The Company Road Podcast

E77: From stuck to start: Moving beyond “we’ve always done it this way”

• Chris Hudson • Episode 77

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“The longer the tenure, the more things become, you know, this is the way we've always done it. And so an entrepreneur is someone that can go in and see that pretty quickly. What are the bits that are stale? Where are the potentials and opportunities for improvement?” - Dave Gregurke

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

  • Aligning stakeholders with different priorities
  • Balancing innovation with security in high-risk settings
  • Working around resistance to change
  • The importance of customer research and involving executives
  • Methods for breaking habitual behaviours in large organisations
  • Using simple tools to collaborate across tech stacks
  • Building trust in risk-conscious cultures
  • Shifting from waterfall to iterative design practices
  • Future-proofing change and sustaining momentum

Key links

About our guest 

Dave Gregurke is a designer of many things, born in Texas, USA where fell in love with baseball. From there the family moved to Yeosu, South Korea where he almost got kidnapped with his dog. Now long settled in Melbourne, Australia gave him a new home and accent.

For over 20 years across brand and customer experience, Dave has been a trusted end-to-end designer for Services, Product and Go-to-market.

He has deep experience in complex environments across startups, government & enterprise. Kicking-off in corporate design, he quickly fell in love with the interactive world and all its possibilities. Dave has big brands like Amazon, University of Melbourne, NAB and State Governments among his collaborators.

After founding two businesses, Dave currently focuses on complex problem spaces, including fintech payments. He’ll run your innovation and design sprints, as well as coach and train your team to develop that knowledge internally.

About our host

Our host, Chris Hudson, is an Intrapreneuship Coach, Teacher, Experience Designer and Founder of business transformation coaching and consultancy Company Road.

Company Road was founded by Chris Hudson, who saw over-niching and specialisation within corporates as a significant barrier to change.

Chris considers himself incredibly fortunate to have worked with some of the world’s most ambitious and successful companies, including Google, Mercedes-Benz, Accenture (Fjord) and Dulux, to name a small few. 

He continues to teach with University of Melbourne in Innovation, and Academy Xi in CX, Product Management, Design Thinking and Service Design and mentors many business leaders internationally.


For weekly updates and to hear about the latest episodes, please subscribe to The Company Road Podcast at https://companyroad.co/podcast/

Chris Hudson:

Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Company Road Podcast, where we explore what it takes to drive real change within organizations. I'm your host, Chris, this podcast is created specifically for you intrapreneurs, change makers, and the people, the leaders navigating the world of organizational transformation in some sort of way in the complex waters that we find there. And today I'm joined by Dave Gregurke, who's a master of a designer. He specializes in untangling the messiest most complex problem spaces within organizations. He's got a heap of experience. So he's done 20 years plus of experience across startups, government, enterprise organizations and environments. And Dave's become a master at navigating the challenges that come with organizational change. He's got a diverse background. He is worked with a heap of different people, brands like Amazon, nab, university of Melbourne, and various state government departments. He's founded two businesses as well currently focused on the complex problem space of fintech's payments and how to make sense of all of that. And yeah, I think what brings Dave's perspective to us and what makes it so valuable is, his ability to really break through that this is how we've always done it mentality and the approach that is really plaguing so many organizations and there's so much change that's trying to take place right now, but people are still fitting a little bit like, oh, is it the right time? Given the current, economic environment and context. So he's gonna share some practical insights, align and competing stakeholders, balancing security with innovation and implementing change in environments that are resistant to new ideas. So Dave, huge welcome to the show. Thanks for coming on.

Dave Gregurke:

No worries, Chris. Thanks for having me.

Chris Hudson:

Great. So, Dave, let's start with a bit about yourself if we can. So maybe just describe yourself to those who don't know you we'll open up with that.

Dave Gregurke:

Yeah. So for those that don't know me, I'm a designer basically my whole life. Even as a little kid, I was fascinated by art and graphic art particularly. Throughout my, learnings beyond, graphic design into digital design and the dawn of the internet, and beyond into product. They've always, fascinated me in that space. And now of course sitting behind the scenes a little bit more into the strategy behind it.

Chris Hudson:

Okay. And where did it all begin for you? What's your journey been?

Dave Gregurke:

Yeah. So, I guess it all started, I was born in Texas I've lost that accent long ago. Can you still do it, make you do it? I wouldn't even try. But yeah, I've still got a citizenship there and a connection to my home state. I'm a big fan of baseball and it's a big passion of mine. Technically, still playing, dunno how I'm doing it, but, I'm still doing it. And my club, hello Newport Baseball Club is one of my last passions. Great community down there.

Chris Hudson:

Alright. And around intrapreneurship, what's your take on that word, intrapreneur? What do you think about that and how would you define it yourself?

Dave Gregurke:

Yeah, so I think ultimately it comes with wearing a lot of hats, right? If you are an entrepreneur, you're starting a business and trying to make a doll that no one else made. At the end of the day, you've gotta do it all until you can build out the team you need. You can't do it without bringing in the right people and the right amount of income. So in a organization, doesn't have to be gigantic, but enterprise certainly, you end up with quite a lot of silos. And of course the longer the tenure, the more things become, you know, this is the way we've always done it. And so an intrapreneur is someone that can go in and see that pretty quickly. What are the bits that are stale? Where are the potentials, and opportunities for improvement.

