Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / The Road to DEXOps: Nexthink’s Navigator Framework | Scott Vessey

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The Road to DEXOps: Nexthink’s Navigator Framework | Scott Vessey · The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hey, IT Changemakers, and welcome to The Deck Show with
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Tom McGraw. Let's get into it. Hello, Changemakers. Welcome back
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: to The Deck Show. Quick announcement before we get on
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: with today's excellent bill of fare, and that is another,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: yet another subreddit Ask Me Anything with yet another top, top,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: top thought leader. We've had him on the show before.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: twice already. He's Phil Kirshner. Um, he's going to be
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: answering questions on AI, the future of work and decks
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: September the 16th at 4 PM Eastern time. Um, there's
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: a link in the show notes. You can go there,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: you can subscribe to the page. You can put a
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: reminder in your, in your Reddit calendar diary. I don't
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: quite know how that works for reminder aspect. Um, but
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: you could, you could, you can get one and, uh,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: and then you can join the discussion. Oh, I'm very
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: conscious of the fact that on recent AMAs, we've only
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: been able to plug them and promote them at the
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: last minute. But if you haven't been to one yet,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: if you haven't attended one yet, they are all the
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: rage at the moment in terms of forums, which are
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: a lot of fun and interesting. Conversations around decks can
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: get broached and be explored. And I have to say
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: what's kind of unique about them Are the people very attracting?
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: You know, if you don't know Phil Kirshner's work, if
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: you don't know, if you haven't heard our conversations with
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: him on the show, he's really, really, really perhaps the
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: leading thinker on that intersection of, you know, workplace strategy,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: technology and employee experience. Super interesting dude. Listen to our
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: shows if you don't believe me with him. And by
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: all means, do make sure you attend that AMA. Speaking
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: of of super interesting dudes. I'm very pleased to welcome
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: our guest today. He's Scott Vesey, Technical Services Enablement and
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Transformation Manager here at NextFink. He's a first-timer on the show. Scott,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: welcome along.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Tom. Great to be here.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: I was just planning the episode, Scott, and I thought,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: do you know what I've never done? I've never asked
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: anybody to lay out the differences between technical services and
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: professional services here. I don't even know if it's a
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: really stupid question or something, but how would you approach that?
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: I see there's so much intersection between the two, but
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: maybe that's just naive and silly of me.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so what we call technical services, we're actually kind
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: of rebranding ourselves as customer outcomes.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Right, right, right.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: Just to maybe differentiate between the two a little bit more.
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: And professional services is one of our three functions within
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: customer outcomes. So more around kind of... You know service
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: design service delivery project delivery, you know sort of the
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: the nuts and bolts and the operationalization which I know
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: we're going to talk about. Of customers getting success from
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: from from next thing we've also got customer success and
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: a partner equivalent of that as well, and then we
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: have solution consulting, which is our pre sales organization so.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: So those three functions combined is what we were calling
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: technical services, what we're now calling customer outcomes.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Thanks for.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: Hopefully that makes sense.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: It sure does, it sure does. I just realized, I
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: never consciously figured out who's who and what's what precisely. Scott,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: you're a first timer on the show. How long have
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: you been at NextFink now?
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: I'm coming towards the end of year two. I joined
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: towards the end of 2024. Enjoying it so far.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Great people. Excellent.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Excellent. Your last role was at VMware, is that right?
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. I was at VMware for quite a long time.
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: I was there from 2012 and came across a lot
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: of different technologies. Some end user related, which I know
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: is obviously what we're all about at NextThink. Clouds, infrastructure, virtualization,
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: you know, spanned a whole spectrum of different technologies.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: While I was there.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: And what was it that caught your eye about the
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: deck space is an interesting place to continue developing your,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: your career and your expertise.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: This is quite interesting. I'm kind of, I'm kind of
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: going back to my roots.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: So yeah, I see my first while I was still
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: at university, I went post university.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: I actually worked in it support.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: I worked in like L2, L3, like desktop support long, long,
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: long before you could do anything remotely. So I'd literally
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: like go in the office in the morning, pick up
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: my tickets for the day. And then I'd be wandering
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: around the site, around the office or the site where
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: I was based or driving from site to site. And
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: so I saw firsthand how technology stopped people doing their
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: jobs when it was supposed to help them do their jobs.
