Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / EUC Evolution w/ Darren Edwards (Tokio Marine)

Transcript

EUC Evolution w/ Darren Edwards (Tokio Marine) · The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers

0:01
Welcome it, change makers to the Deck Show with Tim Flower and Tom McGraw.
0:07
Let's get into it. He changed me because welcome back to the deck
0:10
Show. I'm Tom McGraw. Joined us ever by Tim Flower. Hey you
0:14
doing, Tim, Tom McGraw doing good. Monday morning, ready to rock
0:17
and roll? How about you? What's Monday morning to us? Mate?
0:21
But it might not be listening to you know when we released the show,
0:24
you put me on depression now to get this out on Monday morning. Nobody
0:27
mentioned the day. Nobody do it? No, No, I'm doing all
0:31
right. I actually a question for you before we get to our excellent guest
0:34
we've got today. You've you know, you've had an illustrious career team You've
0:39
worked, You've worked in and with a few different IT environments. Which was
0:44
was there any which was like a nightmare? I environment like there was fundamental
0:49
conditions that made it, if not impossible, incredibly convoluted and frustrating. And
0:57
then he stand out. You have to name names here, you know you
1:00
can definitely, so I think folks know that I My IT career was in
1:06
Hartford, Connecticut, so it was an insurance capital of the world and early
1:10
in the early days of distributed computing. It tried to lock down absolutely every
1:17
setting and file and version and anything that deviated from exactly what was on what
1:23
was supposed to be on that machine was was difficult to deal with. So
1:26
those kinds of constraints were real hard to manage. Because we know distributed computing,
1:33
once that machine gets out into the wild, it changes. And the
1:38
early days of computing where management tools weren't what they should be talk about being
1:42
in the dark. You just didn't know what was out there. So yeah,
1:47
I would say that financial it was a It was a I was a
1:49
contractor on a large insurance company and they tried to control every little bit of
1:57
of detail on every device. It was tough, tough to manage. Yeah,
2:00
yeah, I guess it's a complex industry and it will become clear in
2:02
a moment. Right where as I welcome our guests to the show, why
2:07
I asked a question it leads into something I want to discuss with him.
2:10
But our guest today is Darren Edwards. He's end user support manager at the
2:15
excellent insurance financial company and this is Financial Tokyo Marine, correct me, Darren?
2:21
Is that fine financial or insurance for a bit of both. Now,
2:23
it's definitely insurance. Yeah, it's definitely it is. So it is also
2:28
insurance. So you know, maybe you know something about complicated environments. But
2:31
as we'll hear about Tokyo Marine and they are absolutely on their game in that
2:37
sense. But but Darren, welcome to the show. And when we when
2:39
we last spoke in kind of in preparation for making a show together, and
2:46
some other things too, which we'll get to, you were telling me actually
2:49
about a previous role, which was correct me if I'm wrong with the Ministry
2:53
of Defense. And when I came away from that conversation, the more I
2:57
thought about it, the more I thought I could not imagine a more complicated
3:00
environment when you when you factor in it's it's public sector factory in the obvious
3:06
levels of secrecy and security you must have dealt with. I mean, do
3:09
I have that right? Was it was? It? Was? It a
3:12
complete nightmare? Shall we see? And can you give any illustrations of just
3:16
how complicated an environment it was to work? And yeah? Sure? Yeah,
3:21
Well thanks thanks for having me on, guys. I appreciate you you're
3:23
having me on the show. Yeah, so I spent quite a long time
3:28
in the in the Ministry of Defense fifteen and a half years all told,
3:32
pretty much from the beginning of my career until about fifteen months ago. And
3:38
yeah, it was it was complicated. I don't think I fully appreciated that
3:42
at the time, all right, because I spent so long there, from
3:46
the very very early part of my career until now, and it's only really
3:50
since I have left and then I look back that maybe I fully appreciate how
3:55
complicated it was. And you've kind of hit on really the key ones there
4:00
around security. That that is the that's the main the main complication from from
4:08
an organization like the MD But then I was I was thinking about it as
4:11
well in preparation for talking here, and just the sheer size of that organization,
4:16
right, the number of systems, applications, services that are being run.
4:23
But then beyond that, it's also not just the size, but the
4:27
length of time that some of those systems and those applications are running for.
4:30
Right, So some of the legacy systems that you end up supporting, so
4:34
uh, you know, there were systems that that applications that we were supporting
4:39
or you know, as part when I was on the service desk for example,
4:41
sort of way back when. Uh that I'm pretty sure we're conceived before
4:45
I was even born, right, but that that's that's how old some of
4:47
these systems are. And there's some good there's some good reasons for that,
4:53
you know, there's the tried and tested systems, right, they do what
4:58
they need to do and they work, so they're for we don't we wouldn't
5:01
necessarily want to risk changing them. There might not be something else out there.
