Nadia Clifford – Issues and Pitfalls with Managing Complex Technology Initiatives

Connect with Nadia:

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Connect with Dwight:

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• dwight.brown@salary.com

Connect with David:

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• david.turetsky@salary.com

 

Podcast Manager, Karissa Harris:

• HRDataLabs@salary.com

 

Production by Affogato Media

Resources:

• Outfront Media
• Compensation Consulting Services
• Compensation Data
• HR Data Labs Season 4 Episode 11
• HR Data Labs Season 4 Episode 9

• ““Prioritization is not just saying ‘yes’, . . . it's also saying ‘no’ to everything else. And it takes a lot of guts to say ‘no’.”
• “If a product manager really wants their stakeholders or their development teams to hear their message, they need to use every possible communication channel.”

Announcer: 0:02

Here's an experiment for you. Take passionate experts in human resource technology. Invite cross industry experts from inside and outside HR. Mix in what's happening in people analytics today. Give them the technology to connect, hit record for their discussions into a beaker. Mix thoroughly. And voila, you get the HR Data Labs podcast, where we explore the impact of data and analytics to your business. We may get passionate and even irreverent, that count on each episode challenging and enhancing your understanding of the way people data can be used to solve real world problems. Now, here's your host, David Turetsky.

 

David Turetsky: 0:46

Hello, and welcome to the HR Data Labs podcast. I'm your host, David Turetsky. Like always, we have with us our friend and co host Dwight Brown. Hey, Dwight, how are you?

 

Dwight Brown: 0:55

Good, David, how you doing?

 

David Turetsky: 0:56

Very good. Thank you. We try and endeavor to find people inside and outside the world of HR to bring you insights as to why things are the way they are in the worlds of HR data analytics and technology. Today we're talking to my friend I was gonna say my old friend but you're not old Nadia, my friend for many, many years. Nadia Clifford, she's the Senior Director of Engineering Program Management at OUTFRONT Media. Hey, Nadia, how are you?

 

Nadia Clifford: 1:23

Hi, David. Good. How are you?

 

David Turetsky: 1:25

Very good. Welcome. So today we're going to have a really fun time talking to Nadia, we don't talk really about how technology gets put together on the HR Data Labs podcast, but we should. And that's why we brought Nadia in here to kind of give us a little bit of what happens behind the scenes. But Nadia, one of the things I wanted to find out from you is your background. How did you get to here.

 

Nadia Clifford: 1:49

So I actually started my career in technology a long time ago, I maybe look younger than I am. So over 25 years ago, I started working with my mother as her first employee in a new business venture. And we had to computerize our business processes. So I created the first application to digitize our process that was basically paper fax, swivel chair operation. And that application that I ultimately created, allowed us to scale from the two of us to 70 people, and that will just in three years. So it was a pretty successful story for that startup. And that became the theme of my career, I became so fascinated with technology and how it how it influences business and business outcomes. And over the course of my career, I've been getting involved in more and more complex business scenarios and using technology to drive outcomes. And I ended up working in multiple industries, multiple roles, just because I like new challenge. And HR technology was one of them a few years back when we work together. Yeah, yeah.

 

David Turetsky: 3:05

That was so much fun. And I think back to when you were doing project management, development, project management, right?

 

Nadia Clifford: 3:12

I was Yeah, I was more business analyst, Senior Business Analyst. And then I moved into a scrum master role. And that was the beginning of my career in Agile.

 

David Turetsky: 3:23

Yeah. And I think we were all learning how to live Agile for and this was, I think, in the 2007 2008 timeframe, maybe a little bit earlier. But we were all trying to figure out how Agile can come into a world when we were used to Waterfall. And we were used to developing all the specifications and then diving into the development. Whereas in the Agile case, as you go along, you learn more about the problem and you try and fix the problem, right?

 

Nadia Clifford: 3:49

Yeah, and you let it unfold versus trying to define everything upfront. And that's basically has been the theme for me ever since I come into an environment that it's kind of Waterfall ish and old fashioned, and I turned it into a more Agile organization.

 

David Turetsky: 4:06

We should definitely talk then. We know of some companies that need that assistance.

