:12:31,980 --> 00:12:36,700 office, right, where, where things like the daily stand up, you know, they're using our same structure 140 00:12:36,700 --> 00:12:43,880 of helps, interesting, new faces and events, you know, and I think a lot of the I'm putting agile ceremonies in 141 00:12:43,880 --> 00:12:49,300 quotes, just because of that term, but, you know, things that this is a company in an organization that 142 00:12:49,300 --> 00:12:53,820 followed scrum pretty well. So they, they understood a lot of the ceremonies, but I think it was kind of bringing 143 00:12:53,820 --> 00:13:00,320 them into the pivotal lifestyle and how we see these items. Also changing organizational structure, org chart to 144 00:13:00,320 --> 00:13:06,520 kind of help mimic, not necessarily exactly like ours, but you know, like to help Accenture build what what makes sense to 145 00:13:06,520 --> 00:13:12,300 them, but allows for individuals to be promoted on, and kind of recognize for their work in different ways. You know, 146 00:13:12,300 --> 00:13:17,240 the way that we work in labs as we pair all day and a flatter organizational structure, it means that 147 00:13:17,240 --> 00:13:23,620 individual contributors that used to be probably like heroes, you know, I worked till two in the 148 00:13:23,620 --> 00:13:28,440 morning to make sure the system was up and I was applauded and awarded for that. That behavior, you know, 149 00:13:28,460 --> 00:13:33,400 it's something that, you know, we at Pivotal try not to applaud, you know, like, hey, it's systemic of a 150 00:13:33,400 --> 00:13:37,700 bigger, larger problem. We don't want you to be applauded for staying till two in the morning every day. That's not 151 00:13:37,700 --> 00:13:43,200 great. So let's figure out a way to kind of spread that knowledge and, you know, collaborate and kind 152 00:13:43,200 --> 00:13:48,400 of build some of that stuff. And they're starting to become that. And to do that, you know, we learned 153 00:13:48,400 --> 00:13:53,180 it's not only, hey, this is how you pair program, or this is how, you know, this is what we would do 154 00:13:53,180 --> 00:13:57,720 in user research, but it's also like, we need to, we needed to make organizational structure and 155 00:13:57,720 --> 00:14:03,300 change as well. That's something that Mick and I helped the organization focus on in the first couple 156 00:14:03,300 --> 00:14:08,560 months that we were there as well. And that we've seen that change come pretty well now to like, 157 00:14:09,140 --> 00:14:12,220 you know, there's, there's people that are managing engagements, and there's people are stepping up 158 00:14:12,220 --> 00:14:17,160 into new roles, and there's new promotional charts that exist because of this. So I think one of the 159 00:14:17,160 --> 00:14:21,020 things we have to, that we have to remember that's really exciting is that Accenture is also a 160 00:14:21,020 --> 00:14:27,260 consulting firm. And if we take the metric of, you know, number of people at the company, or how much 161 00:14:27,260 --> 00:14:32,840 revenue is generated, very, very successful consulting firm. So we have Joey and myself and our other team 162 00:14:32,840 --> 00:14:37,360 members, we, you know, had a lot to learn about what it was, what it means to operate an office at scale, right? 163 00:14:37,360 --> 00:14:42,560 I have a lot of experience from helping to run the labs office here in New York. But it was definitely 164 00:14:42,560 --> 00:14:48,520 augmented by being on the ground there with the Accenture team. And, you know, sort of further to the idea that 165 00:14:48,520 --> 00:14:53,980 they're also consultants, one of the characteristics of being a consultant is always learning, and always being open to 166 00:14:53,980 --> 00:14:57,480 trying new things, right? It's very, very important to our culture, and it's important, I think, to most 167 00:14:57,480 --> 00:15:02,400 consulting firms. And so one of the things that differentiated this, for me, from a regular 168 00:15:02,400 --> 00:15:09,200 engagement is that we were able to sort of discuss ideas, you know, show people a different 169 00:15:09,200 --> 00:15:14,900 approach. And the folks on the ground there took that and ran with it, you know, in a sometimes very 170 00:15:14,900 --> 00:15:20,380 enthusiastic way that we don't even see in our own offices, right? Joey mentioned earlier that, you 171 00:15:20,380 --> 00:15:23,480 know, stand-ups have started to look a little bit more collaborative and a little bit more like 172 00:15:23,480 --> 00:15:28,720 pivotal stand-ups. That's great, you know. But even, you know, even other aspects of office 173 00:15:28,720 --> 00:15:35,440 organization and, you know, execution have been taken and adapted from the pivotal model and started 174 00:15:35,440 --> 00:15:39,340 to take on a life at the room, which is super exciting as well. What does that mean practically? 