1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:12,240 Hi everyone, thanks for joining us on Pivotal Conversations. I'm Jeff Kelley. 2 00:00:12,240 --> 00:00:16,860 Most enterprises start their cloud-native journeys with lots of enthusiasm and big plans, 3 00:00:16,860 --> 00:00:21,660 but reality often sets in when they try to scale transformations by modernizing hundreds, 4 00:00:21,660 --> 00:00:26,160 sometimes thousands of legacy applications. The biggest digital transformation roadblock, 5 00:00:26,160 --> 00:00:32,960 "It's a lack of cloud-native skills," says HCL's Alan Flower. In this episode of Pivotal Conversations, 6 00:00:32,960 --> 00:00:37,840 Alan chats with Dormade and myself and shares some tips and strategies for overcoming the cloud-native 7 00:00:37,840 --> 00:00:55,680 skills gap. Enjoy. Okay, so Alan, you mentioned that you've yet to see a cloud-native transformation 8 00:00:55,680 --> 00:01:02,000 go faster than expected, and there's a common theme coming up again and again. Tell us about this. 9 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:07,120 Well, the common theme, of course, is hopefully pretty straightforward, really, you know, Domain. 10 00:01:07,120 --> 00:01:14,400 It comes under skill. It's quite surprising, isn't it? I mean, we see so many large enterprises around 11 00:01:14,400 --> 00:01:19,600 the world today kind of try and accelerate their cloud journey. And for many of these organizations, 12 00:01:19,600 --> 00:01:25,920 of course, they've been on a cloud kind of path for quite a few years. There's an extreme level 13 00:01:25,920 --> 00:01:31,600 of comfort around cloud, but we need to appreciate that, you know, in many organizations, cloud 14 00:01:31,600 --> 00:01:36,240 initially meant something completely different. It was a replacement data center. It was infrastructure, 15 00:01:36,240 --> 00:01:41,840 you know, in particular. And now that clients are coming around for a second pass, a second go, 16 00:01:41,840 --> 00:01:46,400 that their aspiration is to become probably what we would call a cloud-native enterprise. They're looking 17 00:01:46,400 --> 00:01:52,240 to reinvent, you know, their key processes around the cloud. They want to enable kind of cloud 18 00:01:52,240 --> 00:01:57,840 technologies in their solutions. And clearly, they want to build new software that takes advantage of 19 00:01:57,840 --> 00:02:02,560 all of that too. And along with all of that, they need to figure out what to do with their existing 20 00:02:02,560 --> 00:02:07,680 estate. They want to migrate to cloud. They want to modernize, you know, along the way. And clearly, 21 00:02:07,680 --> 00:02:13,760 you know, a lot of companies have got some very kind of extreme ambitions around cloud native, 22 00:02:13,760 --> 00:02:19,440 which is hugely reassuring. Of course, it's so good to see so many companies have this kind of level 23 00:02:19,440 --> 00:02:26,160 of kind of aspiration. Everyone starts this journey with huge intent. And we see everyone make initial, 24 00:02:26,160 --> 00:02:31,440 very rapid kind of progress. They all get out the door pretty quickly. They'll train up an initial 25 00:02:31,440 --> 00:02:37,440 cohort of people. The enthusiasm will spread. And then someone sort of decides to step on the gas and 26 00:02:37,440 --> 00:02:43,280 kind of just turn the volume up around this particular cloud journey. And that, of course, 27 00:02:43,280 --> 00:02:48,320 is when we see so much frustration. You know, everyone has, you know, quite typically hundreds, 28 00:02:48,320 --> 00:02:55,040 thousands of applications that they want to either re-platform or modernize the cloud. And it starts to 29 00:02:55,040 --> 00:03:00,160 get unstuck pretty quickly when they realize that they simply don't have the skill and the capability to 30 00:03:01,200 --> 00:03:05,920 kind of fulfill their ambition. And we see this absolutely everywhere. I don't think we have a single 31 00:03:05,920 --> 00:03:10,720 client anywhere on the planet who is going faster than expected. Everyone's going pretty quickly, 32 00:03:11,360 --> 00:03:17,200 but it gets very, very difficult indeed when you start to look at more than a handful of applications. 33 00:03:17,200 --> 00:03:23,040 And we've got clients with 10,000, 15,000 apps that they want to take on a cloud native journey. 34 00:03:23,040 --> 00:03:24,640 That is an incredible undertaking. 35 00:03:24,640 --> 00:03:33,760 What are some of the kind of the early signs that you're sort of, you're going from the smooth pavements 36 00:03:34,320 --> 00:03:43,360 to like the rockier pavement? I just, I have this very vivid memory of 17 years old driving in Costa 37 00:03:43,360 --> 00:03:48,560 Rica. And the road was beautifully paved. I was like, Oh, this is great. Cause it was not a super 38 00:03:48,560 --> 00:03:53,760 confident driver, especially to be in a foreign country. And then, and then I kind of noticed, 39 00:03:53,760 --> 00:03:58,800 it was like, Oh, suddenly I got bit gravelly. And then we're going along and we passed the paving 40 00:03:58,800 --> 00:04:03,040 truck. And sure enough, I start looking ahead. It's like, what's that on the road? It's like, 41 00:04:03,040 --> 00:04:08,880 like dark spots on the road. And there were giant potholes, like basketball sized potholes that I 42 00:04:08,880 --> 00:04:13,760 was suddenly having to weave around. And of course you have to like massively decelerate. So this is 43 00:04:13,760 --> 00:04:19,840 my analogy that I've just come up with right now, which is that driving on that road in process of 44 00:04:19,840 --> 00:04:26,000 being repaved. So, but there was that moment when we, we hadn't gone straight from smooth paving to 45 00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:31,440 potholes. There was this kind of like, you know, they hadn't actually put the final layer on. So it was, 46 00:04:32,080 --> 00:04:36,080 it wasn't too bad, but it was kind of rough going. It was like a little loose. 47 00:04:37,600 --> 00:04:41,200 Yeah. So let me rephrase that. Let's just say, at what point did the wheels come off? 48 00:04:42,560 --> 00:04:47,040 Well, I would think that that's the pothole section of the road when you're actually like, 49 00:04:47,040 --> 00:04:54,000 Oh, we broke an axle. And I guess the, yeah, I guess the warning signs are that 50 00:04:55,840 --> 00:04:59,920 after some initial success on your cloud native journey, let's say you've, you know, you've 51 00:04:59,920 --> 00:05:07,040 implemented a pivotal cloud foundry, PS or maybe PKS, of course, and you're pretty excited by what you 52 00:05:07,040 --> 00:05:12,160 find. And then you decide that you might as well take the whole company on this year. And, you know, 53 00:05:12,160 --> 00:05:17,040 we, we, we, we do a lot of these, you know, clients will say, look, you know, we're very happy with the 54 00:05:17,040 --> 00:05:22,800 direction we're taking. Now, can you look at everything that we've got and take it on a cloud journey? And you 55 00:05:22,800 --> 00:05:31,920 might go from five applications to 500 or 5,000. And if you're not careful, if you jump in too deep 56 00:05:31,920 --> 00:05:36,960 too soon, and everyone thinks this is quite a straightforward process, all I've got to do 57 00:05:36,960 --> 00:05:42,640 is line my applications up and just work through them. That's when it gets a little bit tricky, 58 00:05:42,640 --> 00:05:49,120 because if you don't understand what treatments you might want to apply to applications, if you don't 59 00:05:49,120 --> 00:05:53,200 understand what the destination is for each application, if you haven't really thought 60 00:05:53,200 --> 00:05:58,800 through what you should be doing with your global portfolio, it can get quite interesting quite 61 00:05:58,800 --> 00:06:03,760 quickly, because people can very easily assume that let's say, well, we'll refactor and modernize 62 00:06:03,760 --> 00:06:12,240 everything. Maybe we'll containerize everything and put it into coup, for example. It's very easy to 63 00:06:12,240 --> 00:06:18,880 completely underestimate the scale and the difficulty of the journey. And none of these tasks need be 64 00:06:19,760 --> 00:06:23,520 particularly difficult, of course, so long as you've got the people who understand how to do them. 65 00:06:25,440 --> 00:06:31,840 Ah, that's the key part at the end. You made it sound so simple, but is it that simple? So what, 66 00:06:31,840 --> 00:06:36,720 so what's that? What kind of strategies have you seen, I guess, both internally at HCL in terms of 67 00:06:36,720 --> 00:06:41,200 enabling your own people, as well as that some of your customers, maybe we, maybe we can start with 68 00:06:41,200 --> 00:06:45,120 HCL and then we can go into some customer examples as well. Well, you know, one of the challenges for 69 00:06:45,120 --> 00:06:50,800 HCL, of course, Jeff, is we have to service hundreds and hundreds of clients around the world. 