Keith Beulhman: As a developer back in the day myself, a lot of times, we get things tossed over, right? Hey, I need this in two weeks. How long did you have?

‍Clinton Bonner: (Laughs)

Keith: You know, those... Yeah. Like, you know those type of things, right?

(CATALYST THEME MUSIC)

Clinton: Welcome to Catalyst, the Launch by NTT Data podcast. Catalyst is an ongoing discussion for digital leaders dissatisfied with the status quo, and yet optimistic about what's possible through smart technology and great people. Today on Catalyst, we're chatting with Keith Buehlman, Senior Director of Business Agility at Launch by NTT Data. Welcoming him to the studio. He's got tons of really, really cool information. And what I think you're going to like, listeners, is the way that he takes a topic - we're going to be talking about value today and everything that it means - and he's got great, great ways to do some storytelling around that and make it very understandable and relatable, I think, to everybody in business. Keith, welcome to the Catalyst podcast. How you doing, man?

Keith: Hey, very good, Clinton, thanks for having me. And, like we were talking earlier, glad we survived the Super Bowl. And... we are here and ready to go.

Clinton: Yes, we absolutely did. So for those that... I mean... Listeners may know by now, I'm a large Seattle Seahawks fan. Keith is a, I would say, dyed in the purple Baltimore Ravens fan. You know, so we got two NFL fanatics on. We will be talking about business value. But we're also going to be talking about, certainly bringing in the NFL and the ideas around some of the things tied to their value streams, and fan experiences, and how can we look at that as a metaphor for your business as well? And I was sharing with Keith before we got going, apologies to any 49ers fans out there, as a Seahawks fan, this is the second best outcome I could hope for. Sorry not sorry. And to your Ravens, Keith, sorry that you guys went down. But if I guess if you're going to go down, it's kind of becoming a little bit of Michael Jordan versus the rest of the world. And I'm not too sure that Patrick Mahomes is going to take two years off to go play baseball.

Keith: I don't believe he is. I do not believe he is. He's going to reload. 

‍Clinton: Yeah. Somebody's got to figure out what the heck we could do, you know, to go take down Pat Mahomes, Andy Reid and of course those delicious nuggies that he wants from those commercials. So...

‍Keith: That's right.

Clinton: Which are delightful and fun. So, a lot, a lot of fun. Well it was a good Super Bowl. It's certainly an unofficial American holiday at this point, where we gather and we get together, we have some fun. I think we're only probably, I'd say, a few years off from watching the NFL take this thing to a 18 week season. You know, 18 game schedule. And then the, you know, the operation of the Death Star will be finally complete. We'll get Super Bowl Sunday right before Presidents' Day Monday, and we'll get the de facto holiday people have been screaming for over and over and over again. And maybe that's the NFL driving some value there, Keith, what do you think?

Keith: Yeah. There you go. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah I just think, you know, I think when you sit around and just think about value and all the different types of value that happens, and thinking about the value network, and what it actually takes to even put that Super Bowl on, and all the value networks are thinking about, you know... I mean, the advertisers, the casinos' involvement. I mean, it's just... It's not just a game, right? It's, you know...

Clinton: Yeah.

Keith: There's just so much value, I think, to be unlocked. And we all know. I mean, the NFL, they are the money making machine, right? 

Clinton: Yeah.

Keith: And a lot of times, you know, the dollar is the almighty for the NFL. But I think, you know, it was... It's interesting to watch the Super Bowl and to think about some of the other things, like, you and I have talked about in the past just about different types of value, right? It's not always about the almighty dollar, right? Like, our NFL teams, we're huge fans, right? And so you're, you know, building that brand, right? Building that usability of the whole brand itself, and what we're getting into, you know... I think about the meaning of the game, and everybody with the face paint, and the different, you know, Taylor Swift in her Chief jerseys, and Juszczyk's wife, right? Creating the... Creating that line of clothing that people were wearing during the playoffs and things like that too. And I just always find it interesting how much value comes out of it, and the different networks and those type of things. It's always just not siloed into one piece of it. So, yeah, it's just wild watching it.