Chris Hudson:

And what are you looking out for there? In terms of what stale, what are some of the warning signs there?

Dave Gregurke:

I think probably one of the more common things, certainly recently is there seems to be a little bit of a poster kind of methodology of customer obsessed and that kind of thing. It's interesting culturally it makes sense to do that. But when you don't see it in practice for example, you've got. One department that's doing fairly regular customer testing. Taking in those insights and passing them on and making improvements throughout the way. And then you've got other teams that, might do it every six months. How do you square that circle in terms of the consistency there? Being able to highlight those things and be able to draw on those really big wins, get the right stakeholders to turn up to even just one interview, I've found has made a huge change to the way they really understand what customer obsession is.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. Totally right. I think, I've been running a load of research recently as well, and it's a different game run. It feels like research testing, once upon a time was expected, it was left to a few people and then it was played back, you get presented with a 30 50 page report, and it's just left on somebody's desk. Then the work is done. You move on, take the learnings and you build out what you're gonna be building. But I feel like the process of getting to research is now a little bit trickier. There's something to be said for, how people are doing that there's also campaigning aspect you've gotta evangelize. If you're in that team, you know, you're thinking about how you can really emphasize its worth to stakeholders. Like you're pointing out, who do you get into the room? Who needs to hear the customer voice firsthand? Is that ringing true for you as well? What's your experience been?

Dave Gregurke:

I think the main thing is send the invites out for a start. You want to know the people around you, the people that are gonna be able to potentially make effective change or take on those insights that really stick to kind of go this process is really worth continuing. So yeah, part of that process is obviously making sure you've got your squad nice and tight. You want diverse thinking in the interview process. Whether note taking, moderating, observing. Particularly for the, say, even at the executive level. People that weren't working on the tools or in the project, but were more really at the end of a few sprints coming and checking in, that were definitely the people I would really, really push to have at least turn up to one interview because it just makes a huge difference to the way they understand what other people are doing in their organization. That's just what's worked for me anyway.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah, what value do you think they get from it if they're in the room? What have you noticed there?

Dave Gregurke:

I think, a couple of good examples, but maybe I'll start with the first most broad one they obviously know what people are doing? They're sitting there listening. They're literally just listening to what people say. It's one of those things that easy to hear, but to actually watch it happen. Watch how people struggle or if it's not an actual usability test, it could be just a q and a type of interview. That qualitative information you're getting through. Yes, of course. It's subjective, it's people's opinions, but it's real, you're getting to see what they say. The next part is to see what they do, they start to understand how you piece that together better. And particularly in usability testing, you do have that bookend. Usually they'll say one thing and they'll do another and they won't realize it.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. Totally. What you observe and what they do, what they say, you know, those can be different things. It can be interesting to see that. There's definitely a lack of representation within a lot of organizations around the customer voice and the empathy is missing because the customer's not adequately represented in some sort of way. So it might be that a customer is quoted or there's some statistical analysis, quant research or heavy documentation, and a kind of theorized customer speak and insights, obviously, recommendations, things that get translated into strategy and then implemented. So how have you found it's best to represent the customer within your organization?

Dave Gregurke:

Well, I guess the truth is if you don't actually have any data to go by in terms of having spoken to them, then you've gotta be. Fairly firm in terms of broadcasting that part of it. And saying this is a gap. We're essentially writing on assumptions. And push that process a little bit more for forward to the front, I guess. Tying back to that inviting process, similar thing whether it's before projects get spun up just making sure that you are aware of your team and who's sitting above you, who's making those decisions. And making sure it's a regular part of your discussions, particularly when there's broader, longer term projects that are getting broken down into chunks. There's a lot of assumptions that are getting made, making sure that they're aware that you're on it and that. You are going to be highlighting those gaps, which will be candidates to talk to people.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. There's lots of things you can try. Just putting photos or images of people into your presentations or quotes can often help, video clips in terms of quotes like a little reel can help support and insight and really show that it was grounded in somebody actually saying it or believing that or valuing this or not valuing that. I think that can be really helpful. Even the basic thing of inviting customers into your business and having them in your environment can be a real icebreaker within a meeting room or a boardroom context because your leaders and other stakeholders, might not have seen that or heard that in that environment either. It can be a good reset. I was gonna ask you about organizational support and when you've got an inkling of a transformative idea and you think this is gonna be very exciting, but we need to get it off the ground. How do you build up support? What are your methods around that and how do you approach it usually?

Dave Gregurke:

Well, I think you've gotta have some pretty robust workshopping up until that point. If you haven't got a decent presentation to make, you don't wanna end up with a 50 page report that gathers digital dust. It's gotta be something practical that you can walk someone through fairly rapidly. If they want more detail, you're gonna have it at that point. But the key stakeholders, I'm talking about, say in my time at nab where you are working very closely with the product lead and the tech leads. Yeah. Just making sure you, you're trying to really distill everything you can as early as possible, as to what are we focusing on? Get that problem statement sorted and take that forward, make sure it's communicated as well as possible so they can ask as many questions as they want to. But it really just helps be very, very clear, like, what's the purpose? What are we doing next? Why are we prioritizing a particular thing? They can be part of that process.

Chris Hudson:

You been in that situation where leaders or stakeholders that you've invited in think that you're wasting their time, how do you manage that side of things?