70 00:06:52,240 --> 00:06:57,040 I can never predict what any one client will need from a, from a capability perspective. We have to 71 00:06:57,040 --> 00:07:01,600 ensure a bit like yourselves, we have to ensure that our people really are best of breed and can cover 72 00:07:01,840 --> 00:07:06,160 you know, all of the bases. So, you know, the journey for us is perhaps, you know, a lot more 73 00:07:06,160 --> 00:07:11,280 complex than it is for, you know, for many clients. But you, you have to make a number of predictions, 74 00:07:11,280 --> 00:07:14,800 don't you? You can look at sort of technology trends, you can look at your own strategy, 75 00:07:15,440 --> 00:07:19,760 you can see what you're consuming, you can see what clients will consume over time as well. 76 00:07:19,760 --> 00:07:23,840 You know, you know, you could water this down and quite simply say, look, it's pretty obvious. 77 00:07:24,880 --> 00:07:31,360 We need the ability to write cloud native code. We need the ability to modernize existing solutions 78 00:07:31,360 --> 00:07:36,880 so that they can, you know, to a certain extent become cloud native, you know, too. We need the 79 00:07:36,880 --> 00:07:42,160 ability to design and build and deploy cloud native environments. So that could be Pivotal Cloud Foundry, 80 00:07:42,160 --> 00:07:47,760 it could be Pivotal Container Services. You know, for example, we need the ability to operate those 81 00:07:47,760 --> 00:07:52,880 advanced environments because hopefully we all understand when you take a cloud native journey, 82 00:07:52,880 --> 00:07:56,400 you're going to change the way that you govern and operate your estate, of course, you know, 83 00:07:56,400 --> 00:08:01,040 along the way. So that entire spectrum of knowing how to design and build the environment, 84 00:08:01,760 --> 00:08:09,120 knowing what treatments you might need to apply to your applications, knowing what, you know, 85 00:08:09,120 --> 00:08:15,760 the execution environment might be when you've built and deployed this new environment. You can look at 86 00:08:15,760 --> 00:08:19,840 that kind of spectrum of kind of capability and steps that you need to undertake and, you know, 87 00:08:19,840 --> 00:08:26,640 try and plan your kind of skills acquisition to support it. And certainly that's what we've been doing 88 00:08:26,640 --> 00:08:34,800 inside of HCL. We've got the best part of about 130,000 engineers in our particular company. So 89 00:08:34,800 --> 00:08:41,120 everything from developers to operators to architects and everything, you know, in between. So, you know, 90 00:08:41,120 --> 00:08:46,400 we realise, of course, as indeed many large organisations realise that you have to set up the sort of centre of 91 00:08:46,400 --> 00:08:52,720 competence. You have to have this sort of COE, which is trying to govern the journey. You have to have 92 00:08:52,720 --> 00:08:58,400 that ability to show your entire organisation what good looks like so that they can hopefully, 93 00:08:58,400 --> 00:09:03,760 you know, emulate it. You want to try and steer them along the journey too. So we've set up, you know, 94 00:09:03,760 --> 00:09:10,160 we've set ourselves on this journey inside of HCL. It's been quite an interesting one, really, because 95 00:09:10,160 --> 00:09:15,280 like any other organisation, you have plenty of people who are chomping at the bit. Maybe they've 96 00:09:15,280 --> 00:09:20,000 self-skilled themselves, they're ready to go. And then you have lots and lots of people who kind 97 00:09:20,000 --> 00:09:24,080 of need a bit of a push and you want to kind of help them sort of, you know, accelerate their, 98 00:09:24,640 --> 00:09:29,200 you know, their journey too. So we see, we probably see all extremes inside of our, 99 00:09:29,200 --> 00:09:35,920 you know, organisation. You know, what we're trying to do, of course, is ensure that when people start 100 00:09:35,920 --> 00:09:43,680 work on a cloud-native project, that they're paired up with someone who's done that before. You know, 101 00:09:43,680 --> 00:09:49,600 we want people to learn from kind of hands-on sharing of best-of-breed approaches. So we know 102 00:09:49,600 --> 00:09:54,400 that coaching and mentoring is a large part of, I think, anyone's kind of cloud-native, you know, 103 00:09:54,400 --> 00:10:00,320 journey. We also recognise as well, and this is hugely important, that you have to do far more than 104 00:10:00,320 --> 00:10:05,520 just train people. You know, you can give people as much education as you like, but if they can't 105 00:10:05,520 --> 00:10:10,640 deploy it hands-on, if you can't make that kind of learning habitual, then it becomes a major, 106 00:10:10,640 --> 00:10:16,560 major challenge. And we see this more, as indeed I think a lot of organisations would see, is more of a 107 00:10:16,560 --> 00:10:21,440 cultural transformation. It's a combination of giving people, you know, the technical skill 108 00:10:22,240 --> 00:10:27,600 and ability. But you also want them to adopt what I would call the right cultural thinking. 109 00:10:27,600 --> 00:10:32,560 You want them to apply that training in the right way. You know, we've realised that one 110 00:10:32,560 --> 00:10:37,440 of the best approaches is to ensure that as you train people, you deploy them onto a project that's 111 00:10:37,440 --> 00:10:42,480 already working in this way. You know, we pair people up with engineers who've been working in 112 00:10:42,480 --> 00:10:48,080 this way for the last few years, for example. It then becomes habitual, you know, far, you know, 113 00:10:48,080 --> 00:10:58,240 far quicker. So now you mentioned kind of setting up a center of competence as an important step in this 114 00:10:58,240 --> 00:11:05,760 journey and, you know, a number of other practices like pairing and hands-on activities. You know, can 115 00:11:05,760 --> 00:11:13,920 you walk us through sort of, is there a winning recipe in terms of when and how much and who should be 116 00:11:13,920 --> 00:11:22,800 leading this type of kind of enablement transformation that you've seen, whether it's in customers or inside 117 00:11:22,800 --> 00:11:23,280 HCL? 118 00:11:23,280 --> 00:11:32,400 Well, our approach inside HCL was firstly, we decided to put ownership of the cultural transformation 119 00:11:32,400 --> 00:11:37,360 inside of our cloud native labs. So the cloud native labs inside of HCL, this is our kind of global 120 00:11:37,360 --> 00:11:42,560 center of excellence. All things to do with Cloud Foundry and Kubernetes, for example, were to sit inside the 121 00:11:42,560 --> 00:11:48,240 labs. So we've got that hard core of skill. We've also got that hard core of kind of experience deploying 122 00:11:48,240 --> 00:11:54,160 these environments with with clients too. So that for us is where we've kind of put the the center of 123 00:11:54,160 --> 00:12:01,840 gravity around enabling the organization. And just to just to clarify what that means is there's some, 124 00:12:02,960 --> 00:12:12,560 of this like 130,000 engineering strong organization. There's a couple of locations, like specific locations, 125 00:12:12,560 --> 00:12:19,680 where it's now set up to operate in a specialized environment called your cloud native labs. 126 00:12:19,680 --> 00:12:26,640 Well, absolutely. We did the first one in London, you know, last year. New York is just about to open as 127 00:12:26,640 --> 00:12:32,320 well. So we've got a brand new lab in Manhattan. And of course, there's India too. In our large 128 00:12:32,320 --> 00:12:39,120 sort of campus in Noida, just outside of Delhi, we've got our third cloud native lab as well. So we, from our 129 00:12:39,120 --> 00:12:44,320 perspective, we've got that kind of geocenter of gravity, center of competence available across 130 00:12:44,320 --> 00:12:52,640 across across the globe. So, you know, with our labs, we own our curriculum, if you like, we've created our 131 