Bottom up innovation with Microsoft Flow | BRK2201
Morning everybody thank you, for coming and joining us after that awesome celebration. Last night I appreciate, you pushing through the hangover, to be with us here this morning that's great of you my. Name is John, Levesque, I am a senior program manager on, the Microsoft, flow team I don't have a whole ton of time I have an hour and 15 of content we're gonna stuff in 2:45 so, introductions, will be short but one, thing if you want to learn a lot about Microsoft, flow take a picture, of that youtube, link you. Will want to have that. I'm. A senior. Manager, of enterprise, architecture and, integration, at inter pipeline we're, an energy transportation. Company in Alberta. Canada, joining, me is Tyler, Arnett he's gonna be on stage in a little bit so he's a counterpart. For the business in. An emerging space and we're, gonna talk about our, collaboration between, IT and, the. Business this morning in addition, yes we are both Canadian Tyler's. From world-famous, Moose Jaw I'm. From Regina. And, we. Both cheer for the first, place to schedule an Rough Riders. Alright. So a little bit of housekeeping before we get started so one, thing at this conference it, was there was this brand new thing announced. Power automate. And I just want to be clear, here so everyone is aware, Microsoft. Flow, is. Power. Automate, it's, a rebranding. With some new function, the functionality. Added power, automate, is not a net new service, it is Microsoft, flow I just want to go ahead and set that context, with everyone so we're all on the same page there what, is power automate, it is one of the tools that makes up the power platform. And so, if you I'm going to go ahead and assume that you, will have some, base level understanding of what the power platform, is to, be in this session if I am incorrect I'm sorry. So. Power. Platform, is part, of the power I'm sorry power. Automate is part of the power platform, which is part of our less code more. Power movement, just. Went ahead and created this brand new sticker yesterday. If. You guys would like a copy of these I don't have them on me now because I just created it I'm gonna get imprinted and I'm gonna ship them so, connect. With me on Twitter to. Stay tuned on how to get some of these stickers. Okay. On to the show let's. Talk a little bit about transformation. Transformation. Is is, a very overloaded, word and often, times people, don't really know how, to define, it and so, the thing I want to talk about today with transformation. Is that when. You expect, something to transform. There's going to be many, hurdles many things to, overcome in, that, journey and so, it's hard work it comes with many hurdles what are some of those the, first one is really, fear, people. Fear. What they don't know they don't like change and, and, to, set some groundwork, here for the rest of the talk, fear. Is an important, piece because it. Ties into how we're going to actually motivate. People to do, these, transformation. Initiatives, so, it's, we have to understand people that each, have I. Travel. Around the world a lot and I meet a lot of people in a lot of places and it's. Funny because we all like to think we're very different. But. Wherever, I go people are very similar and we're all equally, motivated by the same things and so, what no matter what crowd I go to in the world I can, say this and it's universally. True each, of us all, of us as humans are motivated by the same two things and so. The first thing we are motivated by is I. Want. To look good. Right. We will do anything. If it gives us the opportunity to look good in front of other human beings we can be motivated, to do things we, might not want to do if we, think it will make us look good does anyone want to guess what, is the second, human motivator, I. Don't. Want to look bad yes, it's true and so, this is important, to know as we move into the talk to, human motivators, I want, to look good I don't want to look bad and so, keeping that in mind as we build the context, here will definitely, benefit us because, if you can help a person look good or avoid looking bad they're much more likely, to be open to change to do something new for you now. The next thing you're gonna run into here some, companies have. Amazingly. Difficult processes, to, acquire new software, I know at Microsoft. It takes me a three-page request. To, get a $15.00. License, to try and I, don't know about you but that's just not efficient, for me I'm gonna say you know what I'm just gonna keep on doing it the way I'm doing it, now, there's an inverse, to that effect other. Companies. Have too many tools they buy every, tool on the planet and then, they don't give any training or advice on which, to use when so, great I have Dropbox. And onedrive, and SharePoint.