175 00:15:40,260 --> 00:15:46,560 Okay, if I compare sales activity on the ground in February to now, I think the biggest difference 176 00:15:46,560 --> 00:15:52,680 is that we've helped the technical pre-sales and pre-sales teams orient themselves around 177 00:15:52,680 --> 00:15:59,000 delivering outcomes, business outcomes for clients, mutual clients, and doing that by creating 178 00:15:59,000 --> 00:16:04,420 lightweight proposals that deliver working software more quickly, right? Accenture's big 179 00:16:04,420 --> 00:16:09,380 strength, and the thing that they're really, really great at is meeting these larger organizations 180 00:16:09,380 --> 00:16:13,780 at the scale that they need and being able to offer and commit to multi-year, you know, 181 00:16:13,900 --> 00:16:18,740 multifaceted engagements in a way that we can't or won't do, right? And we have to respect their 182 00:16:18,740 --> 00:16:24,020 ability to do that, right? And so what we were trying to do is show them a flavor of what a more 183 00:16:24,020 --> 00:16:28,900 lightweight approach would look like, and to their credit, they've sort of taken that on board and 184 00:16:28,900 --> 00:16:34,040 made it a part of the way that they sell to their customers. You have to remember that the innovation hub 185 00:16:34,040 --> 00:16:40,060 itself and the leadership they're in are fighting an internal marketing battle with the 186 00:16:40,060 --> 00:16:43,980 Accenture organization, not only, you know, let alone the clients, right? 187 00:16:44,780 --> 00:16:48,740 Right. And isn't even just the delivery model is very different, right? Accenture 188 00:16:48,740 --> 00:16:54,660 consultants typically go to the customer side. And in this case, you're having the customer come 189 00:16:54,660 --> 00:16:59,720 to them. And so they've got all these ways of working that the larger 190 00:16:59,720 --> 00:17:04,180 company uses and has for years. And as you said, they're 191 00:17:04,180 --> 00:17:08,520 they're trying something new. And I'm sure they're like any company, there's going to be pockets of 192 00:17:08,520 --> 00:17:13,580 of resistance and questioning, you know, why are we doing this kind of thing? So 193 00:17:13,580 --> 00:17:16,280 I'm sure they've they've had to fight some of those battles. 194 00:17:17,400 --> 00:17:21,740 I mean, the great news, the great news there, Jeff, is that, you know, Accenture is by and large 195 00:17:21,740 --> 00:17:25,640 going to be very data driven when it comes to these business groups, right? They have a handful of 196 00:17:25,640 --> 00:17:29,960 there aren't there aren't a ton. They when they create them, they believe that that's because 197 00:17:29,960 --> 00:17:36,280 there's going to be an uptick in specific business related to that company organizational product. 198 00:17:37,320 --> 00:17:43,160 And they expect to see that growth year over year. And if they don't see it, then the business 199 00:17:43,160 --> 00:17:46,840 group doesn't go anywhere and it gets it gets closed, right? So we're at a really interesting 200 00:17:46,840 --> 00:17:50,360 point right now where we're sort of on an upward stick of momentum and we're getting great exposure 201 00:17:50,360 --> 00:17:54,920 in the industry. I know I mentioned sort of half tongue in cheek before that, you know, 202 00:17:55,480 --> 00:17:59,400 Rob May, our CEO, brought it up on the earnings call. That's the second time he's done that, 203 00:17:59,400 --> 00:18:04,280 you know, out of three earnings calls so far. It's really, really important to the success of 204 00:18:04,280 --> 00:18:12,600 Pivotal that partnerships like this succeed. And we're hoping that it shows Accenture a new and 205 00:18:12,600 --> 00:18:14,760 exciting way to deliver software for their customers as well. 206 00:18:14,760 --> 00:18:19,880 So there's kind of nested layers of success in that, right? You've got 207 00:18:21,640 --> 00:18:27,320 Pivotal success, but you've got part of that means we have to help make Accenture successful, 208 00:18:27,320 --> 00:18:32,520 right? And they're going to be looking at that. And in order to do that, we have to together make the 209 00:18:32,520 --> 00:18:39,560 customer successful. And so looking at things in terms of, you know, the change in the proposal model 210 00:18:39,560 --> 00:18:47,400 and the whole kind of orientation of how we engage on projects with these end users and customers is 211 00:18:47,400 --> 00:18:54,520 sort of the ultimate driver for all these other kind of nested layers of success, you know, all kind of 212 00:18:54,520 --> 00:19:02,200 coming back to that. You know, without names or anything, but can you point to examples of some of the 213 00:19:02,200 --> 00:19:07,560 joint customer work that you've seen where we really, together as part of this partnership, 214 00:19:08,200 --> 00:19:12,360 help deliver those kinds of successful outcomes for customers? 215 00:19:12,360 --> 00:19:15,880 Yeah, I mean, a lot of that stuff is still in process right now. 216 00:19:16,600 --> 00:19:21,320 I mean, like it's still happening as we speak. I would say that, you know, we've one of the things that 217 00:19:24,600 --> 00:19:28,200 Pivotal sometimes has challenges around is how to kind of kick off and begin 218 00:19:30,680 --> 00:19:37,400 a transformation engagement in service of creating a set of applications that are ready for our platform. 219 00:19:38,760 --> 00:19:43,080 And, you know, to, you know, through the APBG group, we've been able to 220 00:19:44,200 --> 00:19:48,280 kick off a few engagements in insurance and financial services for app transformation. 221 00:19:49,160 --> 00:19:54,120 And then in the hub itself, which is on site at the hub location, 222 00:19:55,560 --> 00:19:59,400 you know, we've also been working again with sort of similar, the similar group of folks, 223 00:19:59,400 --> 00:20:03,240 financial services, financial services has a big presence in Columbus, which is why I keep coming 224 00:20:03,240 --> 00:20:08,920 back to it. Traditionally, a lot of financial services slash insurance companies are based in that region. 