Episode 13: Diverse Products, Unified Systems: MBSE Insights with Max Gravel from Moog

Come join Share PLM for another podcast episode with Maxime Gravel, aerospace engineer, industry expert, and Manager of Model-Based Engineering at Moog Inc. Max's career journey spans working with notable companies where he has been instrumental in driving innovation and transformation. 

In this episode, we unpacked: 

⚉ Max Gravel's career journey 
⚉ Transition to Model-Based Definition (MBD) 
⚉ Why choose model-based? 
⚉ The importance of leadership and culture in transformation 
⚉ What conditions foster a transformative mindset in organizations? 
⚉ Configuration Management (CM) in aerospace and beyond 
⚉ Adapting to new roles in MBD 
⚉ Navigating digital transformation with company leadership 
⚉ How do we make configuration management exciting for companies? 
⚉ How do we make model-based interesting or PLM interesting?
⚉ How Max evolved as a leader 
⚉ Lessons learned in 20 years in the business

CONNECT WITH MAXIME:
⚉ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxime-gravel-54a14366/

CONNECT WITH SHARE PLM:
⚉ Website: https://shareplm.com/ 


Join us every month to listen to fascinating interviews, where we cover a wide array of topics, from actionable tips, to personal experiences, to strategies that you can implement into your PLM strategy. 

If you have an interesting story to share and want to join the conversation, contact us and let's chat. We can't wait to hear from you!

Transcript

[00:00:11] HELENA:
Hello, everybody. Welcome to SharePLM's podcast. Today we have Jos,  and we have a very special guest, Jos. 

[00:00:19] JOS:
Yes, uh, Helena I'm happy to introduce today's guest, Max Gravel. He is currently manager of the model based engineering at Moog. 

But also he worked for Gulfstream, a company who is famous for its first FAA certification based on the 3D model. And at that time I was working in smart team and we were very proud to have Gulfstream as a customer.

In addition, also with Max, we had a panel discussion in the past on configuration management with Martijn Dorert and Lisa Fenwick discussing the change from configuration management from an engineering discipline to become an enterprise discipline. And also Max is quite active in the area of configuration management.

So we're happy today to speak with a field expert, both in the model based definition and configuration management. I think two topics, a lot of our listeners to learn more from. So first of all, Max, a very warm welcome and happy to see you here. And please give us an introduction of yourself. Who is Max?

[00:01:17] MAX:
Well, thanks. First of all, thank you for having me. I am very honored to be talking with Jos and Elena. So always interesting talking with you. So who is Max? 

That's a very good, uh, good start of a question. Pretty much Max is a aerospace engineer pretty much I spent about 20 years of my career in a large aerospace OEM, mainly in the new design development program.

So I acquired a good bit of experience with the certification. How certification work in the aerospace world. And in the last five years of my career, I did have a chance to work for a service company IPX, as you mentioned, this is where we talk with Martin Dulard, the CM2. So I serve as a consultant, been very lucky to be working with some of the best companies in the world in areas that are outside of aerospace. 

So got to learn about a vulnerable software, product, environmental work with labs, allowed me automotive, allowed me to have a grasp, a better general grasp of what's going on across the industry. In the last two to three years as you mentioned, I'm the model based engineering manager here at Moog. 

Moog is a component motion control component manufacturer. So I moved from an OEM to being the tier one under that. And one of my main goal there is to help Moog transition towards more of a model-based enterprise going on.

So that's my high level who I am. What's my past. 

[00:02:48] JOS:
Okay. And where did you start? Were you a mechanical engineer like many of us? Or did you do something else?  

[00:02:55] MAX:
Started as a aerospace mechanical engineer, did my master in aerospace engineering, but what really kicked in Montreal, so he called Polytechnique, so I worked there, but what really kicked my career is my first internship. So I had a chance to do a first internship in the wind tunnel department of Bombardier.

And this is where I met someone that changed my life. Michel Ouellette, I can call it all out. Michel is still working at Bombardier now in a higher rank. But he identified me as a candidate to do the new grad program. So as I was hired after my school straight off the bat, I was exposed to the whole product life cycle in engineering.

