Consulting Archives - Women In Digital

Inspired. Motivated. Focused. Three words summarising how I felt walking out after two days at the Liquid Learning, Women in ICT and Digital Leadership Summit 2019.

I’m Emma Judd, Group Marketing Manager at Place Design Group and I was the lucky winner of the Women in Digital LinkedIn competition, to attend this Summit from July 23 2019 to July 24 2019.

You may have seen, I took over the @womenindigital Instagram Stories for the duration of the conference and can view my stories on their highlights here.

While it was two days jam-packed with an amazing lineup of speakers, the below will give you a brief insight and share some knowledge nuggets and relatable advice I personally took from this event.

DAY 1: 23 July

On day one of the summit we heard from some fantastic speakers, with the line-up including:

Joanna Murray, Program Manager, Transformation & Innovation, Boral
Chris Locke, Chief Information Officer, Flight Centre
Deb Assheton, Expert Facilitator, The Amplify Group
Wendy Bryant, Chief Information Officer, Transport for NSW
Keli Saville, Regional Head of Data, AsiaPac, Vanguard
Niamh Collins, General Manager, Digital, HFC
Jade Carson, Director, IT Investments, Department of Education & Training
Kirsty McKay, Group Manager, Program Delivery & Digital Transformation, Coates Hire
Katie Payten, Director, Technology Assurance & Governance, Australian Securities & Investments Commission
Kylie McLean, Chief Digital Officer, Australia & New Zealand, IBM
Simon Noonan, Chief Information Officer, SportsBet

The first day, the first speaker at a conference is always exciting and generally sets the tone for what you can expect and Joanna Murray, Program Manager, Transformation & Innovation at Boral, did just that.

Setting us up for the day, Joanne asked us to reflect back to the start of our careers. Did we know what we wanted to be, and how we planned to get there? I know myself. I definitely had a plan and thought it would go a certain way but reflecting back, it was actually a very different path I’d taken. I think this is a really positive thought to reflect on, especially if you are a mentor or in a leadership role guiding your team through their career journey.

My favourite quote from Joanne’s presentation was, “Great leaders don’t think they’re great; great leaders think they’re human.”

From career reflection to career reflecting. Chris Locke, Chief Information Officer, Flight Centre, shared some great career advice which I’ve shared below:

Don’t be afraid of trying different things in different industries
Make a plan and make it happen
Be resilient, but patient
Get experience – think outside the square

This was also a lovely flow into the third speaker, Deb Assheton, Expert Facilitator, The Amplify Group, who spoke on the importance of true self-confidence, the value of vulnerability and gratitude along with self-awareness.

A nice reminder that Deb left us with was that the struggle ends where gratitude begins. Practising daily gratitude makes us 5-10% happier, and costs us nothing.

“What are you grateful for today?”

I think one of my favourite, most thought-provoking parts of the day was Wendy Bryant’s presentation. Wendy Bryant, Chief Information Officer, Transport for NSW, spoke on ‘Unconscious Bias’. To explain this, Wendy made this really relatable asking us all to discuss at our tables if there were any roles we automatically associate with a man or a woman; knowing perfectly well that both genders actually worked in that particular role. For example, when one thinks of a pilot, a doctor, a nurse or a kindergarten teacher, does one stereotype a particular gender? Needless to say, most people, by default of unconscious bias, did so.

Wendy also reflected on her time as the only woman in an IT team working with all men. She refused to be the ‘cake cutter’ at workplace celebrations, as the default was to ‘leave it to Wendy because she was the woman’. Reflecting on our own workplaces, I feel there is so much that can be consciously done or implemented to improve this default gender bias. Some ideas Wendy shared with us included:

Unconscious bias training
Focus on bias in AI – change your Siri voice to male
- I found this topic extremely interesting. Here is an article from Google that discusses it in more detail.
Specific actions on diversity in hiring processes and opportunities

Post lunch, we returned to the room for a panel discussion on ‘Whether work-life balance is possible?’. And great news – it is! And here are the panellists’ top tips for making it happen:

Find what works for you. If you play a sport or enjoy gym as an outlet – prioritise that and make a routine that works.
Plan holidays in advance and stick to them – If you’re busy, it’s easy to not plan your downtime, but time with family and friends is important. Book it in. Booking it in advance gives you something to look forward to.
Don’t hesitate to raise your hand if you need help. A great tip. Learn to delegate and ask those around you for help when needed.
Work smarter using smarter working techniques. Again something to Google, but what it comes down to is the fact that we all have 24 hours in a day. Use them wisely. The one thing money can’t buy is time.
As women in leadership, WE need to support flexibility. This is so important. If your team comes to you wanting to discuss flexible working options, be the change. Listen to their request and see what may be possible.
Flexibility in the workplace. Break down the barriers and become outcomes-based. This is such a positive and practical way to frame this thought process, as just because someone sits at their desk all day, it doesn’t mean they are being any more productive than someone working from home. Change the focus to be on outcomes, not on the number of hours sitting at a desk, and encourage flexible working arrangements.

The final two presenters for day one, Kylie McLean, Chief Digital Officer, Australia & New Zealand, IBM and Simon Noonan, Chief Information Officer, SportsBet, touched on workplace culture. Kylie really drove home the message that as leaders, it’s so important to create a culture that gets your team to thrive. This was a fantastic leeway into Simon’s Case Study around transforming workplace culture, with SportsBet as an example. Honestly, SportsBet sounds like an amazing place to work with a fantastic culture. Guided by its purpose, and underpinned by its values, SportsBet doesn’t just have its values hung on the wall; they live its values, which makes all the difference.

DAY 2: 24 July

Inspired from day one, excited for day two and it did not disappoint. The fantastic line-up of speakers included:

Stuart Harrison, Chief Information Security Officer, Medibank
Megan James, Chief Executive Officer, Australian Data Centres & President, Women in IT & Communications
Arabella Macpherson, Founder & Communications Coach, Resonate Communications
Jade Carson, Director IT Investments, Department of Education & Training
Brendan Mills, Chief Information Officer, NIB Health Funds Limited
Sarah McCullough, Head of eTech Operations, Essential Energy
Kathryn Porter, Director, Customer Experience, Cisco
Joyce Harkness, Chief Information Officer, Avant Mutual Group Limited
Kirsten Murray, Director International, Faculty of Engineering & IT, the University of Technology Sydney
Catherine Nolan, Director & Principal Coach, Gender Gap Gone

Stuart Harrison, Chief Information Security Officer, Medibank, kicked-off day two proceedings by sharing some words of wisdom about realising your leadership potential. A key theme that came through reflecting on day one was to show vulnerability. As leaders, you do need to stay strong for your team, but vulnerability is not a sign of weakness, but a sign that you are human. Showing vulnerability can often lead to building rapport and relationships with your team. A really lovely reminder for all leaders.

From the importance of vulnerability in leadership to the importance of resilience as leaders. Resilience was the topic Megan James, Chief Executive Officer, Australian Data Centres & President, Women in IT & Communications, covered in her personal career journey she shared with attendees. Megan is a very inspirational woman, and since the conference, I have shared parts of her story with many of my colleagues. They say you may not remember what people say, but you will always remember how they made you feel. In this case, I remembered what Megan said because of how it made me feel and how much it resonated. If you get the opportunity to hear Megan speak, I would highly recommend you take it and hear her story first-hand. I will share my key takeaways from Megan’s presentation below and hope you take some inspiration from this too:

Stay in your lane and stand up for what you believe in – no matter what
Always hold true to your values – above all else
Value your soft skills – emotional intelligence
Be present and always show up
Everyone has a story – so listen
Engage with people – see how you get the best out of people – allow the creative opportunity
Don’t compromise on any of the above

As leaders and mentors, it’s always useful to have references or tools to provide the best possible guidance and advice to enable meaningful conversations with your teams and mentees. Arabella Macpherson, Founder & Communications Coach, at Resonate Communications shared with us some great tips for unleashing your power as a mentor. I’ve summarised them below:

Coaching
- Ask questions
- Make suggestions
- Share experiences
Chunking
- Use chunking to open up or delve deeper into topics
Matching
- Give all of your attention
- Match 60%: physically and vocally
- Repeat words and phrases back to show acknowledgement

Towards the end of day two, the discussion changed to be more around the future of work. Jade Carson, Director of IT Investments, Department of Education & Training, spoke passionately on the topic of engaging and attracting future female leaders to IT roles.