225 00:20:09,720 --> 00:20:13,800 So one of the things that's also very encouraging is that there are, 226 00:20:13,800 --> 00:20:17,640 the hub itself has several engagements that aren't necessarily, haven't necessarily been 227 00:20:17,640 --> 00:20:23,720 originated through or have been deliberately a part of the APBG partnership, but a sort of APBG 228 00:20:23,720 --> 00:20:28,440 adjacent, if you will. And we've been able to start driving more successful outcomes for those 229 00:20:28,440 --> 00:20:31,800 engagements as well, right? One of the things that I think makes pivotal 230 00:20:33,640 --> 00:20:37,640 differentiates us in the marketplace when it comes to delivering successful labs and our transformation 231 00:20:37,640 --> 00:20:43,320 engagements is that sales and qualification process. Teaching Accenture how to do that has been super 232 00:20:43,320 --> 00:20:47,400 valuable, I think, to them. And I'm hoping going forward that it will lead to a lot more 233 00:20:49,000 --> 00:20:54,360 successful engagements for our mutual customers. But even in the context of traditionally sold 234 00:20:56,120 --> 00:21:01,080 Accenture engagements, we've been able to affect some real change in those success metrics as well, 235 00:21:01,080 --> 00:21:05,960 which has been really encouraging. So much so that we're sort of creating some service offerings that 236 00:21:05,960 --> 00:21:11,640 are unique to Accenture that fit, that sort of fit that. And Jeff, it sort of bridges that model between 237 00:21:11,640 --> 00:21:17,400 your traditional sort of like take the consultants and put them on site versus come and do enablement at 238 00:21:17,400 --> 00:21:18,520 the Pivotal Labs office. 239 00:21:18,520 --> 00:21:26,120 Yeah, we have, we actually have a few pretty unique cases of success that, you know, again, like not 240 00:21:26,120 --> 00:21:30,520 speaking really towards the clients, but speaking towards the success that we've had using the platform 241 00:21:30,520 --> 00:21:36,920 as a catalyst of, we've, you know, there's a couple of teams on site that have some really big wins this 242 00:21:36,920 --> 00:21:44,440 last quarter, one of them being they got an app into production at a client that traditionally takes, takes a long enough time, 243 00:21:44,440 --> 00:21:50,040 but it was like a record for not only us at Pivotal getting an app into production at this client, but Accenture as 244 00:21:50,040 --> 00:21:53,720 a whole as well, which was about 10 weeks, we have an app in production, which is pretty amazing. 245 00:21:54,840 --> 00:22:00,760 And then the other one using XP and TD shipping to the platform, another team was able to 246 00:22:02,360 --> 00:22:10,120 go to production and be the only team that did not have any, I believe they didn't have any bugs or 247 00:22:12,120 --> 00:22:16,680 like any setbacks, which is like, which was the first time that's ever happened inside of this group 248 00:22:16,680 --> 00:22:21,320 as well. So they were able to ship something that no one found an issue with, which is very 249 00:22:21,320 --> 00:22:26,360 unrared, but, you know, leveraging techniques that Mick myself and the rest of the team have been kind of 250 00:22:26,360 --> 00:22:30,360 enabling the team with and putting them on the platform and being able to kind of like test that 251 00:22:30,360 --> 00:22:37,160 stuff faster. That engagement is an example of a stakeholder group from the client who didn't really 252 00:22:37,160 --> 00:22:42,360 care either way how the software was delivered, you know, different from a traditional labs engagement 253 00:22:42,360 --> 00:22:47,400 where we have to get those folks to buy into the approach because it's so different. They were like, 254 00:22:47,400 --> 00:22:50,920 all right, you want to do that stuff, go do it, we don't really care. And then they saw the 255 00:22:50,920 --> 00:22:54,600 outcomes that were being driven, the successful outcomes that were being driven. And now we're 256 00:22:54,600 --> 00:22:57,960 starting to get traction in that group for the whole approach. All right, so it was kind of like 257 00:22:57,960 --> 00:23:04,280 thin edge of the wedge of XP practices that helped drive success there, which is really exciting. 258 00:23:04,280 --> 00:23:10,680 Okay, so let's kind of circle around to the second four-letter acronym starting with an A, 259 00:23:10,680 --> 00:23:17,880 which is technically the role that you both have, Apple. I can't even remember what it stands for, 260 00:23:17,880 --> 00:23:22,440 so you're going to have to, you're going to have to help us out with that one. So tell us about what 261 00:23:22,440 --> 00:23:27,400 that is and then let's talk about what that means for all the work that you've just been describing. 262 00:23:27,400 --> 00:23:35,720 Yeah, Agile Practice Leadership Enablement, APLE, a new group that is actually, you know, not a new 263 00:23:35,720 --> 00:23:40,600 concept inside of Pivotal, something that's been going on for quite some time. The work that was done 264 00:23:40,600 --> 00:23:45,560 here in Chicago with a group that we had called POD, which was Pivotal Onsite Delivery. The name 265 00:23:45,560 --> 00:23:49,320 had changed because we have a lot of onsite delivery and we weren't the only ones, but 266 00:23:50,600 --> 00:23:54,600 you know, kind of the origination has been going on for a couple of years. We've been doing this at 267 00:23:54,600 --> 00:23:59,080 larger clients in some way, form or fashion. I think just recently this year, we've kind of like 268 00:23:59,080 --> 00:24:06,440 formalized this process. And so my role on that team is as a practice lead. And I work with Mick, 269 00:24:06,440 --> 00:24:12,280 and Mick is a delivery lead. Our teams are pretty small. We go on site and we, like I was kind of 270 00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:15,960 