Dave Gregurke:

Oh, absolutely. It's not that it happens every time, of course, but it's definitely something you, you've just gotta, like, if it hasn't happened to you, I'd love to hear from you, put it that way. But at the end of the day, that's part of the job. And actually it's a big, probably a big part of. My career as a designer is, putting forward more than one idea. You might get all of them shut down. Often what ends up happening is, you know, in bigger organizations the highest paid person starts to really mold things. trying to avoid that is a big part of what the process is supposed to do, which is make sure that all voices are heard, that people can vote silently or all the things that would try and reduce that kind of bias. But at the end of the day, if it's, you know, say whether it's doesn't have to be at the bank, it could be, a small business owner operator, particularly the founders tend to be fairly strong minded, and that's completely fine. That's their choice. All you can do is present the best data you can, removed of all that bias. It's up to them.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. I mean, it all sounds very calm, considered and under control in the way that you describe it in the moment. How are you coping? What are you feeling? What are you seeing? How do you respond? You know, is there anything there that you can give us advice?

Dave Gregurke:

Yeah, I think at the end of the day, if there's a good reason, you want to know it, but you might not, you just gotta be prepared for the fact that you may not ever get that answer. And to be honest, sometimes people have a bad day, executives make bad decisions too. Just as much as owner operators and you and I, day to day will get things wrong. So, you know, having a bit of empathy for that process is important. Everyone's human so, have a chat. It's easy to follow up certain things, particularly if it's a big meeting and a big decision's being made and it's a no or something that's gonna heavily affect what you feel that the agreement with the data is then from there, all you can do is really basically pick up phone, you know? Send a DM and say, Hey, can we just quickly go over that again? I wanna make sure that, we're on the same page. I hear what you're saying. Let's go a little further if we could. And if that can't happen, then so be it. You've done what you can.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. I mean, I think, it's interesting that you point out that decisioning point, because there's often a kind of, it's a fabricated pressure, right? It's in that environment where there's a deadline and if you don't hit that gate and it's not a yes, but a no, then there's going to be a knock on. There's a huge weight on your shoulders or the team's shoulders when you're trying to get past that stage. It's kind of like, if it was a no, how do you plan for that and what are you gonna do next? People don't really wanna think about that, but they have to. So what do you do in that situation?

Dave Gregurke:

Yeah. First of all, you want to have some sort of documentation about the process to be sure that you can, check your work. Maybe you got it wrong. So it's nothing wrong with doing a sense check on that as well. But there's been plenty of times and there's some, good classic examples like you said, where that no has a domino effect. And it could be, for example, something that you believe personally as well as what the research is saying is gonna affect how a customer trusts the thing or the overall adoption. Especially if that no is gonna push it months. Maybe even a year down the track. That can be hard to sit with. So just resting on the idea that you've got the correct information, double check your work and make sure you submit it, and put it in the system, whatever system they've got for that kind of backlog, hygiene to make sure that it is there and it has been deprioritized, but you've had the voice of the customer first. First and front.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah definitely. It plays to the next sort of theme that we might go into, which is around navigating organizational complexity a little bit. I'm wondering, from your point of view, obviously there are barriers to change within any organization. What are some of the main things you see coming up?

Dave Gregurke:

Organizations trying to take on AI assisted tools is gonna be a massive headache. I imagine everywhere is going through this from small companies all the way up at the moment, it feels like it's sort of an unspoken thing, like everyone's just paying for their own perplexity or chat GPT account and doing the best they can to self-educate. It is a wild time to be alive. I can tell you that the effect that it's having, what three years later already the vast changes of had time to play around with everything from vibe coating across to even motion, full video clips, from still images just blows me away. But what I'm seeing does gimme concern for larger companies, because there's a lot of screw ups before you get to the right output. Even in some of the most highly touted five coding tools, I am seeing a very clear black box effect and that's gonna be really difficult for someone to sign off on at enterprise level. And I can fully understand that, where do you draw the line on that appetite for that risk? It's gonna change. Clearly people are doing small pilots with it and that makes the most sense, I don't envy those decisions because at the end of the day, who is governing it? Well, no one is, they're openly admitting they're flying by the seat of their pants and Sam Alton's happy to do that and that's fine. But there's more than one tool out there and which one do you pick? And what is the cost to the organization? I mean, per seat, all that stuff is real. So yeah, I don't envy those decisions.

Chris Hudson:

Okay. So big barriers around AI adoption. Any others that are popping into your head there?

Dave Gregurke:

Probably, yeah, probably for me, we're still going through the idea that work from home is not doable for some organizations. I think, you know, realistically, obviously there's plenty of places that did this long before the pandemic and I'm just thinking, what's Matt Mullenweg's company. Automattic. Yeah. I think that they've been global, they've got six, seven countries. They have offices in a sense, but they work from home. They've always been. So, you know, there's some roles where that's absolutely appropriate. I think for me there still needs to be, I guess, a rebalance in some sense, because there's a lot of places where it's just impossible for you not to be on the factory floor. That makes sense. But switching back on, right. Everyone back at work full time when people have completely changed their lives. Particularly parents it's not that black and white. It takes some nuance and I hope those conversations continue and get better. At the moment it seems to be just manage one person at a time until your boss says, no, that's it.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah, So I felt like there was a period of time where it was trying to be worked out, and then it was just, no, we're not gonna work it out. We're just gonna change it. So, sure. You know, there was some kind of compromises made, some allowances obviously for people who had certain arrangements, but yeah, now it's three days back, everyone's gotta do it. Whether it's something to still be solved for, whether it's high on the list from a leadership point of view, there are bigger things going on in terms of economic stability and political changes and other things that, you know, it feels like there are big things that needs to be fixed as well. But whether people are in the office or not. Do you still think it's a big theme?