Clinton: It is an entire system. And the vast majority, certainly of Americans, and then lots of people globally, they do experience that value network of the Super Bowl in one shape or form. Some people may be just coming in because they are a Swiftie and they got, you know, taken along in a positive way, that's great. Or, they're there just for the commercials, or they're there just for the halftime show. Doesn't really matter why they're there, right? They are now part of that ecosystem and what the NFL is looking to deliver, and really understanding what are a lot of disparate things that in years past might have been siloed. And there's always something new to look at and say, okay, what if that wasn't in a silo? What if that was part of the ecosystem? To look at and say, can it contribute to the overall value stream? And I'll give you an example. I'll give you two examples, Keith. You mentioned the gambling aspect. Sort of like, you know, FanDuel and DraftKings and others that are now, just completely interwoven into the NFL value network. It just... They're inseparable at this point. Just a couple of years ago, Tony Romo, who was the color commentator for CBS, for this game with Jim Nantz, just a couple of years ago, Romo got in hot water because he was out in Vegas doing, like, a fantasy football thing where he was representing, you know, himself as a member of the NFL. And they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. You can't be showing up in Vegas to participate in something that's tied to fantasy football in Vegas. You can't do that. A couple of short years later, we've got, you know, we've got Gronk kicking the field goal with the late, late great Carl Weathers there. That was a tear jerker. And every broadcast is stitched with a little bit of the gambling aspect now. The over-unders. What's happening? How are they changing at halftime? And that's a gigantic bit of value opened up. And that's... A gigantic bit, a little bit of an oxymoron there, Keith. That's a huge value stream that was opened up, that just a couple of years ago was not part of it. I have one more, but before I throw that one in, which takes us back even further in time, what do you think about how the NFL has pivoted? And what's the lessons for business there, more importantly?

‍Keith: Yeah. I think it's great, right? Because we talk a lot about business value, and business value being locked, a lot of times, in organizations. And actually being able to actually see it. Like, you talked a little bit about the silos. Like, the NFL was like, oh, there is a value network out there. We can make some money here at gambling, right? Like... Think about it as, like, inside of your organization. You know, whether you're a bank or you're an insurance company, you're another company. Think about your value networks, and other ways to unlock value, right? Your brand. Those interactions and design with your customers. Understanding how they're actually behaving. And again, using your services, right? Like, I think, again, and I always go back to this Forrester circle, Forrester wave, to bring it up, where business value's on the inside. It's locked up in the middle, right? Our development's kind of sitting on the outside sometimes. And those things are... That business value is locked. We have to get it out. We have to be able to see it and basically make things more visible, make things more transparent. Again, within your value streams and within your value networks.

Clinton: So, I want to poke at that a bit, so listeners can get a little bit more sense of... We're talking about the value networks and we're talking about, you know what, if I had to break it down to some, like, scientific terms, you've got, like, potential energy sitting in there. Right? There's a lot of, I think... It's beyond theory, a lot of good science. We know exactly how long a proton takes per... You know, pretty much. To get from the sun to the surface of the Earth, about eight minutes. It's 93 million miles away, and it's going the speed of light, so there you go. And that's the speed limit of our universe as we know it. Not as fast as things can actually travel. It's just as fast as information can travel in the universe we're observing. So, a different podcast for a different time, Keith.

Keith: There you go.

Clinton: But the thing is, for that proton to escape the sun can take millions and millions and millions, maybe billions of years to get unlocked. And I think there's a kind of a fun metaphor there. Now, from the folks you speak with, mainly enterprises, how often are they thinking about this? Is it a new phenomenon for the organization to now start to really think through value streams? And are most doing it, or do you think there's still, you know, still a huge opportunity for way more organizations to have this veil and have this way of thinking?

Keith: Yeah. I mean, the one term that sticks out to me, especially this week, meeting with a bunch of clients, is speed to market, right? Speed to market is money. Right? And so... When you have that business value locked up inside of your organization, and it's locked up for days or weeks, or I'm going to be honest, even months sometimes, where you see it.

Clinton: Sure. 

Keith: Something might be, you know, an idea flowing through your procurement department that gets stuck. You know, or supply chain issues and those type of things. I think the interesting thing, when we talk about flow, it's not always development flow. It's not always things that happen on the, what we would consider the value delivery side of the house, or with our product engineering teams. There's... That flow happens on all sides of the house as we're going, right? And, you know, how many times I've, heard organizations talk about, hey, we really need to look at our DevOps, DevOps and CICD pipeline. We go in and we take a peek at it, and we're like, man, you guys are really, really good at what you're doing.

Clinton: It's good. Like that, yeah, you've got that part of the flow right? So what does that mean to you? It's like, well there's probably, there's got to be a different culprit, I would imagine, right?

Keith: Yeah. And you kind of go back to, it's back to the left side of the house. And you look at the business side of the house. And there's just always a lot of delays on that business side at times, where again, as a developer back in the day myself, a lot of times we get things tossed over, right? Hey, I need this in two weeks. How long did you have?