00:12:52,640 --> 00:12:59,120 own unique curriculum that suits the needs of HCL. We realize as well that as we build our own 132 00:12:59,120 --> 00:13:04,880 curriculum to enable our own large organization, that it actually met the needs of many of our clients 133 00:13:04,880 --> 00:13:11,760 as well. So we, we've had the added benefit of, as we've, as we've taught ourselves how to do cloud 134 00:13:11,760 --> 00:13:17,280 native, um, the right way. We, we've learned a lot of things that we can share with clients quite 135 00:13:17,280 --> 00:13:22,800 readily today. So we, we've had this added benefit that our center of excellence internally is now 136 00:13:22,800 --> 00:13:28,400 delivering this capability to, capability to our clients as well, uh, around the globe. So as we, 137 00:13:29,040 --> 00:13:34,160 as we build a curriculum that works for us, and you know, we, we can talk a little bit about that 138 00:13:34,160 --> 00:13:39,680 curriculum in terms of kind of the direction it takes. And of course, where the training comes 139 00:13:39,680 --> 00:13:46,160 from, you know, we, we realized that, you know, like in a perfect world, uh, business would stop 140 00:13:46,160 --> 00:13:51,600 for a few months and we packaged everyone up and we would send them away for, for training and enablement, 141 00:13:51,600 --> 00:13:56,480 you know, whether we send them to Pivot or to do PAL. And of course, a lot of us have done PAL, 142 00:13:57,280 --> 00:14:01,680 uh, in a perfect world, everyone would just stop what they're doing and go off and get themselves 143 00:14:01,680 --> 00:14:07,040 retrained. But clearly we live in imperfect world. Uh, no one can do this. So we, we've structured a 144 00:14:07,040 --> 00:14:13,600 curriculum that allows people to learn on the job. It allows people to go off and do formal education. 145 00:14:13,600 --> 00:14:19,360 And really importantly for us, it allows people to do what we would call offline self-paced training 146 00:14:19,360 --> 00:14:24,320 as well, because we recognize in any large organization, people learn at different speeds, 147 00:14:24,320 --> 00:14:29,840 of course, and in different ways. So we, we have that combination of learning on the job. So you can 148 00:14:29,840 --> 00:14:34,560 be coached by someone who's been on this journey before, you can go off and do a formal class, 149 00:14:35,200 --> 00:14:42,000 or of course you can consume the material in your own time, uh, in a self-paced, uh, in a self-paced way. 150 00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:47,360 So we, we, we, we, we, we've created a curriculum that we can, I would describe it as modular. 151 00:14:47,360 --> 00:14:52,480 You know, we, we can customize and kind of reassemble the modules to suit the needs of, 152 00:14:52,480 --> 00:14:58,240 of any individual or indeed any, uh, any department within our organization. So we, we have these 153 00:14:58,240 --> 00:15:03,520 standard modules kind of ready to go. Um, and then, as I said, we can deploy them in different ways, 154 00:15:03,520 --> 00:15:08,160 whether it's on site or indeed, you know, delivered, um, you know, remotely. So we, we, 155 00:15:08,160 --> 00:15:12,240 we have a curriculum that has quite a, you know, quite an enormous range of modules, you know, 156 00:15:12,240 --> 00:15:17,520 within it. And just some examples, you know, for a lot of people, the journey might start at the, 157 00:15:17,520 --> 00:15:22,720 at what I would call the initial kind of cultural end of the spectrum. So a good example, of course, 158 00:15:22,720 --> 00:15:27,600 would be, you know, anyone who's been a pivotal customer for, for any period of time knows that 159 00:15:27,600 --> 00:15:33,120 extreme programming pairing in particular is one of the key kind of elements of a, 160 00:15:33,120 --> 00:15:38,720 kind of a pivotal, uh, you know, environment. So we, we start with some of the cultural basics, 161 00:15:38,720 --> 00:15:43,520 you know, sometimes we have to sort of provide, uh, an introduction maybe to agile and lean for, 162 00:15:43,520 --> 00:15:49,600 for some developers, but, but XP, you know, extreme programming pairing in particular is really 163 00:15:49,600 --> 00:15:56,720 at the heart of, I think anyone's cloud native, you know, journey, uh, within HCL, we, we decided 164 00:15:56,720 --> 00:16:01,600 quite some time ago that we would fully adopt the pivotal methodology when it came to software 165 00:16:01,600 --> 00:16:07,520 engineering, um, you know, in particular. So anyone, of course, familiar with, with XP pairing, 166 00:16:07,520 --> 00:16:13,920 balanced teams will find exactly the same kind of structure and capability, uh, inside of HCL. 167 00:16:13,920 --> 00:16:19,360 Uh, not everyone knows how to do this, of course, you know, it's, it's quite a niche set of skills. 168 00:16:19,360 --> 00:16:25,120 So, you know, our curriculum starts with that kind of more elementary kind of cultural introduction 169 00:16:25,120 --> 00:16:30,720 around XP, uh, maybe an agile refresher too. And then of course we, you know, as, as the journey 170 00:16:30,720 --> 00:16:34,800 progresses, we want to take people through what we would call the formal technical training too. 171 00:16:35,440 --> 00:16:42,880 So this may mean, um, teaching developers how to write 12, 15, 16 factor code. So, you know, the cloud 172 00:16:42,880 --> 00:16:49,760 native developer pathway is a very common one, uh, inside of HCL. We also recognize that the needs of 173 00:16:49,760 --> 00:16:55,200 architects, of course, uh, are somewhat different. So we, we have a modified pathway for architects. 174 00:16:56,000 --> 00:17:00,640 Let's not forget the sys admins and the operators. They, they need a completely different set of 175 00:17:00,640 --> 00:17:07,040 education too. Uh, maybe like yourselves, we recognize that the, the approach to system 176 00:17:07,040 --> 00:17:12,480 reliability engineering that originated with Google, uh, has evolved to become a PRE, a platform 177 00:17:12,480 --> 00:17:17,920 reliability engineering, uh, based approach. We, we follow that too. So we, we have an element 178 00:17:17,920 --> 00:17:23,520 of our curriculum that sort of supports the needs of operations, uh, folks too. Then I would also add 179 00:17:23,520 --> 00:17:29,040 the needs of business leaders too. We, we have a separate approach for managers and leaders within 180 00:17:29,040 --> 00:17:34,480 our organization. We want to make sure that people can think in, in the correct way, even if they're not 181 00:17:34,480 --> 00:17:40,400 a technical, um, you know, hands-on, uh, engineer, we, we need the leadership too, to have this kind of 182 00:17:40,400 --> 00:17:46,880 cloud native and sort of digital understanding, you know, too. So long story cut very short, we, we have 183 00:17:46,880 --> 00:17:52,480 this very extensive curriculum that has a number of journeys across it, whether you're a developer, 184 00:17:52,480 --> 00:17:58,240 an architect, an operations person, or indeed a business, uh, leader. We have to have that ability 185 00:17:58,240 --> 00:18:03,600 to mix and match modules to suit the needs of each, um, you know, individual. And then of course, 186 00:18:03,600 --> 00:18:09,280 we, we need to find the content. We need to find the, the training material that is kind of best of 187 00:18:09,280 --> 00:18:15,360 breed. Uh, what we do inside AHCL today, uh, as you're probably aware, we, we've sent quite a large 188 00:18:15,360 --> 00:18:22,000 number of people through, uh, platform acceleration lab power. So, um, that's an interesting journey, 189 00:18:22,000 --> 00:18:28,880 I think for, you know, more senior, uh, architects within any, uh, you know, organization. We, we consume 190 00:18:28,880 --> 00:18:35,680 a fair bit of, of pivotal training and, uh, you know, and content. We've also originated quite a lot of 191 00:18:35,680 --> 00:18:40,160 training material, uh, ourselves and a lot of companies do this. Of course, they, they, they see 192 00:18:40,160 --> 00:18:46,560 a unique gap that they need to fill themselves. So we have created, uh, our own material. And then 193 00:18:46,560 --> 00:18:53,120 of course we consume a lot of material from across, um, the industry. Uh, we use a lot of material from 194 00:18:53,120 --> 00:18:59,680 the Cloud Foundry Foundation. We, we, we quite like, uh, their approach. Uh, there's a lot of material out 195 00:18:59,680 --> 00:19:06,640 