Dave Gregurke:

Look, it's one of those things you only see what's on your feed, right? If I'm going like, say for LinkedIn, it's no different to the other social media, right? It's an algorithm that's throwing you your version. So you never really know entirely the story, but certainly it does seem mixed at the moment. Maybe there's a generational thing in terms of leadership. Maybe there's a certain age bracket where it hits. I'm not entirely certain of, I've seen evidence of a direct like, oh, this is exactly how it's happening. But I think the discussions are there. If your company is renting buildings that are, you know, the renters in the hundreds of thousands, per month, then of course they've got those things to consider, do they end that lease, cut their losses? It's something that they need to work out, but if they want people to do their best work and be productive and feel trusted that they're gonna do that work, I think it needs a bit more discussion.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah, what bearing do you think it has on innovation and design? Do you think it has a specific need to bring people together, what have you found that's worked in your practice?

Dave Gregurke:

Yeah, I suppose my advice is gonna come from the fact that I've been doing it in person my whole career. So for the younger folk out there that maybe were five years in and then had five years disrupted. Yeah. It's not much, is it? So they will have had those workarounds. I remember, doing. Digital design and supporting customers trying to actually fix their logins. And you know, the classic stuff where you're like, you've built this thing for them and you just do a screen share and they've actually just got cap lock on, you know, the classic stuff, but you just can't do, you couldn't do that over the phone. So those tools came in fairly early, but I never considered what we'd end up doing and actually replacing every single thing that we were doing in communication with a group meet. So I think for me the design and innovation stuff does seem to be better in person. But I'm more than happy to say, we've made it work, where we have to remotely and that opens up other doors, collaborating with international clients, when they've just gotten up and you are just about to shut down. It's pretty handy. Pluses and minuses.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah, I can relate to that. I mean, I feel like there's this massive wave rapid adoption around the tech and then, people got on board with it and companies, tech stacks probably doubled, tripled in that time, right? Because they were like bringing in all these tools and all of a sudden, for us who work in transformation it was adopted rapidly. Now the consequence of that is that nothing works together and they're still trying to fix it with, one tool or this tool or that tool. You bring it in, but cohesively it doesn't work across the organization. Everyone's using different things and it's all splintering. And some people have got a different understanding, levels of adoption are kind of varied across the organization. Not everyone needs to use it. The whole SaaS world and landscape interesting in that respect.

Dave Gregurke:

Exactly. It doesn't matter if it's$5 a month, if you've got 50 of them, it gets untenable. I don't think that problem's going away anytime soon. This is where, 37 signals comes in and usually pipes in the chat, Jay, free will, trophies little comment like that's what base camp's for. Keep it all in one place.

Chris Hudson:

yeah. That's what this is for. It's my products

Dave Gregurke:

No, exactly. But that's the truth. If you really could do it, just do everything Microsoft.

Yeah.

Dave Gregurke:

Great. That's awesome. But. I don't know of any place that has just one.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. I mean, ties into maybe the next point, which is around the approach to innovation. And that's how we've always done it. And how do you move past and break through some of those habitual behaviors that sit within organizations? Not just at the leadership level, I'm thinking more broadly because it feels like sometimes. So, what techniques have you been using to help overcome some of this entrenched thinking and approaches there?

Dave Gregurke:

Yeah, so I suppose back in volcanic days the benefit of running the workshops early with each customer gave you that really intimate experience that they were likely new to. So that wasn't so difficult. What I found at bigger places and bigger clients is you will get that same opportunity in the landscape inside will be different politically. So there can be that, you know, but why do we need to do this? We've already got the idea. they've already worked out the solution. Right. So having, experience to break through that and just get through the process, make sure it's sharp as well. It's gotta be a fairly quick process with a clear agenda. And setting guess expectations immediately, from the get go. Not just from that, the fact that they may not have read that agenda, but you read it out again when you kick off, introduce people, give them an opportunity to express if they've got concerns about what they're expecting to get out of it. But yeah, the biggest example of that I can imagine is walking into a place and, you know, squad one, you've had your discussion and everything's fine. They're running agile. The next one is running waterfall and the guys running waterfall. They're so used to that process, they've got so long to deliver the thing and then find out whether it was actually the right thing or not, they've skipped the usual what I would say is the modern way of doing it and miss those opportunities to actually, even if it's a paper prototype, do something you get in front of people. Where did you get this information? And try and reverse engineer their product knowledge to look at, well was this just literally someone just filled out a form and they just had to submit that by a Tuesday and that more KPI based kind of thing. And as opposed to like, no, we sat together and, you know, it's crazy. We went in there thinking this is the thing that we were trying to work out and it turned out that wasn't it. And that's what we move forward with. Two weeks later, we've got reasonable evidence to say that was the right call and again, you go on the pathway that the data points you to.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. I mean there's a lot of focus on the what and the how. Sometimes it's not so much about the do, but the do can really inform, the what if you flip it the other way around. So have you worked that system within a larger corporate?