So I had a chance to start in design. I had a chance to spend time with quality methods, manufacturing, look at all the production facility. So right off the bat in my career even though I was mechanical engineer, I was really fascinated with the business process and the whole concept of a business.

So right off the bat, um, I got that in my career after that I became a system integrator, right? So I always work in integration with supplier, same thing with gall stream. I got an airframe system integrator, and then I got into the configuration management, which is exactly a process I would like to say config and change management.

It's not an engineering as we mentioned with Mark. It is really an enterprise and business process. And now with Moog as I do the model based engineering, it's we all know you talk to many thing, right? A model base starts with design, but it is model based enterprise. 

If you can do something and people cannot consume it. Or the data doesn't flow or people are not to use it. It's not working. So I always been working. My passion is really high level process into it. So mechanical engineer, but I use my engineering system thinking for business process.

[00:04:57] JOS:
Right. And, and I think if I look to the PLM market, the aerospace and automotive are the two, I would say leading industries but we have a complete different focus that where aerospace is very much on design and validation and processes and making sure you do the right thing. Where automotive is more on volume and efficient manufacturing.

And I think that's always the challenge of PLM implementation. You are the drivers of the best practices in PLM, but if you are a small machine manufacturer, then you think, why do we need all this complexity? Why do we need this ways of working because we know what we are doing and our machines are not flying, et cetera.

So it's always interesting to, to look at the, at the differences in the industry. And I think one of the lessons learned is model based, uh, definition, model based engineering. How did you get in touch with that? Where did it happen? Because historically it was drawing based.

[00:05:54] MAX:
Yes. So very interesting. As you mentioned, I think Gulfstream Aerospace had the chance to be part of the initia in around early 2000, 2006, joined Gulfstream Aerospace, and their mission was they wanted to change the whole product line. 

So Gulfstream is a 70 year company that never designed a clean sheet aircraft. It was inherited a lot of amended TC, a lot of old practice. And our senior VP at the time, Mr press any, took a challenge to say, we want to redo the product line. And we know drawing base and something that people don't always mention drawing base is difficult for reuse, we know with these drawing on the next.

It's not a drawing based process paper. We're not intended for reuse. PLM also really help with this, with the relationship. It helps, but model based on top of that division, that if we go model based, we'll be able to innovate faster. Product faster, something that we could not do in drawing base.

So we the edict was, we start with the G six 50, if you hear, we start the first aircraft. And now Gulfstream has pretty much redone their whole product line, right? Brand new model base in about 10, 15 years, if you look at how many aircraft Gulfstream has certified or amended certified compared to the industry, it speaks of volume, what model base did.

The mandate we had, it was a little easier transition because it was clear, clean sheet paper. We had a chance to say, rethink the mandate was rethink about your process. And the main rule was you are not allowed. It's not allowed to use 2D drawing informational paper to modify 3D. So this was the mandate that we had.

So the situation was really brand new world. And let's go all in on that and not come back, which you cannot find that in every ndustry. Like with Moog currently, this is a totally different mandate ecosystem and challenge of what MBD, but this is where the journey started. 

We started in design just, and we had a chance to do initial design. Flight test. We learned a lot of lessons there. Prototyping, manufacturing, and service so I had a chance a big luck to look at MDB on every phase and every phases and at this challenge.

[00:08:28] JOS:
Okay. And you mentioned that initially it was a drawing base was bad for reuse. Was that the main business driver or did you have also other KPIs? Why model-based?

[00:08:39] MAX:
A lot of it with the efficiency is, two main things in my opinion. So drawing base is difficult for reuse because typically you may have the NHA on their drawing, right? You have a drawing and you have the other thing that is, so because of the, on the drawing, typically we would have the next hire assembly right before PLM, so it's very difficult if I want to reuse something in a different next hire assembly, this is where you say, I have to revise the initial data set so I can use it somewhere else, right? 

PLM help with that, right? With PLM, with the relationship, we don't need that, but a lot of drawing practice are still based on that. And it's very difficult to reuse. The other thing of drawing base that to me is a big gap is every drawing is an independent set of paper. So you got to release this one.

