Leading Transformation in the Age of AI - with Hayley Glasby-Ringham, KPMG

Speaker A: Hello and thank you for joining PMI's Leading for Business Excellence podcast. We talk with great leaders who share their experience and what business excellence means to them. They share their inspiring stories and this episode focuses on stories of transformation. I'm Susannah Clark, Managing partner of PMI M, the performance improvement, consulting, training and apprenticeship firm. And in this episode I'm joined by Hayley Glasby Ringham from kpmg who is at a particularly interesting sweet spot of their transformation. They've reached Go Live. So all the hard work is done. Or is it? We talk about how to make a success from executive buy in to developing AI agents who provide first line support after Go Live. I hope you enjoy this episode. There's lots to learn from it. Thank you for listening. So, hello Hayley, thank you so much for joining me today. It's great to have you on Leading for Business Excellence.

Speaker B: Thank you for having me, Suze. It's a pleasure to be here on such a lovely sunny day.

Speaker A: Can you tell our audience a bit about you, who you are, what you do?

Speaker B: Okay. I'm one of those people that probably has a job description that doesn't help anybody or job title that doesn't help anybody. But yes, I'm Hayley. I work at KPMG and my current official title, um, is as Associate Partner and I head up what is known as our Enterprise Portfolio Group, um, which as I say, probably doesn't help our listeners all that much. But what that really means. I'm doing two things at the moment for the firm. One is we've just been through a major transformation as you know, um, and we're still in hypercare of that where we've changed a lot of our core operating systems, reviewed all of our processes. So, uh, very much a business led transformation enabled by technology. So I've been helping make sure all of our operational teams are ready for that change and ready for the go live, but also ready to take ownership of that solution going forward, working with our wider business to evolve that solution and to drive the benefits from that. At the same time, as you know, we've recently merged with our, uh, Swiss practice. So our UK and Swiss practices have come together as one organization, one group, one organisation. So we're also looking at how do we manage that and drive our business forward and drive business excellence across both countries and how do we do that at the same time as continuing to evolve and drive the changes we were wanting to make in the UK as well. So that's my focus. I've had quite a squiggly career path as I say to get here I actually started life in fmcg. So I started as a graduate at ah, Nestle in supply chain and procurement. I think I bought everything there is to buy, packaging, ingredients, marketing, seeing things, everything from calculators to custard and uh, all the things in between. And then progressively move through the supply chain for Nestle and then for Kraft Foods both in Europe and then over in North America, uh, and finished my time in FMCG really heading up the customer supply strategy in Kraft Foods in North America. And then uh, joined KPMG in our consulting business nearly 20 years ago now. My goodness. And I joined uh, performance improvement, operational excellence, um, consulting practice, working with clients across a number of different industries, retail, um, oil and gas and others as well before I switch focus to make KPMG my client. And again I've done a number of roles internally. I spent a number of years helping to transform my global advisory business, um, and actually transforming the way we advise to our clients, making sure that all of our advisors across the globe have the processes, the methodologies, the insights so they could work effectively with our clients and really add value to their businesses. Um, and then about three, four years ago I moved back to focus on the UK firm to help drive our transformation, focus on our operations and how we continue to evolve our operating model to meet the changing business needs so that we can provide the right services to our clients. So yes, that's me very wiggly. I guess the common thread through that wiggle, if you like is I've always gone where, where's the next problem or where's the next opportunity? Where do we need to do something different? And so I've taken that thread with me through all of my uh, all of my roles I think which presumably

Speaker A: then led you naturally into the business excellence element.

Speaker B: Indeed, yes. So always being curious about what next, what could we do, what's the answer to the possible, um, and how do we make it happen if you like.

Speaker A: So help um, uh, me just get a little bit more context about this current project that you've been on. And I'd like to ah, as well just to help me understand is it a transformation or is. Do you see it as an evolution? Which do you think it is in this?