Clinton: (Laughs)

Keith: You know, those... Yeah. Like, you know those type of things, right? And so you have, I mean, there's... I just think, again, as you're looking at your value streams and even value networks, those delays could be everywhere. As you're starting to investigate those things. Sometimes you can use data to unlock those things. Sometimes you have to dive in a little deeper, too, and actually look at the process itself. 

Clinton: Yeah. So, speaking through that process, I think many people at this point are going to be a little bit green in understanding, it's like, well, this whole thing feels so big, right? Because... Because we're not talking about, like you said, you could go under the hood of an agile devs, DevSecOps, like, your flow is actually pretty darn good. Like you're doing, you know, like a Belichickian... Like, you're doing your job. Like, your job is, you've optimized that as best you could. And actually, on the business world, what we often see is, lots of times organizations have gotten really good at, like, bottom-line optimization. They've figured out all the nooks and crannies and levers, so that they can increase margins. And like, okay, hey, we've squeezed that as much as we can for this particular business model. We've gotten really, really good at that. Where I think lots of organizations are still not quite there is in two areas. One, having, like, a product mindset to be focused on, like, continuous innovation for top line revenue growth. And I think one of the culprits as to why that is a struggle is exactly what you're uncovering for the listeners. It's like, okay, parts of this might be okay. But as a system, it's not functioning nearly as optimally as it could as a system. And, how do you talk to people that go, that would get the immediate allergies of, whoa, this feels really big. How do you simplify that and start?

Keith: Yeah. Again, if you follow us in the past, hey, I run a business agility practice, right? Oh, we're going to transform the enterprise. Well, yeah. That's your... the ultimate goal.

Clinton: Sure.

Keith: Let's operate with agility, right. But I think, over the years... And I would think most, even, practitioners or consultants and coaches back, would back me on this one, where, you know, I think we need to start a little bit smaller. We need to actually start more, again, kind of on a value stream, or on a portfolio area, or in a product area. Start small. Learn what's going on. And again, I think when I say learn what's going on, I think what's really interesting with value streams and really doing active value stream management inside of an organization, they're experiments. And so, again, as you're actually getting transparency and visibility and looking into things in your organization, I may change something that's going to impact something else in my organization. And so it's always an active idea of looking at things. It's not static. But we're always going to be looking for those areas of improvement. And then, once we figure out how to do it, then going back to some systems thinking and ideas, let's take it out. Let's take it out into the system. Let's try it here in another priority area, and move those things out. So yeah. I mean, usually a little bit smaller than, I would say, big, big transformations all the time.

Clinton: And I think that's also why there's... Let's call it a few things, maybe distrust, or, at the very least, a sense of eye-rolling at some of the concepts of, like, okay, we're going to transform your entire business. It's like, well, great. But I've heard that for a decade now, and all I've done is lift and shift something, and I didn't actually get the competitive advantage that I thought I was going to get. You know, as an example, that might be a cloud example and that might just be literally lifting and shifting something without thinking through the entire value network. And even sometimes the, what the cloud can bring as a specialization that you can't do on prem. Versus just, yeah, put it over here and you get this relief. Actually, what you get is a challenge with your finance team, because you shifted dollars in sometimes in a negative way for the organization, when they're looking at their op ex and things of that nature. I do want to go back to an NFL example. We're talking about the value network. You did an awesome blog post recently. You're actually in the middle of doing a four part series. So, part one and part two. Part two, which is out there, which is called Applying Systems Thinking, Understanding Value Networks and Understanding Their Interconnected Roles. I love this one because you put it in the frame of the NFL fan experience. And the network effect of all of that. And there's a great visual that was created in that one that I... we'll link in the description, and when we do the blog post for this episode, I think we should go and put that visual back in there, because it's really great. And then the example I want to bring up, which I mentioned, I teased earlier, is that in 1992, imagine this. Imagine, I mean, you and I... We're of a certain age.

Keith: (Laughs)

Clinton: We were watching football in 1992, right? So, in 1992, Fox put on a competitive live halftime show of In Living Color. So, not a halftime show. They just aired an episode of In Living Color live.

Keith: I do remember this, yeah. 

Clinton: This is Jim Carrey, this is the Wayans, this is Jennifer Lopez as a Fly Girl dancing, right? So... And the very next year, they hired Michael Jackson to do the halftime show. Right? So the next network was like, never again will we allow that audience to escape and go somewhere else. That's not that long ago.

Keith: Yeah. That's right.

Clinton: That's, you know, that's not that long ago. So as you think about value network and that blog post you wrote, that's an example.

Keith: Yeah.