And And box, and 30 other places to store my files like which one do I choose and, why it. Can't add inter pipeline which one are you guys suffering, with that lack of tools are too many tools, so. I'd say we're somewhere, in the middle and the. Reason why I say that is we do want to empower our employees so, we don't try to block, tools, like. Power. Apps, flow. Power, automate power bi we want to actually enable, people to go ahead and use those tools and so, all we look for is some level of a simple justification. To understand, what, is the value that that tool is going to derive and the, reason why I say on the middle is sometimes, we do creep into the too many options as well and I think we're pretty deliberate, about not going down that path but, I think, everyone that has office 365, in this room runs into this problem should I use SharePoint should, I use teams should, I use onedrive and then we also have some of our more legacy, tools, as well whether that's network file shares or, enterprise. Content management solutions. As well and so I think the the advice or the way we try to look at this is being very deliberate, about what are the tools that you should be using in those specific scenarios. That's. Good I think what, you said there simple, process. Simple. Justification. Right if I have to fill out ten pages I'm not gonna do it but if it's maybe a half a page no problem I can oh it's, like a sentence, or two a sentence. If you think about it like those, people are already disrupted, like, their day is already being disrupted, they have a problem, they're, looking for a tool if they have to wait two days to get the tool like. That demand is gone I'm gonna move on yeah, and are they. Yeah are they satisfied now so we really want to avoid that and we've actually automated. A lot of our processes, for acquiring those tools using, the power platform, as well awesome. So. The next thing and the final thing here the hurdles I want to point out is the, stuck mindset, so, you know obviously no, one in this room but. Out there there are a whole lot of people who. Are stuck. In the past who are not willing to change we think we're gonna keep our data on-prem here, where it's safe. You, would be amazed, at how many conversations I, have with customers who still believe that their on premise, servers are the safest place for their data to be and my, favorite part of that conversation, with them is how, much did you spend on security last, year and, inevitably. It's some very my new to mount the. The best amount I ever heard was 1.7. Million dollars I said, great that's a good number 1.7. Million dollars on security, well Microsoft. Spent 37, billion, and so. The fact that you think that your, on-prem. Data center is more secure it's, kind of funny, anyways. Let's go ahead and move on. So. How. Do we get, people from this place of you, know change. Is tough we, recognize. This so let's, talk about some numbers here, maybe, if maybe the numbers make it worth it if if, companies, are willing to invest in transformation, initiatives. They, usually see about an 18%, increase over, three years there's, a 500, billion dollar software spend, this year well I guess we're in November, now so maybe there's you know 50 billion left still some. Opportunity, left to be had this year, also. Disruption. Transformation. As an industry is a hundred, trillion dollars, opportunity. Over the next ten years now what. Does that all mean it, means that if you're willing to take a risk, if you're willing to go and try something new if you're wanting to get out of your stuck mindset, there's some great opportunity. Out there to be had but. That. Doesn't all really, matter to you and I write, because I don't know about you but there's not many times that I'm walking, around my job at Microsoft thinking, about how I contribute. To the bottom line no I'm like man I got 500, emails to answer I got. Had customers, that are waiting on me I have all sorts. Of tasks, I'm not thinking about how my work contributes, to the bottom line and, more. Importantly, those. Numbers don't quite matter to the end user because we as people will do anything to, avoid changing, at work, so, this slide used to say people will do anything to avoid change and Tyler, here gave me some great insight, on this because, the, truth is you, know what we do actually change a lot more in our personal, lives than we do at work think, about it like taxis.
To Ober and an uber. Eats now I don't have to go to the store I'll just have food delivered to my house we, expect, this this rapid. Rate of innovation in our personal, lives where I want, if I can't order nachos, from my bathtub next, week I'm gonna be upset. But. Yet I'll go to work and I'll keep working in Excel spreadsheets, like it's 1994. Why. Is that. Why. Do i why, will he keep. Doing what I'm doing at. Work, but. Yet be willing to change my personal, life why we go back to those motivators, right I don't want to look bad I want, to look good and I can get it done this way even, if it's hard even if it sucks I can. Get it done this way and I know that, so. It's. Important, to know now, how. Is it that we make. People start. To change their mind kit. So. The way we've approached it at inter pipeline is we've really tried to focus on empowerment, in actually. Giving folks the opportunity, to, look good the. Opportunity, to avoid looking bad the. Ability, to reward, them when. They've. Done something something. Well and I think the the, reality is is if you don't want to change someone. Will change for you and I think you know you've given some examples in the sort of sort, of consumer, space I witnessed, it last night waiting, for an uber myself, but. The reality, is if you don't want to change then. People will will, do that so eventually forced on you right right yeah and I think the other thing is that the stuck mindset, is is is. Something you see a lot especially. When you've got people that have been entrenched in the enterprise for. Some time and then all of a sudden this new, technology, comes in and really, starts to disrupt, things and disrupt can be a positive thing or it can be a negative thing and I think it's been something just, interesting. As Tyler's, recently, joined the organization, and even, as we're now pursuing, this new line of business that. Can. Create, significant. Opportunities, for us we, need to think differently if, we're gonna actually go ahead and actually capture, part of that market definitely.