Speaker B: So the, the program I've just been through would be what I would call transformation with a big T. Um, it's described, it took it to all my parents. It's very difficult to describe what you do sometimes to people outside of what you do. So I likened it to, this was a major transformation. So um, it's a bit like having a, um, multi organ transplant. So we've taken out most of the major organs in our organization and reconnected everything. So we've looked end to end at our processes. Multiple applications and systems have been changed but it was really kind of focusing on integrated value chain and how do we want that to work going forward and then what technology do we use to enable that so that we're making the right decisions, um, and doing things at pace. This, this transformation we've been through was very much transformation with a capital T. But we're at that tipping point, uh, and that inflection where as I say we're right in the middle of hypercare and we're looking at how do we transition from major transformation, capital T to transformation and evolution. And I think in previous conversations we've talked about transformation with a little T, um, or change, continuous change. Um, and uh, a lot of people say you transition from hypercare into business as usual. I don't think there's any such thing as business as usual now. It's continuous change as usual. It's change as usual is how I would phrase it. Particularly a lot of the tools we now move to are uh, SaaS tools. So again you're going to get regular ups and change being driven by the technologies themselves. And you're on um, that journey to how do you best harness that and get the value and the benefits from that. And that's really part of the role now to say, okay, how do we change the traditional mindset of continuous improvement and evolution and transformation. When you're working in uh, an environment where it's happening like it or not, not just through external factors that you can't control like market and regulation and all of those good things, global pandemics, but also through our choices with the technologies that we have. Our vendors are continuing to drive the improvements to their products and tools and that gives us new opportunities, always with our processes. So how do we get the benefits and drive the value from making that investment and that leap into that new world? So it's really changing the way we need to think about uh, how we drive business excellence, how we drive operational excellence in the future.

Speaker A: When we were talking before, I really appreciated your link to transformation being around process as well as system.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Um, and how, what have you done to get that buy in to the process in particular part of it, and I don't mean to be glib about that, but often people find it quite easy to say, yes, I will invest in a new system, but I don't want to go through all the effort of having to redo all the processes. Let's just take the ones we've got. And we all know that that doesn't work. But so therefore what is it that you have done to try and solve that dilemma?

Speaker B: I think it's almost making sure we're asking the right question in the first place. Because I think that there has been a phase, if I look back over my career, uh, where transformation change was system led. And so you would see the big systems plays and it was a bit of a tech slam if you like. And then you'd figure out, oh goodness, what has happened to the organization. Um, our approach both has mirrored what we do with our clients effectively, which is you say you're starting with the wrong question there. You start with, start with what do we need to change and why do we need to change? What is it that's wrong or what are we trying to achieve? And m, you look to the process and then the technology enables that. So we always come at it with the mindset of business process first. And how does the technology enable us to advance that? Um, one example I like to use is if you've got the right people doing the right things in the right way, you can use post it notes and carrier pigeons to make it happen. I think in a previous discussion I mentioned we put men on the moon with less technology than we all carry around in our handbags now.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: And it's about getting the right people to do the right thing. So whilst technology can really help accelerate that change, you have to focus on the what are you trying to change and the why first and what are you trying to achieve? And then look at all the design layers of your operating model, not just the technology layer. It's easy to go there, it's easy to say, okay, well technology will fix that problem. But if that uh, if technology wasn't the root cause of the problem in the first place, it's unlikely to be the fix. So thinking about all of those design layers, whether it's the process, the service delivery model, the governance controls, all of your kind of six design layers come into play in that and that's important that we get that. So two, changing the question first is the first thing you do I would say is make sure you're asking the right question. Um, and then getting clarity on who needs to be in place. So we've looked very much at kind of introducing the Whole process ownership model. And that's not just about process owners and just naming process owners, it's about the whole model around and we've simplified it to a kind of triangle with process products and data. Um, and we kind of, I think of everything as a kind of a three way matrix if you like. Um, and how do those come to play? So we've got, it's not just one system, one solution in the product space. We've got multiple technologies that all work together and integrate together and the data flows through those end to end through different processes. So it's how does the interplay of the process, which is where we're trying to drive the outputs, how does our data flow through those systems to enable those processes? And actually making sure we're thinking about the impacts from all three sides is really important. So identifying the right people in each of those domains and in the process space, it's not just about the process owner, uh, it's about our uh, process delivery leads, it's about the process execution teams, it's about the end users and the businesses who are the customers of those processes and making sure we've got the right people in the right roles across that whole organization as a whole ecosystem. And we're still on the journey of that, but I think starting to identify and say, right, these are the people that need to connect, these are how we need to connect and engage. Because actually as I say the solution we've just implemented is a very integrated system. So we had more standalone processes which enabled in some ways a bit more autonomy for each of the process areas to do things. But as soon as you start to integrate those things together, uh, a change here can have a consequence down there. And getting the right people to know that they have upstream and downstream connections now, um, and understanding that a change they might want to make needs to be considered within a more integrated ecosystem is, is, is a journey for everybody to go on.