Clinton: You did a really cool breakdown of understanding the value network from a fan experience. What color would you want to add there and share with the audience?

Keith: Yeah, I think it is kind of cool. Yeah, I just talked about my experience. Like, so this year... I'm bringing up another Forrester thing. I was over in London at the Forrester Technology Innovation Conference, and it just so happened... That other purple team, the Ravens, were there playing the Titans.

Clinton: Hey! I got to take a trip. I got to take a trip. What can I do? You know.

Keith: I'll say sorry, Jesse, I know we beat the Titans that day, you're from Nashville, too. But I think it was interesting, the global... To even talk about the global expansion, right? Like... And thinking about that, like, going back to '92. Did I ever think, like, you know, we'd be over in Tottingham watching a football game in Tottingham? And, you know, the organization, and us going to Brazil next year. I think I heard the Eagles are going to Brazil, right? Just that whole global expansion, right? And I'm walking down the street, and just another thing, like, getting fans and bringing fans in and bringing the game back in and the brand. Just think about the youth programs. Like... I spent some time in the... This is gonna really show my age, in the military from '86 to '89 over in Germany, they didn't play football. I didn't see football games going on.

Clinton: Right.

Keith: But there were kids playing our football, our brand of football, you know, without the soccer ball. What do they say? The football with the hands. But I just thought, it's just amazing, again, to kind of see the growth in the fans across it. And I was like, that's probably about as close to the Super Bowl as I'll ever get or can afford to get, especially after looking at the prices in Vegas.

Clinton: Yeah. Insane.

Keith: But it was pretty cool, man. And expansion, right? I mean... And the global growth, right? Of value across the globe. So, yeah.

Clinton: Yeah, it's tremendous. And I want to also, then, think through and talk to you about a very, very key element of that, which I think is timing. So, for the NFL to expand globally, which, clearly there are desires to, otherwise they wouldn't be doing more and more games. And I saw, I think 2025 there will be a game in Spain also. And there's, like you said, you mentioned a game in Brazil. The expansion is upon us. Other things also have to become available. And interestingly enough, from an infrastructure perspective, and this is the infrastructure to move humans. The... There's companies that are bringing back what would be an updated version of the Concorde jet. So I think it's either American or United. I think it's... I forget which one it is, so apologies. But, test flights, and then the commercialization of bringing back an updated Concorde. It's happening. And they've been able to get through the things. There were safety concerns. The thing is loud as can be. So they've worked on all the things that made the Concorde not economically viable, because that's what it boiled down to. It just, it wasn't economically ready, and there wasn't a pathway to sustained use. Now, as a piece of infrastructure, that will be available. So you could get from... You could get from New York to London, and you could get there in about two and a half to three hours if you're going east.

Keith: (Whistles.) I need to be... I need to be on one of those next time.

Not too bad, right? Yeah, right. So... But that really, besides shrinking the world, it opens up, it affords new value streams to open up. So how much, and that's... And again, the topic there was, or the point of that was, timing. I don't think the NFL is doing this if they still had to be like, oh yeah, you gotta get on a plane and you're going to spend eight hours on that plane. And it's, just the disruption to the players, the athletes. There's only so much. And you've got to play a Thursday night game. You've got to come back and then play a Sunday night game. There's only so much you can do before the NFLPA and others are going to be like, we can't stress that anymore. You can't go onstage and say you care about player safety, if you're going to do this next thing, which is taking away from sleep and other things that heal the human body. But the Concorde or the advance of the next generation Concorde, they don't call it that specifically, is a piece of infrastructure. So I think the timing is part of that. So when you're looking at the enterprise, and you're discussing this with clients, how much of it is timing? And is there, are there conversations that are like, hey, good idea, but it's too soon. How do you balance that?

Keith: Yeah. Yeah. It's another... It's kind of another great pivot, I would say, almost, into that customer experience. Or that customer journey. And really, again, diving into what that really, what that, what does that mean? Right? Like, When you're looking at that customer journey. I'm actually thinking about the diagram now, and the other pieces, and some of the things you were even talking about, right? Like... Because it is... There's a journey there. The digital engagement of fans, right? Social media. Those are all... Hey, '92 we don't have those either, right? They're actually able to engage the fans, right? And they're able to run, if you're thinking about transparency and visibility of these things, they're able to run the analytics, right? They know what players are popular. They know what jerseys are going to sell. They know what people are watching and what they're doing. And even understanding it a little bit, even to the other piece. One of the things we were talking about over there was, even the stadium technology. Like, what it actually takes to put on an NFL football game. Again, you just don't show up at your local, you know, community college, play a football game. Like... Field's gotta be right. You've got to have all of those pieces, from the medical... But again, really understanding those type of things too. And again, like, the timing's right. Like, you know, it's there. The journey's there now, I think.