Dave Gregurke:

Yeah, so like certainly at at NAB it was a pretty awesome opportunity to work with a bunch of people. There were definitely squads that had done design sprints before or similar types of workshop structure. That was fantastic. You know, it made things a lot easier to get started. think about examples where there was clear resistance from the beginning, in terms of trying to book the people in. And even if you were actually brought in specifically for a given need we had the opportunity to actually pilot, and cementing a real discovery phase, which weirdly wasn't in this particular area. It was a really, really cool opportunity to do it on the fly, in live projects and get it in. Okay. Like there was literally one project where we stopped and we started again, and we went back to what I would say is the right way to kick off. And that was an interesting one because not only we doing that sort of live, but I suppose in a sense we were kind of training each other, but I was trying to get people into that mindset of this does not need to take very long. But these boxes need to be ticked sometime later we had a very robust, essentially they called it a different name to what you and I would probably be happy calling it. But the point is it was cemented as a must have at the beginning rather than halfway into the build. They were kind of doing it before and even then, they weren't necessarily doing it with a way that would be able to have the ship turn around if it needed to, if that makes sense. So you are sort of set up for failure if you did any research after that anyway. Yeah. So what I found over time is that absolutely did work and, myself and one of my peers, were able to run those pilots continuously for a while until it became the norm for that particular area. And then from what I've heard, it's become standard across the organization, which is fantastic to hear, right? That feels like progress. So the next part is what are people building? For those organizations you're looking at years often for the bigger things. I've seen some incredible stuff turn around in six to 12 months, which would be unheard of at NAB prior to that, based on what I'd heard you can just imagine the spaghetti of difficult dependencies that they have. Something like 2000 different systems that they have to deal with. And certainly you would say at least God, it could be at least a hundred mission critical. So it's not so easy to just turn a new thing on or put in a new integration. Geez, it took nine months once just to get a team, an external team onto a teams chat. So, you know, it's a little slower than you'd like.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. I mean, that's it. I mean, If you break down that, there's obviously quite a few facts to consider. Anyone in the outside world would wonder, if you're just you and I talking as designers, we wouldn't really understand how that would be possible, that it could take so long. But obviously there are many, many things to consider. The other thing is the constraint around the status quo. The way it's always been done is process methodology. Large organizations and teams feel comfortable with methodologies. They want outputs and, they're quite focused on KPIs and outcomes as well, yeah, it feels like the methodology is like a safe space to, get behind. Because as long as you can agree to the method, then you'll get to the outcome, and that feels like it's a good thing. So in the case that you're describing, that was in a way challenged compared to how people used to working. What do you think the key or the secret to unlocking that was in flipping from one way of working to another, what made it possible, do you feel?

Dave Gregurke:

Oh, I just think, you just gotta do it. I think it's important to stress as well. The guys that were doing Waterfall, I would've been exactly the same because that's the way I was allowed to work and I was brought up in that structure and if I'd been doing that for 15 years not known anything else, that's not because they want it to be the old way, they don't know that. Right. So it's important to understand when you're going in, if you are able to give people that upfront agenda of a breakdown of the things we're gonna do. And ultimately that was what came outta this pilot is we had a really nice blend of the things that they were familiar with, with the things that they had then had some experience with that was turned around quite quickly. Everyone understood what was happening at the end, everyone was aligned. It was like, you know what? We decided that's rubbish and we're not gonna do that. Or that's really cool and we're gonna push for this. They were able to pitch with something they'd all had a shared understanding with. Certainly taking that, beyond the enterprise thing. I wouldn't go any other way either. It's just enhanced, the breakdown of design sprint, ideas in fact, I actually just got Jake Knapps, click just got delivered, yesterday. I can't wait to get into it. But that short form methodology of it doesn't have to be perfect. We just need to know is it a real problem to solve or not? Do people understand what you're doing? Depending on whatever you're prototyping at the end is huge, but didn't just have to be physical products. It could be other things. It's a really good process and I think if you give it a short wind of say one week is enough for people to really start to feel comfortable with the process.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. So taking out, some of the key principles, maybe from what you're just saying, so we've got, outlining an outcome and aligning around that. Then we've got the methodology which you can sketch and put in front of people, but maybe held loosely in case things need to change. That's probably another part to it. And then, probably not with a totally new approach, but blending it with some things that people are already used to working with in methodologies, and not just changing everything all at once. That feels like that would be helpful too.

Dave Gregurke:

Absolutely, jargon's another good one too, so you can get stuck in those checklists and people dunno how you're talking about. So yeah, just make sure you're speaking the same language.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah, discovery process gives a mixed perspective sometimes. A lot of people think it's an indulgence, it gets a mixed bag of reviews, right? So some people love it, some people hate it. But, it hugely valuable. Some people think it's really drawn out and then they just wanna get to the, do you know? So how have you found that balance working for you?