mentioning before, we were working with Accenture and building and kind of working with their leadership 271 00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:21,080 level. We do less one-to-one pairing as is traditional inside of Pivotal and more one-to-many, 272 00:24:21,080 --> 00:24:26,440 one-to-many coaching pairing and kind of enablement in that aspect. And, you know, success for us, I think, 273 00:24:26,440 --> 00:24:32,920 is, I think varies based upon any client that we might have. And, you know, we're working with our 274 00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:38,840 partners, but also with some of our large clients as well inside of this group. And I think what we're 275 00:24:38,840 --> 00:24:42,520 trying to do is make sure that we're leaving them in a place where they can have a sustainable product 276 00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:48,120 practice and also learn from them, right? Like, I think it's interesting because here at Labs, 277 00:24:48,120 --> 00:24:53,560 we do a lot in a very opinionated way. And, you know, we've shown a lot of success over many years 278 00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:58,040 and how we kind of build software. But we've iterated on it and we've grown. And, you know, 279 00:24:58,040 --> 00:25:01,400 we have the opportunity, me, Mick, and our colleagues to kind of go on site and say, 280 00:25:02,200 --> 00:25:05,560 "Hey, giant organization, you're clearly successful at what you're doing." You know, 281 00:25:05,560 --> 00:25:11,320 like you couldn't have made it here if you weren't, but you see something in us and the way that we 282 00:25:11,320 --> 00:25:15,320 build software and you want to do it on your own. So let's help them like kind of build and learn 283 00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:19,960 together, which is really exciting to me. And I think that's like kind of like the, this idea of 284 00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:25,560 building more of these pivotal labs like offices where everyone's kind of building software in 285 00:25:25,560 --> 00:25:29,400 a similar way that's kind of been adapted to the way that they, that makes sense inside of their 286 00:25:29,400 --> 00:25:34,760 organization. So, I mean, just to, just to draw like a little bit of a clearer line, because, 287 00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:42,120 you know, Pivotal Labs has been doing this for a long time and has a very particular approach, 288 00:25:42,120 --> 00:25:46,360 right? Where it's like, you know, come to our house, play by our rules. And it's this immersive 289 00:25:46,360 --> 00:25:52,600 sort of experience. So as you described, the agile practice leadership enablement is more about 290 00:25:52,600 --> 00:25:58,600 being on site of the customer. So inverting some of that. What exactly is the problem that you're 291 00:25:58,600 --> 00:25:59,320 solving with that? 292 00:25:59,320 --> 00:26:04,760 Yeah, it's a great question. And I would say that, you know, the, the model that we've been very 293 00:26:04,760 --> 00:26:09,720 successful with at Pivotal Labs has been, as you described, bringing customers into our environment. 294 00:26:09,720 --> 00:26:13,800 You know, what is the thing that makes that really successful? We get folks away from their day-to-day, 295 00:26:13,800 --> 00:26:17,720 we get them away from their meetings and so on. We show them the art of the possible. We show them what, 296 00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:23,240 what 100% or 110% of everything looks like, right? What does it mean if you radically redesign your 297 00:26:23,240 --> 00:26:30,200 workspace? What does it mean if you do X, Y, Z thing? And that's great. And we do drive success 298 00:26:30,200 --> 00:26:35,240 for individual teams for our customers. What we have known, have noticed and organically have 299 00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:40,280 acknowledged over the years is that that doesn't get our customers the whole way there to a transformative 300 00:26:40,280 --> 00:26:45,720 journey. And, you know, Joey mentioned the Pivotal on-site delivery model that was, that was sort of 301 00:26:45,720 --> 00:26:49,640 spearheaded out of Chicago there. And there have been other attempts with other large organizations 302 00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:54,520 that we've worked with to sort of, to sort of do the responsible thing and help our customers 303 00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:58,200 transition back to their environment and build an environment conducive to this type of work. 304 00:26:58,840 --> 00:27:04,280 There's a lot of organizational change management activities that go into creating a successful 305 00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:08,920 agile environment. And it's, and I think what we realized as a company is increasingly, 306 00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:13,080 it was irresponsible for us to send back a small successful agile team to be 307 00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:17,480 ground up in the machinery of a traditional environment. 