Clinton: I believe it is too. And it's... And again, it's such an easy... Or, easy is the wrong term. It's such a known thing, the NFL and games of this nature that it's... It becomes a little simpler to think about, to juxtapose your business opportunity versus something that many, many people, millions and millions of people, make part of their Sundays ritually, right? 

Keith: Yeah. That's right.

Clinton: And that diagram, which again, we'll link to, we'll make sure it's there. It does have digital engagement, stadium technology, social media, merchandising. The game day experience. Customer service. The youth programs. Which are what they are, they're... You know, in baseball, you have the terminology of the farm system.

Keith: That's right.

Clinton: And of course, the farm system comes from outside of baseball, right? The actual ag farm system. And what does that mean to make sure you're preparing the next generation to understand a sport, embrace a sport, fall in love with players, and then embrace it? Like you said, when you were overseas in Germany, that wasn't what was happening. And now, as a Seahawks fan, I know that the Seahawks are the number one team in Germany. Because of when it was becoming popular, that was, early 2010s, becoming more popular and accessible in Europe, it was early 2010s, brand new uniforms for the Seahawks, Richard Sherman, Legion of Boom, Super Bowls. And... Germany adores the Seahawks. So like, that continual... And of course, I'm sure, I'm sure there's lots of Pat Mahomes fans abroad at this point, right?

Keith: (Laughs) Yeah. 

Clinton: But that's another cog there. And then global expansion, which we already talked about. So, looking at all those things holistically as a system for growth. And so, when you sit down with an enterprise... I know... I'm not saying you can go one for one right now, live with me. But, when you're sitting down with an enterprise, if it's not global expansion or youth programs, what are some of those things that are there for... that are there consistently, for the modern enterprise?

Keith: I think, again... I'm going to pivot back to kind of thinking about that customer journey a little bit, and the business value being locked up inside of organizations. I think a lot of times when we're talking to our clients, we talk about product delivery a lot. And even the term "product," right? Like... A lot of times there's... And I always like to talk about two different ways of product delivery. I have a really good friend here at NTT Data, I'll call her out, Jamie Bernard, you and I have been talking about this for months. But, like, two different ways. So like, a lot of organizations we work with come up with something that... I would call it, like, a feature factory approach. Right? They're actually just... They're managing backlogs, or features are coming out. They're not really worried about what's going on outside. They kind of have a silo to that piece, right? It's being driven differently. You know, I think one of the things I enjoy about working with Launch and working with our clients and what we're doing in the field, it's product-led the right way. Product by design. We're using design, we're using customer experience. We're actually using... Again, I kind of call it the external product knowledge, right? We're going to market. We're understanding that customer journey. What's actually happening. And using data. And those approaches to actually then design great products for our customers, right? Products they're going to, one, love, and two, actually use. Like, you create a great product and nobody uses it, is it really a great product?

Clinton: Right. Yeah. No. (Laughs) 

Keith: So that's... Yeah, that's... And that's... That's kind of how I see it, right? Like, from that perspective. So.

Clinton: Yeah. That all squares for sure. And then I think the other piece that... Extended value, when you're taking a... When... Not to overuse the word value. When you're taking a value mindset approach, which to me is, again, like, a click above... In general, it's like a bit of a, hey, let's get the drone footage of this entire Rube Goldberg, and make sure the domino hits and make sure the car does its thing along the rail and the balloon pops. And you got a really cool OK GO video. With all that stuff, I think the stuff you just talked about with Jamie Bernard, and getting those products out to market, making sure they're successful, the other element that I think comes along with it is also repeatability and scalability. It's not just a, okay, you hit a home run product. And you did all the things through an entire value chain to ensure that. You didn't just put out a new feature and, hey, if the world picks it up, I did my job. Right? We extended that all the way through the go to market, and the testing, and then understanding it and reiterating, iterating on that, and creating the next wave of value. But I think the other piece that's in there is also, how do you do things that are design system led. So that, if you have a success, you could repeat that and scale that forward also. So it's not like you have to go have another bespoke, almost like minor miracle to get it all the way through. But yet it's actually scalable and repeatable. At least components of it are largely repeatable. How do you guide enterprises to understand that? Is that part of the discussion also? Because doing it once is cool.

Keith: Yeah.

Clinton: Doing it on repeat and predictably... Whole 'nother level. And my gut says that's what the enterprise is usually after.