 

Nadia Clifford: 4:12

There are a few out there.

 

David Turetsky: 4:14

There are! There are many. But one fun thing you may not know about Nadia, is you love the whatever it is for dummies book series. Why would you need that? Because you're definitely not a dummy.

 

Nadia Clifford: 4:30

Well, if you times in my career, I've taken a job where I felt a bit like a novice. Not sure I wanted to call myself a dummy. But yeah, and I had to, to pick up a book before I came in on my first day to actually read up about the area that I was to work on.

 

David Turetsky: 4:51

If you've ever met Nadia, she really sold it quite well because she did not have any she didn't miss a beat. She knew exactly what she was doing the moment she got there. And so you did a good job. And I'd love to see some of those dummy books because I'm I want to read one or two!

 

Nadia Clifford: 5:07

Believe it or not, I did read a project management for Dummies before I started looking for jobs a while back!

 

David Turetsky: 5:13

Really? As I, as I said, you sold it quite well. So there you go. Those are great books. So today, we're going to talk about one of the things that's very near and dear to my heart. And I think it is to a lot of yours as well, which is, what are the biggest issues and pitfalls that we run into when you're managing a really complex technology initiative. And one of those examples of that is product management in the HR technology world. And Nadia, you're definitely an expert in that. And as you know, I've been in product management and HR technology. And boy, we try and make the complex, really simple, but sometimes we may even make it more complex. So that's, that's one of our Well, that's a goal today to try and uncomplicate it and make it kind of easy for everybody. So the first question, Nadia is in all your years of being a leader in technology consultant, a coach and project leader and a business analyst, what holds most organizations back when it comes to trying to demystify the world of product management and HR tech?

 

Nadia Clifford: 6:30

Well, definitely the most typical problem that I see in everywhere, it's lack of vision or vision that's not defined well enough. And not a very crisp vision. When you're trying to build a product, be it HR technology product or another software product, you really need to know where you're going and what problem you're trying to solve. And oftentimes, either we don't even define where we're going. And we're just very reactive and just jumping on the problem of the day, and not very strategic, or our vision is so broad, something like be the best in the market. It's very hard to use that type of vision to make day to day decisions. And to figure out, are we moving in the right direction or not. So getting crisp on the vision is very important. So defining your destination. So for example, if you set out on a road trip, going from Boston to LA, you want to say you're going to LA you don't want to say I'm going to West Coast, because you might end up in Oregon, when you wanted to go to LA!

 

David Turetsky: 7:40

Or a different continent even!

 

Nadia Clifford: 7:44

Yeah, like define which west coast which goes to which continent? Let's start there. Also very important to define the actual problem we're trying to solve. So just like I said, saying, Our vision is to be the best in the market is not crisp enough. It's too nebulous. But defining what is the problem? And who is having the problem that we're trying to solve? And why do we even want to solve it? Does it even really need to be solved. So that's kind of very important to have a successful product.

 

David Turetsky: 8:20

I think that last problem that you just brought up is one of the things that we typically lack in a product management, which is defining the value and really clearly specifying the value of that particular story or theme or epic in the context of the product itself, and the development and the stage of development you want to get to. Because, you know, and I know you're probably going to get to this, but everything's important, but trying to have as you say that vision for the product. And when does everything need to get completed. I know that a lot of people get really upset when you use the word MVP, minimum viable product. And Agile is supposed to solve for a minimum viable product forever release. But but one of the things that we tend to gloss over is that not everything's the highest priority. And having that value and having that business value, whether it's revenue, whether it's client losses, whether it's whatever needs to be clearly stated, right? And who makes that judgment and who makes that determination as to what's the most important.

 

Nadia Clifford: 9:21

Exactly. And once you have a vision of your product, or your initiative, or even your feature, and you know, what you're trying to do for whom and why it's very easy to prioritize, then you can always ladder it up to what's our ultimate goal. So then you can decide, is this really contributing to our ultimate goal or is it not? So vision really helps with prioritization.