And then you got to release this one. So if I take an assembly that have five or six part, typically in drawing centric, you have to release six artifacts. 

In model base with the model general PLM, and the relationship we're able with the, one of the big thing we did from configuration and change management, we say, we don't need to release all of these individually because one of the challenge was we lack the context. You know, a drawing assembly as the, we didn't have the context. 

So we start to release our data, even though it's more granular, more monolithic. So we would do one release process and we would be able to release 10 or 15 parts. So we got a lot of efficient gains, efficiency gains in the release process, but also a lot easier to reuse data set because we don't have to go back and revise the data set.

So to me, these were the two main benefit reconfiguring and also allowing to better reuse.

[00:10:29] JOS:
Okay.

[00:10:33] HELENA:
Right. And it sounds like it was a massive change. How do you prepare people to learn to work differently?

[00:10:43] MAX:
So this is where we get the, and any transformation guys and people keep saying it, right it's 80% user adoption, right?

[00:10:52] JOS:
Right. 

[00:10:53] MAX:
And from where I come back right now and where I stand really, I think the important things for adoption is typically, I'm going to very simplify it, but in the company, typically you have the newer, the junior people, zero to five years, you have your midlife people and you have your senior people, not in terms of position, but in terms of age, right?

The number of years that we have acquired habit. The challenge and it all depends, every different company has a different mixed of these, you know, some company have more younger people, older people, mid senior. So, have to say that from a transformation of how we do process, what I learned is the the younger, the junior are the one that will embrace it the more that we'd be more willing to do but the older generation or the more senior they have the how and the why and the wisdom. 

So it's really a balance. What I found the best is having the younger generation is able to provide. So it's really a synergy. you have to work across the leadership to make sure that how and use your younger, more savvy people to show how it different ways of doing thing. So it's really about the culture and the company we had, the Gulfstream, I think, had the perfect right mixed.

[00:12:20] JOS:
Okay. 

[00:12:21] MAX:
It was almost a magical. I think a lot of it had to do with the right mix of people. The people that were senior were very already eager to change. They were programmed to say, if you get on that program, right, because this was a brand new program, you got to be conditioned to make sure that, look, we're going to rethink how we do it and we're going to break everything. 

So this allowed to create that right team or that right program that had the right mindset. I think this is one of the main reason why that effort and at Gulfstream this was so successful because it was a mindset.

[00:12:58] JOS:
I think you mentioned also, it was a top management mandate and you had, it was top down first and….

[00:13:06] MAX:
It started from the top down and all the way from the downtown to the C suite, right? As building that new program, the people were already programmed to say, we got to break the static quo. We will break the status quo. We can no longer, we don't want to operate like we did in the past. So I think the mix there was the exact culture or the right team or the right people to allow this transformation, which tell me we, uh, there was a lot of miss.

[00:13:35] JOS:
Okay. 

[00:13:36] MAX:
The failure was a really appreciate fail fast was something that was really highly appreciated there. So people were not scared to fail. 

[00:13:44] JOS:
So that was really a culture of, of learning and uh, as you said, people were allowed to fail as long as you keep on learning.

[00:13:52] MAX:
From the top down on that program to the C suite to the young, there was already a preconceivation to say, we got to break the status quo. We got to innovate and we're going to change the way we think. So with that as a framework, it's difficult to fail.

[00:14:09] HELENA:
How do you get to that setup? Because it sounds like really the perfect mindset and the perfect framework and something that probably most organizations need in order to transform, but it's usually not what you find out there. How do you get to that? Kind of conditions where everyone is in that mindset?

[00:14:26] MAX:
Again, I think it started from the senior senior leadership, someone that had the vision and was able at the capability of a new aircraft program to a brand new program from source from scratch. And obviously the other thing is we had the funding, right? 

Gulfstream was General Diamante. The funding was there to back up the vision and it flow downs the sad, the other part that I have to say, it's not sad, but most of other company, if I take like a motion control equipment, like Moog, we don't have these massive large program, right?