And. One. Way that we go ahead and do this is the art of the possible and we're going to talk about that today where, it is important, for you, whether you're in the IT department, or you're in the business units to actually go out and take a look at what's actually available today, because, if you don't actually understand, what the options are, you're, not going to change you need to find inspiration an, inspiration. Doesn't have to be expensive it doesn't have to be hard but. You do need to put a conscious. Effort towards, that and that's, something that we've really been in. For embracing, at inter, pipeline, where, we've done these sessions with the business we've brought in external. Parties. Vendors, and we've. Given people the opportunity, to get in front of them and actually demonstrate, what could be possible, if only, we think a little bit different, yeah. So. What, makes the, art of the possible. Possible. I think. It's these six, steps here now there may be more but, I think these six, are really your most essential, so. First, things first is show-and-tell because. People don't know what they don't know and so if they don't see they. Will continue to not know next. Is opportunity. Presentation. And how I present, something to someone if I present it like an opportunity, will make a change versus, not it's time to wake up. Next. One is ownership, I want. To make sure that people. Transcend, that it's not my job mentality. Value. I have to feel like I can transfer, value with something, to feel comfortable, using it rewards. What's in it for me everybody wants to know right, I'm not gonna go and do something without, something being in it for me and then. Support one of the very most important, pieces this talk leadership. Support is vital so let's. Jump into each of these Show and Tell so. Show and Tell like kindergarten, show-and-tell right I, have. A little bit of a story I have a five year old son and, when. I'm not, traveling for, work which I do often I get to work from home and so. One, day I got to take my son in to show-and-tell and he. Was so excited because, he had just gotten this brand-new tool bat you know tool, belt you know those kids little tool, belts Tyco with like a drill, and a wrench and a screwdriver and. Stuff in it so he. Gets up and it's his turn he gets up in front of his class and he stands up there and he's like this.
Is My tool belt he. Pulls out his drill he says this is a drill he. Pulls out his wrench this is a wrench and then. He pulls out his hammer and he says this. This. Is my hammer and with. My hammer, I'm gonna build a tree house and in. My tree house is gonna be a slide and there's, gonna be a rope to climb and, I, want my grandma, to come visit and he, had all this, stuff he had to say about the tree house and what's. Funny to me is I had never heard him talk about a tree house before, but suddenly, because. He had a brand new set of tools, there. Was a whole, set of new possibilities for, him and unless. He had been shown those tools or saw someone, working, on a tree house with a hammer at some point probably on YouTube kids, he. Probably wouldn't, have made that connection right but that new set of tools gave, him a new set of possibilities about. What he, could create and, so. In this, journey that's what you're all here doing this week show-and-tell. You got these people up on stage look, at this awesome thing I've made don't. You want to make one too it's. The most important, part of this transformation, journey people, have to see with their eyes so they can understand, what's possible so. That they know where, they can go so that they can make those connections to their area, of work. The. Next piece opportunity. You, have to present things like an opportunity, you. Know it's like I can ask you hey Sarah would you would you wash my laundry and you'd, be like no, why would I wash your laundry but. If I said hey Sara I got, this pile of laundry that needs doing I really don't want to do it I'm pretty, sure that, I had left 200, bucks in a pants pocket and if, you find it it's, yours, you. Might do the laundry right a little bit more a little bit better possibility. Sara hates laundry, so a bad person to ask. But. See how if you present something a certain way with just a bit, of tone a bit of spin it makes a huge difference to, people I'm. Gonna go ahead and skip these next two slides in the in the, interest. Of time here, the.
Next One is rewards. What's. In it for me so. Most. People when I say that they think money right, do. Let's, let's do a little test here how many Microsoft, MVPs are in the room could you raise your hand, one. Two. Okay. So keep your three go ahead okay so keep your hands raised real quick okay so everyone look at these guys these. Guys here are proof that. You, can get a human, being to do a whole, ton, of free work for just a badge. Okay. So rewards. Don't you guys can put your hands down thank you so much rewards. Don't always have to be monetary, right, it could just be your name in a newsletter it could be a badge on your chest, it could be recognition, at the at the company meeting it people, will do anything to get their name on a list and you. Just saw these guys are living proof they do all kinds of work for Microsoft they. Get some benefits I'm. Not minimizing what, they're doing with the badge but it's, it's proof that people will definitely. Be. Willing to work for for. Small rewards, smaller rewards than you think the. Last ones support can't you want to speak to support sure. Let's do it so support. Like. So something we're gonna introduce here shortly as this idea of bottom-up innovation and, the. You. Know the challenge or the transition, for a lot of organizations is they need to think differently and for. Leadership. There. Is this element of letting, go of a little bit control, and the, flip side of that is you're empowering, and, transitioning. Some of the accountability down, to the people that are doing the work and so, really in this model, the, idea is that leadership is there to remove, the roadblocks to. Put in a system that you know provide some level of governance so people can move quickly but, the idea is how, can I get the most of out of my organization and it. Does take strong leadership in order to go ahead and do this but it is essential. If you want people to think differently and to own, something, and to, see it through, to an, outcome if people feel like leadership is not on their side they're. Not gonna move, and. So how, do we all play our part to create a future where line-of-business technology. Is democratized. And working. For everyone I think this is an important part to get what we want to talk about here is not the citizen, developer, or any persona, this is about democratizing, to, the entire business, this, is about making, sure that everybody, plays their part so real.