 

Dwight Brown: 9:49

I've seen that over and over too, with with these sorts of projects where it's easy to get caught in that funnel of you know, having having a lackadaisical vision And yet trying to do everything with that product and do everything at the same time. And it, you know, it makes for a lot of crazy making and the development process because everybody's doing a lot of work. But it's not necessarily cohesive work. And you're not ending up with a product that's solving the value equation that you've set out. If you have never said that set out that value equation.

 

Nadia Clifford: 10:27

That's absolutely true. And the lack of that periodization is often leading to just not even delivering the value, just as you said, because people are stretched too thin, resources are stretched too thin, everybody's doing too much. And what I see time and time again, that a lot of times we start keep starting all these important things, but we never finish. So we don't really deliver anything cohesive. So that's quite a common pitfall.

 

Announcer: 10:56

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David Turetsky: 11:07

So now that you have a vision, or you have a cohesive vision, or let's say you gather to get a cohesive vision, what becomes the next big obstacle to actually creating this technology? And to get actually getting it done? The right way? And on time?

 

Nadia Clifford: 11:22

Yeah, the next big obstacle that I typically see in organizations is that lack of prioritization, or rather, everything is the number one priority. And people have a hard time saying, no, let's focus just on this one thing, this is the most important thing. So we end up stretching our people way too thin. Everybody's doing too much, pushing too hard. And a lot of times, I see that, we will start multiple initiatives at the same time. But we don't have enough focus to finish and declare victory and deliver it to market and maybe get some feedback and iterate. So this stretching just leads to poor work life balance, even poor quality, because everybody's burnt out. And oftentimes people don't realize, and well, that's what I coach a lot about is that prioritization is not just saying yes, and focusing on one thing, although a lot of it is, but it's also saying no to everything else. And it takes a lot of guts to say no, because it's, it's very human to fear, you know, missing out, what if we say no to this thing that would have made us, you know, billions and billions of dollars. But if you don't say no to some of the things, you will just never finish anything, and you won't have good quality product. So I always say that if it's too scary to say no, then just say not now, this is not a priority right? Now, we can make it a priority later. But it's just being strategic and thoughtful about it.

 

David Turetsky: 13:05

And priorities change, too. Because as you're going through the development process, and you create this backlog of gigantic list of themes, or epics or stories, and then you get to the end of the release, and you look back, you do your retrospective, and you say, wow, you know, there was a lot of things on the cutting room floor that we couldn't get done, and still a lot of things in QA that may not get done. And so it kind of sets up what your backlog is for the next release. And then having that really honest conversation about based on the velocities are based on how fast you can get things done. Can we actually get these things done in the next release? Or is there more realistic way of scheduling this stuff out? You know, it's what did they say, Nadia? It's a triangle of resources, time and effort?

 

Nadia Clifford: 13:52

Yeah and scope.

 

David Turetsky: 13:54

And scope, right! So we know, you can't, you can't, you can make a bigger triangle. But that just means more money, right? Or means having different expectations. So how do we solve those problems? How do we how do we move that needle on that? Is it partnership? Is it negotiation, you said that you have to have really good skills to be able to navigate that. What does it take to be a good product leader to be able to make that actually stick?

 

Nadia Clifford: 14:19

Absolutely. I think it takes guts to to begin with to hold your line. I mean, it's a very fine balance because you do need to work with people you want to collaborate, but at the same time, it requires a lot of discipline. And sometimes you just have to be firm, that this is what we're focusing on right now. And this is what we need to deliver. And yes prioritization changes. Absolutely. So you have an opportunity to review that at you know, periodically. So if you have sprints, you can review that at the end of each sprint or if you have releases as you were saying, David, the best thing is to deliver that release and get some feedback from real life usage, is it actually something that's being used? How are our customers reacting? How is this thing out in the wild world? Of what do we need to tweak? And that feedback oftentimes changes our vision quite a bit. Because in complex technology, it's very hard to sit down and think and predict how things are going to go, you're really need this experimentation and live feedback in the field.

 

David Turetsky: 15:40

And that brings us to our next topic, the next question, which is, we have an awesome vision, things are prioritized, we've gotten it all put together, we're all happy with it. What happens to make things fall apart?