We have thousands of different product lines. So having that perfect environment that incubator place for a transformation process is a lot more difficult to have. So, right now, with depending on the company and where we are, it's a totally different challenge of how first week, what is the deployment route?

Where do we deploy that? And how do we go about the business to gain momentum and get more funding and more? So it's kind of the chicken and the eggs where we need some funding to do pilot projects. So for the business to see the value, and once we see a little value, we're going to go on that, get these champion and redo that over and over.

So a lot of it is getting the business enough people to see that there's enough value across. Because if we only focus on engineering, engineering typically has so much dollars.

[00:16:06] JOS:
Right. 

[00:16:07] MAX:
In a company if it's just IT, there's so, so really working on getting every, a lot of prototype and getting the value and people to see the value.

So they're ready to say. Let's spend a little more money and let's grow a little bit. And let's, so it's, it's really about value and funding right now. A totally different challenge.

[00:16:28] JOS:
I'm just thinking, Max, you were one of the front runners with, with Gulfstream at that time. That means you have built up a lot of experience that probably has been exposed to others. I think we both know action engineering quite well as an organization, educating the field on model based definition.

What if a company that is not in aerospace want to start model based definition, how would they start? The same massive project as you or? 

[00:16:55] MAX:
What I learned because I think the first thing that people need to see is what is their goal of NBD. And a lot of people say, right, it's very easy. We're going to reduce gas we're going to accelerate a life cycle. But I think gall stream at some very key milestone to reuse was I'm not going to share the value, but I think a company needs to understand where they are and what they want to achieve.

And once you know where you want to go, it's going to drive your strategy for model base because an aircraft manufacturer, the main challenge is millions of part in managing assembly, right? You got to assemble that.

If you're a small component manufacturer, like very complex like Moog, really the value of MBD is how you make it more better efficient part because they're extremely complex.

So, there's not an easy answer is where, what is our biggest challenge? What's our goal. And then we got to start to tackle these area with the process, because I can tell you for sure, there is not one size fits all the, the approach that Galstream is using is different than Moog. I know that because I've been there three years now understanding.

So it's really about, these are the right question. The tool, the technology exists. The tool, the technology exists, but it's about focusing on the right thing to get the value for the business. And no more.

[00:18:34] JOS:
And I think here we hear the here we hear the commonality. You need to have this clear vision. You need to know where you want to go to. It's not just buying a tool.

[00:18:44] MAX:
And understanding that and again, understanding that the transition to model based really in simple way, we're adding a dimension, right? 2D, we're adding a third dimension in how we define our product and people that if you add another dimension, it's a transformation. And what Gulfstream was actually very good at is you got to start thinking about your process, because I bet you the process that company have for two, three years, 20 years, 30 years does not take into consideration. 

That third dimension that possibility of what that third dimension can give all the geometric that there's all kinds of stuff but company that tackles technology and don't think about their goal and their process and their role as well. So a lot of things happen you even the role and the organization as a whole, because in the drawing world you had drafter.

Right. We still have, they were artists. They were a skill set that was drafter and there was all that logic and the manual and the standard in the model base, what's a drafter? And Do you validate the data manually? No more. There's too much connection. So now you need a new skill of data validation, data integrity.

Who does that in the company? And these are the discussion right now that we're having with, we have shown demonstration, but now we're looking at the overall, who is doing these new roles. Is CM is branching out?

What do we do with our designer and drafter? What does it mean? What about manufacturing?

So in order to, it to work, it's not just have the tool, the, technology, but you got to have also the the business and the role in the process that have adapted to that.

[00:20:38] JOS:
Right. 

[00:22:39] MAX:
So this is to me and there's no one if any, anybody here for tool vendor or contractor or there's not one size fits all, you will not be able to help a business to transform if you don't understand the business and understand the high level strategy.

This will be another. Perfect case where you invest million in tool, you call yourself MBD. And at the end of the year, you don't see one saving.  You're the same company, the same bottom line as you are except you spend a lot more money on your software and tools. So that, that I've seen it, I had a chance to see that many times.

If we do, it's a tough transformation. Let's make sure that at least there's value for the business and the people.

[00:21:24] JOS:
Right. yeah.