there from, from various providers and we, we simply weave it together into a, a journey that suits, um, 196 00:19:06,640 --> 00:19:14,320 the roles within, uh, our organization. And the interesting thing is, is as we've shared our journey 197 00:19:14,320 --> 00:19:19,520 with, with our clients around the world, how much kind of commonality exists there. I mean, everyone has 198 00:19:21,200 --> 00:19:28,320 the same challenge in terms of, I know exactly where I'm going, uh, but I've got 10, 15, 20, 35, 40, 199 00:19:28,320 --> 00:19:33,920 50,000 people that, that, that I want to enable to take the journey. How do I create a kind of a 200 00:19:33,920 --> 00:19:39,360 training pathway for such a large number of people that suits so many different roles within my 201 00:19:39,360 --> 00:19:44,960 organization? And that for us is why the modular approach seems to work quite so well. Rather than 202 00:19:44,960 --> 00:19:52,240 having one monolithic, uh, slab of education, we would rather weave it together to suit the needs of, 203 00:19:52,240 --> 00:19:58,640 uh, of each individual. Yeah. And something that, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but you know, 204 00:19:58,640 --> 00:20:02,720 one thing that I'm trying to picture, like how this works, right? You, you mentioned that there's 205 00:20:03,280 --> 00:20:11,120 okay opportunities to pair, um, there's opportunities to, to sort of go take a formal class 206 00:20:11,120 --> 00:20:16,240 as well as sort of do something self-paced, but you have to think about how does that all fit in 207 00:20:16,240 --> 00:20:24,320 with the, the day-to-day work that someone's doing. And, you know, HCL is a little bit different 208 00:20:25,200 --> 00:20:30,000 from a lot of other, what you would think of as kind of, um, systems integrators out there 209 00:20:30,000 --> 00:20:36,080 where it's not necessarily going from project to project. There's, there's long-term co-engineering 210 00:20:36,080 --> 00:20:42,960 work that you guys do. And so it's probably a lot more similar to in terms of like, you know, 211 00:20:42,960 --> 00:20:48,240 you're, you can't just wait for someone to be like between, you know, uh, assignments and say, 212 00:20:48,240 --> 00:20:52,640 oh, great. This is the time we'll slot you in for this kind of training. You're, you're going to have 213 00:20:52,640 --> 00:20:56,800 to figure out just like most people who have their regular full-time employees. Like there is no point 214 00:20:56,800 --> 00:21:04,880 when the work is stopped. It's your, you know, your, this is your, your, your product. Um, of course, 215 00:21:04,880 --> 00:21:09,840 they probably don't have the product mentality about it yet, but this is, you know, your day-to-day job. 216 00:21:09,840 --> 00:21:14,960 So when do you find the time? So I'm curious, how do you, how do you kind of figure out how to 217 00:21:14,960 --> 00:21:21,840 introduce, you know, those pairing opportunities as well as, you know, what, how do you give folks the 218 00:21:21,840 --> 00:21:27,200 permission, um, or empower their managers to give them the permission to take the time? Say like, 219 00:21:28,480 --> 00:21:36,800 go, go take a week off to go do a in-classroom training or, um, you know, go make sure that you, 220 00:21:37,360 --> 00:21:43,520 you take two hours a day to do your self-paced course or whatever it is. So how do you kind of 221 00:21:43,520 --> 00:21:51,120 weave that in when folks are on these long-term co-engineering projects that there's no gap 222 00:21:51,120 --> 00:21:56,000 in sight? Right. Cause that's, I think something that a lot of folks will find familiar. 223 00:21:56,560 --> 00:22:00,160 Yeah. Well, it needs a lot of careful management, of course. And I think one of the things in our 224 00:22:00,160 --> 00:22:06,960 favor is, is the fact that we, we are such a, I guess, focused product engineer and organization. 225 00:22:06,960 --> 00:22:12,240 So we, we, we, we appreciate that we have to have the latest skill. We have to be able to work in a 226 00:22:12,240 --> 00:22:17,360 certain way. And we certainly need a workforce that are, that are hugely competent, you know, in this space. 227 00:22:17,360 --> 00:22:22,000 So from, from a, from a leadership perspective, you know, there's a, there's an acceptance. I think, 228 00:22:22,000 --> 00:22:26,560 I think from everyone that they want their teams to be fully enabled, uh, in this space, you know, 229 00:22:26,560 --> 00:22:31,520 that, that helps, uh, you know, enormously. If I just think as an example, we, we just wrapped up a 230 00:22:31,520 --> 00:22:37,200 course last week, actually domain. We, we did one in, uh, in India for a, for a team over there where you, 231 00:22:37,200 --> 00:22:44,880 you, you have a very, very solid, um, cloud engineering team that were just wrapping up one 232 00:22:44,880 --> 00:22:50,720 project, really just getting ready to start, to start the next. They, they wanted to build this 233 00:22:50,720 --> 00:22:56,720 project, uh, using pivotal technologies, of course, and, and they want to ensure that they can hit the 234 00:22:56,720 --> 00:23:02,000 ground running, uh, on day one. Now, what we had to do here, of course, was, it was two things, really. 235 00:23:02,000 --> 00:23:09,920 Firstly, craft a curriculum that suits the needs of, of the particular team. To do that, of course, 236 00:23:09,920 --> 00:23:14,000 we, we like to speak to the developers, understand what their strengths and weaknesses are, understand 237 00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:19,040 what they're going to be doing so that we can ensure that we, we just cover the things that they, uh, 238 00:23:19,040 --> 00:23:23,280 that they might need to focus on, you know, going forwards. The second thing, of course, we, we, 239 00:23:23,280 --> 00:23:27,760 we need to do is, is, is, is get them in a room, get, get them all together so that we can give them a 240 00:23:27,760 --> 00:23:32,960 kind of a, an accelerated journey. But, but we appreciate before we bring them together in the 241 00:23:32,960 --> 00:23:37,840 room, there's a lot of self-paced material that people would probably prefer to work through, uh, 242 00:23:37,840 --> 00:23:44,880 beforehand. Now we, we, we, we, we can run a very condensed cloud native developer class, uh, with an 243 00:23:44,880 --> 00:23:52,320 HCL. It typically leads to certification. So we, we put our developers through cloud foundry, uh, 244 00:23:52,320 --> 00:23:59,920 certification. So what we're trying to do is, is accelerate that kind of, um, makeover as quickly 245 00:23:59,920 --> 00:24:06,640 as possible, give people the opportunity to kind of bring themselves up to a certain level, you know, 246 00:24:06,640 --> 00:24:14,240 independently. Now, internally, depending on the kind of experience of, of, of an existing developer, 247 00:24:15,040 --> 00:24:21,520 we, we may give you up to approximately 80 hours of self-paced learning. 248 00:24:21,520 --> 00:24:26,320 Hmm. Before we, we, we bring you together into a classroom. And when we bring you into that 249 00:24:26,320 --> 00:24:31,840 classroom, you know, boy, um, you're going to hit the ground running. It's not elementary stuff at 250 00:24:31,840 --> 00:24:36,640 all. We, we assume, I mean, we're somewhat lucky, of course. I mean, we, we've got a lot of hugely 251 00:24:36,640 --> 00:24:42,080 experienced engineers to start with. We're, we're not teaching them from scratch, but if we take an 252 00:24:42,080 --> 00:24:47,360 existing sort of cloud, uh, you know, developer, uh, and we want to ensure that they can work in the 253 00:24:47,360 --> 00:24:53,360 pivotal way, uh, we're going to give them a quite a large amount of pre reading to do, as I said, 254 00:24:53,360 --> 00:24:58,400 up to 80 hours, which is quite a large, uh, undertaking. Uh, we help an individual find the 255 00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:03,120 time of course, to, to work with, work their way through that. And when, when we get them in class, 256 00:25:03,120 --> 00:25:09,760 of course, um, we're going to have a very, very focused hands-on, uh, session. We want to ensure that 257 00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:17,840 people in particular can apply XP in the right way. If you've trained anyone on pairing techniques, 258 00:25:17,840 --> 00:25:23,440 for example, you realize you can't do that in a self-paced way. You have to get people ideally, 259 00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:27,920 uh, in a room. You can do it remotely, but, but quite frankly, if you're going to do it properly, 260 00:25:27,920 --> 00:25:33,120 do it, do it, do it in a room together. So when we do finally bring people together, uh, we really 261 00:25:33,120 --> 00:25:38,240 want to focus on XP, make sure that everyone can apply pairing techniques, um, you know, in the right way. 262 00:25:38,240 --> 00:25:45,600 Uh, and then of course, uh, we get everyone ready for, uh, certification. Um, I've mentioned 263 00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:50,880 already that our preference right now is to take people through the cloud foundry certified developer, 264 00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:57,680 um, approach. Uh, that's good for us because we, we, we, we engineer or we, we, we code in many 265 00:25:57,680 --> 00:26:03,920 different languages. Whilst we have a huge focus on, on, on Java, uh, .NET too, it's not the only language. 