 

Nadia Clifford: 15:53

Yes, definitely not enough to just have a vision, to figure out prioritization, this is not a guarantee that things will just work out swimmingly. You really need to make sure everybody is on the same page. Communication in this day and age, when there's so many people working on these large projects, it's critical, and getting everybody on board and getting buy in. Because honestly, nobody will even hear you until you get tired of repeating the same thing over and over and over again, you can never over communicate. And also people have very different communication styles. So if you if a product manager really wants their stakeholders or their development teams, to hear their message, they need to use every possible communication channel, because somebody hears you in a meeting, somebody else needs to read it, somebody else needs to see a visual, you just have to be very diligent about communicating out your vision, and also very important to actually get buy in. So some, the best way to get buy in is to involve people in creating your vision in creating your prioritization. One of my favorite ways to get buy in for a vision, even if it's like a feature or not something necessarily grandiose is to let people to feel the pain of the problem you're trying to solve.

 

David Turetsky: 17:21

That's a great idea. Yeah,

 

Nadia Clifford: 17:23

In HR tech, that's actually not that hard, because we're all employees, we've all been job candidates or managers. And so letting people feel the pain is very helpful.

 

David Turetsky: 17:35

Yeah. And because then they can actually not only live it, then they go, Wow, this is emotional to me now, I'm invested in it. I know what it causes. So how do I get around not having this feeling again. So it's kind of like, you don't like that feedback loop. Or it's actually a really good feedback feedback loop. Whether it's negative feedback or positive feedback, people like to be able to understand what it means to walk in the shoes of those users. To be able to get that experience, I totally agree with you. One thing I want to ask you is, you know, one of the good things about being a product owner is that you have the ability, especially during stand ups or within slack or within the IDE that someone's using, I think it's still called an IDE to be really communicative. It's the development environment that they're, they're actually developing the code in, and actually be able to communicate in line with, you know, what they're doing, whether it's giving immediate feedback, or whether it's reviews to be able to give good feedback. But you mentioned that being able to over communicate. So within the world of Agile, we're always supposed to be communicating, right? We're supposed to be co located. If we're dealing with people who are developing resources around the world, we're always on Slack or always on Teams, or whatever the communication methodology is. And that kind of leads into that work life balance issue, doesn't it for product owners? Yes,

 

Nadia Clifford: 18:58

it does. And not even product owners, but developers too, because you actually need that time to focus and get your job done. And you need that undisturbed time. And especially a lot of times, developers are introverts, and they need that focus, they need to be in the flow undisturbed. So yeah, it's a very, very good point, we need to be very mindful of that balance. And I know in some companies that I worked at, there were specific days of the week of specific times of the day where you couldn't schedule meetings, and you had to let people focus on work. So yeah, so good point.

 

David Turetsky: 19:36

I remember the days when we all used to sit in the same cubicle area. And you know, when someone had a problem, they just said, Hey, David, can you come over here and take a look at this and, you know, pretty much you had to wear headphones.

 

Nadia Clifford: 19:50

Yeah, exactly.

 

Dwight Brown: 19:51

Yeah, it was good in concept. Yeah, it's a great concept but doesn't always doesn't always work for everybody.

 

Nadia Clifford: 19:59

Yeah, Yeah, it's hard to break out of that flow and then go back into it. Yeah, there's some momentum.

 

David Turetsky: 20:07

Well, based on that, let's talk a little bit. I know this wasn't part of the formal questions. But I want to ask you about how does remote work change this? How does remote work change how people work together? How can scrum still happen with stand ups being completely remote? Is it very much the same? It's just via video? Or how do you think the impact of remote work has changed product management and their relationship with product development?

 

Nadia Clifford: 20:31

It's changed in a multitude of ways, certainly, and some ways a much better I think for for managing our work life balance, essentially. Because it's, in a way, it's easier to walk away from it. But you have to have your own internal discipline to be able to shut down your computer and really walk away from it.

 

David Turetsky: 20:54

Really shut down your computer.