Keith: Yeah. I think we actually go back, I'm gonna go back and use our old age again, and go back to, kind of, that Lean Six Sigma kind of mindset of continuous improvement, right? And I think, again... You know, as you're building product, there's learnings all the time. We don't know right away how people are going to react to that product, right? Like, I'm sure the NFL, going back to that example, the first time they played a game overseas, they were... I bet there were some fingers crossed.

Clinton: Sure. Sure. Sure. 

Keith: On things, and how they were going to operate, right? But I think inside of your organizations... And this is where, you know, continuous improvement and actually being able to, again, measure your value, and see how that value is actually flowing, is it being used, right? Like, is somebody actually really using that feature out in the field, or are they really using that product, or is it just kind of sitting there? You know, I mean, those are the things that I think we want to see with our clients. And even enable that culture of continuous improvement.

Clinton: So, when you talk about enabling, how do you specifically enable that? Is it technology? Like, what are you setting up so that you can, not just monitor, but then understand the data, and then make decisions based on data, not just gut and spidey senses?

Keith: Yeah. So, I think it's a little bit twofold. I think there is a mindset shift or a culture shift. I think that has to kind of take place a little bit, with organizations. You know, not to be so focused on, hey, man, I got ten features done.

Clinton: Right. 

Keith: And again, it goes back to, hey, well, that's great. You got ten features done. But nobody's using them.

Clinton: Right.

Keith: And so, again, they're not valuable. But I think, you know, when you kind of take that other pivot back to, you know, that's where the technology comes into play, and the things where we would be using the field, like a value stream management tool, from one of our partners... Actually, again, you're in JIRA or ADO or you're in one of those systems, you can be doing value stream management and looking at the flow. You can be looking at your cycle times. You can be looking at those things. But yeah. I mean, I think it's a little bit of both, honestly.

Clinton: Gotcha. Yeah, that makes sense. And who's driving the conversations at the enterprise? Because we've got listeners that are going to go across the board from C-level executives, and then directors and managers. And then folks that are burgeoning, and want to be that next thing in their career. Who is typically raising the hand and saying, yeah, I feel this? I feel this pain. Like, we don't... As a system, we don't fully work. Who's typically raising their hand at the enterprise and saying, yeah, we need to chat.

Keith: Yeah. You know what I've been finding a little bit more? I want to say it kind of is pivoting over into the business side of the house. Actually talking to, I would say, CFOs, even CMOs, a business-focused CIO, right? CIOs are, need to be business-focused now, too. On that side of the house. And I feel like that's where it is, where, you know, over the years, you know, when we get down to the value conversation again, and value stream management, looking at your flow, you know, I think we've been doing things like checking the boxes. Yeah, we're doing scrum. Okay. We're... You know. We're deploying every two weeks. Okay. What value did that really add? And again, I think this goes back to, you know, being able to actually measure the business value as it's going out and going forward. And are people actually using it? And is it valuable, again, to the business, right? Like... If the business side of the house is not receiving the value back, it's, why did I invest this million dollars? Why did I invest this five million dollars on that piece of it? So I think that's where we are, honestly.

Clinton: Yeah. I think that's an indication of health, in a way, when things do flow to that side. You mentioned the CIO, and I would say, like, the progressive CIO, with a business-focused CIO... Well, yeah. Like, they... They crave and want that relevancy, and understand that if they're going to deliver for the business, that's what they need to be. That's not just... I think... Yes, in some organizations, in some industry, you still might be tilted more towards the CIO, really focused on run the business. I get it. And for some areas that might be the most effective way to go about it. However, you certainly see more and more and more charge for that CIO to be relentlessly business-focused. So that makes sense that this goes to that side. And then, like you said, the others that are now, let's say the last decade or so, 15 years, dipping their toe, where the CIO goes, ooh, actually, that's what I want to go do. But the CMO, the Chief Digital Officer, maybe a Chief Product Officer, really wanting to understand holistically, are we delivering? Is there tangible, measurable value? And... It's not just, again, checking the box. Oh, cool. I put a PowerPoint together to say this was valuable. Fine, right? We all have to have those kind of meetings in our lives. 

‍Keith: Yeah.

Clinton: But they just are what they are. But we don't do it for that meeting. We do it because then it's like, okay, that's measured. How do we improve?

Keith: Yeah.