5:04
Some of the systems have really really bespoke. So one of the things
5:09
that I've I've sort of noticed since since moving out and joining TMACC is just
5:15
uh just how much bespoke it we did use and we did support when when
5:19
I was in the Ministry Defense compared to the kind of cuts off the shelf
5:24
stuff now that I'm supporting and that we're looking after here and the it that
5:30
that I work on day to day is the I actually now that we use
5:32
in our normal day to day lives as well, which I didn't really have
5:35
a lot of, uh, you know, I didn't really have any concepts
5:39
of when I was in the MD. There's a really a silly example just
5:42
being teams, for example, really have much concept or use of teams when
5:46
I was in the mood. I've only really used that since I've been out.
5:50
You sparked my curiosity with an extra question, darre and regarding MD.
5:55
So obviously if American listeners, you know, it's it's equivalent of a Department
5:59
of Defense here, I think, right, that's what you have out there,
6:00
you are, and you know, obviously there's includes presumably a lot of
6:06
soldiers there. They're included within the MD itself. Remit, right, the
6:12
soldiers today, like what do they get? Do they have a do they
6:15
have a iPad each? Do they have a phone? What is what is
6:17
the arrangement for for a modern soldier to doty or devices? They's a really
6:25
good question. Actually I don't actually know the answer to that. So MD
6:29
is massive, right see, And that's kind of back to what I was
6:30
saying, it's huge. I never supported directly soldiers if you're like on the
6:36
ground. Diet worked in a slightly different part of the Ministry of Defense.
6:41
But but yeah, I guess that I'm sure that there will be a persona
6:45
for for that those you know, those people, right, and they must
6:47
they must get some sort of level of standard access and kit. Yeah,
6:51
but I mean you kind of maybe a smartphone would be a complicated thing to
6:56
have if you're you know, somewhere you're not. Maybe a sat phone are
7:00
declared to be you know, I don't know. Sure Froze lot of some
7:02
interesting riddles. But talk to me, Darren about Obviously, you just mentioned
7:06
the career move you made fifteen months ago from the EMO the two Tokyo Marine
7:13
long term next thing customer, and I've spoken to some of your colleagues down
7:16
for years about their use and next incomer employee experience policy. But talk to
7:24
me a bit about the culture shock and with any examples that really illustrate what
7:30
was so different. And they've already mentioned kind of you know, the tech
7:32
that you encountered being the same as you had at home or anything beyond that.
7:36
Uh yeah, So I guess a lot of it is around the tech
7:40
for sure. For example, just having the internet at my desk on the
7:45
laptop that I used to work was quite battling to me at the time.
7:48
So when I was at the MD we didn't have internet to our desk,
7:55
didn't have laptops either. I wasn't really able to work from home in the
7:59
same way that you know we do day to day now, so just having
8:03
ready access to the Internet, but if we wanted to, if I needed
8:05
to use the Internet for any particular reason, that was totally air gapped in
8:09
the early part of my career, that was in a completely different space in
8:11
the building. Eventually it came into the room, but you'd have to move
8:15
away from your desk. So some some real sort of tricky intricacies around just
8:20
just access in the Internet right day to day, which I think we all
8:22
take for granted. For so just jumping onto Google to figure out how to
8:26
fix something or how to run something or execute something or do something that that
8:31
luxury, uh what didn't wasn't really in existence when I was at the MD.
8:37
It wasn't consuming well in an easy, in a nice easy sense.
8:41
I think what I've noticed one of the big culture shocks, I guess is
8:45
the and I was trying to figure out the best way of saying this,
8:48
but maybe like the speed of change or speed of delivery. So here at
8:52
Tokyo Marine and maybe at other sort of private industries sort of firms, I
9:00
guess there's more of an acceptance of trying things and failing fast. You know
9:05
that that kind of concept. There loads of different reasons for that, maybe
9:09
money finance driven, or maybe just because there's there's more there's more of a
9:15
risk appetite there, whereas in the MD obviously there's a really restrained risk appetite.