Speaker A: And the, the, the buy in and I guess the sponsorship at a senior level, what have you asked of that exec team and the senior leadership teams? What have you asked of them?

Speaker B: So it's a good question actually. So I think it's, it's a series of questions that um, and I think it's about when you're engaging with that senior leadership, what are the right questions to ask at the right time? And actually what are the questions they're asking of us? And I think what we're asking them for is the sponsorship and the leadership and to help drive that, that mindset shift, we've had to do it in a way, as you know, you can talk to some people about continuous, um, improvement and you can get into detail around D, make Six Sigma, all of these concepts. But if you go out and start talking to an exec leadership who have very different roles and responsibilities, come from different backgrounds, it will land with some and it won't with others. So actually the what I'm asking for and actually has to be framed in a world that makes sense to them. So there is no point getting into the technical detail if you haven't got, if you're not talking a language that works for them. So actually the conversations are around what do we need to put in place to make sure that we can deliver the value from what we've done and from the integration with our, uh, Swiss firm. What do we need to drive business excellence and couch that in language that they, that resonates with them, that is going so, so, so what I always say, and my kind of advice to people is spend less time in your own world thinking about what you need in terms of the technical detail and more thinking about how do you position that in a way that makes the need theirs and that they understand why they need to have something in place and then let them trust you to know technical what methodologies we're going to apply, what tools, techniques, etc. We're going to use, but focus at that very senior exec level in terms of the concept of what we're trying to do and why it's important. So for me, my simple phrase when I'm talking to our leadership is operational excellence. Business excellence is really about maximizing the value of what we've got and the resources that we've got. I'm not coming to you asking for lots of extra resources. I'm saying let's look at what we have and how do we do more and how do we do it better? Uh, I used, particularly with the transition from major programming to business school, I've used the, um, marathon analogy, um, which a lot of people, when they do a major transformation, get to the Go Live and there's a big hurrah, there's a lot of relief and everyone's going, we've made it, and I feel like we've reached the finish line. Whereas I have to point out to people that we actually haven't reached the finish line. We've actually just reached the start line. Transformation doesn't start, doesn't end on day one on Go Live. In fact, it doesn't Actually start till day one. You've done a lot of. When you do a major system and process transformation, you do a lot of design work, build work upfront, but until it's live, you've actually transformed nothing. But the energy in the organization changes. So your programme team is very energized in the build and they're getting ready for go live and sees that as the big milestone. But the business, in a lot of cases, hasn't actually experienced anything. You know, the majority of people in your business might not have even really heard about it till a few months, weeks before you go live. And actually, what do they really need to know, etc. Is something you have to think through, getting our, uh, uh, leaders to realize, yeah, this is actually day one, not the end. And actually all the build is like the training you do for a marathon. That's why I use the marathon. And I think, you know, you, you decide you want to run a marathon, you have the vision of that, so you go through your vision phase. This is the marathon I want to run. You can see the finish line, you can see what, what good looks like. Then you do all your training. You, you pound the streets for days. And then, by the way, I'm not a runner, so. So I probably, if you've got any runners listening, I apologize for this. Uh, they pound the streets for days on end. You know, they get fit, they get ready for it. And then on the day, like something like the London Marathon, you don't just go straight to the start line and start running. You can, you can be in a long queue to get to the start line.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: And so that's kind of when you're going through your design and then you build and then you go live and you start to run the race. So we're kind of at the start of our actual race, if you like. This is where the fun starts, but this is where you actually have to deliver the results and deliver the benefits. So spending time helping the organization realize that, and I think traditionally I've seen both in the roles I've done, transforming my own organisation, but also with working with clients. It's often a mistake people make is they focus on that, what they think is day one. And as I say, they've got it as the finish line, not the start line. And so that continuous change, that thinking about how do you actually get the real value? And that's why people leave the value on the table. It's because they, they're so relieved to get to the day one that they Kind of go, okay, okay. And then the next shiny thing comes along. So people get distracted with the next big thing, and then they forget that they have to look after what you've got and you have to evolve. And that's why. So I say that transformation with a small T or evolution is really important. That's where you actually get your value out.