‍Clinton: Now that we can measure... Okay, cool. What's the next problem downstream? It's one thing to get things from a D to a B. And that's a lot of progress, right? And we can identify major, major gaps pretty easily, I'd say. To say okay, that's an F-plus or a D-minus right now. What happens if we change that to a B? What happens in the system, I think, is then you really uncover, pretty naturally, well, where's that next D in that flow? And how can we get that to a B? And you might be saying, well, yeah. Don't you want to get things to an A? Yeah. I do, and I think you do as well. But the whole... Getting the whole system from an F to a B. That impact to the organization is gigantic. And then, oh, by the way, once you're at a B, then you can say, okay, how do we get that part to an A? 

Keith: Yeah. 

Clinton: It's a philosophy of looking at the whole system as almost like an engineer, which I think is really, really encouraging. So, understanding from your perspective, Keith, that it's flowing to the business side, to me, is again, just a sign of health. Versus it kind of being, almost... Well, siloed. Is what it boils down to.

Keith: Yeah. I like where you took that, too, because I think what we're seeing a lot of now, too, I would say in the industry, too, like... Like, the term OKRs, right? Like, so, you've got objectives and key results, right? And, you know, I think again, you know, thinking about the product development, thinking about the teams working on the product to deliver those things. Those things should scale, right? They should scale all the way through the organization, and value should be aligned to the objectives and key results and the strategies, right? That our CDOs or CMOs or CIOs are setting for us to be moving those forward. And I... Yeah. Because I love that piece of it, right? That's getting to the A.

Clinton: Yes. 

Keith: Right? Like, hey man, we're hitting these parts, we're doing these things. But when you can actually put it all together, and scale it up, and you're moving the needle on the strategies? Mm. That's good.

Clinton: It is, because it becomes very tangible. It becomes... And you will know it as an organization when those gaps are identified and then improved. And again, it's... I always, I look back at that promise of business transformation. The big one, right? The big, big one.

Keith: Yeah.

Clinton: And that's why I think it gets so many eye rolls, is because it's like, okay, yes, you're promising me that we're going to take this entire system that we would currently rate at a D-plus, let's say, if we're grading fairly. And of course, talking just about a potential example out there. And saying, okay, magic wand business transformation three years later, we're an A, organizationally. Maybe. You know, but I think what people are feeling is that a decade on, or 15 years on to that promise, that it was a bit of a pipe dream. And there is a much, much more logical way to go about this, which I think is exactly what we just spent the last, like, 40 minutes talking about, is like, taking this mindset... The beauty of it for me, Keith, is, if you do it well, you get the promise of what was being talked about 12 years ago with, like, ten years ago, a full-on business transformation. You get there, you get to that... call glory land that you were promised and feel the organization can arrive at, and run in such a smoother state, in a more optimized state. And I think the big difference is... For me, it's like you just kind of get there more sensibly. You get there with a very clear plan. I just wonder if, landing at that area, Keith, of how it was pitched a decade ago, versus this approach. And, is there more you'd add there? Is what it boils down to.

Keith: Yeah. Yeah. One of the last notes about it, too, I think, for me... Again, you know, again, learning, right? Like, constantly learning from the experiences. It's just... It's honestly become more about flow, and delivering value to your clients. Like, if you keep that focus on that piece... Like, how you get there. Everybody's... Every client, every... Everybody's different. Like, we may have some of the same symptoms. You go to another doctor, you're going to get a different approach. I mean, every time, to hit those needs. And I do think, like, you know, I love agile. I love agile practices and principles. And, you know, just... You think about lean agile and Six Sigma and value stream management and all those pieces. Those are all just pieces in our, kind of, in our toolbox that we use, right? We bring our toolbox, we bring out the right tools. But, let's just, bottom line is, let's get value, business value, to our customers. And that's it.

Clinton: So, if folks are listening, those who might be like, yeah, this is a problem. Like, this is a... And... Whether they've known it for years or they're just arriving to it now, that like, yeah, they're kind of describing things we're going through. What's the... How do they begin? You know, what's a first-level thing they can do? Because again, it's a large... ultimately it's a large transition. We talked about doing it in smaller sizes. But what's an effective step that, let's say, a CFO listening right now could be like okay, I want to take a first step. What do they... Who do they gotta get in a room? I guess that's it, right? Who needs to be in that room?

Keith: Yeah.

Clinton: And what are they discussing? What should the hour to be spent on, to be like, okay, let's identify this problem?