9:20
It's taxpayers money so as well. So if we wanted to try something
9:26
new, do something new, bring something in, adopt a new process,
9:31
come up with some new idea or something like that, it was slower to
9:35
market, if you like. And I think since I've joined TMATC, I've
9:39
I've found the things move at a much faster pace, which which is great
9:43
for me. That's one of the reasons why I wanted to I wanted to
9:46
move and cut my teeth in the private sector. But just to kind of
9:50
flip your question, so I'm slightly I think I was thinking about this over
9:54
the last couple of weeks actually since we last we last spoke, and I
9:58
think foundation I've noticed that that maybe things aren't so different, right, So,
10:03
yeah, technology and access to money and the way that the two organizations
10:07
that I've worked for are set up, Yeah, they're quite different. But
10:11
but actually what we do and what we deliver as as as I professionals and
10:15
in IT support guys or IT operations people. It's all much of a much
10:20
miss right. I've joined left one organization, joined another in IT operations,
10:26
and it's still really all about enabling the business to work, provide a great
10:30
customer service and provide you know, the right level of technology to the right
10:35
people so that they can they can perform effectively and efficiently. I think what
10:39
I've what I've noticed is different is the missions is just different. Right.
10:41
The mission at the MD very different to the to the mission if you like
10:46
it at TMHCC. But ultimately as it as somebody who works in IT operations
10:52
and IT support, still just enabling that that business, the end business to
10:56
the end users, sorry of the business to be able to to deliver totally.
11:03
So Darren, welcome to the show. Always love talking with customers and
11:07
get your experiences. So it hits me that there's multiple kinds of culture shocks.
11:13
Right, you move from one company to another, you've got to get
11:15
accustomed to how things work there and how they change. Like you talked about
11:18
the speed of delivery. The other culture shock, though, is in your
11:22
existing environment bringing in a new capability, bringing in new tools that everyone will
11:26
be able to take advantage of. And I'm always interested to hear about those
11:31
early holy cow kind of moments because I experienced them myself, and now being
11:37
here, I experienced them a lot. That that moment where you realize this
11:41
changes everything, and not just for me, and not just for the people
11:43
I work with, but for our employees. Talk about your first experiences with
11:48
next Think. I'd love to know what they were and how that technology struck
11:52
you in the in the early days of using it. Sure, yeah,
11:56
so next Thing really interesting. Actually, but I hadn't hadn't experienced or or
12:01
next Thing, or or digital experience really until I until I left and joined
12:07
timhec stay relatively sheltered, I think maybe in the MG in that sense.
12:13
When I joined team, actually see next Think was very much in place,
12:16
It had its place, It was being used, you know, quite quite
12:22
heavily. Quite a fair amount of investment had been put in, and there
12:26
was some a really good partnership I think between TEMATESUC and next Think, and
12:31
that's really grown actually over the last fifteen months or so. Even more so,
12:35
I was quite blown away by the power of the tool, how much
12:39
information was available at my fingertips, so questions that maybe I would have asked
12:43
myself, you know, back in previous roles that didn't have the answers too,
12:50
you know, I'd have to come up with anecdotal answers to some questions,
12:54
how are people feeling about it and about us? And how do I
12:56
get these questions out there to the business that I want to I want to
13:01
ask an answer, you know, moving away from just pinging out emails to
13:05
random groups of people to now we've got user sentiment surveys where I can we
13:09
can ping these questions out in a you know, as many times as we
13:13
want, and we can make sure we don't hit the same people, and
13:15
we can collate them bring that information back and collate it and and mine it
13:18
and look at it. I thought that was that's really really powerful and also
13:24
maybe more specifically for me in my role in the US, the support that
13:28
the l one checklists, you know, that was quite a powerful tool and
13:31
something that never really come across before it. I guess I kind of liken
13:37
that back to some of the sort of knowledge management processes that I tend to
13:41
think about a lot in my current role, and actually that L one checklist
13:46
takes a lot of that stuff away. It kind of does the work for
13:48
you. So all of a sudden, that whole part, that whole stream
13:52
of of knowledge management goes away because the tool is is providing you know,
13:58
the analyst with the information they need, and then it's also it's asking the
14:01
right questions, it's providing somebody answers to those questions, it's prompting them as
14:05
well. Which, yeah, I thought that was really really powerful and it
14:09
was new to me, and Decks as well in particular, was was was
14:13
a whole new concept for me, and it's really interesting. I moved.