Speaker A: Yeah. I remember someone describing to me, they were using, um, the Kubler Ross curve. And they were describing to me for the first time that I had heard it this way was the stages that you're talking about really in the, in your marathon start line analogy. And they said, actually it's the leaders of the organization that go through this first, go through the change first, where they assimilate the idea and decide to go for it. And then behind them come the program team. So you've got your second curve, but it doesn't overlay exactly on the first. And then the program team, they, they assimilate and they start to do all of their stuff. And then the final group are the actual people in the organization who are affected by it. And unless we understand that we've got several changes going on and that we have to manage all of them, we have to manage to communicate all of them really well, we will fail.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: And I hadn't really, I hadn't seen it in those phases. You've described it really well. For me, that was. Goodness. Of course, not everyone starts this at the same time and certainly not in the same place.

Speaker B: No. And actually seeing the conflict of people who were, uh, who started at the earlier going, well, hang on, why don't people get it? It's like. Well, it's obvious because they, but they've, they've forgotten they've already been on this journey for a while.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, we were running a series of road shows in the run up to the go live to make sure everyone was, um, aware and ready in the business. And one of our change agents was quite surprised when someone came up to them at the roadshow and said, well, tell me about this project. I don't really know what this is. But they'd been living, and the change agent had been living and breathing the program for a long time and was actually quite upset about how do they not know they're just starting their journey. They didn't need to know before. And, um, actually we had to think very carefully about what's the right time to engage each audience.

Speaker A: I was about to ask, ah, you exactly that, because that's the challenge.

Speaker B: Yes. Yes. And actually you know, there was, everyone was so keen and I remember having a conversation with some of the senior leaders, um, quite a lot earlier in and everyone said, we need to get out there, we need to start getting uh, the message out there. And I said, well you've got to be careful. If you go too soon, everyone will be bored and if you build the excitement too early as well, everyone will be expecting and then, you know, it's going to take a while to get there. So getting the right balance about signposting what's coming but also not distracting people and allowing people to continue with their journey of what they need to be focused on whilst you're about to make a big transformational change is a really fine balance. And um, we had that even with our operations teams because this big program is coming and it's going to transform things. But that doesn't mean we should stop trying to make incremental improvements and drive continuous improvement in what we're doing today. Because these big programmes take multi year to actually achieve and to embed. But there's a tendency to say, well, do we stop doing all those small changes or do we go too early? We're telling everyone about what we're doing. So there is a real fine balance about what's the right time to engage people. Um, and so that they're ready and they don't feel that this has been sprung on them, but also that it's not too far in advance. And actually my focus on operational readiness was very much about we're ready now and actually if we're not careful and we don't, we don't go, then actually we're gonna have to redo some things because we're at that peak fitness. It's like, you know, if your marathon's delayed, that's a bit of a problem as well. You don't want to do it. You don't just start the race too early but you also don't want to start it too late, otherwise people have tipped over the edge.

Speaker A: Some people go with a central change team and that can have challenges and be good as well. Some people go with a more local change based team. What have you found works for you?

Speaker B: For the program, we've very much had a hybrid model so there are certain things we want to make sure we drive consistency on. Um, and so for the program implementation we've had a core deployment team, if you like, in the center that's been thinking through what are the right messages, what is the right way to engage the audience, what is the right way to build the skills and capabilities, how do we kind of build the right learning materials, etc. What's our approach for learning strategy? But then partnered very much with the business and had a, um, extended change network in each of our areas in audit and tax and legal and advisory businesses who own the kind of the face of it into their organization. And actually their role is to kind of be the change leads in their part of the business. And so we've provided a core central amount of information and collateral, etc. But it has to be contextualised for the businesses that they're in. Um, and so we've had that extended network and obviously we've got the extended network of change agents, um, but also supported. We're in the process of implementing a virtual change agent using AI. Um, because the traditional model of. If I go back to the start of my career 30 years ago, I was involved in SAP implementation as, uh, a graduate and I was a super user. It was easy to have that model when we all sat next to each other. I remember very well, you had to go and sit in a classroom, uh, based training for several days with your binder and you literally sat in a system and practiced. But in sas you don't have that, you don't have those training environments in the same way, nor do you sit next to the person. I remember being a super user and people would come over to me from on the procurement floor and say, hayley, I'm stuck. How do I do this? And I would, if I didn't know, I'd take my binder down, we'd go to page 573 or whatever it was, find the asset and we would, we would work it through. And so the change agents were very visible and, um, you sat next to people. But in a virtual world where everyone's working remote or for part of the time people are working remotely, it's not so easy. And so we've got end users who are going into the systems for the first time and they can't just nudge their neighbor. So how do we use teams, how do we use messaging systems to actually be able to connect with each other? But how do we use AI and technology to have a virtual change agent next to somebody? And how do we use digital adoption platforms like WalkMe to actually embed the information on how to do things into the applications themselves? So people don't need to go on lots of training beforehand. They open the application and it tells them what to do and guides them through it. So Thinking about how you can use technology to uh, help enable that and help people accept the change has been really important. Kind of it still comes down to when you're trying to win the hearts and minds. Me sat in the centre in a team that people don't know is not going to win the heart and mind of somebody in our, uh, audit business or in our tax and legal practice or in our advisory business. They want to hear from their leaders. And it's really important when you go through major change that people, it's uncomfortable. So how do you make people feel comfortable with being uncomfortable? And when you're dramatically changing what someone might be doing on a daily basis, you've got to really think about that. And so they want to hear from the people, they know that it's going to be okay. They want to hear from people they can trust. Not that they can't trust me, but they don't know me. So what you know, how do you do that? So building it into your local leadership, making sure that they are the face of it, is really important for us. And so that the people feel comfortable they can ask those questions. So, hey, what does it mean for us? And they get the context and they get, they know they're hearing from someone who they know understands their world.