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: And so, you know, so next thing kind of feels
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: like I'm coming full circle back to kind of back
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: to my roots, back to where I began.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Nice. Nice.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: That's interesting. We'll get back to those roots ourselves momentarily.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: But maybe because you had all that experience in VDI,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: maybe a question or two about that. Obviously, once treated
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: as a kind of source transformation in and of itself,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: you know, centralize the desktop, standardize the environment, et cetera,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: yet the user could still have a miserable experience, right,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: inside that even a well-run VDI state. To what extent
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: do you see DEXs representing the next and indeed necessary
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: stage in that same journey?
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: I think there's a big difference between the two exact
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: things that you described. So VDI is around sort of centralization, standardization, control, manageability,
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: but a lot of the benefits that it gives are
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: for IT. And I don't think your typical kind of
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: VDI estate really thinks a great deal about the actual
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: employee experience. In the same way that a lot of
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: things about traditional desktops, laptops, that traditional environment. So I
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: don't think VDI solves the problem of considering the user experience.
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: A lot of the metrics that are looked at and
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: monitored and so on are still primarily technical in nature.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: no consideration on sentiment, no consideration on application responsiveness. Maybe some,
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: but yeah, I think there's a big difference between the two.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: No, for sure. But I suppose what I mean to
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: say is, to what extent do you think DEX necessarily
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: counterbalances that same process whereby the original focus, as you say,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: is IT, and there are some necessary steps implicit in
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: what's intended with VDI, but then you need to suddenly...
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: return to the user in earnest to make that a
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: full holistic picture?
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. End to end.
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: You know, I think, um, you know, I think more
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: organizations now understand that experience matters, uh, regardless of what
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: type of device, physical, virtual, regardless of what type of
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: device that, that an employee is given. Um, I think,
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: I think part of the challenge, um, is the consistency
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: of that employee experience. And how, you know, where DeX
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: comes into play, how does DeX get operationalized, whether it's
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: VDI or not VDI, you know.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: How does DeX get operationalized, which I know is what
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: we're going to go on.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Brilliant setup for me.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: I'm not trying to steal your thunder, honestly, Tom.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: No, no, I love it. It creates fluidity. In the conversation.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: I'm very grateful. So let's do it. Anyone who follows
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: the space or the show, they know it. You've mentioned it.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Operationalization inside Dex. It's a major preoccupation at the moment. However,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: what listeners may or may not have already heard of
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: is Nexphinx Navigator program, which somewhat ironically even has probably
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: done more to shape the conversation around the topic than
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: any other force, you might say. So to begin with,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: give us a potted history of Navigator. Explain what it
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: is and tell us how you work with it now.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I mentioned I joined NextThink nearly two years ago,
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: but actually the bones of Navigator, the core of what
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: Navigator is now, predates certainly my time at NextThink. It
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: was developed... I'll talk about what it is, obviously, but
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: to give you the history lesson first. So it was
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: developed because we found that customers could use the NextThink
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: platform to measure experience, employee experience, but struggled to operationalize
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: the improvement. And also what we found is that the
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: technology aspect of NextThink and of DEX is the easy
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: part almost, you know, standing up the platform, getting, you know,
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: building dashboards, running queries, executing investigations, taking actions and all
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: of those, you know, the technology is the easy bit,
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: but actually embedding the technology into the way that a
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: customer operates, the way that the, you know, the way
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: that their people behave, whether that's people in IT or
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: their general, you know, population of employees, you know, customers
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: lacked the operating model that actually helps them really sort
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: of get the value out of the DEX platform. So
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: that's kind of where Navigator came from. We're going to
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: go into more detail in terms of what it is,
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: but it's a methodology, right? It's hard to kind of
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: put your finger on because it's not like something you
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: can pick up or touch or press a button on.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: It's a methodology. Some people might compare it to something
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: like ITIL. But it's very sort of specific to DEX
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: in its nature. It helps customers build capabilities, and it's
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: very much based on our experience, the lessons that we've
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: learned from working with customers over time. From my perspective,
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: I'm the program owner for Navigator at NextThings. So all
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: of the design of what Navigator is today, the artifacts,
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: The way that our customer facing teams are enabled on
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: Navigator to work with customers and partners. That's kind of
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: my role in sort of Navigator. Just to make the
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: point as well that I know you've had a lot
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: of previous guests. I know we talk a lot about DexOps.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: The point really that I want to make is, you know,
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: DexOps doesn't belong to next thing. DexOps belongs to the industry.