Quick How does this look democratize, tools allow frontline, teams to build solutions on the fly the, people solving, the problem are the people closest, to the problem imagine, what a what, a novel, idea, developers. Enable access to data through building connectors and connected services, IT is, ensuring proper security and access through Environment, Management DOP and advanced analytics. Leadership. Is their most importantly to unblock to, make sure that every justified, initiative, can, become a real one. So. What. Then if a company decides to, take these ideas that. We've just talked about and put, them into practice, what. Then is possible, and so Kent. Is here, to talk about that and so, Kent I'm gonna go ahead and hand it over to you man I'm gonna go ahead and be quiet over here for a while you promise I promise just joking. So, we're gonna talk a little bit about the inter pipeline story so the whole sort of idea, behind this session is you, know Microsoft, has provided some some good thought leadership in this space in terms of how people should be thinking about transformation. And then in order to make this real we wanted to to share our story from an interline, perspective, on how, we've approached this and hopefully there's some things that you can take back to, your organization and, leverage as well now. Inter pipeline is a major petroleum. Transportation. Storage and natural gas liquids, seeing business based in Alberta. Canada we. Own and operate four different segments, in Western Canada and we have some storage facilities, in Europe, and then. In addition Tyler. Is going to talk a little bit about our new line of business and a new big project, that. The company is embarking on here shortly now what, is bottom-up, innovation like. This is a program that we're running at inter, pipeline and what, this involves, is it involves bringing together a, diverse, audience, throughout. The organization, and actually, giving them an opportunity to go ahead and learn we're, trying to empower those people and give them the tools and the skills and, then. Giving them the ability to actually go ahead and execute on what, they've actually learned and so, we've got three core curriculums, technically. We also have an office 365, arm but I'm not as involved in that side and the, three curriculums, involve power apps and flow training, a, separate. Session, on our training curriculum, on flow and then, also power bi and, so, as you can see in the top left hand corner there's, a familiar. Face John, he's. Had the opportunity, to come up and visit us a couple times it's amazing what you can do when you entice him with skiing and hiking he'll. He'll come visit you I will if you guys want to get me to come to your customer site a skiing trip that's a surefire, way, and. Then on top of that we've had hosted this training in three different locations so, in our head office in Calgary, in Sherwood. Park which, is just, outside of Edmonton Alberta about three hours away and then, also Fort Saskatchewan which, we're going to see a picture of here shortly and the, big focus here is we. Are inviting. A diverse audience we. Are looking at diversity through their functional, skills so. They could be a business analyst they, could be an ERP. Analyst, they could be in the business it, could be different technical, skills so we've had people that are developers, we've had architects, we've. Had project, managers, and we've. Also invited the business and so, you might be saying from an IT department perspective. Like what are you doing are you crazy, and I. Don't, think we are I think what we're trying to do is be a little bit different and we recognize, that what's good for the company, is actually good for IT if, I, t's job, is just to try to to. Put keep everything in a data silo, your, group your company's not going to grow it's not going to expand and you're, not going to move the needle and, so this is what we look at is we're looking for holistic business, outcomes, and this is also part of the reason why we wanted to bring Tyler from, the business actually along, with us to share his perspective, on all, of this as well wait, wait wait you mean you're you're trusting, your end-users. Yeah. We are and like where we won't go too far down the whole governance talk but certainly happy to chat more about that after but we have put.