266 00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:09,680 So for us, a certification approach that supports multiple languages is, is, is hugely beneficial, 267 00:26:09,680 --> 00:26:16,240 uh, across HCL. So, um, as I said, we, we, we, we try and sort of combine a mixture of 268 00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:23,840 quite extensive self-paced material with a very, very intense classroom experience at the end of that, 269 00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:28,880 uh, end of that journey. I hope you see it's probably within about two to three months. We want to get an 270 00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:35,360 experienced engineer fully up to speed on, on pivotal cloud foundry, uh, in particular, 271 00:26:35,360 --> 00:26:39,040 they probably already know how to write cloud native code, but we want to make sure they do it, 272 00:26:39,920 --> 00:26:44,240 you know, in, in, in, in a pivotal sort of themed way. Um, you know, in particular, 273 00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:48,480 make sure that they're hugely comfortable and competent on things like pivotal cloud services, 274 00:26:49,120 --> 00:26:51,520 um, um, spring boot, for example. 275 00:26:53,200 --> 00:27:01,760 So how, um, how far and wide across, uh, the HCL organization have you been able to sort of take 276 00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:08,720 this method and, and, you know, get folks either all the way through to certification or, um, you know, 277 00:27:08,720 --> 00:27:14,720 at least down, started down this path and, you know, at least engaged in some of this, the self-paced 278 00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:15,120 learning. 279 00:27:15,760 --> 00:27:20,080 Well, we, we, we, we, we've been lucky. Uh, we, we've been lucky because we, we tend to find 280 00:27:20,640 --> 00:27:26,000 that good engineers want to self-educate anyway, right? So we, we haven't needed to do much pushing, 281 00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:30,240 actually domain that there's been a ready sort of audience of thousands of developers who, 282 00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:34,480 who want to sign up and take this journey that, that helps enormously. And come on, you know, 283 00:27:34,480 --> 00:27:39,360 any of us who've been developers for any length of time, uh, we like to climb mountains, don't we? 284 00:27:39,360 --> 00:27:43,360 We, we, we like to build our skills. We like to ensure that we're, we're, we're hugely competent. 285 00:27:43,360 --> 00:27:48,080 So we're, um, we're, we're lucky. We're very fortunate that we have so many people who want 286 00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:54,560 to take the journey. Uh, we have leadership who are enthused and motivated to ensure that they 287 00:27:54,560 --> 00:27:58,880 can deploy best of breed teams. That's hugely important to us. And let's not forget that 288 00:27:59,440 --> 00:28:04,240 a large part of our business is developing world-class products for clients all over the world. 289 00:28:04,480 --> 00:28:10,080 We, we, we have to do, uh, an exceptional job. So clearly we want to make sure that our people 290 00:28:10,080 --> 00:28:15,040 have, have exceptional skills, you know, as, as well in, in terms of the journey that we're taking 291 00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:20,560 in Excel, we, we've been able to get this into every corner, every nook and cranny, uh, of, of the 292 00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:28,000 organization, which is, uh, you know, it, it, it's, it has its challenges. Of course, you know, 293 00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:33,280 people need to find the time, uh, motivation, you know, for some might be an issue, but hopefully for 294 00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:38,400 many it's, it's not people want to do this. Uh, and we tend to find because of that, uh, 295 00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:44,800 simply the self paced, you know, approach seems to suit a large number of people, uh, inside HCL. 296 00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:48,800 You know, people want to get stuck in, they want to improve their skills. They, they want to be 297 00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:56,320 deployed onto cool and exciting projects as quickly as, as quickly as possible. So, um, it's been an 298 00:28:56,320 --> 00:29:00,320 interesting journey. I mean, we, we've certainly got a long way to go. We've got such a large community of 299 00:29:00,320 --> 00:29:06,080 engineers, you know, in the company to, uh, you know, to cover. I, I think one of the, you know, 300 00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:11,360 the important realizations for us as well is, is, is, is the sort of importance of certification, 301 00:29:11,360 --> 00:29:17,840 some way of, of people being able to sort of, uh, prove to themselves that they've met or they, 302 00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:23,440 they've achieved a certain level of, of, of training. Uh, we do put people to task when we, 303 00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:27,200 when we do project work, of course, you know, we'd like to think like, I like anyone else that, 304 00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:32,400 uh, you know, our peers are, are hugely competent. So there, there, there's a lot of peer pressure 305 00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:38,400 to perform, but we've also noticed recently an interest in certification from, from some 306 00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:43,040 individuals knowing that they've, that they've got that cloud foundry sort of ticking the box is, 307 00:29:43,040 --> 00:29:44,560 is important to a lot of these people too. 308 00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:47,120 Yeah. Well, that makes sense. That's interesting. And then, 309 00:29:47,840 --> 00:29:54,080 you know, as you are kind of talking to other organizations and clients who are going down 310 00:29:54,080 --> 00:30:02,240 this path, um, you know, what, what have you seen there in terms of starting to make headway 311 00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:09,280 on, you know, transforming the, the, the people side of things and enabling their, their engineers 312 00:30:09,280 --> 00:30:15,360 and their organization? Um, any success stories you can share, even if anonymized about folks that 313 00:30:15,360 --> 00:30:22,000 have started to take these, these steps well in terms of, you know, that interest in self-paced and 314 00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:24,960 that interest in, um, certification and whatnot. 