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: DexOps belongs to, you know, is not ours. And DexOps
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: kind of defines kind of like a destination, a way
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: that a customer might want to operate. Navigator is NextThings
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: and really provides the roadmap of how you might get there,
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: of how a customer might get to where they want
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: to get along their DexOps journey. So they're very, very
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: closely related, but not the same, if that makes sense.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: To some extent, DexOps kind of articulated what Navigator was
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: putting into, you know, had approached as a practical immediate problem,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: you know?
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: And you mentioned before we move on to Navigator in
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: more detail, you did mention how that operationalization layer is
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: trickier than the technology layer when it comes to Dex success.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Just briefly, why in your view is that the case?
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: I think this is my view, which you asked before.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: Customers are used to doing things the way that they
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: always have. And I think that's the biggest challenge is
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: that you get, you know, I think back to the
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: way that IT support was done when I first started.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: It's unrecognizable today because there's so many more technical capabilities,
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: but Just because you have technology that enables you to
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: do things a different way doesn't necessarily mean the people
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: want it, doesn't necessarily mean your processes change, doesn't necessarily
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: mean that the IT and the rest of the organization
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: needs to know that you're doing things differently, needs to
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: know that there are different capabilities these days. So I
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: think it's the story beyond the technology. that's really the
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: key part, like the people, the process. It's that aspect
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: of things that's really kind of the hard bit for customers.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's dig into a couple of specific elements of Navigator.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Begin with something I've always liked, which is its five pillars.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: I assume they still stand, no pun intended, but five pillars, Scott.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: If so, tell us what they are and how the
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Navigator Blueprints gets deployed with Nextfin customers in real terms
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: through them?
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I've already mentioned three, I think, of the
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: five pillars in this conversation. So let's just run through
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: them one by one. So the first is people, right?
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: So that's like the roles, the skills, the ownership, the accountability,
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: the behaviors, all of those things that are needed to
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: drive experience improvements. Remember, the goal is DexOps. The goal
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: is improving maturity, which I know we're going to go
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: on and talk about. Accountability, sponsorship, all the human aspects
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: of DexOps. That's our people, Keller. That's the first one.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: The second one is process.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: So this is like the workflows, the ways in which
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: you operate, the ways in which work is done. Um,
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: and obviously having a, you know, like a DEX platform
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: enables processes to be different to what they used to be.
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: Think about the, you know, what I mentioned a minute ago, um,
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: and new processes, you know, the defining new processes. If
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: you think about some of the latest things that we're
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: doing with things like, you know, next, next spark, for example,
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: you know, customers, this, it might be the first time
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: they've deployed an agent. out to all of their employees
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: or a batch of their employees. Somebody in the organization
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: needs to make sure that people know how to use it.
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: That those people that are managing Spark from a customer perspective,
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: you know, reviewing conversations and making improvements to knowledge bases
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: and all of those things that kind of make Spark tick.
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: You know, there's got to be processes around those things. that,
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: you know, otherwise, how are you going to do it?
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: Technology is the third pillar, is the third of the five.
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: So that's, you know, whether it's NextThink or some other
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: DEX platform, you know, there's going to be the technical
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: capabilities that the platform offers you.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Our fourth pillar is value.
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: Understanding the metrics that matter in our context, the metrics
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: that matter to the customer.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: What is their.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: Currency of value? What improvements are they looking to make
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: that can be measured? And understanding what the trends of
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: those measures should be. There are some metrics which we
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: would expect, like if you think about the time to
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: resolve an issue, Um, we would expect, or we would
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: certainly hope that that's something that decreases over time.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: Um, there's other metrics such as, you know, the, the number.
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: Of tickets that are resolved proactively. We would hope that
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: that's something that increases. So, you know, not every measure
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: is going to trend downwards. Not every measure is going
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: to trend upwards. So we have a whole set of
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: metrics that are defined as, as part of Navigator. And
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: what should happen to those metrics over time as maturity increases.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: So value is kind of like our fourth pillar.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: And then the fifth pillar, just to complete the set,
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: is communication.