In Place up our platform governance we've used a lot of the tools the connectors the powershell, commandlets, that, are provided, by Microsoft and that's, what gives us the comfort, in order to roll this out we've also done some segregation. Through environments, as well so, that we actually go ahead and encourage, people to use it we've renamed, our default environment personal. Productivity, we are giving, you permission to, actually, go ahead and make, your job a better, experience and more productive, because at the end of the day we want the. Business to do better not just IT I like that so this is the the most unique training location, this is essentially, Tyler's new office or it will be his new office this. Actually looks, smaller in this picture you're going to see a short video in a little bit which, will give you a better perspective of how massive. This project, is and what. It means for the company itself and so, this is another example of, IT going, there's. Demand people, are expressing interest they're. Exploring. The office 365 waffle. They're clicking on flows they're using templates, and then, we're saying wow we've got some interest here we should actually go try and understand what they're trying to do and then think we should actually go ahead and try and help them and at. The end of the day we feel that that is a better alternative to. People, finding, their own solutions, and, when you start to go out and buy some of these other third-party, services, where, you have zero governance, we. Feel much more confident, or like comfortable taking. Advantage of the governance we get, through Microsoft. Now. I'm. Sure most of you are familiar with the power platform, but these are the different curriculums. That we use we, see these guys low code no code alternatives, that is a term. That we do use inside of the company we, see it as a viable option. When, evaluating, solutions. I think. In the past what we've done is we've offered. Or we've acquired. A lot of SAS applications. And SAS. Applications, is a loaded term some of these are smaller smaller. Tools but the. Funny thing is is the data is always locked up you're always then trying to pull that data in and some, vendors have better capabilities than, others as opposed to just building something where you're actually up, leveling, the skill and the knowledge in your organization, instead, of up leveling the knowledge in someone else's organization. Now. This is the app that everybody, goes ahead and builds its you. Know an expense, tracker where, they can send off an approval, to their manager, using, flow and obviously, the office 365, connector, they store, the data in SharePoint, and. This. Is this training is is targeted. At people that have never even touched the power platform, before so. They come in with this preconceived notion, of of what, their limit, is and at. The end of the day they've blown right through that they've blown through that after, the first break because. I always ask that where do you think where you're headed at the beginning of the day like how far do you think you'll go and no. One thinks that they're gonna have a mobile, app that they created on their phone, like that's left for the pro developers, and where, you get it on the Apple App Store or the Android app store and then when people actually now have this it's, it changes, them it actually the, light bulb goes off and this, is only in a matter of a few hours they have a new hammer to leave with right, it's a new set of possibilities that they never thought they could have before and so this is the the first group that we put through training this was back in March and, I.
Think. An interesting aspect of how we approach this is it isn't just training, you. Know whenever you go to training there's always that risk if I learn and then I forget and the reason why you do that is you. Actually haven't applied what you've learned and so, what we do is you, know taking, advantage of that diversity theme is we actually split the, attendees, up into. Different groups and these. Are like groups people that they haven't worked with before or don't work with regularly, and then, we ask them to identify three. Business opportunities, what, is something that's a pain for you and then. We actually empower, them to actually go ahead and build that out and in, this case you know we want, them to also like you, prioritize, and sort of think which one has the most value so we asked them to identify three, but then prioritize. One and then, back to that accountability, we're, giving, you company, time we. Are investing, in you but in the flipside is now you own it right so you make commitments to us in terms of what are the milestones for. The different activities who's, responsible, and when, will they actually be completed. Then. What we do is we have a midpoint, check-in, so that's approximately three. Weeks later now you might be wondering like people are looking different we actually have another, monitor. Behind. The, picture so that's why people are looking that way and the. Questions are how. Are you progressing are you, blocked, what. Have you learned what would you do differently and this is really leadership's. Role like, back to that support that's exactly, what this is where. It's not for me to get in there and say you know you should have done it this way right no it's about what, did you learn and actually how can others. Learn from the challenges, that you ran into and then. Naturally like what would you do different if, you were to do this again how, would you approach it how could it be better and really, taking advantage of that growth mindset the. Next thing we do is at the end of the the curriculum, or at the end of the semester in. This case it's six weeks later we. Bring in the. Senior leadership in this case it's our IT GM, and the CFO and back. To that recognition this. Is another part of it where now these people that may not have a lot of exposure to those, leaners how leaders, have the opportunity, to share what they've actually just built and then. In the first case of the first cohort the. Senior leadership was so impressed with what was done so quickly that. They actually brought that up to the senior, vice president and the CEO of the company which. Had never been done before IT had never demoed, products, to the CEO in the past and so, naturally we got a lot of support to go, further and to actually dive, deeper into the business in order to generate some some, some results now we don't have time to go through each use case but these are the the, use cases that those teams built. Out one is a bot one. Is two-track software, licensing, another. Is a station. Checklist for our pipelines group and then, another the last one is the, ability to scan barcodes to help us out with our asset inventory for IT. Now this is where things start to get a little more interesting so this is our August cohort, so at, this point John's hiking and. Once. Again we've got previously. He was skiing at. This point we've got these, are the different personas and I think this is hugely important, back. To John's comment about citizen, development like I'm not a big fan of that because it imposes a label it imposes, a limit what. We like to do is think of this from a diversity perspective, we, have people that work with si P we have people that work in GIS, we, have bi developers, a security, architect, you.