315 00:30:25,760 --> 00:30:29,840 Yeah. It's interesting. Not, not everyone's interested in certification. I mean, I mentioned 316 00:30:29,840 --> 00:30:35,680 that a lot of our people, you know, quite enjoy that option, but, um, you know, in clients, it's 317 00:30:35,680 --> 00:30:39,920 perhaps not quite so important, you know, with, with many clients, when, when they have their own 318 00:30:39,920 --> 00:30:46,560 community of engineers, uh, you know, to enable, they, they like control, uh, on the process, you know, 319 00:30:46,560 --> 00:30:51,600 there are common patterns that we've seen absolutely everywhere. And I can't really think of any 320 00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:59,360 exceptions, you know, to this. Most clients consider themselves very weak on what I would call the 321 00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:06,560 cultural kind of methodologies around XP and pairing, uh, in, in particular. Uh, I, I can't think of a 322 00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:12,080 single client that hasn't helped, hasn't asked us to enable that part of the journey in particular. 323 00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:17,280 You know, it is, it's, and again, if you're, if you're a new Pivotal customer, if you're adopting 324 00:31:17,280 --> 00:31:21,840 PCF for the first time, you're going to get this introduction from Pivotal in particular, aren't 325 00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:28,000 you? They'll be shown, uh, perhaps a completely new way to engineering your, your software development, 326 00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:35,120 you know, process. Uh, you've probably been given an introduction to, to XP and, and pairing, uh, 327 00:31:35,120 --> 00:31:41,040 along the way. Uh, the early signs are always very encouraging. So all of our clients have seen 328 00:31:41,040 --> 00:31:47,040 at a very early stage, the way that sort of XP pairing in particular, um, should be applied. 329 00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:50,720 And hence they're coming to us to say, look, we we've had an early sort of taste of this. 330 00:31:51,280 --> 00:31:56,240 Um, we now want to sort of take this a lot further and deeper, you know, into our organization. 331 00:31:56,880 --> 00:32:04,160 So everywhere we look, we see this interest in XP, uh, and pairing. Um, so that, that, that, 332 00:32:04,160 --> 00:32:08,320 that is a very common, you know, request where it then gets interesting, of course, 333 00:32:08,320 --> 00:32:14,880 is when, when clients kind of discuss what sort of hands on skill they feel they need in it from, 334 00:32:14,880 --> 00:32:21,040 from, from a technology and product perspective. Um, a lot of clients sometimes assume that every 335 00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:27,440 developer on the planet already knows how to build cloud native code, right? So it's almost table stakes 336 00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:35,520 in, in some organizations. The reality of course is, is, is, is completely different. Okay. Uh, 337 00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:40,960 having written code on a cloud project is completely different to writing cloud native, you know, code, 338 00:32:40,960 --> 00:32:45,200 of course. So, uh, that, that's one area in particular where clients need quite a lot of 339 00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:52,000 guidance to understand what good might need to look like, you know, for, uh, you know, for them. Um, 340 00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:56,720 when we look at some of the other skills that are hugely useful, particularly when kind of migrating 341 00:32:56,720 --> 00:33:01,280 to cloud native domain driven design, you know, is, is another area where, 342 00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:06,800 you know, we, we have some clients who, who, who know absolutely nothing about these techniques 343 00:33:06,800 --> 00:33:10,320 and how to apply them. So they, they will come to us and ask those to be designed 344 00:33:10,960 --> 00:33:16,480 into a curriculum for them. Uh, I was with a client recently who said, no, that's, that's table stakes. 345 00:33:16,480 --> 00:33:23,040 We, we assume that everyone that we hire knows how to do DDD. So it, it does vary from, you know, 346 00:33:23,040 --> 00:33:30,000 from client to client, but the interesting thing is the, you know, the recognition that to be sort of, 347 00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:34,480 to take a successful cloud native journey, you've got to be able to apply these kind of cultural, 348 00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:41,920 you know, techniques. So, you know, master and expert, uh, knowing how to use DDD when it makes sense to, 349 00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:48,960 you know, to do so just broad kind of appetite for, for learning, uh, you know, in that, in that space. 350 00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:53,120 So what are some of the, some of the other challenges that customers should be aware of? 351 00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:56,800 So we mentioned, generally speaking, be aware that training is a big component. 352 00:33:56,800 --> 00:34:01,440 We've talked about the most recognized that the cultural component is where they are fairly weak. 353 00:34:01,440 --> 00:34:06,160 Are there any other common issues you come up, come up against, uh, when working with customers, 354 00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:10,960 things they should keep an eye out for? Well, here's a really obvious one that every client doesn't be 355 00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:16,400 considered. No one budgets for the training and cultural transformation. You know, we're also very 356 00:34:16,400 --> 00:34:21,920 focused on acquiring the technology, the product that we want to, um, embed within our organization. 357 00:34:21,920 --> 00:34:27,440 Sometimes we overlook the sheer enormity of the task to, to get, you know, to give our people the, 358 00:34:27,440 --> 00:34:32,080 the cultural skills to, to make use of that, that, that product. And we, we talk about enabling 359 00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:37,360 the cloud native journey, you know, both for ourselves and our clients and Jeff. And, you know, 360 00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:43,760 look, if you've got a community of 10, 15, 20,000 developers, and that, that's not unusual, 361 00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:49,680 you know, in, in the world today, you know, often when, when a client takes a pivotal journey, 362 00:34:49,680 --> 00:34:54,480 they might only focus on a relatively small number of people to start with. It might be 10 or 20 people 363 00:34:54,480 --> 00:35:01,600 get the, the full kind of experience that, um, you know, is so important to, to support the pivotal 364 00:35:01,600 --> 00:35:08,480 journey. How do I fund the journey for the other 10,000 people? Okay. I've done the first 10. What 365 00:35:08,480 --> 00:35:14,480 about the other 10,000? And clearly it's not affordable to, to send everyone on a gold plated 366 00:35:14,480 --> 00:35:20,080 experience. We're not going to bust the whole company off for weeks at a time to, um, you know, 367 00:35:20,080 --> 00:35:24,400 to be, to be shown this. So we, you know, we, we have to be pragmatic, pragmatic. We, we have to 368 00:35:24,400 --> 00:35:31,200 weave, uh, a journey for organization that, that lets them invest in a certain way that, that suits 369 00:35:31,200 --> 00:35:35,840 them. Uh, and, you know, to, to answer the question in terms of what do many clients overlook, you know, 370 00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:41,760 many clients just simply overlook the cost and enormity of the challenge. You know, I, they, 371 00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:46,560 they all have this great vision, which we fully support. They want to become a cloud native 372 00:35:46,560 --> 00:35:51,040 enterprise. They want to ensure that everyone in their organization is writing code in the right 373 00:35:51,040 --> 00:35:55,120 way. They want to modernize their existing portfolios. They want to operate their estate 374 00:35:55,760 --> 00:36:03,360 in, in a completely different way. That is a huge undertaking, right? Retraining 10,000 people. 