 

Dwight Brown: 20:56

Yeah,

 

Nadia Clifford: 20:57

Really, all the way. And I think because a lot of teams were already hybrid, I'd listen in large companies that I worked at, it leveled out the field that now everybody is on video, everybody's remote. So participation level actually evened out. And I use personally a lot of facilitation tools like virtual whiteboards for many meetings. And that allows introverted quiet people to participate much better. So we actually get more ideas from them. Because for a lot of people, it's very uncomfortable to speak up in a room full of other people, and you, you lose out. But this virtuality this collaboration online, allows those voices to be heard. But at the same time, what I personally miss is the hallway conversations, the stuff that you miss, just overhearing, I personally go into the office three days a week, and that's actually tremendously helpful to my own work to overhear what others are working on and what they're talking about. And I feel so much more plugged in into what's happening.

 

Dwight Brown: 22:09

I was thinking about this last night, I, I really missed the whiteboards, you know, the virtual whiteboards are great, but I literally missed the physicality of writing something down and erasing things on the on the whiteboards. And that's.

 

David Turetsky: 22:27

Well, if you want, I can buy you one, and you can put it behind you. And you can put it on calls.

 

Dwight Brown: 22:33

I know but it's but it's so great when you've got two or three people up each morning with a magic marker, you know.

 

Nadia Clifford: 22:39

Fighting for markers.

 

Dwight Brown: 22:40

Right, exactly. I want the blue one, give me the blue one.

 

David Turetsky: 22:44

And I think that's where a lot of magic did happen. And I think at some point, we're going to get back to that. And I think we're going to come to an equilibrium where there will be a more hybrid model for work. But what that means why it is then you're moving to the Boston area. So you're same room and actually do the whiteboarding. But But I don't think that's going to change anytime soon, I think we're gonna get to a much more distributed model, where we can find the expertise wherever we need it, and be able to keep people, and Nadia I loved what you were talking about, keep people giving them the opportunity in the choices of of having that balance between work and life.

 

Nadia Clifford: 23:25

Yeah, absolutely. We're doing it to give those opportunities. But it's also about your own discipline to have that balance.

 

David Turetsky: 23:32

But But remember, it always was, I mean, and we did a really crappy job of it. I remember being in the office really all hours of the day. And I know you did, too, because there were things we were under the gun for we had to be there were there big decisions to be made. And we worked all the time. And when we didn't work at the office, we worked at home, right? So just being at the office, and still in an in person model didn't mean that you ended the day when you turned on your car and went home. So we forget those. We forget those things, but but it's still there. And now to your point. Now we have the ability of switching the computer off and switching hopefully our mind off too and being able to take on the more important things in our lives, which are our children and other things, right?

 

Nadia Clifford: 24:19

Yeah, exactly. One of my bosses used to say actually somebody at ADP in 10 years from now will you even remember the names of the peoples in this meeting? Is it really worth missing your kids soccer game for?

 

David Turetsky: 24:31

Exactly. Well, the kid will definitely not forget you not being at the soccer game. But but the people at the meeting. They won't remember you weren't there tomorrow probably.

 

Nadia Clifford: 24:43

True.

 

David Turetsky: 24:54

So Nadia, we talked about the problems that organizations deal with when trying to build technology and trying to focus on what the real problem is. And then we talked about what's the real prioritization? And how do we actually get to overcoming way too much on the plate versus what does the real goal of the project need. And then the third thing we talked about is now that we have everything from a vision and a prioritization perspective, making sure that we get people on board and communicating and over communicating and dealing with them as they, as they like to be dealt with and communicated with. What else do you want to bring up before we close?

 

Nadia Clifford: 25:33

Well, I think another important aspect is getting feedback from real customers sooner rather than later. That's a major component of being successful with complex technology.

 

David Turetsky: 25:44

Absolutely. Sorry, you did mention that, and I did not bring that up in the summary. So you are correct. I'm sorry, Nadia, thank you very much.

 

Nadia Clifford: 25:52

Thank you very much for having me here.

 

David Turetsky: 25:54

Our pleasure.

 

Nadia Clifford: 25:55

It was a pleasure.

 

David Turetsky: 25:56

Dwight. Thank you.

 

Dwight Brown: 25:57

Thank you. And thank you, Nadia, for joining us. It's been good.

 

David Turetsky: 26:01

And I would add very insightful. Thank you so much for joining. And thank you for listening. And if you don't mind, please send this on to your friends and colleagues. Thank you very much. Take care and stay safe.

 

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