Want To actually get some buy-in from security, I actually, get, a security, architect, to automate, their job and help. Them out and then then, see what you, know what's good for them should be good for others we have junior people people, that just joined our organization, and we're going to change an organizational, change management analyst. Health, and safety etc now. The group we want to focus on today is these folks at the back of the room one. Person had, some exposure to the power platform, the other two brand-new never touched it before and, this. Is the story of the management framework project that, Tyler. Was the the business stakeholder, of, so. Let's just have a quick video of what, inter, pipeline is and what, we're trying to achieve. Momentum. Continues. To grow on inter pipelines, latest, game-changing. Project, the heartland petrochemical. Complex. We. Study we analyze, we understand, the risks if the rewards justify, those risks were willing to take bold steps a three, and a half billion, dollar, vision, for Alberta the, first of its kind in Canada this project, really came from outside the box it hasn't been done it's a commodity for the future not a commodity for the past it's exciting to be a part of that. As. Was mentioned my name's Tyler Arnott I'm a Technical, Services Manager for inter pipeline, on, the new project that was just highlighted there and I was the business partner that joined up on this app development, up. In Calgary, Alberta so. What you see on the screen right now is what we call our management, framework, and and to really simplify it or make, it you know as simple as I can this is how we do, all the work that we do at our facility, so this is how we do maintenance this is how we do engineering this, is how we do management's, of change and it really spells out all those different things but but the trick was we didn't have any of this stuff developed, and so, this project was really about developing this, management framework from the ground up and giving. Visibility, to leaders and the people that owned these processes. On how, that development, is going are, we on track are we behind are we ahead because, we need to start this facility, at the end of 2021, and without. These pieces in place we won't be able to start out so it was a really key business deliverable. For us to achieve in a really condensed timeframe if I was to you know make relate, this to our own lifes think about you know the way you run your household there's. Just certain norms that you have you know where do you put the vacuum what, kind of milk do you buy is it 1%, 2% or one of those weird families that does the full fat milk that's. What your management, framework at home is and so this management framework for us was really about how. Do we do all of the things that we need to do and how do we make sure that we're gonna be ready for. That startup. So. When, we were analyzing this problem we said, we. Could go out and buy something off the shelf that would help us do this and, we kind of looked at the pros and cons of, to that by versus, build mindset, so, in each of those it has really similar steps there's requirements. You. Need to meet with those vendors you need to understand, how their application. Can make make, it fit for you and then you actually need to go out and deploy that application but, I think in our experience, that takes a significant, amount of time and time was probably our most limited resource, so we were looking at four to six months in order to buy something off the shelf when, we could build an in-house with our own team super, talented people in about two months not, only that our experience, has been than cost-effectiveness. It's, much cheaper to, build an application than, it is to buy it so, typical, off-the-shelf, applications, can cost anywhere from double to triple - quadruple to, ten times the cost of what some of these more, simple, right sized applications. And they're. Always almost, always a better fit, for the business it's, hard to imagine something, that's better suited. To your business problem than exactly, what you want so, when, we decided to build it it really started with this you, know this project framing, or this requirements, meeting where we spent an afternoon in, an in a boardroom and really, drew pictures on a whiteboard and said well what are the things that we need to do how do we need to set this application, up and what is all the underlying stuff that we need in the background and for, me this was a huge, moment of change in my career where I finally, got to see technology, living.
Up To its promise, of making, my. Life faster. Better higher quality and, actually delivering a ton of business value so it was a really remarkable time and. So this, program, was a little bit different than the traditional programs where we we, generally, let people have more autonomy based, on the timelines, and the significance, of this project we did decide to put a little bit of project management rigor on this so we did collect, some requirements. We, did circulate, those now, those are measured in days, not, weeks probably, hours and days not weeks or, months we, did put together some high-level process, maps that we wanted to share really just to validate our understanding, of what, we were about to build we, did go through our. CDs data model design just, using Excel initially, to think about what is the data that we want to capture and then we would review, that with Tyler and team saying is this what you're looking for and then we ran it in sprints we use Azure DevOps we, in two weeks prints and ensured that there was clear accountability on what. People were building, we. Did have that midpoint check-in, there's, a couple other solutions, in here as well for. The other groups that participated. In this bottom-up training. As well so we had the opportunity to share all of the learnings across those teams and, this. Is essentially what the architecture, looks like and we're gonna see a demo here shortly. But it is really when you think of the power platform, we are using you, know most of it we are using canvas, apps in order, to create, these tasks, in bulk the. Ability to assign tasks, to different people and then some admin functions we. Have flow and in this case flow is doing what we you know typically see is that some of the heavy lifting where, we have some digital mags we're supporting the bulk creation, process, bulk, reassignments. And doing data snapshots, so that we can actually do trending, on the, data for. Tyler and team they really want to know how, are we trending are we trending in the positive direction so we're actually using flow to help to capture that data then, naturally we also have power bi the, third a and in this case we want to provide the, end users, that have tasked, their personal, view of what are their tasks, are they on track, are they behind and then also bring that up from a management perspective as, well so.