Some ideas and strategies Jade touched on started right back at engaging young girls to show interest in IT. Whether that be at home, at school or at play. It’s also about attracting girls and women to a career in IT by changing the image/perception of tech, promoting meaningful careers and addressing the unconscious bias. On top of this, growing the focus on the culture around tech, closing the confidence gap through training and education and having strong female mentors or sponsors will help attract female IT talent. Jade concluded that we should keep a focus on culture being equitable and reflective of diversity. And that job design or redesign for flexibility is important. Overarching, she highlighted female role models across the IT industry is key.

Continuing the future of work discussion, panellists’ thoughts covered:

The importance of business and IT partnerships – with the increase in technologies in the workplace, it’s important for businesses and IT leaders to work closely for the best possible outcomes
Portfolio careers – showing depth and breadth of experience
Being location agnostic – it’s not about where you’re physically working from. With technology, you are enabled to work from anywhere. This also ties into the earlier discussion around being outcomes focused.
Gig Economy – presents great opportunities but also new challenges

And that’s a wrap! Catherine Nolan, Director & Principal Coach, at Gender Gap Gone, was our facilitator across the two-day summit and presented a great summary of the insights from across the event. A few practical tips she left us with include:

Create a Vision Board – use Pinterest or Canva to get started. If you see it, you’ll achieve it.
Create your 40-page resume – a dumping ground for YOU only. List examples as they happen so that when the time comes, you have the content and are ready to apply for that dream job.
Watch the Amy Cuddy Ted Talk – ‘Your body language may shape who you are’

There were honestly so many fantastic insights and inspirational moments over the two days. I hope this blog post shares just some of that post-summit magic with you all.

Thank you for reading.

Emma Judd

Instagram: @emajudd

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emajudd/

Do you have more insightful leadership tips? Share them in the comments below.

By Lani Pauli, Deane & Co

Yep, you read that right! While it seems counterintuitive, working less and finding more balance in your life can actually have a positive impact on your business.

Thanks to social media and the fact that in this digital age you can work almost anywhere at any hour, there can be limitless opportunity to work and a never-ending supply of tasks to do. But that doesn’t mean you should just work-work-work!

Not least because an overstimulated, perpetually busy mind is not the place where the best ideas, clearest decisions, or brilliant strategy come from.

As part of our consulting work, we often talk with clients about how to get more balance in their lives, and how it’s not indulgent, but can really pay off for their business.

You only have to look at business power players Tim Ferriss, Ariana Huffington and Bill Gates – all advocates of scheduling dedicated time off – to see how working less can help you more.

If you are finding you are always ‘on’ and spending the bulk of your precious time working on business, take a moment to stop and recalibrate.

Here are 5 ways to consider bringing more balance to your life, calming your mind and running your business, so that it doesn’t run you.

#1 Take Holidays!

Having time off is one of the most sure-fire ways to be more productive. Breaks, down time, having fun and thinking about things outside work is one of the best investments you can make in yourself. Travel allows you to learn new things, get new perspectives, and come at problems in different ways. If you haven’t had a holiday in ages, it can be as easy as taking a long weekend away or getting to the beach for a couple of days.

#2 Clear Boundaries

Make clear boundaries and stick to them. Leave work on time, take a proper lunch break each day, don’t reply to emails or calls outside of hours. Some of our clients at Deane & Co now put in strict boundaries and openly take one day off a week. On this day they don’t reply to emails (unless the situation is urgent) and their success continues. If anything, this client argues (and we’re inclined to agree) that it enhances their ability to be successful as they’re giving themselves adequate time to recharge and restore.

#3 Switch Off

The best way to be a winner in business and in life is to rejuvenate body and mind, which means a good nights’ sleep. And vital to good sleep if switch off technology, social media, the laptop and cleansing the bedroom of all electronic gear. Consider social media-free weekends: Tim Ferriss switches off his phone every Saturday unapologetically.

#4 Prioritise

Take a cold hard look at how you’re spending your precious time across the different categories that matter to you, whether that’s Family, Eating Well, Exercising, Down Time, or Being Social. If you’re finding that all your time is caught up in business and busyness consider where your main priorities truly lie. Upping your wellbeing only help performance, so spending time on them is an investment in business too.