375 00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:07,920 It's not something that you're going to achieve, you know, overnight. You need to think about how 376 00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:12,480 long you're going to allow for this journey to be successful. Clearly you need to think about how 377 00:36:12,480 --> 00:36:16,400 you're going to budget for this journey as well. And there's, there's a lot that can be done there 378 00:36:16,400 --> 00:36:21,600 to make it more affordable. And just, just one observation that we've, we found ourselves, 379 00:36:21,600 --> 00:36:28,560 you know, the general quality of, uh, online material is, is, is getting exceptionally high now, 380 00:36:28,560 --> 00:36:34,400 right? And there's also a lot of very affordable, if not free, uh, material available as well. So it's 381 00:36:34,400 --> 00:36:40,000 possible for organizations to, you know, to get quite some way without this being too fearsome from a, 382 00:36:40,000 --> 00:36:44,240 from a cost perspective, but, but in very general terms, I think a lot of people, 383 00:36:44,240 --> 00:36:48,480 when they take this cloud native journey, they, they see the early success, which we would expect, 384 00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:53,520 of course, their vision gets a lot more colorful that they have a huge amount of ambition for their 385 00:36:53,520 --> 00:37:00,240 organization. And it just needs a lot of preparation to align the organization with, 386 00:37:00,240 --> 00:37:02,160 with where you want this journey to take you. 387 00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:08,480 So, and that's brings up a good question around, you know, how to budget, like folks, I get it, 388 00:37:08,480 --> 00:37:14,320 like they're not budgeting for it. And that's part of the problem is, does it, is it something that 389 00:37:14,320 --> 00:37:19,200 makes sense where it's like, okay, well, you know, just, you look at the entire population and you 390 00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:24,880 assign a dollar amount to each person. And it's like, okay, well, that's, that's how we come up with 391 00:37:24,880 --> 00:37:31,840 their number. Or do you come at it from kind of a program's perspective and you fund a group that's 392 00:37:31,840 --> 00:37:39,520 then go out, like out there tasked with taking folks through some kind of education and enablement 393 00:37:39,520 --> 00:37:44,400 journey. And, you know, then you just measure that group based on, well, how many people did you get 394 00:37:44,400 --> 00:37:49,040 through the program? I mean, I can see it kind of going, one, one's a little bit more organic and 395 00:37:49,040 --> 00:37:55,600 one's a little bit more structured. You know, what do you see working for folks better? 396 00:37:56,240 --> 00:38:01,200 Yeah. I mean, ultimately for a large organization, it's going to come down to cost the head. Okay. 397 00:38:01,200 --> 00:38:06,320 Someone, somewhere in the organization needs to know how much it will cost to enable their team to, 398 00:38:06,320 --> 00:38:11,280 to take this journey. But you're, but you're correct. I mean, a cost effective approach for, 399 00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:16,000 for many larger organizations to take a course is, is build your own training capability. You know, 400 00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:22,560 let's enable a sort of a train the trainer type approach. Let's help you build your curriculum for, 401 00:38:22,560 --> 00:38:27,840 for your organization. Let's enable a team to then deliver that across your organization as, 402 00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:32,640 as cost effectively as possible. Well, it strikes me, there's the, I mean, 403 00:38:32,640 --> 00:38:36,720 there's budgeting challenges when you think about cloud native software to begin with, right? So, 404 00:38:37,280 --> 00:38:41,600 versus a more traditional waterfall type approach where you budget it all up front and you kind of 405 00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:46,080 plan everything out in minute detail or, whereas with cloud native software and you're iterating over 406 00:38:46,080 --> 00:38:49,600 time, how do you, that's a, that's a challenge and how you budget that you need to think differently 407 00:38:49,600 --> 00:38:53,680 about that. And I guess it shouldn't be surprising that similarly, you have to think about how do you 408 00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:57,120 budget for training for these kinds of things as well. Yeah. It's all part of the journey, 409 00:38:57,120 --> 00:39:01,200 isn't it, Geoff, really? I mean, when, you know, ideally, you know, when, when clients, 410 00:39:02,560 --> 00:39:08,800 uh, adopt a platform like, like, like PCF, for example, you know, there is typically a strategic 411 00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:13,920 investment, isn't it? You know, you're doing it for all the right reasons. Um, you know, that it's 412 00:39:13,920 --> 00:39:19,040 going to, going to enable that particular set of outcomes that you, you aspire to. Okay. Whether 413 00:39:19,040 --> 00:39:26,400 it's in terms of efficiency, speed, agility, you know, whatever, you know, we, we, we all kind of buy 414 00:39:26,400 --> 00:39:32,320 into this vision. Um, and we want the journey clearly to be, to be a successful one. It's, it's very 415 00:39:32,320 --> 00:39:38,720 difficult, isn't it, to, you know, from the outset, understand how much effort is involved to make that 416 00:39:38,720 --> 00:39:44,000 journey, uh, a successful one. I mean, just as an example, you know, we've got a few clients who will 417 00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:48,400 say, you know, look, we've, we've, we've adopted pivotal cloud foundries, our strategic platform, 418 00:39:48,400 --> 00:39:56,880 you know, going forwards, uh, we've got 5,000 applications. Um, can you tell us how long is it 419 00:39:56,880 --> 00:40:03,360 going to take? And it's just not a straightforward, you know, question to answer, is it, in, in, in, 420 00:40:03,360 --> 00:40:08,880 in terms of the, you know, enormity, the magnitude of the journey. And, and in the same way, but when, 421 00:40:08,880 --> 00:40:14,720 when, when someone asks us to sort of take 5,000 applications on a cloud native journey, you, you have 422 00:40:14,720 --> 00:40:18,240 to do an awful lot of analysis and assessment to kind of work out the sort of, 423 00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:22,720 the particular treatment plan that, that any given application is going to take. 424 00:40:23,920 --> 00:40:27,760 The same approach also holds true when you look at sort of enabling your workforce to, 425 00:40:27,760 --> 00:40:32,240 to support this journey too. You'll, you'll spot certain key roles that have a certain amount of 426 00:40:32,240 --> 00:40:38,000 commonality, you know, behind them. It is possible, you know, to look at this on a role by role basis, 427 00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:43,520 and then try and put some numbers, uh, you know, behind it, behind it. But at the end of the day, 428 00:40:44,240 --> 00:40:51,120 every individual is unique. And in the same way that anyone migrating a huge portfolio of apps to the 429 00:40:51,120 --> 00:40:57,760 PCF is going to dig inside each application to work out, you know, the effort, the costs, you know, 430 00:40:57,760 --> 00:41:02,640 the duration. We, we do the same thing with every individual, you know, we, we, inside of HCL, 431 00:41:03,200 --> 00:41:06,800 before anyone takes this cloud native journey, we're going to, we're going to interview them. 432 00:41:06,800 --> 00:41:11,360 We're going to understand what their strengths and weaknesses are. We'll understand what their role 433 00:41:11,360 --> 00:41:16,160 is. And we, you know, we, we've got pretty good, it kind of estimating the effort, you know, for each, 434 00:41:16,160 --> 00:41:20,800 for each individual to, you know, to take this journey. And it's, it is, it's clearly a challenge, 435 00:41:20,800 --> 00:41:23,920 you know, when you're trying to do that with tens of tens of thousands of engineers, 436 00:41:24,480 --> 00:41:28,720 it's, uh, it can be a little bit of an inexact science from, from time to time, but we, we do 437 00:41:28,720 --> 00:41:34,000 recognize, you know, a certain number of repeating patterns that kind of make it, uh, somewhat easier 438 00:41:34,000 --> 00:41:41,280 for our, uh, for ourselves. Well, that's kind of an interesting analogy to, to leave off then. And the, 439 00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:48,160 you know, talking to our app transformation team here internally, they