Find Your Why and How with an Outcome Discovery and a Transformation Method

THOMAS NAGEL: Hi there. My name is Thomas Nagel. I'm a customer outcome executive at Autodesk, as well as an agile coach at next agile coaching. Today I would like to present you the class, find your why and how with an outcome discovery and a transformation method. I'm a person who likes and loves changes and transformation, since more than 29 years. For me, changes and change management, something like this is like swimming. So at the beginning, you do not like it, you cannot swim. You get some lessons, and later on you get some training. And then you exercise with joy.

And this is how I see changes in the business environment. And I like to support people, teams, companies in this changing environment or transformations, as well as in innovation processes. As I mentioned, since more than 28 years, I am working in digital transformation projects. The first 28 years, I was working for a company called Claudius Peters. They provide and engineer machines and process plans for producers of cement, gypsum, steel, aluminum. And my first task was to transform all workflows and all data from a manual workflow into a digital workflow in an ERP system.

And since then, I had all transformation digital projects, transformation projects on my desk. And I was looking into how can we always improve efficiencies? How can we modify workflows to the customer internally? How can we improve customer experience? And over the last years, I was also looking from traditional project management and way of doing things into the agile way of doing things. And for sure, the internet of things. Today I would like to talk about transforming with Autodesk. How we work together, and how we offer help on the transformation activities of our customers.

Over years and decades, we have always pressures. Companies, our customers, our companies, do have typical pressure since many years. Profitability, shareholder value has to be delivered. The risk needs to be reduced. Revenue needs to become bigger, or you need growth. And for sure, the efficiency should grow. But over the last years, there were many new things which came on top of it. So the digital disruption, industrial construction, COVID-19. And maybe also this skill shortage of digital skills, which is more and more important, which you need to develop more and more within your companies, with your colleagues.

And for sure also, environmental and social governance and other things. So how great it would be that easily you could reduce design time, you could reduce build time. Your products would go faster to market. And everybody's aiming for this kind of benefits of outcomes of values when they do transformation projects. But, even if you try hard and many, many transformation projects are maybe organized in the proper way, more than 70% of transformations fail to meet the expectations.

This is developed, or set also, by McKinsey. And it is so important to understand that not the amount of strategy of technology or executive vision will be the only important thing if the employees do not share, and they do not support these missions and they do understand why the change has to be done. Then you will not succeed. And also maybe modern engineers, modern designers, will have to have different skills then maybe the decades before. So they need to understand themselves as maybe part of a program and/or data Manager besides their engineering and design.

At Autodesk, we look at different areas and different things which are important for the transformational approach. Value driver. So the value drivers are very important to align with your business strategy. And then you have maybe different outcomes, which are supporting your value drivers. Digital capabilities, as I just mentioned it, are very important that you even will be able to realize the changes of the digital transformation. And capabilities is a mixture of tools and workflows and skills of your employees. But if you develop great new things, how you would like to work, you install a new, maybe, solutions.

And you develop new workflows, it is so important that you will be able to scale it and that your team is really adapting to it. So that everybody will use it. And to make sure that you are always on track, it is necessary and it is very important that you can measure the success and the way forward of your transformation. And also of your adoption, for example.

And for sure you need to develop the skills from the as to is to as it should be. And go forward with this. And we define it in why and what, the upper part of the three items, and the who, when, and how. Because we say a project, a successful project, has always two sides.

Let's talk about the why and what. So the other side, which I just tried to explain. Value drivers. This is what is important to you as a customer, for you as a company. The outcomes is what you want to achieve. Maybe you want to improve team collaboration. Maybe you want to improve and increase the hit rate or something like this. Capabilities is where you need to invest. It might be software, it might be tools, it might be the skills of your team, of your users, of your managers.

The workflows is important that you develop a way. How shall we do work with the new way of working? With the transformation? With the change we have in mind, we would like to do. And finally, it's also important to have products and features and solutions. So technology, how it is used. And if you come from CXO level, you will start from a top down approach. But if you maybe look from a user level, you will look from the bottom to the top. And then you are looking also into, let's say, what do I want to achieve? How-- what is for me important, maybe to improve my operational efficiency.