14:18
I moved into the private sector for a variety of different reasons. One of
14:22
them was because I'd started to kind of see in the rounds LinkedIn and stuff
14:26
like that. I started to see the term end user experience, head of
14:31
end user experience, andrews experience, lead customer experience, manage at whatever,
14:37
that those those types of roles. Never really seen those before where I was
14:41
working. But but you know, and I'd not really experienced any of that
14:46
type of language before and when I saw those types of roles and those those
14:50
jobs popping up, it kind of really resonated with me. And it kind
14:54
of brought me back actually to want to get back into sort of traditional IT
14:58
service management because it felt like it had moved slightly. So I had kind
15:03
of had a two phase career in the mood, the first half of which
15:07
was was in the kind of corporate service management space, in the second half
15:09
was slightly different. And it was when I started seeing that sort of stuff
15:13
it brought me back. It brought me back to wanting to be into in
15:16
service management. I say, when I joined TAMATC and started to play with
15:20
next Think and starting to look into add dex scores and digital experience and customer
15:26
experience. Yeah, it's it's it's a powerful tool and something that I think
15:31
is really interesting for I professionals. And talk a little bit about how it
15:35
connects with the transformation initiative that you've got happening right now at talk Marie.
15:41
Yeah, so that transformation initiative has again that started before I, before I
15:46
joined it. Actually, it was the reason why my my role and actually
15:50
end user experience that the Drews Experienced team at t MCC was was created.
15:56
So TMTC had went through a kind of a period of unprecedented growth throughout covid
16:03
was quite successful and the company you know, really really grew the business.
16:07
Obviously therefore understood that it needed to focus on its supporting services and scaling those
16:14
to meet the needs of the business so I could continue to I guess,
16:17
attract and retain world class talent in its business, continue to grow and maintain
16:22
and that kicked off the IT transformation. So when I kind of started it
16:29
was into this brand new end user Experienced team, of which there was a
16:33
new role head of end User Experience, my role one of my direct peers,
16:37
and then all of the teams that kind of flow flow out of that.
16:41
I guess the transformation itself was really about aligning technology more closely with the
16:48
business. So if you think implementing a product model essentially but then also with
16:56
some supporting shared services. So products and services and platforms is the way we
17:03
split them down, and endues are experience lives within platforms. As it kind
17:07
of cuts across everything, right, IT, product, business, etc.
17:12
What kind of we've pretty much come to the end of that transformation now is
17:15
I think it was eighteen months to two years the transformation from beginning to end.
17:21
As I say, I kind of joined within it, and it's moving
17:23
into a more bau state now and we need to obviously then try and find
17:30
a way of maintaining the successes that we've that we've kind of gone through throughout
17:34
the transformation. Cool, And what about the overall employee experience initiative at the
17:41
company? How was it pulled into that? Was it made a part of
17:45
it? Or you know, is the is the employees experience with technology a
17:49
priority at the wider organization? How did that? How do you connect the
17:53
two? Yeah, so I give this some real thought. Actually, So
17:57
I think that I think that the organization recognizing that it needed to to kick
18:04
off an I transformation, and then part of that transformation was creating an end
18:10
user experienced team, I think probably answers that question right and that, yeah,
18:14
the business did understand that that employee experience is is is vital now critical
18:19
now to any successful business, you know, And I think I've mentioned already
18:23
that the business and recognized that it to attract and retain world class talent,
18:29
which it needs to successfully operate, you need good employee experience. I think
18:33
that's almost becoming an expected thing now within you know, within our work environments.
18:37
So I think it was definitely sort of driven by the business initially and
18:44
then from an IT perspective. Yeah, we're very, very enduser experience focused.
18:48
And obviously I would say that because I'm in the end user experienced team,
18:52
right, But yeah, for sure, it's kind of it's everything.
18:56
I guess it's it's what drives us right day to day. It's our bread
19:00
and butter, is what we think about. You know, what value we
19:03
add in how we meet in the needs of the business, and they use
19:07
it's happy etccs, you know that sort of stuff. So how about the
19:11
chicken or the egg? Which one came first? Do you think that the
19:15
emphasis on employee experience re oriented how it thinks or was it the other way
19:19
around? Or that's that's a toughie. Uh, may I get maybe embryonically
19:26
the organization record. Actually no, maybe not. I'm going to change my
19:32
change my idea. I think it has probably driven the end due to experience
19:36
agenda borne out of the fact that you know, there was an IT transformation
19:41
at hands. I think the business recognized it needed to do something with with
19:45
with the supporting services, of which one was it. But actually I think
19:48
engines experience being what it is too, it has probably helped to lead on
19:55
that. Is there anything else on that remit Darren Worth adding in terms of
20:00
fully articulating what the team is overseeing and and yeah, sure so so from
20:07
an end user experienced perspective, our remate is is fairly broad. So it's
20:11
kind of split logically into sort of two arms. So end user support,
20:17
of which I look after is your your your traditional IT service desk, first
20:23
point of contact for our for our end users in the TMCC international business,
20:29
but we also get more involved and think more about the service that we're providing
20:34
as an IT organization to the business. So we look after a lot of
20:40
the metrics and the reporting for across IT surveys sentiment survey being one, but
20:47
obviously our our service management tool set as well, So we send out surveys
20:51
at the end of every ticket, We collect those metrics and we quite fastidiously
20:56
go through the comments that were provided on those on those surveys and I guess
21:03
through life sort of ticket management. So so yeah, a lot a lot
21:06
of the standard stuff, request management, instant management, you know that that
21:10
kind of thing. And then the other half is our end user technology team,
21:14
which is a bit more focused on the technology itself, so we refer
21:18
to them as our second line team, but it's it's desktop support, desktop
21:22
implementation, builds, patch in, funderability management, that kind of thing.