Speaker A: And you're avoiding that barrier that sometimes appears because people have a sense of it's being done to me by people who know nothing about what I do. And if you have that local change engine that can smooth that over, uh, absolutely. To then say the same thing when, yeah, clearly they do know what you do.

Speaker B: Yeah. And that, I mean that's the other reason for having kind of a multi layered network. So we have local leadership from the very top of the business right through to change agents at every level in the organisation who can connect and empathize with their colleagues, actually. Because again, hearing from the head of your function, the head of your business is one thing, but actually they're like, well, you haven't done this for a long time. You don't really know what it feels like to be me. But actually Fred over here knows exactly what it likes it feels like to be me. Um, and so actually you can tell me it's all going to be all right, but Fred can do that in a different way. So you've got to have a multifaceted approach with this and not just think one size is going to fit all. And that's the same with how you get people to buy into change. Um, is actually having multi channels, um, and Multiple ways where you're trying to get the message out and in your training and your communication. It's not about, we're going to do it by this mechanism. You've got to look at all the different ways people like to receive information. Some people are visual, some people like to watch videos, some people like to listen to podcasts, Some people just want an email that they read in their own time. So we've got a really thought about that multi channel approach in how we execute on the change. But we're now in that phase of how does it, how do we, how do we move from big stuff to actually continuing to drive that going forward? Um, and um, actually how do we keep that momentum going there?

Speaker A: So I would like to come back to that. I was curious when you talked about the AI change agent. I'm interested in how, how people have felt about that and um, being given an AI change agent.