#5 Delegate

To work less you need to do less, so think strategically about how you can get things off your plate. If your business is like your baby, at some stage you need to let it grow and develop. Trust and work with others. Invest time in good people and then delegate to free up your own time and do the things you truly love and are good at. If you suck at accounting or graphic design, it’s time to hand those things over to people who excel at them so you can have the bandwidth to do what you do best.

By Sejal Jamnadas

To a casual observer, it might seem consultants spend an excessive time on PowerPoint; re-sizing and aligning boxes, re-arranging slides and re-editing tag lines. We’re known for creating ‘pretty presentations’.

Not only that, most people are terrible at it. ‘Death by PowerPoint’ is all too real and common — painful to read, even worse to listen to and unfortunately too easy to do.

Alas, beautiful PowerPoints do exist and are a pleasant harmony of structural and graphical design. And of course, they are existential to the consulting way of life. We (defending all consultants on the planet) inherently believe that PowerPoint is the ultimate tool for crafting compelling stories and framing important messages.

What most people don’t understand is that a PowerPoint presentation is (or should be at least be) an extremely concise showcase of months and months of client deliverables. Every interview, meeting, data analysis and research is turned into insights — so that only the most relevant knowledge makes it to the client in a nutshell. Not forgetting, the client sponsor is clearly an extremely busy, BUSY person and has no time for consultant bullshit, so it’s best to get to the point quickly.

This means the initial ‘information dump’ of 500 slides from all the work the team produced will eventually dwindle down to 10 slides. The client only wants to see the tip of the iceberg, which is the most important part anyway (likened to the 80/20 Pareto Principle).

In all respects, an impeccable PowerPoint presentation is clearly more complicated than most would think. Here are some important structural and graphical design considerations:

Structural Design

The message to the PowerPoint is key. What are you trying to achieve? What is the intent of the audience? The Pyramid Principle is a framework used to communicate the key message effectively and early in the presentation.

How do you use it?*

Structure the communication as a pyramid, presenting the main message first.

Develop the rest of the pyramid to support the main message, in ever greater detail.

Use topic sentences to tell the story mapped by the pyramid.

Why use it?

The main message, or the answer to the problem, is what the client wants to hear first, so it belongs up front.

People absorb information more easily when they know why they are receiving the information, and the main message creates that context. Stories are easier to remember.

Graphical Design

Now that we’ve covered sequencing and story-telling around main messages, we can focus on the singular frame.

Probably the most important element of each slide is the ‘Governing Thought’ title. The ‘Governing Thought’ title refers to an action statement which communicates the storyline of the slide in a short and understandable way. If necessary, a tag line may be required to describe a diagram or a set of points in the frame.

Of course, there are other important graphical considerations — some would consider almost “fanatical”…

Consistency is king. Use the same font, bullet, line, box, figure style and color throughout the presentation.

Use sober colors for a more professional look

Increase spacing between text to make it easier to read slide

Avoid use of clip art illustrations. Use simple illustrations to give a more professional look

Put conclusions below graphs

Never use shape effects*

Pick PowerPoint apart (say that 5 times in a row!) and you’ll begin to appreciate how subtle considerations in structural and graphical will alter the message. Beyond everything, we need to be constantly mindful of the ‘time-poor’ audience that want clear, relevant and logical answers…but don’t want to think too much about it either. That’s what consultants are for; to do the thinking, problem-solving, filtering, simplifying, tinkering, magic and wrapping it all up like a neatly-wrapped present.

*References made from Accenture 2013 Consulting 101

Sejal is a management consultant at Accenture with a keen interest in design and technology. She’s fascinated by design as a framework for creating meaningful human interractions with digital products, from AI, blockchain, e-commerce, social media tools and more. When she’s not in an office, you’ll find her tucked away in coffee shops eating “brunch food”, brainstorming for her next post and drawing stick figures as accompanying illustrations for the blog.

By Sejal Jamnadas

An attempt to use design thinking could be likened to experiencing the peak of your professional imposter syndrome. I mean surely, somebody will eventually figure out that you have no idea what the final outcome will be of the session. All you have is some butchers’ paper, post-it notes, the people sitting in the room and a hope that the session won’t fall completely off the rails.