Without Further ado we're gonna let. Tyler. Demo his, his. New app and this was something that. This. Was something that was deployed. We. Went through our change management process, on tuesday this was deployed, in production on, wednesday. This, is a test, version of that app so that people don't get. Unexpected. Digital. Nags from us yeah, so so I want, to walk you through maybe one of the processes that I'm accountable for and that's called manage, stress and opportunities, and really what that's about is to say what are the things that could threaten my business and where are the opportunities, that I have to. Actually improve it or grow the business so. That work process will. Have a certain amount of key deliverables, that are almost those shall we must dues but, they'll also be deliverables, that I want to add to make sure that the. Process is really fit for purpose so, in in, our, application. What we have is a level, one activity that would say you know manage, threats and opportunities we. Do a bulk create activity. So right now flows creating. All of those mandatory activities, in the background and, this is how we'll measure our progress through the phases of management, framework development and then within this I can actually create in other activities, to. Define further, detail about my work process and then. On the. Next level below in like level threes we can add tasks to fill, out some of those other activities so it's kind of like a typical cascading. Project, plan or cascading, work, plan. The. Next, part as well is it's really easy for users to use so as we assign activities, both to people who, are creating activities and assign activities. Further out in the organization, this is their one-stop place to come and do those updates and helps, us really, see where we are in terms of progress, and. Then, of course the last piece is really on the reporting phase and so power bi really, brought a lot of transparency. And visibility to, us not only on the management framework creation, but also work processed by work process how are we doing and so with some really you know simplified, dashboards, and I say they're simple because that's what they look like to me but it takes an enormous amount of work from really talented people to make them look this good and and, I can't say. How much I appreciate them enough so, it's just been a really remarkable tool that was, launched just this week we're starting to fill out that data and we'll be really powerful to make sure that we make our mouth stone for start-up you know I love, this because you can see here they're using the whole platform this, session is called bottom-up, innovation with Microsoft, flow with power automate but really, the whole platform is better together flow, is the glue that moves things around behind the scenes but looking, at something like this you really do truly get to see the whole platform coming together and. It's something that we regularly, experience. As well it's like we find that we're always have the three and four. With, c.d.s but. Like we do see that the the three A's really, do mean something to us and it's. Something that we see in every solution in this case we're, taking advantage of embedding, that power, bi experience, right in the app so. People don't even have to leave it and then naturally for some of the executives.
They Can just view power bi as well and see the reports, on their phone without having to go into the power up but here it's a one-stop shop for, all of the work process, owners plus all of the people that own tasks, and it's such a powerful translation. Of the data so just, be able to communicate. It so clearly has really helped our organization. Progressive. Now. As part of the the. Solution itself we do have five flows, and we wanted to just take an opportunity to show you one, so Tyler previously. Demonstrated the bulk creation, where we essentially are seeding, mandatory. Tasks, in an entity inside, a CVS, and then, for each work stream and there's approximately 35, when, you click on bulk create as the work process owner we want to automatically, create, those tasks, really, to save that no one wants to be doing that manual work over and over again so we're using flow to go ahead and do that so, as we saw there we have a power, apps trigger where, we're gonna go ahead and receive, the request from power apps we're, going to capture. A few IDs, so one would be the creator ID the person that's clicked the button and then, also the. Work process ID so in Tyler's, case that manage threats and opportunities we're. Then gonna go into, c.d.s and we're, going to obtain or, retrieve, all of those mandatory activities. And then, for each activity, we're then gonna go ahead and add, an, activity into. C.d.s so, that now we can manage it and we'll call it out as in progress so, the other thing that this does is it starts the clock when. Someone. Goes ahead and clicks the button leadership. Knows that people are on it and they can actually now start trending and so we did this very deliberately, to, ensure that we could see when, people had started because if someone doesn't start something, well, it may not show up in the dashboard because it doesn't exist and and this will be the way we drive consistency, in the org as well that you know this is the tool that we will manage our kind, of progression through the management framework with, and and, if you're not using this tool you're not progressing so you you. Know you shall you must you will use this tool. So. Now I don't want to put like words, in your mouth and by any stretch, yeah. Yeah. Some. Of your feelings like being, new to the organization joining. In the summer having, the opportunity to see the power platform, for the first time like yeah, where your some of your thoughts it was it was really quite a remarkable experience, so I came from a super major oil, and gas producer, that.