308 00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:22,120 I think what's appealing about joining this team for a lot of folks who've been at labs is the, 309 00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:27,320 is acknowledging that, is acknowledging that like, we can take some, we can work with folks for 12, 310 00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:31,320 you know, 12 weeks to six months to a year or what have you. And they'll have a lot of fun. And then 311 00:27:31,320 --> 00:27:33,400 for most of the engagement, they're sitting with us saying, 312 00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:38,040 geez, I really, I'm not looking forward to going home. Like, I'm not looking forward to going back. 313 00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:45,080 And so the great opportunity that we have with the agile practice team is to be able to continue that 314 00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:49,720 relationship and help the customers on that second part of their customer journey, that sort of ingrained 315 00:27:49,720 --> 00:27:52,760 step. So it's a very complimentary to the work that the transformation team does. 316 00:27:52,760 --> 00:27:58,280 Because Joey alluded to this earlier saying, it's less about for our team, there's only, 317 00:27:58,280 --> 00:28:04,600 you know, a handful of us go onto these onsite delivery engagements. We're working with a very, 318 00:28:05,480 --> 00:28:09,160 by that, by the very nature of the size of our team, we're working with a small group of folks from 319 00:28:09,160 --> 00:28:14,920 the client side. And often that means we're working with people who are in that, you know, 320 00:28:14,920 --> 00:28:20,280 have been identified, hopefully with us, as, as leaders for the practice of say, engineering, 321 00:28:20,280 --> 00:28:25,000 or the practice of product design, and so on. We're really trying to create that, the safe 322 00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:30,280 environment for multiple agile teams to continue on their journey, right? One of the things I think 323 00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:37,160 that is, you know, really, really important or integral to a successful agile delivery model 324 00:28:37,160 --> 00:28:42,840 is budgeting, right? But that's often not a conversation that our team is willing and able to have 325 00:28:42,840 --> 00:28:46,760 here on the ground at Pivotal Labs. And that's, that's an example of something that I think, you know, 326 00:28:46,760 --> 00:28:51,480 we, we, we try and get up, get ourselves involved. Okay. So just, and this is, this is where my, 327 00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:59,800 my Greek tragedy example, after kind of hearing a, a preview of this. So that, that, like, 328 00:29:00,680 --> 00:29:09,480 situation you described, Mick, right, where, what we've experienced with labs, um, and where a, a, a developer 329 00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:14,200 is on a labs engagement, and they're coming into the labs office, and they're pairing 100% 330 00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:21,000 of the time, and they're doing stand-ups, and retros, and iteration plans, and test development, 331 00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:27,240 and they're, they're cranking through writing code, like, at a much higher rate, in terms of the amount 332 00:29:27,240 --> 00:29:30,200 of time they actually get to spend doing that, as opposed to, you know, all the other stuff, 333 00:29:30,200 --> 00:29:34,840 the meetings, and the, the back and forth, and the wait for the tickets. They get a taste of that, 334 00:29:34,840 --> 00:29:40,280 and then, then they have to go home. And so this is, like, I don't know, did anyone here take, like, 335 00:29:40,280 --> 00:29:46,200 classics, or read any of the, the Greek tragedies, right? So, you know, the story of Agamemnon, 336 00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:50,440 and, and this is kind of, like, a big cycle, right? Like, you can't even pin this to just one 337 00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:57,800 Greek play, because it shows up in multiple plays, and the Iliad, and whatever, right? So Agamemnon 338 00:29:57,800 --> 00:30:05,080 was the, the Greek king who lead the troops' sales to Troy for the Trojan War, right? So he has Achilles, 339 00:30:05,080 --> 00:30:10,520 um, and Ajax on his team. Those are some of his top warriors, and those are the names folks are 340 00:30:10,520 --> 00:30:17,480 familiar with. So, um, but, you know, the Trojan War is like a 20-year war, and so it's a huge chunk 341 00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:23,000 of their life that they're overseas fighting this overseas war. And then, you know, that sort of 342 00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:30,280 becomes your identity after a while. So there's in, um, in the Oresteia, which is, uh, kind of a 343 00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:35,640 trilogy of plays. I won't get into how plays were performed in trilogies, but that's how it works. 344 00:30:35,640 --> 00:30:41,160 They, they invented it, and now, like, they sign, like, actors when they sign up for a, a big blockbuster, 345 00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:44,440 they have to sign a contract that they're going to do all three movies, even if they don't even 346 00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:47,720 know if they're going to make all three. Anyways, it all, we didn't invent that. 347 00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:54,280 Anyways, so, and one of those stories, first of all, the back story is that to get to the winds to 348 00:30:54,280 --> 00:30:59,640 change so they sail to Troy, he has to sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia. So folks may have read 349 00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:02,280 Iphigenia in, in, you know, I read it in high school. 