Dave Gregurke:

You want the, I dunno if you remember this Simpson episode when Homer designs the car.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah,

Dave Gregurke:

for me, that's the end result of just doing it the old way. There's a lot of disappointment with that. Right. Not to mention, they didn't sell more than one. I don't think so. But I think the other key thing is with these processes, yes, it might feel like an indulgence for people that haven't done it before. But the power comes from what you get out of that short period. Because you don't have to polish the presentation into your 50 pages. And you don't have to necessarily do that. I mean that you just have them turn up. Be there for day one and day two. For a design sprint scenario, Wednesday and Thursday, you're not necessarily for them, but depending on how quickly you do it, you can have them turn up to those interviews on Thursday or Friday, depending on how you're going.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I often see it as a necessary hygiene step. It's like brushing a really knotty head of hair, on your kids but you can't get to a sense of order. And I think, sometimes the confusion within the stakeholder landscape, there's a lot of discussions. Everyone's talking about conflicting priorities and you dunno what's gonna surface the top. But I think that process can really help crystallize some thinking there and it helps people understand, what's important or less important. The prioritization's a huge part of it, in seeing what the most valuable problem to solve is really. So, yeah. Lots of good stuff from there, I'm sure.

Dave Gregurke:

It's interesting, one example of where, we had really effective data to say that actually we didn't have something to solve, this hypothesis going in was businesses needed X and every single person we spoke to was like, meh. It was as clear as that. You could just re-watch the videos or just take out word for it on the bullet points, but at the end of the day, those verbatims were really valuable. Right. And I tend to lead like my covers that always, at least the best verbatim I can get. Purpose, right? If Tony look at the cover, at least they get something interestingly, I believe that particular project, even though, long after we presented it and thought that was the end of that, it turned out they did go ahead with it. you just never know what's gonna happen and who's gonna make what decision. But. At that time, it seemed fairly clear that we had that information, but I know the people in that particular sprint had not done that process before, and they'll never forget that. That's for them, I think for the organization and then for them personally, It's really valuable for their careers.'cause they can see sometimes the right data doesn't get listened to and you know that that's something you just have to be able to accept.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. I mean, that's your role, isn't it? It's a responsibility on your shoulders to put forward the information that is, the most compelling, of course, but, that would be most transformative in some way. So the point you were making around, even just as simple as which quote you're gonna feature on the front page, or what the sizzling start is? We forget that we're in charge of that narrative. And if people are just hearing it for the first time, then we're playing a massive role in how that information is received for the first time and then passed on, we're in a role of influence.

Dave Gregurke:

Absolutely. And you talk about, say two completely different scenarios, but if you are consulting and dealing directly with the founder or the CEO, they're likely to be only focusing on your thing for that particular meeting. But they've got a billion other things on. It's not necessarily different for the executive in your domain. If you're in an agile organization where you've got, split solid squads that are presenting. Particular things for the next quarter or for the next year. You dunno what that guy's got on his plate, but you probably should assume that they've got more than one thing. So you want to cut through as quickly as possible. This probably, actually, funnily enough, loops back to that idea of being at work. The most effective, traction you can get personally is not just to be good on a zoom call. Like you, you really want to be able to walk past someone in the hallway and say, Hey, what did you think about that thing, that came up and stand up or whatever. The thing was not just to suck up to the people above you, but to actually get to know them. I think that's a hugely effective way to actually have, particularly if you're sharing documentation, asynchronously as well, that you're able to connect with them, in different ways and tailor it to. Hopefully the right prescription lenses that they have.

Chris Hudson:

Particularly during the lockdown times, one thing a lot of people saw was that. business kind of got reduced and there's this swell of productivity because the side conversations were, less present. And so, yeah, I mean, that's incredibly important. If you reduce it down to what business actually is, which is, making something, selling something, delivering it to market and you're just focused on the tasks, then the rest of it is missed served to highlight, how important human interaction now is and what value that can bring if done well. So I think it's probably up twice as individuals to decide how we wanna balance that. A lot of people have preference for more personal interaction and some people prefer not to as well. So yeah, it's a difficult one. But knowing each other's preference is probably the starting point.

Dave Gregurke:

Oh, absolutely. And again, your work and your home life aren't necessarily the same thing, right? Yeah. But you wanna be as authentic as you can, but also, like, everyone knows, 50% of the world's not gonna like you by default. You just have to accept that. And if you can't get, a rapport, at least with key stakeholders, it does make it really difficult to, to even have raw data, speak for itself because you are the messenger, it is crucial part of, of your life, to not just be able to interact with others, that you may, may not necessarily agree with, or just people that don't have much time and can appear potentially graph or, not, not leaning towards your side you've gotta make that part of your life and, and try and improve it as you can.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. I was gonna ask you about risk and, security conscious environments you kind of exude this sense of calm, you're in a tranquil setting, your dog's very comfortable in the background. I dunno if that's part of your approach, to get people feeling more comfortable with, more risky conversations or ideas. In working in a bank, you've worked in a lot of environments where risk is a very real thing. You've gotta address it, you've gotta confront it. And innovation experimentation can look a little bit lofty and unpredictable and it can make a lot of people uncomfortable. So how do you manage some of that?