Is A really big ship and really. Steers slowly and so, when I came to Andrew pipeline it's much more dynamic, much more. Open. To those changes and and open to open to applying new technology, I've seen it in office 365 and, boy have I seen it in the Power Platform so it got me like. Embarrassingly. Excited. About Power Platform stuff, where it's, a Saturday morning and I'm cranking, OD mails to to Kent about, different applications, that I think we can build and then on Wednesday, I get a meeting invite from Sarah, to. Show me an application from a from an email that I just sent on on Sunday and it's like 80% there, so it was totally remarkable, to see how fast with. The right people and the right business, requirements. Defined you can move your business and and and the most, powerful thing for me is we run a risky business it's it's, got stuff that wants to blow up and it's got stuff that wants to run away in reactions, and it's got stuff to you, know that can really injure people and these applications help. Us do that better so it helps keep people safer, it helps make our business more profitable and, really, empowers. Those, frontline workers, to, do the very best that they can and I really hope that we, don't have to be embarrassed to be passionate about the platform so. I'm gonna have to be embarrassed all the time, and. So naturally, this this creates a pretty interesting situation. At inter pipeline where we've. Been able to take people that are new to the platform get, them involved in a small project, treat. It more like a startup than your traditional you. Know waterfall. Type initiative, and then, actually have people to. Be able to contribute like so think of the situation where you've got someone who's just out of school and. They. Essentially become the lead developer, on this application, and that's exactly what had happened here yeah for, someone named Josh Josh yet and so like from, a inter, pipeline perspective, it's pretty interesting to see like just how far we can take this and then unnaturally being, able to deliver for the business is. Certainly, something we're trying to do well and how much that changes the relationship with, the business and IT so that relationship and inter pipeline is like, nothing, else I've seen anywhere, in the industry for any company I've ever worked with never. Have I has, it been such an empowering relationship. And such a symbiotic versus, here's, all the things you can't do and here's all the tools you can't have. So. I guess conclusion. You, want to kick this off genre yeah so I think a big important point here is let's, talk about democratization. Let's, not talk about labels, Pro dev versus citizen, dev because then we box people in I think an important thing to notice here is that everyone. In the business can contribute something whether it be an idea or a technical, skill set or whatever, it might be focused. On democratizing. And trying to include as many people as you can because. We see the platform as a digital inclusion platform. It really can be widespread. And so, I think that language is much better than the citizen, dev language, you. Know diversity, comes in many forms I'm, gonna skip down a couple lines here remember. That people will do anything to avoid change at work so, make sure that you present things in an opportune, way so, that they can either a look, good or be avoid, looking bad and I. Think you know Kant once you touch a couple of those bottom points yeah, absolutely I think from an IT perspective we're, really trying to be flexible, we. Truly, understand, especially when you have projects. Of this magnitude, that slowing. Them down isn't, an option right, and, so for us it forces us to change it forces forces us to get out of that stuck mindset, that, sort of concrete. In your data set data center type mentality where, it's like no this is what we do and. For us it's also creates good opportunities, where we want to be part of the conversation, we want to be part, of the success, and contribute. To the business as well and so, that's why we would try to be flexible and what that means is when, we do talk to the business we say how do you want this, solution, to be delivered is this something where it's completely IT, delivered, this, is something where that's IT lead and it's very much a collaborative process. Or is there something where it's of the business light and businesslike, you mean many things it can mean sort of the oversight, and the management, of the initiative, or it, could be even, doing some of this development. Itself and it's becomes, how, do we actually help you you, have questions, this is more of a phone-a-friend, sort, of engagement, or is, this an opportunity where. You need more support and I think there's, a you know saying we're you know meet your customers where they want to be met and, that's absolutely the the, strategy of the mentality that would that were thinking about, yeah.
I Think it's a the, the final point here is is this is for everyone it's not just about IT it's not just about the business, truly. Enter pipeline here has proven that you can span, both very successfully. And and. Not with, major in fighting you know where where everyone's, telling each other no go. Ahead and hit this slide one more time Kent I want to leave, them off with some resources here so. Very. Very, important, oh there's there's, missing a link I'm gonna go ahead and just edit this slide and have the, most important, link for you here. So. If you want this training. If. You. Would like to run bottom-up, innovation in. Your company that. Bottom link right there aka dot ms /b. UI. I've, gone ahead and put together a trainers guide on how you can take what inner pipelines, done here and do it in your company, there's decks to teach power apps there's decks to teach flow there's, a trainers guide on how to break people up into groups do idea generation, and bring, this all together. We lost our rekha are our last slides, here we're getting kicked off the stage so thank, you guys so much for your time today, really appreciate you joining us.
2020-01-18 13:44