350 00:31:02,280 --> 00:31:06,600 I have been on some, I've been on some hairy engagements at Pivotal Labs, but I've never sacrificed 351 00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:13,320 anyone. It's like, spoiler alert, she, she pulls through, right? But I'm just going to leave it at 352 00:31:13,320 --> 00:31:18,440 that. So his wife, Clytemnestra, which is like, that's a name, right? She's not too happy about 353 00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:23,320 this. Like, they have three kids, and it's like, dude, you just, you sacrificed our daughter so that 354 00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:31,480 you could go help your brother get his, like, unfaithful wife back? Hashtag not worth it. 355 00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:39,080 So, when he comes back, like 20 years later, she kills him, right? And so it's basically like in the 356 00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:44,080 kind of, when people talk about, you know, Greek tragedies, it's like the father kills one of the 357 00:31:44,080 --> 00:31:47,800 daughters, and then the wife kills the father, and then, you know, I'm not going to tell, break, 358 00:31:47,800 --> 00:31:51,720 you know, spoiler, like, who kills who next, but you can kind of see where this is going. 359 00:31:52,600 --> 00:31:59,400 But, anyways, when I was studying this in college, we talked about it a lot as like this transition 360 00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:05,480 back for Agamemnon and his team was like, we haven't lived in domestic life for 20 years. We've 361 00:32:05,480 --> 00:32:12,120 been in, you know, bunkers, whatever the ancient Greek equivalent of a bunker is, and living the 362 00:32:12,120 --> 00:32:18,600 soldier life and all this stuff, and, you know, now we gotta transition back. Anyways, so that's kind of like 363 00:32:18,600 --> 00:32:26,200 my, my long Greek tragedy analogy. So, like, how do we, how do we have people come back and not have 364 00:32:26,200 --> 00:32:30,920 Clyde Mnestra stab him in the bathtub? I mean, yeah, it does come back to it. I mean, there are 365 00:32:30,920 --> 00:32:35,800 only like, what, there are only 14 real narratives in all of fiction, right? And one of them is 366 00:32:36,520 --> 00:32:42,360 human versus Clyde Mnestra. Yeah, yeah. And another one, a machine comes and takes the end of the story 367 00:32:42,360 --> 00:32:47,720 away. Wait a minute. All right, so I would say, I would say that, you know, the Apple team is, is 368 00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:53,320 uniquely placed to help aid that transition. This is something that we battled for so long as humans. 369 00:32:53,880 --> 00:32:58,520 Yeah, and we still battle it. I would say some of the things that, that the reason, the benefit to 370 00:32:58,520 --> 00:33:02,680 coming to an on-site location, as I sort of described earlier, right? We get people out of 371 00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:05,640 their environment, we show them the art of the possible, the way things could be. 372 00:33:08,120 --> 00:33:14,040 It's hard to go, it's hard to go back to an environment where you, where you are able to see, 373 00:33:14,040 --> 00:33:18,760 you know, the veils being pulled back from your eyes, you're able to see just how inefficient and 374 00:33:18,760 --> 00:33:24,920 hard the original environment was that you came from. And this is the part that I think that as a, 375 00:33:24,920 --> 00:33:30,600 as an organization, we tried for a long time to not acknowledge. We tried for a long time to say, 376 00:33:30,600 --> 00:33:35,960 this isn't our problem. And I think what makes a team like Apple interesting is that we're trying 377 00:33:35,960 --> 00:33:42,040 to acknowledge that together with our customers, we will work out a plan to make this sustainable 378 00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:49,000 long term. And in traditional labs consulting argument, we don't have all the answers. It 379 00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:53,960 depends. But what we do know is we have a lot of experiences that we can draw on. And we can work 380 00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:59,160 with our clients to try and create something that is an amalgam of the realities of their situation, 381 00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:03,400 and what we think to be the best, right? We ask clients when they come on site with us to suspend 382 00:34:03,400 --> 00:34:08,840 their disbelief. We ask them to say, I have all this stuff I need to do, but I'm not going to do it 383 00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:15,000 for 12 weeks, for 12 weeks, I'm gonna do it your way. And then oftentimes we say to them, you know what, 384 00:34:15,880 --> 00:34:23,160 go back to your place of business, take what you've learned and try and adapt it yourself into your 385 00:34:23,160 --> 00:34:28,840 workflow and your software development lifecycle. And that doesn't always go so well. I mean, 386 00:34:28,840 --> 00:34:32,520 don't get me wrong, there's been a lot of successes. But you know, for some of these people who are 387 00:34:32,520 --> 00:34:37,880 trying to affect change at a large level, you know, this 1000, tens of thousands of developers sort of 388 00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:41,640 organizations that we were talking about in the beginning, that doesn't, you know, there needs to 389 00:34:41,640 --> 00:34:44,600 be a bit more strategy, there needs to be a bit more organizational change management. 