21:26
And actually I think it was uh slightly different back in the day, but
21:32
but that's kind of where NEXT think it sort of came from. For TMATC.
21:36
Actually, I think was from a technology perspective first, and then that's
21:40
that's taught us about digital experience on what that means and why that's important.
21:45
And actually now I think we've we've maybe looked at next thing initially as as
21:49
a as a tool to use, an IT or technology tool to use,
21:53
and I think now we look at it quite differently now that we're we're more
21:59
into the to experience and we use it more as a sentiment capture tool and
22:03
to ask maybe someone w those more existential questions. Really mhm cool. And
22:11
how do you communicate what you're doing with the wider organization? Yeah? Sure,
22:18
so we we beyond sending themselves. Yeah, of course, I mean,
22:25
yeah, we do love a survey, so we try And you said
22:30
we did, I guess a kind of typical kind of catchphrase. I guess,
22:34
so with the information that we do glean from our from our from our
22:37
business, from our end users through a variety of mechanisms. So we we
22:41
kind of kicked off about twelve months ago some user forums. Well we're collecting
22:47
different people from across the business, trying to make sure that they're geographically desperate,
22:52
they're not all from the same line of business. I'm trying to,
22:56
I guess, really get involved in inactive listening, right, asking the end
22:59
users what they need from it, what they are getting, what they're not
23:02
getting, how can we can make things better, plus all the survey stuff
23:07
that we've obviously talked about, and then we try and engage in these you
23:11
said we did campaigns, so we try and capture the top three things that
23:14
we've done in that reporting period. Typically it's been sort of six months,
23:18
but we might try and accelerate that and make that a bit more often depending
23:21
on what happens over the course of the next twelve months, and especially with
23:25
the data that we get out of our most recent user sentiment campaign, So
23:30
that that's kind of our biggest thing really for us. It's we had a
23:34
good conversation a little while ago actually about about banging the drum within it and
23:40
making sure that we celebrate our successes, but then equally really for us that
23:45
the real achievement, right is the is seeing that rise in employee satisfaction.
23:49
And obviously we measured that through our dex score. So really what we want
23:53
to focus on is finding those continual service improvement initiatives that we can pick up
23:59
on drive forward and then see that translate into an improvement in our DEX score.
24:07
And I'll really that the happiness and efficiency and effectiveness of our user base
24:11
rather than just you know, continually kind of commemorating our own achievements and putting
24:15
that out there across the business. So I guess which is why we sort
24:19
of try and focus on that. You said we did campaigns to date,
24:23
anyway, we have m that makes sense. It makes sense. Let's actually
24:30
pick up on something you just alluded to, actually, which is this idea
24:33
you mentioned it before when we spoke about adding value. The kind of guiding
24:38
principle of your team as as I understand it is to add value at every
24:42
interaction, at every stage that you get involved in. Talk to us about
24:47
how you how you measure that, how you define value and illustrate how it's
24:51
been. Yeah. Sure, so that's that's I guess that's a little bit
24:55
of a personal adage of mine more than any I guess, I guess.
25:00
So, yeah, we can reframe the questions. Yeah, yeah, So
25:04
that's something maybe that I've I've always focused on throughout my career. So for
25:10
someone who's worked in technology for for for my entire career, interestingly, technology
25:15
wasn't something that I really actively decided I was going to work in or when
25:21
after when I when I joined the Mood, technology wasn't the space I was
25:26
necessarily looking to get into. I kind of ended up in technology, and
25:29
from there I actually found that what I really enjoy is is is enabling people
25:34
to work and fixing stuff for people, even if I'm not fixing it myself,
25:40
but you know, getting them back working again, facilitating you know,
25:42
their their business and making them successful. That's kind of my bag, right,
25:48
Customer service, customers, customer experience. But it took me a little
25:52
while to understand that's that's what I was about, especially working in it,
25:56
and I think it was at some point, is I guess in my career
26:00
is that kind of came to mind really about as a team, as a
26:04
as an IT services team, which is where I worked back at the start,
26:10
that we should be adding value to everything we do, right, Obviously
26:12
things need to be repeatable and on the IT service desk, and we have
26:17
to do a lot of the same undertake a lot of the same tasks over
26:19
and over and repeatably. And especially you know back then ten plus years ago,
26:26
fifteen years ago, there wasn't as much automation as there is today.