Speaker B: Well, this is something we're about to launch, so I'm actually very excited about next week. Yes. So come back, come back in a couple of weeks time and I'll let you know. But I, um, think um, it is a bit of expert, but we have done it elsewhere. Um, we actually introduced um, AI into our policy library space. And we did that because like a lot of firms, we have a lot of policies out there. We're a regulated business. So it's really important that people understand what they need to do, how to comply with that, what the rules are. Um, and um, we did a big transformation of our policy library. And I think, I think you might know a little bit about that from one of my colleagues who, you know, Don, he led that transformation and it was great. But actually we didn't have AI at the time, but we now have our AI within the firm. And uh, AI and we thought what else could we do rather than resting on our laurels and saying, okay, well we've transformed that, isn't it great? We actually said, okay, how do we make it even easier? And that's about business excellence. Don't rest on our laurels. It's like, well we could do more. So what else could we do now to help make it easier for people to find what they need and to find what's the right thing to do? So we bought in um, an AI agent over our policy library. So to actually say, instead of people having to know what they were looking for, they could just ask the question and say, what do I need to do to do X? And then the AI agent will go and search through all the policies, um, and actually come back with okay, this policy says you need to follow these things, click here and away you go. So that was, that was probably our first um, dabble if you like, in this space. And I think it's been really, really useful because people have seen it as a great way because there's lots of information, sometimes there's almost too much information and actually AI can help ingest all of that and come back with a nice simple, this is what you need to do. And I think that's what we're expecting with the um, launch of the AI virtual agent. So we've had a real change agents for the first um, period of hypercare and they will remain in place. But as you know change agents are people who have day jobs and it's a side of desk activity and at some point they need to be able to kind of focus on that and we need to kind of wean people off um, that level of help. What we're wanting to do is bring in AI alongside it. So okay, you now have this instead and Ava will, she will continue to help you if you get stuck. Um, and I think we're expecting a warm response because one of the things with having a multi channel approach and lots of information is as I say almost people are uh, oh my goodness, there's now so much information available to me and there's so many FAQs. How do I navigate my way through it? So the intent is this will act as that nice simple way through it and we're integrating, we're hoping to integrate it into. So uh, we have in application guidance and in system guidance on how to follow the processes which then will link you if you're stuck into the AI agent which will then um, give you the opportunity to ask it questions and then if you're still not sure then it will link you through seamlessly into our one contact system and you can raise a ticket for help and support from our uh, support system. So we're seeing it almost as the front end of our operational support organization as we go forward. So we've as part of this transformation gone right back to basics in terms of how do we help people get things right and sort of re engineered our entire integrated support model and put technology much much further up front. Uh, which might not sound revolutionary to a lot of people in like a customer service background, but um, guiding people. But it starts in the system, in the moment. So we have a, we have a digital adoption platform that's built into the system that is Literally guiding people through the process and then that links them seamlessly into the AI over our knowledge base. So what we find is people get really frustrated with FAQs and having to go and find things they don't, they miss that, ah, step out. So if anyone's in um, uh, implemented support organizations, they'll understand this. People usually try and get through the FAQs as quickly as they can. They want to raise a ticket at this point. Yeah, I'm stuck. I don't want to, I want to speak to someone. I want to speak to someone. Yes. Yeah, you've guided me through this FAQ system. I'm supposed to find the answer to the question myself. Well I can't be bothered, I'm just going to bypass it. So the use of AI is to try and encourage people in because it means you can ask a question in your way and then the AI will go and do the hard work of looking through all the content that's available and then you can. So it's literally a seamless user experience. So we've done our best that you don't need any help at all. Within application guidance we guide you through AI to self serve and we then link you straight into our support organization if you need to go there. So we've come at it from the lens of that uh, design thinking and

Speaker A: out of interest I imagine people could be thinking, well they're probably a pretty mature organization in terms of AI use or adoption. If not, I don't mean from the leadership and from your team, I mean from the user base this is going out to. How mature would you say they are?

Speaker B: They're probably more mature than me. It's our organization. I think someone said the average age of people in our organization is I think 27. So we have people who aren't scared of technology but we have a real breadth of people and so we've got, we've, we've got to be able to get, get across to everybody and people are kind of experimenting in different ways I think like, like in the world as a whole. I think you've got, you've got people who have lept on air, um, are out there using it for pretty much everything. And then you've got people going no, this is the way I do things. So I think, I think we've got a very mixed bag. I don't think we're necessarily that, that different to others. And actually the trick is my premise at the moment is the way we'll succeed I think with AI is actually to build it into the flow of work. So, you know, we're experimenting with AI tools, but if you've got to remember to go and do it, if you're a bit of an old duffer like me, you'll be like, well, I'll do it like this, I know what I'm doing. And then you go, oh, there's that thing over there, there's a copilot orders. I could go and use, uh, firm AI. It's not my first thought because it's not in the moment, it's not where I'm working. So thinking in what I'm working with, uh, our technology teams on this issue. How do we, how do we get AI to where people are? Similar to the conversation we had earlier around. When you're trying to get people to think about continuous improvement, set up a business excellence organization. Don't sit in your world and expect them to come to you. You've got to go to the. Then it's the same with the use of AI just telling people, oh, you've now got an AI, uh, on your, on your laptop, go use it. Like, why don't supposed to do that. I don't know when I'm going to use that. I've always done it this way. So how do you get people. If we get it right, people won't necessarily even realize they're using AI. And I don't mean that in a sneaky. We don't want them to know, but we don't want anyone to worry about it, be fearful of it. But you can actually use AI in the flow of work to do some of the hard work for you without it having to be a conscious decision. And um, an example that we're looking at is like when people get to the point of going, I'm raising a support ticket for help from our operational teams. We can use AI to help them raise better tickets. And I know that sounds, um, a bit daft, but actually people don't know what makes a good ticket. So then you find friction in your support organization because someone else fill in a ticket saying I can't do X. But they haven't explained really enough about it for the, for the receiver of that ticket to go, okay, I know what your problem is, I know how to fix it. So then they bounce the ticket back to the user who's already annoyed because they can't do what they want to do. And now they've got something come back. And particularly if you're using automated systems and ticketing systems et CETERA where you're not talking to people, um, and so you've lost that interaction. They're going, well now I've got a bounce back on this. Now I've got to go in and give them some more information. So now I'm even more annoyed, still not got an answer and I'm being asked more questions. So using AI to actually prompt the user to think about what information do we need and actually to almost assess the ticket on behalf of the support organization first is actually quite a good way to remove that friction because again, the support person is kind of sat there going, I'm asking for help, I'm asking you. Now you're not getting back to me quick enough. So now I've got aging tickets and my KPIs are going out the window. So using AI to help get it right first time so the right information gets into our support organization so they can respond promptly eases the friction, speeds the process up and reduces cost. So it's the perfect example where you know, just looking at it, saying, you know, you said you couldn't do that. Can you just explain a bit more? Uh, or can you absolutely, can you say where you are, where you started that and it can assess the quality of the information that's being provided. So I think use cases like that where people are nudged and prompted by AI, but don't really think, oh, I'm using, I'm using AI as such. Your AI is just there helping.