use like snap analysis 440 00:41:48,880 --> 00:41:57,280 against a particular application. Right. Um, but then when you step back and look at the entire 441 00:41:57,280 --> 00:42:03,040 estate, um, and this is something we don't really do at Pivotal, but, but partners like HCL do, 442 00:42:03,760 --> 00:42:08,880 which is, you know, one of those is like the, the time analysis, right? Like, uh, you know, 443 00:42:08,880 --> 00:42:16,240 what do I tolerate versus invest? Um, and, and so you're, you're sort of suggesting you have to kind 444 00:42:16,240 --> 00:42:21,920 of do the same thing for the workforce. You've got to do the, the time analysis type of, you know, 445 00:42:21,920 --> 00:42:26,640 view the looking at everything and understand the big roles. Like, what are we, you know, what kind 446 00:42:26,640 --> 00:42:30,880 of roles are we going to create and invest in and which ones are we going to probably try and grow 447 00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:36,880 people out of? Um, but then you have to do the individual snap analysis with individual 448 00:42:36,880 --> 00:42:42,320 interviews. Is that a fair? Yeah. And you can't, you can't avoid that. I mean, you can automate it, 449 00:42:42,320 --> 00:42:45,520 you know, to a certain extent, but it, but there's, there's no substitute for speaking to 450 00:42:45,520 --> 00:42:50,080 the individual to understand, you know, what are their aspirations? You know, what, what is their 451 00:42:50,080 --> 00:42:54,160 motivation for this journey? You know, how excited are they to be taking this journey? Because that, 452 00:42:54,880 --> 00:43:00,240 that, that, that counts for an awful lot. And, you know, during this, uh, initial sort of 453 00:43:01,280 --> 00:43:05,040 stage of the journey, you know, domain where we're, we're talking to an individual, 454 00:43:05,040 --> 00:43:10,480 understanding what their background is, their skills, we can very quickly map that to the 455 00:43:10,480 --> 00:43:16,400 journey that we're on, uh, as an organization. And, you know, as I said, you know, once we understand 456 00:43:16,400 --> 00:43:22,320 their role and their existing strengths, we can quickly swap them in to a certain sort of pathway, 457 00:43:22,320 --> 00:43:28,080 uh, within our sort of enablement, uh, you know, program. But we, we do make sort of dynamic course 458 00:43:28,080 --> 00:43:33,680 adjustments along the way, because you'll have plenty of individuals who are, they're so fired 459 00:43:33,680 --> 00:43:38,640 up to be taking this journey that you, you just can't hold them back. And sometimes, you know, you'll 460 00:43:38,640 --> 00:43:43,920 find that a particular training journey that we expect maybe to take two months for an individual, 461 00:43:44,800 --> 00:43:48,400 two or three weeks later, she or he has come back and said, look, I've done it, you know, 462 00:43:48,400 --> 00:43:53,520 and, you know, I'm ready for more. So we have to make those dynamic adjustments of course, um, 463 00:43:54,320 --> 00:43:59,760 which is good. I mean, it's always hugely reassuring when you see people so enthused to be working with 464 00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:05,360 this. Yeah. Well, it's, I mean, that kind of almost comes back to your, you know, your iteration plans, 465 00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:09,760 right? This week or this two week sprint, whatever we're doing. But from a people perspective, 466 00:44:09,760 --> 00:44:14,800 it's like, well, you know, it's instead of that story took less time than we expected that, 467 00:44:15,360 --> 00:44:21,360 that person's development took less time. So what are we going to do for them next? So as a, 468 00:44:21,360 --> 00:44:26,960 as a manager kind of doing those, those iteration plans is that that's what I'm taking away from it, 469 00:44:26,960 --> 00:44:32,560 at least maybe I'm going bonker balls here, but you know, I'm still adjusting to the, to the time 470 00:44:32,560 --> 00:44:43,600 zone change, uh, on an early call with the UK. Um, okay. Well, so if folks want to kind of learn more, 471 00:44:43,600 --> 00:44:47,840 follow you, uh, where can they, where can they kind of continue to hear about what you're up to, 472 00:44:48,480 --> 00:44:55,200 um, what HCL is up to, what do you recommend is, is where folks find and follow? Well, I mean, 473 00:44:55,200 --> 00:44:59,600 a couple of immediate recommendations I'd make, of course, was just come and visit the HCL, you know, 474 00:44:59,600 --> 00:45:04,160 website, take a look at our cloud native pages. You'll see a lot of guidance, uh, you know, there, 475 00:45:05,120 --> 00:45:10,160 uh, we all tweet all of the time. Uh, of course you'll find us on social media, hopefully, uh, you 476 00:45:10,160 --> 00:45:16,640 know, in, in, in, in abundance. Um, and coming to visit the labs, is that something that folks can do? 477 00:45:16,640 --> 00:45:21,760 Um, and yeah, it's really interesting actually domain because, you know, quite, quite uniquely, 478 00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:28,880 we think in the industry, we've set our labs up for customer consumption. And in particular, 479 00:45:28,880 --> 00:45:36,400 we, we use our labs as a showcase. So customers can and do give us a call, come in and sort of 480 00:45:36,400 --> 00:45:43,440 experience an HCL labs, uh, environment if you would like to see. So what does a pivotal enabled kind 481 00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:48,000 of lab look like? You know, if I was to set one of these up myself, you know, if I wanted to sort 482 00:45:48,000 --> 00:45:54,320 of create the COE center of excellence inside my organ, uh, my own organization, uh, where can I see this 483 00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:59,760 working? You can come in, uh, to an HCL, you know, cloud native lab. The other thing that, you know, 484 00:45:59,760 --> 00:46:06,000 is hugely important to, to a lot of clients is, you know, you appreciate today that the, the environment 485 00:46:06,000 --> 00:46:11,600 that cloud, uh, the clients need to support is, is hugely complex and sophisticated, you know, hybrid 486 00:46:11,600 --> 00:46:17,600 multi-cloud environments. How do I train and enable my workforce to not just build, you know, good 487 00:46:17,600 --> 00:46:22,240 cloud native code, but deploy it. And of course, operate it in, in all of these environments too. 488 00:46:22,960 --> 00:46:28,080 That's the other reason why these labs exist, of course, to show clients the reality behind this. 489 00:46:28,080 --> 00:46:36,400 If clients would like to see, uh, pivotal cloud foundry, PAS, PKS, operating in a pivotal optimized 490 00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:42,880 hybrid environment, perhaps on Dell PRA equipment, uh, connected to a multi-cloud estate configured in 491 00:46:42,880 --> 00:46:48,560 a production way. Uh, of course, an HCL cloud native lab is the best place to, to get that exposure. 492 00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:53,520 And we would, uh, love to share this with, uh, with all of our clients. And of course, um, 493 00:46:53,520 --> 00:46:58,320 any of your listeners too, and, uh, come in and we'll share with you how we enable our workforce too. 494 00:46:59,280 --> 00:47:05,520 Yeah. I think having the, uh, the physical space set up, um, when I was in London last fall, got to 495 00:47:05,520 --> 00:47:11,760 take a sneak peek at the, the London lab. And, and so, um, yeah, I think that's a great way for 496 00:47:11,760 --> 00:47:15,440 folks to, to sort of check it out. Um, so thank you. 497 00:47:15,440 --> 00:47:19,120 You're more than welcome. And we look forward to seeing you again in London, of course, to me. 498 00:47:19,120 --> 00:47:22,720 At least in November for the next RabbitMQ summit, of course. 499 00:47:23,520 --> 00:47:27,040 We will invite you to the opening. We will invite you to the opening of Manhattan in a few weeks. 500 00:47:27,760 --> 00:47:30,160 Well, that's an easier flight. So I think I'll take you up on that. 501 00:47:30,160 --> 00:47:34,640 Good. Um, great to talk to you as always, Alan. Um, thanks again. 502 00:47:34,640 --> 00:47:39,120 And this was a really interesting to way to think about transforming the workforce. 503 00:47:39,120 --> 00:47:40,400 Good. Thank you. 504 00:47:40,400 --> 00:47:49,440 Thank you so much.