26:30
But equally, we don't want to become it's just a kind of dumping ground
26:33
for for task menial tasks right that that don't necessarily have to be done within
26:40
that service desk space. That we should be adding value to everything we do.
26:42
And that's where I started to question everything that we were doing on the
26:47
service desk that I was working in at that time, each ticket, each
26:51
update I was putting on, each interaction I was having with a with an
26:53
end user or within within IT or with the business, and just making sure
26:59
that we were adding value and if we weren't questioning exactly what we were doing
27:03
in the chain or were just acting as this kind of middle house because we
27:06
were the art service desk. A good example of that I guess or one
27:10
of the face frustrating things I used to find was tickets coming back from other
27:14
teams to the service desk to be reassigned out somewhere else, right, So
27:17
that was maybe the thing that really triggered it from me, because what's the
27:19
point of this. You know, everyone, we have knowledge bases, and
27:22
we've got workflows and processes. While we're bouncing things back to a service desk
27:27
to go bounce back out again, We're wasting time that that can't be great
27:30
for the business and for the end users. And I think that's where I
27:34
kicked that off from in my own mind, and I've kind of carried it
27:38
forward in every role that I've had since then. And when I joined Tako
27:41
Marine, it was something that I wanted to instill in the service we'll be
27:44
back into the service desk sort of leadership management space. I wanted to instill
27:48
that in my team and really just give them the power and the autonomy to
27:56
own each individual ticket, but also own each interaction that they have. You
28:00
known, each each activity that they undertake. Do it to the best of
28:06
their ability, but don't just do it blindly. You can question why you're
28:10
doing something because if your questioning it in your own mind, there's a possibility
28:14
that maybe we're not doing it in the right way. We shouldn't be doing
28:17
it that way. There's a better way of doing it. And I guess
28:21
that's really been my one of my drive in forces I guess within my own
28:27
mind and trying to instill that in my team. It's just about ownership and
28:33
giving them the authority and the power, I guess to make their own decisions
28:37
and question the norm. What you described here and we called ticket bounce,
28:42
and the sole job of someone receiving a ticket is to prove that it's not
28:48
my problem and bounce it back to somebody else. It's one of the most
28:51
frustrating things of being in a ts and it doesn't add it doesn't add much
28:55
value to that employee, right absolutely, and it's getting rid of that is
29:00
a huge accomplishment on its own. But let's go back to kind of the
29:03
connectivity between a couple of things you talked about delivering value, focusing on the
29:10
employee and their experience, and then communicating out your results. That all comes
29:15
down to some ongoing measurement of their experience, so you can actually communicate the
29:21
improvement and the value you've delivered in terms of their experience. What are some
29:25
of the most significant practices you put into place through that period where you could
29:30
measure actually measure experience. Sure, yeah, so I would say we're probably
29:36
at the beginning of our journey in a lot of ways in terms of measuring
29:41
our and user experience. I feel like we've been talking about digital experience user
29:45
experience, you know, since I've been in the organization, so for at
29:49
least fifteen months, and if not longer. But I still think in many
29:52
ways we're at the beginning of our of our journey in so much as you
29:57
know, we've we've just put out or just closed our first user sentiment campaign
30:03
using the next link tool, where just about we've pulled together a broader customer
30:11
satisfaction survey that we're planning to put out as well in the in the coming
30:15
months. And then obviously we've got our kind of standard service management ticket logging
30:22
survey as well that we're we're using to I guess that's probably the biggest benchmark
30:29
we've got about how well we're doing as as an organization. But I think
30:32
we quickly realized or we have realized, maybe not quickly, but in the
30:34
last twelve months that that's on its own, that's that's not really good enough.