The reality is, using design thinking (rather than just reading about it) is messy and awkward. In fact, it can be a huge risk; but it pays to work through the initial awkward mess and focus on clear intended outcomes rather than worrying about the reactions of participants.

The hardest part of the process is usually convincing the team to congregate for 1 hour during the week to discuss how they might ‘align priorities’ and ‘build a roadmap going forward’ — of course, with the intention of using design thinking methods. On my most recent project, I knew the client would not immediately be receptive of a “design thinking session” where “everybody gets to write on post-it-notes”. I could only imagine the reaction would be disappointing and awkward at the very least.

Undoubtedly, it was going to take a lot more than just the promise of a colourful room filled with post-it notes and ‘innovative ideas’ to convince the client to participate in a design thinking session.

To help you relate or empathise, I’ve illustrated the key 5 awkward phases that goes through the mind of a ‘facilitator’ planning to run a design thinking session.

STAGE 1: THE REALISATION

You’re at a critical point of the project. You’ve found the ideal moment where you know the team could benefit from brainstorming their ideas, understanding the problem and context, or gathering feedback to come to a shared understanding. I like to think of this as the problem or ‘tension’ for which Design Thinking methods can be incredibly useful.

STAGE 2: THE ‘DREADED ASK’

Now you need to muster up the courage to tell the client that you’re intending to gather everyone in a room to try some ‘methods’…

STAGE 3: THE ‘WHAT WAS I THINKING’ MOMENT

You’ve sent the meeting invite to the team with a standard agenda which no makes no reference to Design Thinking. Nobody knows that you’re frantically sifting through 10–15 Design Thinking methods to construct the best recipe for the session to achieve its outcomes. You suddenly hate yourself for organising the session in the first place and end up drafting back-up slides in case it fails. You start to have dreams of the client team giving you disgusted looks when you explain to them “you can only write one idea per post-it-note with a black sharpie”.

STAGE 4: THE COMPROMISE

You think you’ve found the perfect recipe at least twice. But of course, you’re bound to wake up in the middle of the night and realise the recipe is shit, scrapping the recipe and starting again. The session is tomorrow so you settle for some ‘safe’ options — you think to yourself, a bit of rose-thorn-bud and affinity mapping is not overly time-consuming and not outrageously ‘creative’, so you decide that’s the bare minimum you’ll do. Of course, you know there’s a lot of other great tools you’ll have up your sleeve which you plan to use spontaneously if the session goes relatively smoothly. Although at this stage, you’ll be happy if the client doesn’t fire you on the spot.

STAGE 5: THE AWKWARD INTRODUCTION

You’ve finally made it to the session and you’re excited. You truly believe the tools you’ve prepared will help the team understand the situation better and come to a shared sense of clarity for an approach going forward. Only thing, the team is visibly confused when they come in with their laptops and notepads to a room full of post-notes and sharpies. Deep breath. You tell them what you’ll plan to do today, doing your best to ignore mixed their expressions of excitement, boredom…and of course, a heavy air of awkwardness and scepticism.

So now we’ve established the REAL emotional journey of design thinking in its 5 phases, here are my few simple tips on helping to overcome the inherent awkwardness of it all.

Have a clear intention and vision of the outcome: Understand what stage of the project you’re in and what outcome is desired. Then find the methods which will help to achieve the outcome and communicate this intent to the participants.
Know your methods, and practice it alone or with colleagues: Do the training, speak to experts, watch videos and tutorials.
Avoid using the word ‘Design’ or ‘Design Thinking’: Unless the client reads the Harvard Business Review or Forbes, its generally a fairly vague buzz word which a lot of people don’t really respect. People who believe in it respect it, but unfortunately, you can’t assume everybody trusts the idea of design thinking. Best to avoid freaking people out.
Have faith in the methods: If you doubt the methods, so will the client or the audience that is participating in the session. Be enthusiastic and engage everyone in the room so they all feel included in the process.

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Liquid Learning, Women in ICT and Digital Leadership Summit 2019

How Working Less Can Help Your Business

Why PowerPoint is the holy grail in consulting

Structural Design

Graphical Design

The 5 awkward phases of design thinking facilitation

Acknowledgement