390 00:34:45,240 --> 00:34:48,760 And that's the area I think that we can make the biggest difference, right? And we're trying to 391 00:34:48,760 --> 00:34:56,280 fight an asymmetric battle or against certain processes and practices inside organizations 392 00:34:56,280 --> 00:35:03,640 by consulting with and working with very small leadership team to create that safe environment. 393 00:35:03,640 --> 00:35:10,760 Yeah. So now let's bring that back to what you've been doing on the ground at APBG as, 394 00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:19,960 you know, it's different, right? You've got there, it's pivots working alongside Accenture folks 395 00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:29,720 on mutual client engagements, right? So how does, are you working more with the Accenture practice 396 00:35:29,720 --> 00:35:36,440 lead folks inside, say, the Columbus Innovation Center? Is that where it's like, hey, we want to keep this 397 00:35:36,440 --> 00:35:45,720 going and make a safe place for folks to work in, you know, an agile and XP way? Is that kind of where 398 00:35:45,720 --> 00:35:47,000 the effort is focused? 399 00:35:48,440 --> 00:35:54,600 Yeah, I think, you know, we, we're trying to help them build that, you know, speak to what you just 400 00:35:54,600 --> 00:36:00,520 said, we're trying to help them have that like safe and expandable way to continue to grow. And the 401 00:36:00,520 --> 00:36:05,240 reason like there are pivots on site is because, you know, we have joint clients that need delivery 402 00:36:05,240 --> 00:36:11,720 out of a different location. But also, while Mick and I and our team, again, is working with the 403 00:36:11,720 --> 00:36:15,880 leadership group. So not necessarily the people that are actually executing as individual contributors 404 00:36:15,880 --> 00:36:22,440 with XP or lean product or UCD. We, we still need people to kind of help enable individuals that have 405 00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:27,960 never seen this where in a traditional lab setting or any one of our other Apple APLE clients, they would 406 00:36:27,960 --> 00:36:34,680 have gone through years of, I don't think actually either one of our clients, any of our other clients 407 00:36:34,680 --> 00:36:38,520 has not gone through like years of work inside of a lab's office. So they have a bunch of individuals 408 00:36:38,520 --> 00:36:44,120 that at least have had great exposure to the, to all of our skills and practices, where inside of 409 00:36:44,120 --> 00:36:50,120 Accenture, we, we had the both great fortune, but also the challenge of having a fresh, clean plate of, 410 00:36:50,120 --> 00:36:54,600 of, of people that have never, maybe not necessarily, um, they've probably seen some of this stuff, 411 00:36:54,600 --> 00:36:59,400 but not in the way of the dial to 11 that we've kind of, um, we're traditionally giving our clients. 412 00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:04,520 So, um, we're both helping them, Hey, you know, like, here's like a, a overview of this stuff, 413 00:37:04,520 --> 00:37:08,760 but also we're delivering workshops and, and doing some one-to-many enablement and we're, we're helping 414 00:37:08,760 --> 00:37:17,000 leverage, um, labs, um, in a way to kind of, you know, both excel our clients, um, journey, um, but also 415 00:37:17,000 --> 00:37:21,800 help Accenture kind of learn with bringing in some labs pivots that can pair one to many with, uh, 416 00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:25,080 inside of a product team that kind of really accelerates the learning and growth curve. 417 00:37:25,080 --> 00:37:31,720 Um, so yeah, our focus, Apple is definitely on helping Accenture, um, kind of build this like 418 00:37:31,720 --> 00:37:37,000 sustainable, um, practice of their own that they can hopefully keep expanding and extending. And, 419 00:37:37,000 --> 00:37:41,320 and, you know, we're, we hope that we're a part of that journey as well, um, into the, to the future, 420 00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:46,920 where there's many of these locations that can help service labs in areas that we pivotal labs 421 00:37:46,920 --> 00:37:51,880 that in areas that we are not, um, traditionally servicing and, and help, um, expand into clients 422 00:37:51,880 --> 00:37:57,000 that, uh, you know, need more support than we are, we can actually just give them, you know, 423 00:37:57,000 --> 00:38:00,600 they need more people. They need, they have lots of projects to do. They, you know, they're looking 424 00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:05,720 to move the many workloads onto the platform, you know, cause we're not solely working with them on 425 00:38:05,720 --> 00:38:10,920 labs and Mick alluded to this as well, but we also have teams from our FTX and PCFS and everyone else 426 00:38:10,920 --> 00:38:14,920 kind of helping enable Accenture into, um, helping our clients along their journey and getting the 427 00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:20,040 apps onto the platform, modernizing their development workflow. And so we're, we're helping them in many 428 00:38:20,040 --> 00:38:25,720 aspects. And I think, um, it's kind of, that's an exciting thing, but us focus, our, our sole focus 429 00:38:25,720 --> 00:38:31,160 is that leadership group in that lab and then extending into more or hub as they call it. Um, 430 00:38:31,960 --> 00:38:36,280 and extending into more and more of those. All right. So where do things go from here? What's, 431 00:38:36,280 --> 00:38:42,360 what's next? So currently we're, we're sort of in a phase of, um, establishing that with the, with the, 432 00:38:42,360 --> 00:38:48,280 with the leadership groups of both companies. Um, we've seen some really great initial successes 433 00:38:48,280 --> 00:38:54,200 there in Columbus, and I think we need to continue investing in success there. Uh, the plan for 2019 434 00:38:54,200 --> 00:39:02,200 is to continue to establish beachheads, if you will, of other pockets of this APPG activity, 435 00:39:02,840 --> 00:39:07,720 um, not necessarily at the scale that Columbus is at, um, but much more subject to customer demand. 