30:37
We need an amalgamation of all of these things to measure what we're doing
30:44
and how successful we've been. But in saying that, we have, you
30:47
know, we have got our our deck score, We've got our other experienced
30:51
scores as well. We've we've created a few other different dashboards over the last
30:56
twelve months, probably our most successful, one of which is our device compliance
31:00
dashboard. So we threw that together quite a while back now, maybe twelve
31:07
months ago, maybe slightly longer, and managed through that dashboard actually and the
31:12
insights. So that gave us to increase out our compliance score from from seven
31:18
to nine point nine one. And that was just through I guess, not
31:22
really knowing what the where we were in terms of how compliant we were device
31:27
the device, putting that dashboard together within next link and realizing okay, we're
31:33
at seven, how do we get to nine point nine one? Then okay,
31:34
these are the devices we need to go after. So that was something
31:37
that was really really tangible for us. And then I guess another key one
31:44
has been at our ticket reduction and now this is this feels quite old actually
31:48
talking about this sort of stuff on this show. But the number of tickets
31:53
that we had we have had open historically has been massive, right so in
32:00
in relation to the number of vieusers that we've got, and over time,
32:05
we've managed to reduce that ticket backlog right down to a far more manageable level,
32:10
which has now enabled our our first and second line teams to move away
32:15
from focusing on the number of tickets and volume of tickets we've got, and
32:17
they can focus on those individual tickets themselves and give them their full attention and
32:22
really add that value that we expect and that we're looking for. Also,
32:27
we've we've really just started really properly measuring our service level agreements in a really
32:35
meaningful way. We were kind of managing measuring them before, but but maybe
32:40
not as much as or not as fastidiously as we could have been. And
32:45
that's something that we've we've really improved on now improved the metrics that we have
32:49
within the tool that we're using, and that's something that we're we're heavily focused
32:53
on, and I think we're going to try and bring all of these those
32:58
those things together along with our deck score our employee experienced score to sort of
33:04
drive us forward over the next over the next twelve months, I guess.
33:07
So we know, and it sounds like you know as well. DECKX is
33:10
more than just the technical metrics, it's more than just the employee sentiment.
33:15
Sounds like you've got those two fairly well integrated into your overall process. A
33:21
lot of organizations that do a third party survey tool, it's a standalone thing
33:25
that sits on the side, talk a little bit about how you've got the
33:29
two pieces of it integrated into your two pieces of decks technical metrics, sentiment.
33:38
So where so we have got them separately interestingly at the moment, so
33:43
we don't. I know, you can bring the two together and give yourself
33:45
a rounded score, right, but we kind of have our our our technical
33:51
telemetry and our employee or employee end user employee experienced survey. It's got a
33:59
deck score essentially separate, and we've kept them separate. We have talked about
34:04
bringing them together and giving ourselves a more a single score, but it's just
34:09
not something that we've we've focused on or we've it's not something that we've decided
34:15
to do as yet. So that's something that's been decided sort of uh further
34:21
up in that kind of end user experience chain and working quite closely actually with
34:27
our next Think account director to as to the reasons behind that. So gathering
34:32
gathering the technical metrics in the sentiment can also give you some insights into personas
34:38
and personalization. Is that part of your aim here as well? Where has
34:44
it gotten so far? And we're yeahs is something that we've really been talking
34:46
about quite a lot over the last twelve months. So we're aware that we
34:52
can't cater for the needs of every single person individually, but but really what
34:57
we want to do is we want to be able to meet the needs of
35:00
of groups of people, you know, so far as we possibly can.
35:04
We want we want an individual to join our organization on day one, they
35:07
can be instantly you know, effective and work efficiently and that it's not it
35:14
you know, we don't want it to be a blocker. We want to
35:15
you know, enable them to be able to work. And personas is something
35:20
that we're really hanging our hat on. This year, a lot of work
35:22
has gone into understanding some user personas across our organization and what makes a sensible
35:29
user persona for us. We have built out some personas now actually in conjunction
35:36
with with next Think have been really supportive on that and it's something that we're
35:40
we're planning to roll out and hopefully complete by by the end of this year.