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: So the ability to create awareness, to create engagement, to
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: get executive support and buy-in, to show success, to maintain
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: that kind of momentum of the DexOps program. The key
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: point I want to make about the five pillars is
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: I see them very much as multipliers, as multipliers of capability.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: So if you ignore any one of the five pillars,
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: your overall, you know, DexOps momentum and success is going
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: to be severely limited. So it's not about only making
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: changes in terms of technology or only making changes in
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: terms of people. It's about making changes across all five
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: pillars in different degrees. And what we've also got built
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: into Navigator is we've got an assessment process. That assessment
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: process measures across all five pillars. It looks at value
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: measures across all five pillars. It looks at all five
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: pillars holistically. So we try and make sure with our
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: customers that they're making improvements that they want to make.
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: that drive the value that they want to achieve, but
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: across all five pillars holistically.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: I wonder if the one book, it's a really good
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: explanation of all five, Scott, but I wonder if one
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: that probably needs maybe the most unpacking or the most
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: making concrete, as it were, is maybe the process pillar.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Could you give maybe some illustrations of processes which change
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: and whereby that change has really brought great benefits as
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: a concept?
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: Um, I mean, there's, there's, there's lots of different examples.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: I suppose, I suppose, you know, and you think about, um,
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: I know I listened to your, I listened to this podcast.
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: So I know recently you spoke with Brian Hunter, for example,
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: and you were talking about hardware lifecycle.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: That's a really great.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: Example of, of how, um, of how, you know, the
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: capabilities that you get from a deck solution can fundamentally change.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: the way that you approach a process such as managing
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: hardware lifecycle. And I'm not going to repeat all the
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: things that Brian spoke about, but it's a really great example.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Another would be.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: Software license management, saving money in that area. But it
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: goes beyond that. It can go beyond IT processes. We
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: could also be thinking about, if you think about some
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: of the things that we can do with applications, whether
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: it's something like application.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: Experience or AI Drive.
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: Or those kind of aspects of the Next Think platform.
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: That can, you know, where those applications might be owned
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: by parts of the organization outside of IT. AI is
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: probably one of the strongest examples of all in terms of,
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: you know, AI governance, AI usage. Those are all things
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: that obviously we as NextThink can help get insight on
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: and therefore can help customers drive additional things that they're
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: not able to do without us necessarily.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: So I hope that answers your question.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: It really does. And thanks for listening to the show, Scott.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Thanks for saying that.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: I couldn't come on without actually, you know, without listening in,
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: could I?
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Oh, is that all? Is that all? Okay, well, thank you.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: You take it back. Okay, so I've long admired the
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: clarity of the navigator framework. And it's, you know, often
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: with these kind of frameworks, you get all, you know,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: you get pillars and processes and such like they become
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: a bit bewildering and a bit yeah confused but i
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: really don't think that's the case i think as you've
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: laid it out those five pillars are all really essential
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: and integral to successful decks or decks ops 100 and
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: it's not the only really clear piece of navigator infrastructure
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: that i admire the other is your maturity model or
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: the maturity model yeah walk us through that if you
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: would and clarify something i think i have clarity on
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: it already but because I think it will be interesting
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: for the audience to do so, which is that when
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: we consider this maturity model, to what extent are we
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: talking about a purely sequential chronological concept here? To what
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: extent is it something more complex and interrelated? And what
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: does that mean for listeners as they attempt to assess
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: their own digital workplace maturity?