It might be to improve team collaboration, data hand over, reduce overall design time. Or you would like to reduce the risk for your project because you reduce errors and rework and meet customers design requirements. Or you would like to make more business. And this means that you can start from the top and you go maybe and look into different things you would like to develop, like value driver outcomes, capabilities, workflows, and products, features, and solutions. Or you start from the bottom and go to the top. Or you start in the middle and do something.

And this is always, as we say, different levels of your business. So you have a user level, you have maybe a project management level, and you have a business level. And very often what we develop together with the customer, our main value drivers and outcomes. Let's put it this way, four fields where maybe a customer would like to work on. Everything we do with a customer must pay in one of these four fields. And it might increase operational efficiency, because we optimize the engineering workflows. Or we enable more transparency and quality workflows. Automate design processes, connect stakeholders.

We do cloud collaboration and coordination and so on and so forth. Or maybe reducing risk, where we say, how can we make sure that we reduce costs, that we reduce additional time which leads maybe to some problems on site? Or maybe win more business or increase customer experience. All of these things we do develop together with the customer and say, hey, are these the main drivers where we always-- everything we do, what we do together will pay into these four fields.

During my time when I was at Claudius Peters, and the last 10 years I was in charge of the operations, as well as Chief Digital Officer. I had, for example, a project with Autodesk where we said, OK. We developed over decades new Greenfield clinker coolers. And we tried to explain what our pains, what our gains with the Greenfield clinker coolers we had to engineer. We had to deliver. So explain in detail what might be steelwork, what might be equipment, arrangement for the equipment, what might be mechanical equipment. And taught Autodesk our pains, our gains, our jobs to be done.

So that they were able to understand us in a way that they said, OK, we do understand what is your pressure. We do understand your way of working, your workflows, your technology. And let's go on and look deeper into it. And then all of a sudden in 2017, there was a big movement that we did not have Greenfield modifications no more. Now we had more and more Brownfield modifications. And then we said, OK, look.

The business of Brownfield modifications of our clinker cooler is even more different than what we did before. And then again, we were looking into our typical workflows, we were looking into the job, which Claudius Peters had to do, has to be done to be successful, and where we are our challenges. Where we maybe meet the customer expectations, and how did we want to have it done or be done in the future.

And what we developed then together, just as an example, is that we look with an agile way to implement BIM 360. And we were looking and starting step by step and saying, hey, we have some problems with our Brownfield modification. We would like to learn to scan the environment on site. And if we scan it, how can we send over 20 or maybe 30 gigabyte gig files. So that what I scan today, my team in Germany can start all over the next day to work on. And that we can do- measure everything.

How can we collaborate with customers and internal with all the different stakeholders, like project management, engineering, cut engineer, automation engineer, and so on and so forth. And within a year, we were able just to go through even the workshop and the procurement and we developed BIM 360 as a platform for our suppliers. As well as a platform for the collaboration. And new workflows and the new way of working based on, let's say, the pains and the gains and the technology.

Which we explain, which we are using. And then with the work and the cooperation with Autodesk. We were able to go a new path and develop step by step, let's say, work on topics which helped us right away.

And this means that we-- this is not an example from Claudius Peters, but what it means is that we develop also then value people feed us. For example, team collaboration. We define a challenge together with the customer. We define maybe how a solution might look like. And then we are developing, in detail, the possibility. What is the result? What would be if all of our users or many users would use the solution, how big is the impact of, let's say, tomorrow's work compared to today's work?

And what we develop now when-- since June last year, at Autodesk working as a customer outcome executive. And we developed, based on LUMA. LUMA is a design thinking platform with 36 methods. And based on LUMA methods, we developed and workshopped how we can easily try to understand the customer's pains and gains, jobs to be done. And developed a way which is important for the customer. What needs to be maybe done immediately, what is not important, what should be done maybe later, something like this.

We developed a workflow-- a workshop to discover the outcome and the value metrics together with the customer. And for this, we have the possibility to do it for our workshop and understanding the customer. And the goal is always to have meaningful conversations. To understand the customer's jobs to be done, to understand their pains and gains. What are their priorities, what's in for them? So what is the value metrics? Why should they do something first, and what can be maybe done later?