Speaker A: I think self service used to get a really interesting reputation because, because there was no service related to self service. It was just sort of fill something in and off it, off it went and, and people felt it went into a void. You're absolutely right that the AI doing the initial analysis of what has been submitted, particularly in this sort of ticket environment, is an excellent example of adding value. You know, we were talking earlier on about the needing to add value, needing to be able to demonstrate what the value is and how we connect that to the work that we're doing.

Speaker B: Yeah, and I think there's, and that's, that's where you get into, say you've got bringing together big change and small change. And actually some people go, oh, it's all about the big transformations. It's all about, you know, big investments that you have to make that drive things forward and um, lose sight of that. What we now and love as the continuous improvement, um, and just nudging us forward and the combination of actually those nudges and being able to use technology to do it more Quickly than we've ever been able to do it before is moving the dial and actually meaning we get the value from the big stuff in a much different way. I mean we're using um, a digital adoption platform as I mentioned, which is, which, which gets, you can use very, very quickly. And through Hypercare, it's been invaluable to us to actually see where people are getting stuck, see where people are going wrong, see what's coming into our support organization, listen to our change agents, what are the questions they're getting asked and actually go, okay, we know that that's an issue to people now let's tweak something. Use a digital adoption tool to steer people gently in the right way when they're in the flow of their process to do it right first time so they never have to go to support. So as soon as one person has a learning experience, we can act very quickly to make sure everyone else knows what to do so we don't end up with multiple people that uh, are ah, frustrated or don't know what they're doing because we've actually put that nudge into the system or we've put a little bit of guidance that says when you fill this field in, this is what we really. And some of these tools are invaluable to help us with getting that out quickly. Um, and so you get to benefit much faster if you use technology. But it's about starting always with what are we trying to do, what is the outcome we're trying to achieve and the user and the process and the people. And then how do you use technology to help with that? Not what can technology do and what do we therefore need to change in our people? It's how do we do use technology to help, help what we need, not the other way around.

Speaker A: I think in everything that you've been doing and, and obviously where you are with your, with your current transformation. The last question I'd love you to share your thoughts on. For anybody who's going to be planning a transformation, what are the, what are you. Your top three things that you would ask. Is that too small that you'd ask them to really pay attention to?