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, let's go, let's get into that.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: So, um, so overall, I mean, within, within Navigator, um,
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: we define that there are essentially, well, we talk, we
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: usually talk about four maturity levels, but there is a
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: fifth one. Uh, the fifth one, um, is the lowest, uh,
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: as we would kind of rank them if we were
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: talking about them in a kind of linear way. So,
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: so you've got reactive, you know, essentially you don't have decks,
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: you don't have a deck platform. You don't, you know,
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: whether it's NextThings or anybody else's, IT is purely reactive
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: in terms of the way that it operates, the way
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: that it responds, the way that it behaves. Where we
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: start in terms of talking about DexOps and maturity is
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: what we call reactive plus. Reactive plus is where we're
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: still dependent on employees telling us that there's a problem,
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: whatever that, or that they need something. Uh, but thanks
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: to us having Dex, thanks to us having some of
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: the operationalization around Dex, uh, we've got better insights and
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: better visibility.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: So we're able to.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: Help them more easily, more efficient than if we had
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: nothing at all. So that's kind of why we call
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: it reactive cross. Um, and then we got proactive. This
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: is where we start to understand, uh, problems before employees
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: tell us. And we start to identify their needs before
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: things come visible. Or we start to understand the impact
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: of problems. So, you know, we can maybe limit widespread impact.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: You know, users, you know, we have a group of
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: employees that we're spotting patterns of kind of behaviors in
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: our pool of employees and, you know, being able to
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: look at things like root cause more, that sort of
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: type of thing.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: So we can kind of limit impact. Next up, we've
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: got preventative.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: Preventative, as the name suggests, we stop issues occurring in
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: the first place. Automation is usually something that becomes much
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: more critical once we get to that.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: Sort of level.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: And then the highest level of maturity, as we describe it,
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: is strategic. This is where, you know, experienced data is
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: really influencing business decisions, technology decisions and strategies. Um, back
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: to your point of, you know, the second part of
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: your question, no maturity. We, we, we think of it
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: and we often express it as being linear. Uh, but
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: it really isn't what we can find is that, you know,
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: customers can be very, very strong and very mature in
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: some areas, but very immature and very weak in others. Um,
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: so what we do again, when we're, when we're, when
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: we're doing our kind of like maturity assessments, which I
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: talked about earlier. It's very easy for us to express
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: where their strong areas are, where their weak areas are
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: that they really want to develop, and then come up
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: with a plan working with customers to sort of try
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: and help them make improvements where they want. So navigators
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: really kind of all around highlighting the gaps that they
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: have and then helping them prioritize the opportunities that they.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: Have for improvement.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: And there's like a cyclic dimension to what we often
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: refer to as continuous improvement as well, right? Which, for instance,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: a customer I was speaking to recently, and I did
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: warn him, I was going to steal the phrase, which
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: is that every reactive response is a proactive opportunity, I
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: think is how they put it.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: And you know what I mean? As in you're always
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: going between the reactive and the proactive, right? That's the
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: nature of, Yeah. Huge improvement index.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: We talk quite a lot about governance.
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: And I know we talked about process like earlier on
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: in this conversation. That's really where those kinds of things
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: come into play. We want customers to look for opportunities
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: to automate. We want customers to look for opportunities to
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: be more preventative and be more proactive in the way
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: that they operate. We don't want employees having issues, right? Ultimately,
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: They want to get on with their job and we
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: want to help them do that. So yeah, we should
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: always be looking, I think, for those opportunities.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: But then it.
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: Could be that there are a hundred different opportunities, a
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: hundred different things that you can do. And what our
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: team are going to do when they run those maturity
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: assessments is help uncover as many of those opportunities as possible.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: But then the critical thing is thinking about prioritization because
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: a customer can't change a hundred things all at once.
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: So it is going to be something that we run
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: through multiple cycles of. We are going to run these
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: assessments with them over time repeatedly and help them identify
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: where they've got the biggest wins, but also the wins
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: that they can achieve the most quickly that'll have the
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: biggest impact. So yeah, it's definitely a cyclical process as
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: you've described.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Cool, cool. Also interested in sustainability, by which I don't
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: mean anything environmental. I mean, the effectiveness of Navigator at
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: genuinely instilling new structures and practices in customer organizations that
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: endure with or without ongoing next think input even. Do
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: we have the perspective we need to be able to
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: say Navigator works over time with the organizations who embrace it?
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's a few points I can make
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: on this question, I think.
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: If you think back to, you know, earlier on in
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: this conversation, I talked about, you know, embedding changes in behavior.
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: That's not something that necessarily happens overnight. But the more
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: that that can happen, then the more that we get
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: this sustainable change over time. We talk a lot in
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: Navigator about, certainly in our people pillar, we talk a
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: lot about ownership. You know, we're making sure that the
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: initiatives have clear owners and, you know, our strategy, our
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: kind of, you know, a customer strategy for decks and
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: decks ops, that that has kind of, you know, executive
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: buy-in and so on. The more that we can get
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: you know, people with skin in the game, then the
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: more we improve that sort of sustainable sort of nature
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: to things, I suppose. The other thing I wanted to mention,
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: you know, is that we've also had, you know, as you.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: Know, Tom, you know, we have a lot of great
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: like partners.
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: Who build their own kind of decks and decks ops
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: practices for the services that they offer to their end customers.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: We've got some great examples of where partners have also
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: taken Navigator and used the Navigator elements as the basis,
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: as the foundation on which to build their own DevOps practices.