And it's an eight step workshop where we go through different methods from LUMA, as mentioned. So rose, thorn, bud is one method. And we use this method from LUMA. And to put it into the value proposition canvas context, which is developed by the company strategizer.

And we develop, together with the participants of the customer, always the jobs to be done which are important for the group which is participating in the workshop. So, what makes your company, your job, your department successful? What is the most pressing items you have to get done? And also, what challenges, what problems, what pains is holding you up to become better or maybe to realize all your jobs which have to be done? And for sure also, the gains and what should be in future state. Is it the opposite of a pain, or is it something else you would like to wish?

And so the different participants are working on it. If you would like to learn more about it, just go on the presentation, click on this link, and you will learn more about, let's say, the value proposition canvas. If you develop, then, with the participant or the participant mentioned all the points they would like to discuss, then we get into a clustering. So we find the right headlines, we find the clusters. Where we put all the points together and we describe the topics how the team would like to describe it, that everybody knows about it.

And after voting, we go then into an important difficulty matrix portion. Which means we take 10 of the 30 or 20 or 50 topics, because the voting said these are the 10 items we should work on and look further on. And then we bring it into an order of, from the left hand side to the right hand side is, from low business impact to big business impact. And from the lower part to the upper part is, complex-- from easy to complex way of implementing.

And then we go into the matrix and we develop the participants, develop a strong why. Why is this so important? And we choose maybe one, two, or three or four or up to six items. Where we develop this strong why. Why should we do this, what we develop here? And how it should look like. And finally very important is, what is in for the customer. So just imagine the adoption would be done. What would we be able to get out of it? Something like this.

And this is the template, just to show you. The empty template. Both templates are linked in the PDF, which is part of the documents for the class. You can click on it, you can look at the templates, you can even get an idea what might be the content. How do we go forward with it? Something like this.

Talking about the why and what is the first step. And it's so important because without a strong why, and without a strong business case, there will be also-- it will be difficult to understand and to transfer the meaning of the change. So the strong business case is the very important core. This means you need the outcomes, which are clear, which could be explained to maybe all team members or to your companies who-- or the people who are involved in the change. The value metrics. Very important that you really can explain and maybe show and later on measure how this change will impact maybe your lead time.

How you can improve it and shorten it, or maybe shorten your time to market period. Or reduce your costs, or reduce the change orders, or be more, let's say, accurate with your time hand over. Something like this. So this is very important. But the second step is that I would like to talk about the who, when, and the how.

And again. So, a good project does not contain only technology. Or maybe a new program. Or maybe a new workflow or something like this. It requires strong and good leadership and sponsorship. And that the sponsors and the leaders are standing behind the idea of what shall be changed. You need the project manager that you know exactly what has to be when by whom, what is the technology, what are the steps of my projects and something like this. And it requires also change management.

Because change management is looking either into the organization and/or it's looking to the people who have to work with the new way-- with the new workflows. Or who are affected by the change. And what we did at Autodesk is we looked at a partner, Prosci, who is very experienced also with change management. And they have years, decades of experience. Many, many people trained. And a lot of good customers who went successfully through the change. But it must be also clear. For everybody who is thinking about change within, let's say, organizations.

No matter if you are the CEO, if you are a people manager, a BIN manager, or whoever. Change is always an organizational change. And an organizational change is always starting with the individual change. Which means you have this typical curve, which you might also know from your private life. So if somebody is dying. A friend, a family member, you will go first into maybe a shock, a denial. Later on maybe an acceptance, depression phase. And then if you learn to live and accept the reality or the decision or also the change, then maybe you experiment maybe with a new way of working.

And later on, you will be engaged, and then maybe you will be more efficient as before. So why do-- change often does not fulfill or meet the requirements or the goals, something like this. So normally you come from a status current. You have a transition phase. And you would like to have a future state, which you think is great and you have a return of investment calculation done. But the reality is very often that you start with current, the transition phase will be much longer than expected, and at the end you get maybe a Swiss cheese. Something like a Swiss cheese.

So the future state is not that solid. It's not that good as you were thinking it might be because you did some calculations and so on and so forth. This is very often based on the fact that in many change projects, or in many projects with our customers from Autodesk, everybody is looking at the technical side. So the technical side is what we and our customers really do very well. They know exactly what they would like to have, they know the future, the solutions, the workflows, and so on and so forth.