Speaker B: Yeah, um, that's a really good question. But again, I think don't lose sight of that. The go live of your transformation is the start of your journey. And I know we haven't um, much about the journey to come, but you need to stop planning that before you, before you get to the go live, you need to know kind of where you're going and actually, if you want prepared and committed to that post go live Journey, then you're not going to deliver the value from that. That, as I say, there are numerous studies over the years and surveys that are out there. People say we never quite deliver the value we expect. We build a great benefits case. Fabulous. We get everyone bought into that benefits case and we never actually get the benefit from it. And that's because you go on to the next shiny thing and you don't. You're not committed to actually the hard yards that come on Go live. So I think that's the number one thing is don't think of the implementation of that transformation as in and done. That's the start. It's a dramatic way to kind of drive your business forward. And that's always the balance. It's like, do you want to take a big leap and do a dramatic change or are you on an evolution journey? Revolution versus evolution is what I say. So number one, if you're going in with both feet on a transformation, don't forget that the actual, the big program is the start of it. And, uh, the transformation comes once you've actually delivered and implemented that. So that would be the first thing, I think the second thing then would be what we talked about. What is the right time to engage people and make sure that you've kind of built that thinking in, in terms of who do you need to engage, when is the right moment to engage them, what do they need to know, um, and what don't they need to know? I often say this to the programme team as well. It's that there's. Because you're living in building, you're so excited about it, think we need to tell everyone everything, so. Well, actually, no, the art is actually making it sound simple. So you spent a lot of time working through the complexity, designing something. And actually your job now is just to not scare people by all the complexity you've had to deal with, but actually show how simple it is now. Um, it's like you don't need to show everyone the sausage making facility, you just show them the sausage, um, because that's all they need to worry about. And we do have a tendency sometimes because we've invested so much to tell them everything and it's not what most people need to know or we overemphasize, uh, or we overthink how big an impact it's going to be on some people. And it's actually, you know, we made a change last year in the way people book absences and when we initially looked at the change impact of that was like, well, someone said, well, big impacts, huge impact for the firms. And I was like, explain. I said, well, everyone in the firm is going to have to do something different. And I said, I, ah, 100% agree. So in terms of breadth of change and scale of change, I agree it's everybody going forward will have to do something different to book their holidays or if they want, if they need time off or they've been off sick, whatever. However, unfortunately, most of us don't have enough holiday allocated to us that that's what we spend most of our time doing. We don't spend all of our days booking our holidays in our systems. We do it a couple of times a year because we're going on holiday for two weeks, you go in, it's actually a fairly simple, infrequent activity. So whilst everyone will be impacted by the change, the impact on them is actually small and you can make the wrong assessment of the impacts of your change if you don't define it in the right way. And so you've got to think very carefully then. So again, how big a deal do you need to make of what you're doing? Whilst it might be big and complicated behind the scenes because actually you're replacing your entire um, time management system or whatever, which is big and complicated to do to the end user, it's potentially only a small thing. So put yourself on the other side. Uh, and that's the same with whatever you're doing. Whether it's a big transformation, whether you're pitching for a new thing is actually getting to the world of the person that you're trying to engage and who's going to be impacted and look at it from their side and think, what do they need to know? What matters to them? How do I communicate in a way that's going to resonate with them? So that would be, yeah, ah, they would probably be the things that I would think of. But they, that, that this is the start of your journey and what are you going to need? And actually, and that's, that's important when you're talking to your leadership because they need to commit not just to the big investment.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: But to the ongoing success.

Speaker A: How do we sustain it?

Speaker B: Yes, they need to understand what's coming and actually the importance of them holding their nerve as well, not making changes too quickly. So we're in that phase, you know, we've done the go live, um, and everyone's going, well, what do we do now? Or, or don't respond too quickly to the noise. Let people get used to it, let people settle and then, then make your decisions on where do you take it from here?

Speaker A: Thank you so much, Hayley. It's been lovely talking to you. And can I say how relaxed you look, given what you've been through over the last few months? So, yes, it's really good to see you.

Speaker B: And that's when it, as I say, when you get it right, you can be relaxed. In fact, funnily enough, someone made that exact comment. We were, we were. I was set with, with another one of the leaders and, uh, one of our business areas came over and said, you look very relaxed. And we were, I think we were in week one. And it's like, it just seems very quiet. Should we be worried? We've actually done the right things. We've got it right. We took the right amount of time to do the right things. We challenged ourselves on the design, we tracked the right things and we had three lenses, we had, we looked at the solution ready. Have we got the processes designed? Have we got the systems ready to go? Is our, um, business ready? So are our people engaged and know what they need to know to be able to operate in the new world? And are our operations ready in order to be able to support and engage and drive the business forward from there? Um, and if you think about those three lenses and when you go through those go live checkpoints, you look at those three lenses, is the solution, is your business, your operations ready? And you should be fine. You should be fine. And yeah, I can speak having done it. It's all fine. And we're still in what we call hypercare. Yeah, it's all good. It's all good. So it can be done.

Speaker A: Thank you so much. Really appreciate your time today.

Speaker B: Thank you very much too. It's good to catch up.

Speaker A: I do hope you've enjoyed this Leading for Business Excellence episode. And if it's inspired you to think about some of the challenges you face with transformation or AI, please do get in touch with us. We'd love to hear from you. You can reach us at team and@pmi.co.uk or you can have a look on our website. We have a full leadership development program available on our training section, so do take a look at that. I do look forward to hearing from you.