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: So it's not just direct customers of Next Inc. where
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: we've seen success, but also partners too.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Very credible, much like the, in that way, the story
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: of deck shops does reflect somewhat the story of decks
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: a little bit as, as, as originating inside next thing,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: but as happily escaping those bounds somewhat.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: And what about the, um, robustness of the navigate a
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: model itself, not so much inside individual organizations. as inside
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: a wider context of ongoing digital transformation and kind of
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: continuous external industry-wide change? Yeah. How robust is it proved
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: with the introduction of AI, for instance? Are there areas
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: in which the navigator framework is having to change, evolve,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: or show more flexibility here than in others, perhaps?
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: This is a really interesting part because I think that,
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: you know, again, this is just my view. AI is
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: obviously changing a lot in terms of, you know, even
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: just the couple of years I've been at NextThink, I've
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: seen a lot of the way that our technical capabilities
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: have changed. A lot of the technology elements, a lot
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: of the things that we're able to do on that
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: side have changed drastically, even in the last two years.
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: But that actually makes the other four pillars that we
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: talked about before almost even more important. The pace at
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: which we're gaining new technical capabilities, the depth and the
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: efficiency of those capabilities, you know, you've still got to
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: operationalize those things. You've still got to, you know, you
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: think back to what we talked about before, you know, yes,
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: there are a hundred different things that a customer could do.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: AI might mean there are 200, 300 things that they
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: could do. So actually that prioritization, that accountability, the ownership,
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: the operationalization, that becomes probably even more important, I would say. Navigator,
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: you know, I think stays relevant Because it focuses on
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: operational capability. It focuses much more on embedding the technical capabilities,
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: embedding those in the customer and the way that they operate.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: So I think it stays equally as relevant as it
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: was before AI went crazy. As I say, I think
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: in the case of the other four pillars, not the
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: technology one, but in the other four pillars, it's probably
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: even more important now.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: In terms of developing Navigator, however, I'm sure there are
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: some plans. Is there a roadmap? What does it look like?
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: And I briefly mentioned that DexOps is better known than Navigator,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: even though Navigator is in very real terms the foundation
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: of all subsequent articulations of DexOps. Is there a need
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: to better communicate Navigator's existence? What ambitions do you have
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: for it in the near future?
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: I've been the owner of Navigator for just over a year. Um,
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: you know, so it already existed before, before I joined
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: next thing, but I've, I've kind of owned it for
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: just over a year. And I might, my focus in
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: the last year has been on, um, making sure that
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: we had all the different things that we needed and
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: that we had our teams enabled. So, so we now have,
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: you know, like a complete portfolio. I'm not going to
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: get into the details of playbooks today, but we have
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: a complete portfolio of playbooks. We have all of our
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: navigator artifacts actually shared directly.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: With customers and partners.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: So we published all of the navigator content in our
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: extended documentation site, which they can access. And when we've
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: just brought our assessment tools online, that gives us the
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: ability to do things like industry benchmarking, showing progress over time.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: So we We've made a lot of improvements in the
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: last 12 months or so, certainly since I took ownership.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: Not that I'm taking the credit for it, because there's
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: a whole army of people. I'm a great cat herder, let's.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Put it that way.
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: There's a whole army of great experts at Next Inc
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: who helped me there. And we've also made sure our
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: customer-facing teams and partner teams are fully enabled on DexOps
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: and on Navigator as well. In terms of the kind
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: of immediate next steps, Each of the five pillars has
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: a whole host of associated reference material. My next focus
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: is actually on making sure that those materials, to make
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: sure Navigator stays relevant, is to make sure all the
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: materials that we have to support five pillars is updated.
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: So there's a review process that I've just started to
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: make sure that we continue to keep things relevant, which
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: includes you know, the operationalization of our latest technologies. So
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: this year we added playbooks for things like AI Drive
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: and Spark just to make sure customers knew how to
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: operationalize those. So I kind of have to follow the
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: trends in terms of where we go as NextThink.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: As a whole.
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: So yeah, there's a lot that we can do and
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: there's a lot that we are still doing. So it's
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: a constant process, you know, whilst I'm kind of you know,
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: mindful of, I personally like some stability where Navigator kind
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: of stays the same, but that's just not the next
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: thing way. Navigator constantly needs to evolve because next thing
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: constantly evolves too.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: And you're painting the seven bridge a little bit.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: It does feel like that.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: Maybe, maybe before we do our quick fire round, Scott,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: maybe a word about, because I think people who have
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: listened this long will want to know this. A word
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: about the DexOps presence and opportunities for education at this
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: year's experience event in Orlando, October 57th. Details of the
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: show notes if you need to still register for your ticket.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be there, Scott. There are training opportunities
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: for anybody interested in learning how to apply these pillars
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: and principles. Tell us about it.