Keith: Yeah. I think again, right? It's again... Yeah. Thinking about this from a higher level, from a strategy perspective, right? And how they feel things are going to move the needle. So, you know, what they think that priority is. Then kind of taking it down another layer, and then basically picking out a priority value stream. An area that you think is actually going to impact our strategy and how we're going to move those strategies forward. You know, pick that one area. And again, relentlessly improve. Like, keep doing it, you know, keep improving, keep getting better. And it does. It really can, when you do it kind of one value stream at a time or one product area at a time, you do kind of sometimes get what I would call a second operating system, or a system of systems, working in that can actually then spider out and impact the rest of your organization, right? There's going to be the learnings, you take those things out, that's where that continuous improvement mindset, that growth mindset, let's get better all the time and doing those things. But that's what I really think needs to happen. You get them together. Let's pick an area, and let's go for it. And understand the outcomes, right? What success looks like is huge, right?

Clinton: For sure. And I think any C-level team can get together, understand their business enough, and map it fairly quickly, and say, look, here's an area where we could experiment. Because that's what it boils down to a little bit, right? Here's an area where we can take a different approach, and get a product value stream end to end. And we could do that without disrupting how we make our money, how we pay our people. Like, there's ways to do both, is what it boils down for me. If you went into, you know, a core company and said, let's do this on our absolute money maker, well, maybe not, right? Because of the fear of disruption that might happen to the thing that is your market propellant currently. So I think there's plenty of minds that can get together and say, okay, yeah, but this slice over here, it's not nothing. It's an important thing. This way it has, you know, it has the gravity that it's not a side experiment. And we could do it without disrupting the business. Because you have to. This is not... We're not in startup territory. We're working inside large... 

Keith: Yeah. That's right.

Clinton: ...Fortune 500, global 1000s. And you cannot disrupt the business. They are reporting to people with incredible skin in the game, and then stakeholders. Like, and shareholders, right? So you can't do it in a way where you're rolling the dice. But you absolutely can put this in parallel, put a smart team around it, and then understand, okay, what did we do? How did we do that? And then how do we do that for the, number two, and then for the fourth one, and then for the eighth one? And then you can  really think through an entire network of these value streams coming together and have, I think, incredible impact. And do so in a way that's not like, okay, this is a ten-year journey. I'm not saying it gets done in six months. I'm not at all. But I don't think we have to have this gigantically long lens on this either, before we could land on and realize value. So I guess maybe one last question is, around that kind of timing, and what can people expect? If they were to start with one, and they found success, how long do you think it would take an enterprise to think through and then scale, okay, we did this one or two times. How do we make this an enterprise-wide thing? I don't think it's six months, but I... But again, I don't think it's a decade either. Is there some vision you could apply for people to understand the lift that it may take?

Keith: Yeah. I like where you're going too, Clinton, before, too. Like, performance zone. Transformation zone. Incubation zone. I'm thinking about that, man. Like, yeah, we can't disrupt our business, right? We can't disrupt the money maker. But I think, again, like, what you're saying, too. I think it's even sometimes quicker than that. Honestly. I think we can move the needle. We've actually been seeing with our clients, I mean, I would say within the first 30 days. We can make improvements in the first 30 days, those next 90 days. You know, and again, I, you know, I'll just call it a maturity journey, as you're kind of moving forward. I think this goes back to the conversation we were talking about with the C-suite. They need to, themselves, too, understand, like, hey, what outcomes are we really driving towards? Is it speed to market? Hey, so the first thing let's work on in that value stream is unlocking some transparency. You know, unlocking the visibility inside the organization. Is that working? And doing the necessary, again, things you need to do, to do those things. Which could be agile practices, VSM practices, those type of things. But let's do those things and start to measure it, right? And measure it quickly, right away. Let's... Like, let's get going.

Clinton: Yeah. I love it. I love it. Yeah. We started early with the speed to market because I asked you, what are you hearing out there? And we're landing it on speed to market, which is of course, you know, and business agility. That's what it, that's what the promise of it brings, is that ability to be, to bring that speed, and bring consistency in which you do your things, and you get your scale at the enterprise. This has been an awesome conversation. Love... Hey, love talking football, love talking business. We threw some astrophysics in there for the win, right? So this was a great compilation, man. So, we've been chatting with Keith Beulhman, the Senior Director of Business Agility at Launch by NTT Data. Keith, always a pleasure, man. Can't wait to chat again. And, since the NFL season is over, good luck to your Ravens in '24. And good luck to my Seahawks in '24 as well, dude.

Keith: Thanks, Clinton, man, that was a great conversation. Appreciate it so much. Thanks so much for having me.

Clinton: Absolutely. We appreciate you sharing your knowledge with us. And remember, folks, in this studio, we believe in shipping software over slideware, that fast will follow smooth, and aiming to create digital experiences that move millions is a very worthy pursuit. Join us next time as the pursuit continues on Catalyst, the Launch by NTT Data podcast.

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