Dave Gregurke:

Yeah, so I guess it depends. Risk comes across not just the actual, projects themselves and how they impact colleagues and the business market, or depending on what you're doing, there could be multiple different archetypes you're working with. Those risks are very real. They tend to be the easier ones for everyone to align on. But it's interesting for me that the risks internally, we're talking about the potential for people bringing on AI assisted solutions. That's classic one that was particularly at a place like a bank, you have extraordinary levels of security. Even things that you could paste into a particular thing, some raw data, whether it's from a slide or from your own research. Those things being ingested into. A different system can be a real problem. The bank spends a lot of time making sure that everyone is up to their compliance and understanding those risks, and they have policies in place, but you get used to it over time. It does have, a good effect on being more considered about what you share, you should always be considered about your personal identification. Any data that you're pasting into a thing, back in the day people were really resistant about even just putting, making a payment online, but now we've got digital natives, and my kids will speak to this they don't have a version of privacy that you and I will it's actually a really interesting psychological thing, that I've had to get past is they just don't, they do not see privacy in the same way. They're literally two venograms that crossover somewhere, but. They're just different. That has been a really interesting, thing and it has helped me, with, working with others as well, depending on where their aspect is coming from. Because those definitions can feel like privacy and risk. They can feel like one thing, but Yeah. You've gotta really ask the question and find out what you're dealing with.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. I mean, there, there are different, I suppose different approaches, but it's gonna be received differently by different people. So, yeah. How do you go about building trust as stakeholders who might be feeling threatened or that the risk is gonna be exposed in some sort of way?

Dave Gregurke:

Yeah. We had multiple examples where that got really tricky. I think what seemed to stand out. Often the resistors were at the head of a large series of complex dependencies. It's understandable. It's complicated. You mess around with one thing. There was one that stands out an interview with a colleague, a head of a particular area, in support. They were very upset just from the agenda of our call. It was not a series of proper interviews. This was just an introductory to organize seat interviews. And it was really interesting their version of risk to them. Was any change at all? Because they feel like they're constantly having to adjust to changes that are getting made and

mm-hmm.

Dave Gregurke:

Everything they were saying was completely fine. There's no issue. But we were the messaging getting yelled at because, all we needed was for them to help us, hook up with a few people to speak to.

Chris Hudson:

Did you change the agenda or what happened?

Dave Gregurke:

No, no. We, we, I, look it was really important for them to have this say. And it was easy for us to pass that on too. Like, yeah, there was some very real concerns about increased workload in the end, which I think a lot of us can relate to. It's like, okay, cool. So you've just gotten used to say you're a Google person and now you're a Microsoft person, and you're switching between those different setups, whatever the thing is. You think, oh, it's super simple, but people get really frustrated when they have to do this stuff and at scale, like when, if you are on support and you've got, quotas to meet in terms of how many calls you're taking and all that kind of stuff, and you're managing a whole team and you come in and say, oh, by the way, we've got this new thing that they're gonna have to add. not replace, add to their plate, different story. So hearing that and passing that on was actually really valuable. You've gotta be ironclad with your taking of critique, especially when it wasn't us causing this change. It was us simply researching, as painless as possible. Well, it started out painful, but that's okay. That's kind of part of it, right. So yeah, we're able to pass that on but you can't always fix these things. It was the same with fraud. You know, we spoke to fraud and every single time, their headaches are very different to yours and mine, Chris.

Chris Hudson:

And I think, you can't look past this human element again, because obviously the process, the systems, the tools, the platforms, and it gets into the world of the rational quite quickly. Once that's changed, it feels like it's a little bit fixed and then all of a sudden there's new program work that comes in from the side and you're not expecting it. And actually having those human connections, relationships, and, being able to help people through those steps is really important, from a connection point of view, like you were saying, everyone feels like. Just the language you're using around, feeling maybe a little bit vulnerable, a little bit victimized, you wouldn't understand that, you wouldn't pick on up on that nuance if everyone was just, on the screens and working off the technology without that human interaction as much either. So yeah, introducing human connection point, feels pretty important during those times.

Dave Gregurke:

Yeah, that's right. I guess another interesting parallel risk, version that came across was operationally just trying to communicate between multiple parties. We had a particularly odd setup where there was multiple third party vendors, but they were potentially competitors. So it made sense that we couldn't necessarily be on the same chat channels, but this was. Similar to that, story I was saying before about getting, taking nine months to get on teams just so you could do instant messaging. Yeah. You know, what do you do? Like, you, you gotta work around, for example, we had firewalls on things like sharing Figma in certain ways, like all the normal ways of working that we had for every other project. Yeah. So just kind of 70%. And then you just got blocked and we had to work it out on the fly, but the risks there were certainly draining people's clocks in terms of wasting a lot of time trying to screw around and make, basically make excel in work like Figma, which is insane.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah.

Dave Gregurke:

The only way I knew how to get every single person with their tech stack to work was like, okay, we all have Excel can they type? Cool. Awesome. So, doing your best to try and take the great things that come from a. Shared whiteboard experience like Figma, but in this particular case we were, it was service blueprint, so it was a little bit more practical to do it in a matrix. But yeah, it's not always gonna be that way. Those are odd risks that I didn't necessarily think I'd ever come across. But the risks to those vendors in terms of potentially sharing certain information that they may not even know they're doing. So it's again, another great reason why we should be really, really careful about what we paste into chats and talk about when we don't know necessarily who's on the group call.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah, you forget, how easy the technology has made it for certain teams and departments, but then adoption is not always there, even with Miro, some straightforward whiteboarding tools or you know, this or that, not everyone's due. And, you know, I think as leaders, facilitators of some of those interactions, we can sometimes forget that not everyone's on board with it. In a breadth of experience, some people will know about how it ran before those things existed. I remember organizations. Even just going five years back, we're flat out refusing to use Slack and instant messaging. They just didn't want to use it. They were using email and it was all kept and maintained that way. You find workarounds, but unless those steps are introduced into your process, you just assume that you can use the latest stuff, but often isn't possible. Particularly within certain organizations. So I think it's a really good point to make around, how to set up for success from the start, what are you gonna be using? What are some of the lowest common donated tools. What can people use, everyone can access it, that kind of thing. So, a pretty good point. Maybe we just finish on a bit of a point around, implementation and then looking beyond into future proofing a little bit. Have you got any thoughts around how to make things stick? You've obviously introduced change through the process and we've talked about how to do that sensitively and in a human way. How do you sustain momentum in how you work and how do people still continue to take on some of the practices that you've showed them, that kind of thing. Is there anything in that space that you wanna share?

Dave Gregurke:

Yeah, I suppose instinctively the answer is that you're just leading by just doing. The ability to not just share what you're doing when people wanna deep dive, when they actually go, no, I still don't get it. That's gonna be huge. Your communication is crucial, obviously. Not just as a designer, but the process is the ability to try and have, I think you mentioned this before and it's so true. You're gonna have your outline, you're gonna have your framework, but what actually happens on the day, no one knows. And that's the beauty of it, right? You are essentially all guides to the data. You're just guiding it into this little funnel, and then you put a lid on it. It's kind of amazing for people to experience that firsthand, especially when they've never done it before in an organization. So providing and making sure that they have. Really easy tools that they can share. And again, we talked about whether they have access to figma or Miro or whatever the licensing is. Make sure that there's a way for them to carry on that work in the same way so that they can benefit from those new learnings. Because the stickiness comes from being consistent. Over time, you take design sprints into AJ Smart and AJ Smart go, you know what, actually we can knock all day off. And that's what happens. You provide a framework, someone will innovate, create a nice polished round corner that wasn't there before and it just makes sense and you're like, cool, we're doing this now. And that's progress.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. Definitely. I think I like that. It's optimistic and not fixed. It feels like sometimes people just introduce these methodologies. This is the way. You know, not to quote Mandalorian, but you gotta allow for people to get on board with it a little bit. Before you start preaching, this is what you're gonna have to use forever because it's open to change. Business is probably more fluid than people give it credit for a lot of the time, so. Yeah. Yeah,

Dave Gregurke:

yeah. That's right.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Any sort of big opportunities you see for intrapreneurs, based on your experience, particularly within established organizations or, more constrained, working environments, anything you see there as being big opportunities?

Dave Gregurke:

Yeah. I think particularly for the bigger places, it's probably more pertinent to you will have a spidey sense for it, that gut feel of like, you know what, I think we could probably do that better. Yeah. Don't sit quietly and there's nothing wrong as well with having a crack at at yourself. So, you know, sometimes it's better to turn up with what you believe to be, for example, a problem statement. There are times when you don't want to do that. Absolutely. But, it could be a journey map, it could be anything you've got the ability in your experience to understand a thing and go with that instinct, document it. Even if it's a crappy whiteboard sketch, put it on a post-it, take a photo on your phone, whatever you need to do, and start that process internally of discussion about what if, try and try and understand that there will usually be appetite for a small amount of work. It doesn't have to be gigantic. If you come in saying, right, we need to change massive chunks of things or in our case, we don't do discovery properly in this particular area. That's significant change. And it was quite ambitious, over a long period we were able to prove the effectiveness of it for someone just starting out or coming in new with all those tools, it really is just a matter of, having those discussions getting to know the people as quickly as possible. Understand your colleagues, what's keeping them up at night? And you will almost certainly have a gut feel for what tools you have to bring to help them tackle that problem.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. No, that's really good advice. Thank you Dave, really appreciate you coming onto the show and sharing your thoughts and wisdom, and some stories from your experience as well. There's a lot that goes on within the walls of big corporates and these organizations that, other people don't always experience, but hearing about it would really help and enrich their own working careers lots to learn from it. So I really appreciate coming on. Thanks so much, Dave. Oh, no worries. Thanks for having me in spring. Yeah, yeah, exactly. what is your secret to keeping so calm?

Dave Gregurke:

Just one

Chris Hudson:

more

Dave Gregurke:

thing.

Chris Hudson:

What are your coping mechanisms?

Dave Gregurke:

Oh, at the moment it's this lovely rec room that, I took a couple of months off last year to turn our carport into, put four walls on it and actually make it into a proper separated studio away from the house. Yeah, nice,

Chris Hudson:

nice.

Dave Gregurke:

And it really is a little bit zen.

Chris Hudson:

I mean, I'm feeling that, and I think, the environment definitely, affects how you work and how you think and everything else. So really, really good. Hey, if anyone had a question and they wanted to get in touch, how would they find you?

Dave Gregurke:

Yeah, so LinkedIn's definitely the simplest way. You can direct message me there or check out my links and bio from there.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. Perfect. All right. Well thanks so much for coming on the show, Dave. We'll leave it there. Thank you. Yeah, no worries Chris. Good on

Dave Gregurke:

you.

Chris Hudson:

Thanks.