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so personally, I'm supporting DexOps related activities across all
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: three days. So the Monday, which is the training day,
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: we have three DexOps training courses that are running.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: So there's core, the strategist and the technologist.
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: So I'm going to be supporting the strategist track specifically
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: on that first day. So the difference between the two,
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: I suppose, in terms of strategist and technologist. Technologist is
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: more around actioning use cases.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: What do you.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: Actually change within the organization from a technical perspective and
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: operationalization as well? What do you actually change to achieve
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: certain use cases? The strategist side is more thinking of
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: what use cases do you need in the first place?
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: What's important to you? What business problems are you trying
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: to solve that mean that there are these things that
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: need to be done? So it's the strategist side that
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: I'll be supporting on the Monday. And then on the Tuesday,
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: I know we've got, I'll be in the services area
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: where we've got our professional services team. So I'll be
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: in the services area and I'll be available to talk,
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: DexOps and Navigator to anybody that wants to talk about that.
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: And then on the Wednesday morning, there's the DexChange, which
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: I know is DexOps focused as well. So I'm going
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: to be facilitating in the DexChange area as well.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: DexChange being like the Dex equivalent of the speed date, right?
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's small group sessions with a next
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: thinker kind of facilitating a conversation between the people sat
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: around the table.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: So I'm looking forward to doing that. It's exciting. Yeah.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: Everybody check the show notes. Everybody book their tickets to
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: experience while they still can. We're going to be there.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: We want to see you there. Scott, before I let
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: you go, quick fire round. Second guinea pig to try
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: this feature of the show. It's a feature of a show.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: I'm just going to do when I feel like it. OK, listeners,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: that's that. Don't come to expect it at the end
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: of every single episode, but we're going to do it today.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: with Scott, because I think he's going to give some
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: great answers. And it lets us drill into this question
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: we touched upon earlier, which is, why is that operationalization
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: layer so difficult when it comes to DEX? So, Scott,
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: question number one, what's harder to teach? Product, methodology, or behavior?
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: I think, personally, it's behavior. Excellent.
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: I mean, I've been in IT for more than 30 years,
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: and You know, I've learned to evolve myself, but yeah,
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: there's a certain way of working that people need to
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: behave differently.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: So apropos, what resistance does Navigator or DexOps or Dex
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: most often encounter from the experienced IT professional in your experience?
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: The existing ways of doing things.
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: It kind of follows off beautifully from the answer to
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: the first question.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: I'll look the other way. Not the same answer for
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: question three. Does proactive IT create anxiety around traditional ways
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: of working in particular and then anxiety around who it
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: is that owns the problem and the response?
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's an interesting one.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's a shift between, I know this
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: is a quick fire round, right, but There's a shift
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: between fixing the ticket to that mindset shift of someone's
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: trying to do their job. And so you're trying to
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: fix an outcome. You're trying to help that person get
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: back to the thing that they want to.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: Do, which is ultimately the job.
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: I think that can create some anxiety, but I think
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: it's a mindset shift that hopefully people can.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: You can answer this really specifically, Scott, or you can
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: take a more broad response. What's the best way to
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: deal with this anxiety or the anxiety in general that
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: is probably the root of all this resistance to ways
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: of working in the first place?
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: Prove value. I suppose.
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: Start with something small. Just think about how the way
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: you did things before and the way you do things now.
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: Think about the improvement. Were you able to do that
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: thing more quickly, more effectively, more efficiently.
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: For you to then get on with doing something?
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: Start small and think about the successes that you have.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: Actually, that answers my last two questions as well. It
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: was such a good, succinct answer scott it was such
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: a good conversation it's really nice to have you on
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: the show for the first time mate we would certainly
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: love to have you on again and um i really
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: really appreciated the opportunity to go deep on navigator also
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: thanks for reaching out because it's something i wanted to
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: do for a while.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: You're very welcome tom great to uh great to have
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: chat with you.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: That's it for this week's deck show. We'll be back
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: next week. And if you don't already, be sure to
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: follow the show so you don't miss an episode. Until
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: next time.