35:45
It's part of our end user experience strategy. And then beyond that,
35:49
we want to also focus on user journey mapping as well, particularly in the
35:53
kind of join a mover lever space, but but also elsewhere you know well,
36:00
and we've been working quite closely with again with our next Thing partners to
36:04
to try and help us build those out and we can put those personas and
36:07
the journey maps together and hopefully come up with some really sensible personas that we
36:14
can we can kind of hang our I hats on. Cool, we per
36:20
have anything else on the roadmap? Yeah, sure, I guess then this
36:24
is going to be a pretty standard answer or not. But but really the
36:28
AI question right as massive flavor of the month from a and from an end
36:32
user experienced perspective, I feel like we're on the I don't really know if
36:37
one of the crest of a wave anymore, if we're like we crashed over
36:39
it and we're in it, but the whole AI thing from an end user
36:44
experienced perspective, I think is massive, and I think that that's that could
36:47
totally change or it probably already is. Actually it's kind of changing the field
36:52
that we work in. Is it's made me look at my own career slightly
36:55
differently over the last maybe recently is like three months, I think looking into
37:02
some different tools and an AI tools that we might be able to bring on
37:08
into our own organization to better serve the needs of our our customers are our
37:14
end users. And I think what it's made me look at is that if
37:17
we're using some of the you know, these AI technologies and techniques in our
37:22
organization, that's going to change. It's going to change my team from you
37:27
know, in terms of the I T service desk. It's going to change
37:29
the way that where the things we're focusing on. It's going to take us
37:31
away, possibly move us away from those repeatable day to day activities, elevate
37:37
us up to another level, and it's going to it's going to really change
37:40
those IT services analysts day to day role and probably change the types of people
37:47
that we're looking for and we're recruiting it's going to change their career trajectory.
37:52
Really. I think it's really interesting, really exciting, and I think it's
37:57
a big thing within end user experience that I think is going to be really
38:00
really interesting. They're currently working on an AI app that can just mimic tim
38:07
andize voices, right, all the questions we're thinking differently about. Sure,
38:13
I feel about that. Approximately five minutes long. At this point, five
38:16
minutes left, I should say, but did you have you had you looked
38:21
Darren, you've seen I don't know if you've seen it in person or if
38:23
you've just seen Next Thing publicize it. But next thinkers, is that something
38:28
you've had in iron sort of? Yeah, so we've seen that, we
38:30
have talked about that, and we have looked at that as well. There's
38:35
a few things that we want to all that we're working on. We want
38:37
to make sort of better use of so in my own team app Flight Amplify
38:45
or in particular, we want to make better use of that within our own
38:49
team. We've got Next Thing infinity and like a hybrid model I believe at
38:52
the moment. So that's something again that we're working on to to kind of
38:57
to bring on. But where we're not quite there yet, so you say
39:00
it's still hybrid. So yeah, there's there's lots of Yeah, really,
39:06
and I guess more more preemptive actions. You know, they're the kind of
39:08
things that from my perspective, from an EUS perspective, really interested in,
39:14
you know, preemptive actions, more automation, how AI might be weaved into
39:19
that they're there. I guess they are the things that that get me excited
39:23
for the role that I do. And you know, looking to the future,
39:29
I think the future looks really interesting. I think from from an EUX
39:31
perspective and then usual experienced perspective, I feel like it's things have really changed
39:36
and I often look back and actually this this shows as as maybe really think
39:42
about my own career from the beginning to where I am now, and it's
39:46
put some some really interesting things in perspective. Actually, you know, I
39:50
really enjoyed the I've enjoyed all of my career obviously, but I really enjoyed
39:53
the early part of my career in it, not knowing that that's really where
39:58
I wanted to be, but finding that I did enjoy working in it,
40:02
but but not necessarily you know, on the tools in the technology or I
40:07
liked the what we now know as the end user experience aspects of it,
40:12
but maybe it wasn't necessarily known as that sort of back when I first started
40:16
and then moved away from that for sort of seven or eight years and did
40:21
a few different other things within technology which were really really interesting. But again,
40:27
I think, as I said earlier on, then started seeing these roles
40:30
advertisers, end user experience and other flavors of that, and that's really dragged
40:36
me back to helped me to now obviously working here at TMCC, and it's
40:42
kind of really lit that fire again within me. And I think working in
40:46
it and focusing on the on the end user experience and the customer experience and
40:51
the digital experience, you know, it's a whole ecosystem all by itself,
40:57
and I think it's really interesting. I think, enabling people to work buck
41:00
through technology but with a focus and a lens less on the technology but more
41:06
on the end user. I think it's really a really interesting space to be
41:09
in. You're You're You're you're brilliantly placed, given you your own professional preoccupations
41:15
over the last few years to make to flourish in that sort of in this
41:20
transitional hopefully, but I'm sure sure iliked him and I easily augmented and ever
41:30
but listen. Pleasure to have you on the show down. We don't actually
41:34
we don't actually have many customers on the deck show. And it's so so
41:37
enjoyable and interesting to sit and listen to the you know, how these ideas
41:43
are being put into real practice, how the technology is being used, and
41:45
really really enjoyed having Thank you very much for having me, gents, I
41:47
really appreciate it. Thanks to make sure that you never miss an episode.
41:52
Subscribe to the show in Apple podcast Spotify, your favorite podcast player, and
41:58
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42:00
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42:08
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42:13
listening. Until next time,