[00:21:26] HELENA:
How do you adapt to those new roles that you were just discussing is it like the same people that are in the organization? Or do you need new competence? What's your experience?

[00:21:37] MAX:
I'm back to the organizational. However, your organizational, the C suite, right? Today, some company, the people in the C suite may have got there after 20 years, right? 20, 15 years of work based on most of the company based on drawing centric process. And let's call it the drawing as a little bit of silo, right?

You know, the original silo. So. Again, if we don't have the proper leadership open to process, if that senior leadership doesn't have that structure at the top, guess what's going to happen. When we start to look at process transformation or ownership, right? People have ownership and they have their tower.

If these people are protective, because they may not have incentive to change because there are five years left, right? So a lot of times this can be bulk at that level where if the people are not able to change their scope change their role and also a lot more connected across the function.

So I think as you mentioned there, it all depends on if the C suite wants to sabotage a change of ownership or organization or stay on their Old tower, this whole MBD, we can have MBD, but it will never function. And the people will be paying the price because their role does not exist. So the people will be paying the price.

And now, I have to say it's, it's about are you let go to change and let go of the past and rethink about ownership, governance and so on. 

[00:23:25] JOS:
So one question here, Max, when I speak with companies about digital transformation, are you able to, to educate the leadership or do you have to find the right leadership and be lucky, like you said, in Gulfstream?

[00:23:39] MAX:
Surprisingly and I'm moved that I think, yes, the company, I am the leadership, you can look on public, but we pretty much change in the last two years. The company has gone to a brand new, pretty much. A brand new leadership level, which is actually wonderful because you don't have that 20 years…

[00:24:03] JOS:
Exactly. 

[00:24:04] MAX:
…of tower. So with this leadership very open to understand there's not that baggage. It's a lot more flexible and you're able to have a lot more factual data driven conversation. So I have to say in our environment right now, this is absolutely wonderful people because people are open and they're not holding on their tower of the past.

I don't know how to on their security on their blanket. So, yes, it all depends on the leadership, as you know, but it doesn't have to be. There's tons of leadership, but it's being open to rethink what's under my tower, be able to rethink and let go and pass and, and, and be able to rethink about the role and go places where.

It gets uncomfortable for leadership as well, because they're getting some new ownership, right? A new responsibility where they don't know. So you've got to have people that are willing to take some risk all across the chain, even the employee and the people that work every day. It's not comfortable. You gotta be humble and not comfortable and be able to start from scratch which sometimes can be more difficult for the people that have been 20-30 years where they’re very comfortable. Right? So it’s all about being comfortable with not knowing it all and you're ready to learn. So it's it's all that capability to relearn, I think, and be open to take some risks. I don't know if that helped Jos, but…

[00:25:33] JOS:
Yeah, and I'm a little bit cautious of time. The other topic that I also want to address with you is configuration management, because that's where you have also a lot of field experience and also a leading voice and in aerospace, of course, is I would say the industry where configuration management is recognized as crucial but other companies, you… 

[00:25:54] MAX:
And it’s flowing down, it's flowing down Jos, right? The automotive and the healthcare and yes, yes, it's becoming slowly  impacting more and more industry.

[00:26:05] JOS:
Yeah. So the first time I visit Boeing in 2004, I thought, what a boring industry. Everyone is checking papers and we're so, uh, configuration man, uh, how do you make configuration management exciting for a company?

[00:26:21] MAX:
This is a good question. So this is a good question. So I think what makes, so you're going to hear it all over the place, but in the past, I think what's happening with configuration management, a lot of company and there's exception, don't want to talk about it. Because it's everybody doing it in their own silo, right?

We have a silo, we are disconnected and everybody does their own CM. But what you hear out of that is from the people is I'm always reactive. You know, people are reactive and what you hear when you're disconnected is if I could have known this, right?  I could have said something and you could have saved me so much work, right? 

The more you go downstream, a lot of people are more reaction, more reaction and a lot of manpower. So there's that disconnection. You asked me how to make change management. Interesting or more attractive is these were the challenge with model based as well, because you start to connect the data, right?