But very often the people side is maybe not considered, or even not considered enough. Which means, you have in every project, two sides of the project. The technical side of change, which I just mentioned, is very good, very often easy to go for. And the people side of a change. And there you need to understand exactly. So resistance, for example. It's always there. It's normal that resistance is there. And the people need to be informed. So you need communication plans to different stakeholders maybe at different times. You need a sponsor. So who is with us, who can support the change?

You need a training or coaching plan, and a reinforcement plan to make the change solid and sticky. And that you hopefully get past, and many people on it. The ADKAR process is very important. You always need to create awareness. You start with awareness. Only if everybody who is involved will understand the nature of the change, why the change is needed, what is the risk if we do not change, then they might develop the desire for this project, or for the change. What's in for me? It's a personal choice to say, OK, I support it. I go to the next step, I would like to learn, I would get the knowledge. What it takes in my role to work in the future way, or to support the change.

And if you use it then in your daily work, maybe on private projects and later on in your normal projects, you develop the ability. But very important also is that it will be reinforced. It means that your organization will find a way, a mechanism, to make sure that the people are using the new way of working. That the value which you develop, which you discover, that you really ought to capture. That you measure it. That you see where it is going well, and where do some people need some more maybe training and more-- it depends on what face they are sitting at. Do they have no desire to work on the awareness? If they have awareness and desire, work on the knowledge. And so on and so forth.

And this means that the main part, which is responsible for the success of a project, is within your organization. Within the customer's organization. And it starts from senior leaders. And the sponsors of our project teams, which will design and develop and deliver for adoption and the usage. But also, every people manager of teams and groups. And maybe business areas, or POs who will be involved. Need to understand it, need to support it, and need to prepare their staff for all the different phases like ADKAR, like the different things which has to be developed.

So, how could we start? So how do we start normally if customers are understanding? Also, why it is so important to work, not just on the technical side, but maybe also on the people side. So first of all, we go also-- have honest and open minded discussions with the customer. Please let us talk and know and discuss maybe your past transformations. And what was a success, what was maybe a challenge or no success, do you have change management office. What are the latest transformations you implemented? What went well, why did it maybe went well? Do you have the digital capabilities which you need in different business areas or geos, and what were the main blockers in the past?

And what we offer then is also an easy, really an easy way of another workshop. Where we say, OK, let's talk to your people who are involved, or maybe a good split of people. Of users, managers, and whoever. And let's get an overview about how changes normally work in your company. And then we have an easy way of making, handing, using votes on different areas. Like leadership. How does a change normally look like? What do the people feel like? And we have there the areas also, empowerment. That maybe people have too many change-ups initiatives. They are not able to cope.

Maybe the capabilities are not there. So you do not have race horses or something like this. And based on this fact that your team is voting on these cartoons, you learn and understand what might be your weakness in changes, or change transformations, and what are your strength within change projects. And what we do then also is very important. We develop a change story canvas. So where do you come from? Where do you want to go? Why is the change so necessary for your organization? What will be different in the past?

How we will achieve this. What will be expected from you, and what are the next steps. And this must be explained in a proper way that everybody understands the change. Because you want to adopt fast so that quickly you can use the new systems, processes, and maybe job roles and workflows. So that many people are using it, that you have a buy-in that you really improve the proficiency and the teams get more performance, for example. Or you develop and you reach the outcomes you were looking for. And your stakeholders must be satisfied, something like this.

And again, next steps would be talk about the why and what. So clarify your outcomes, your values. Talk about the who, when, and how. Which means that we would learn from you what are the important things we need to know. What were your successes and challenges in the past? And develop plans for you and together with you.

So, these are the three phases where we would go through, based on the ADKAR process. And this is something to prepare an approach, to manage a change, and to sustain the outcomes and make it measurable the values which you try to achieve. And having successful project together where we can help you to become more or stay successful. And as we can be measured, and we can see if this project, if this cooperation went well.

So what do you think? If it is something for you, do not hesitate. Contact me. Or just get into contact with me, or ask your questions later on. Thank you. Have a great day. Bye.