436 00:39:07,720 --> 00:39:11,880 I think one of the, the reason that Columbus represented such a unique opportunity for both 437 00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:15,880 our companies was that there was an initial investment made in building an office at that 438 00:39:15,880 --> 00:39:20,760 location and it created a sense of its own gravity in the same way that an office would for us. 439 00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:26,520 I think the, the plan for 2019 is to continue to build upon that success in Columbus 440 00:39:26,520 --> 00:39:33,080 and also look to identify similar areas that could benefit from a geographical, uh, you know, 441 00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:38,840 having an office much closer geographically than we do currently. So, you know, really 442 00:39:39,640 --> 00:39:44,920 buoyed by the successes we've seen from delivery and really, really pleased to be working with our 443 00:39:44,920 --> 00:39:49,000 colleagues at pivotal labs to help jointly deliver work out of the Accenture office. 444 00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:55,240 Well, you know, I'd love to see that happen more and more in, in calendar 2019, uh, as we, 445 00:39:55,240 --> 00:40:00,440 as we look to enable the Accenture crew, right? Ideal state for us, you know, by the end of whenever 446 00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:06,840 it is, you know, by the end of some time period is that, um, a pivotal account team can look to Columbus 447 00:40:06,840 --> 00:40:15,160 and say this group, this is functionally equivalent to going to New York, uh, even without pivotal labs 448 00:40:15,880 --> 00:40:21,080 employees being on the ground there and doing the work. Who, who, who fills out the W2 shouldn't matter, 449 00:40:21,080 --> 00:40:25,720 right? The, the value system and the principles that drive that person should be completely aligned. 450 00:40:25,720 --> 00:40:30,600 And that's what we're aiming towards. So it's really a transformation, uh, within Accenture. 451 00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:34,920 The people that make up the majority of the hires for the Columbus Innovation Hub from the Accenture side 452 00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:39,160 are new to the company and have had their expectations set around the type of work they'll be doing. 453 00:40:39,160 --> 00:40:44,040 And, and, and, you know, to Jeff's point from earlier, uh, most folks who join Accenture expect 454 00:40:45,160 --> 00:40:50,520 uh, a level of travel to be part of their day-to-day job and to be on, on site with clients. 455 00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:52,840 The folks that were hired into the Columbus Innovation Hub 456 00:40:53,720 --> 00:40:57,240 have their expectations set that where they'll, that's where they'll, they'll be for the foreseeable 457 00:40:57,240 --> 00:41:01,480 future, right? So that there's a lot of really interesting organizational change that's happening, 458 00:41:02,360 --> 00:41:07,400 um, in the, in the Columbus office that gives us a lot of great hope for the future, I'd say. 459 00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:14,280 Um, where can folks learn more or keep tabs on, on each of you in like a not creepy internet stalking way? 460 00:41:14,280 --> 00:41:19,720 At least at the moment for myself personally, I have like pretty much zero social media presence. 461 00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:23,160 I, it's kind of, I'm like one of those kids who's like, you know, you know, 462 00:41:23,160 --> 00:41:24,760 I never really had TV growing up. 463 00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:28,760 I don't know. Maybe it's just because Mick and I work together so much, 464 00:41:28,760 --> 00:41:33,480 but I'm also somebody that doesn't really social media. Um, although I am a person that lives in 465 00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:35,880 Chicago and you can find me inside of the Chicago office. 466 00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:42,760 Um, all right. Well, thank you for, uh, for, for joining us and, uh, kind of walking us through 467 00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:48,440 both of these kind of interesting organizations and practices that, that exist out there and how they're 468 00:41:48,440 --> 00:41:56,040 coming together, which is, uh, extra interesting. So, yeah, I'm glad the world now knows about APLE 469 00:41:56,040 --> 00:41:59,000 and, uh, maybe there's a little bit more about APBG if they've already heard about it. 470 00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:04,360 So thanks for giving us the opportunity to come on here and talk about this. It's very exciting to 471 00:42:04,360 --> 00:42:18,600 us and we're, you know, looking forward to, uh, next year.