You cannot, once it's connected in a system, you can no longer ignore it because you press a button and you say, Oh, these are all my data that are connected. So I think what makes it challenge to me, what I think makes it interesting is once you're able to create a configuration management process.

That's really enterprise and try to connect the data, but the people, it's that collaboration upfront that a lot of people, that's the problem from a design standpoint, the people that are typically upstream will push back because they say, you're going to slow me down. 

But once you get that barrier, uh, kind of block and you get the other people putting the collaboration, you start to get more happiness, more effectiveness, and I, as a third generation change process, we did three generation at Gulfstream, but you get to a point where people, I was so excited to say, I want to be part of the change process, please bring me to these change because I know that if I put. If I give some feedback with the designer as well, as they start to see how the change flows better and they see the success and we celebrate, Oh, look at that change because of manufacturing, we're able to make it so much efficiently.

Once you start to track that and you get the people feedback to say, I want to be part of that and the designer or the upstream people seeing the joy of other ones, because we're rational people. I think it's where it starts to become exciting because the people want to be there and they say, it's helping me.

Once you start to see the business, to see the change process as helping them versus being a barrier and a click, like you mentioned, Oh man, it's a lot of stuff time. Once you get to that level, this is where I think you're getting to have a real enterprise change process. And I think it's actually exciting.

It's actually fun and people want to join that it becomes collaborative.

[00:29:31] JOS:
Exactly. Yeah. You, you, you liberate people from their silos that you make them instead of reactive, you make them proactive because they are informed of a much bigger scope and a bigger responsibility.

[00:29:43] MAX:
And they know that if they have a seat to say, I am, you know, as you look also at implement a skin schedule and so on, when they hear, look, this is what I had, it helps people balance their thing, understand their priority and all work to a common goal and celebrate, right? 

Because a good change process is you start with a request. With some opportunity, and you capture the metrics all the way after the data has been on the production floor, right? So you want that full closed loop. You know, today, sadly, a lot of company will look at change process. It's cycle time, right?

[00:30:17] JOS:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

[00:30:19] MAX:
And what does that promote? Oh, yeah. Two days throw over the wall, throw over the wall. And it actually that metrics to me is actually the disturbing it's going against everything because everybody celebrate the throw over the wall the time but at the end of the day everybody is not happy because they got thrown an apple rotten apple over the wall.

[00:30:40] JOS:
It's the big discussion we had from engineering change processes, engineering, configuration management towards enterprise. And if you work in the enterprise scope connected, it's a complete different game and much.
 

[00:30:52] MAX:
And the reuse and as you start to get model base and you get away from these drawing you start to look at change process across platform, right? I change what's value for this model may not make value for this model because that's the Cadillac and this is the,I don't want to name any, any car company. This is the lesser Cadillac.

[00:31:15] JOS:
Yeah. Yes.

[00:31:16] MAX:
…or the Ferrari. So it becomes business finance gets involved. It connects everybody.

And I think, the sky's the limit and very few company when they talk about model base, talk about change process. I don't know about and I one of the first thing I told Moog is one of the biggest transition to make this efficient we're going to have to rethink our configuration and change management process. A lot of people forget about that.

[00:31:47] HELENA:
Jos just curious, I think it was a great question and also a lot of insights from, from Max. What would be your tips from your experience? How do you make model based interesting or PLM interesting?

[00:31:59] MAX:
Yes. 

[00:32:00] JOS:
Well, it's my, uh, my longterm mission from coordinated to connected, uh, in those words, uh, coordinated is silos that are just sharing information. We're connected it's working together. It's becoming proactive, have a visibility and it all affects both your way of working with all configuration management, the quality of your work.

And I think connected ways of working are so much more exciting than coordinated ways of working. Because otherwise you're just in your silo and you have to produce something on demand and building inside a company, a story about the beauty. And I think Max, you're, you're selling the same. It's making people excited about this new way of working. That is the most important thing, having the vision where to go.

[00:32:47] MAX:
And just to that, the beauty of the digital thread or connecting data is that it force to connect people.

[00:32:58] JOS:
Right.

[00:32:58] MAX:
It’s different it is, and there's always, we need more collaboration. Our company needs more collaboration. And I told that to Moog is if we do model base the right way, if we did the digital tread, it's going to bring that collaboration by itself.

So collaboration will come with model base. And I think it's one of the, you know, the change process and all that connecting this to me is the secret to help improve collaboration across an enterprise and now even across the enterprise.

[00:33:35] JOS:
Exactly. 

[00:33:36] MAX:
So to me, it will connect people. That's the great part of MVD.

[00:33:43] HELENA:
So Max we’re having discussion a lot about leadership and you have been part of many industries and in different roles. How have you personally evolved as a leader since taking on the responsibility of leading these kind of transformations?

[00:33:59] MAX:
I think the main difference is, as I grew as a model base, or it's really about digital transformation, right? I think my focus is really changing more from the very technical challenge towards realizing that the success of transformation is really about people adoption, onboarding and it’s really the people aspect and as I mentioned, I think collaboration is the, the challenge. 

I think this is what these transformation are bringing. So really focusing on collaboration. I'm an aerospace engineer by trade, right? I started, I've been a very engineer, but I'm realizing that it's kind of enterprise engineering.

It's really looking at the different function and you got to look at it from, I don't know, enterprise engineering, you got to look at the business process. So this is a little bit the shift on collaboration, user adoption, and learning that there's not one size fits all. 

So much that there's a culture aspect. You know, there's a human, a company has a human aspect, it has a culture, it has its brand, its image. So I really think I'm learning to pay more attention to that and try to align more with these cultural important thing that sometimes if we forget about that, this can derail a hundred percent any project and the other thing that I mentioned is understanding the, the comfort zone and the silo and right. There's people that are very comfortable with the silo they have or the power. Right? And we got to learn about what are the right people, which one of the C suite, which personality of the C suite or leadership we got to get.

We got to focus for so we can get early win and support. So I would say this is it more of the people aspect, cultural aspect. That's what I think has changed. 

[00:36:05] HELENA:
That's a great takeaway. 

[00:36:06] MAX:
20 years, 20 years. I've been, uh, doing this.

[00:36:10] HELENA:
Thank you very much for sharing this. Jos, I think we are coming to an end. Do you have any final question for Max? 

[00:36:17] JOS:
Maybe Max is there something that you would say this I would never do again? What is your lesson learned in your 20 years? 

[00:36:24] MAX:
What I would never do again is apply something of, if I'm talking model based or change process or business process. Try to take a business process or, you know, a contractor or something of the shelf, a success story from a process, from a different organization and try to push it into a different organization. 

That's the first thing I learned when I came with that 15 years of GaalStream. 

I had that feeling that I had the answer and it's going to be an easy journey, but I, this was the most humbling thing that I learned, if there's anything I learned in the past four years, when I look at the different enterprise, is really what you got to rethink about, you got to take everything or process or method or tool in a context of the larger organization, which definitely involve culture.

[00:37:25] JOS:
So this is bad news for the vendors who come with best practices and, uh, out of the box?

[00:37:31] MAX:
I don't think it's a bad news for vendor. I think coming up with something out of the box, help people see something. But the big challenge is, you know, configuration, customization, the solution and even the standard need a little bit of agility, right? Nothing is black and white. So I don't think it is. And if I were a vendor or a consultant, sometimes some comes very, we have the solution, but…

[00:38:01] JOS:
right?

[00:38:02] MAX:
…take a breath. Take a little bit of time to talk to the business, understand a little bit, the landscape, because there's always hidden you've been there a long time, Helena. And they know you had a chance probably to also interact with many company, but there's always try to understand the motive and, and, and a little bit more of the challenge or the, the landscape of the business before pitching, because sadly a lot of times the C-suite or the, the people with the capability to make money decision get persuaded from a smoke and mirror presentation, which drives the burden down to the people.

So this would be from a vendor perspective that time to understand the landscape. And don't make solutions that are non-flexible. The data needs to flow around. Let's don't bring solution that only your tool can support.

[00:39:06] HELENA:
Thank you very much.