Ready to take on a big Digital Transformation?
What is your process and plan? Do you know how to solve complex Mysteries?
Enjoy a great podcast with guest Dave Dragon, author of "I Solve Mysteries, The Art & Science of Business Process Optimization & Transformation". Dave is also the President & CEO of Dragon Management Consulting.
Knowing where to start in solving your business mysteries requires an open mind. Sub-optimized or broken processes exist in every industry and in all facets of the business, like research & development (R&D), sales & marketing, supply chain, operations, regulatory, finance or information technology (IT).
Dave has led the charge in solving mysteries for companies you know and brands you love. This book is built upon that experience and expertise, and is a treasure-trove of insightful stories and instructive examples from a career that spans more than 30 years.
Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning, Robotic Process Automation and Prescriptive Analytics is evolutionary, not revolutionary.
Listen in for more on this and solve some mysteries together!
Transcripts are also below! If you would like to be a guest, learn more and schedule your podcast with Jeff Stanislow here.
Also, if you like this and want to up skill your in digital strategies, check out: https://chiefinternetmarketer.com/certified-courses/digital-strategy-specialist/
The Host: Jeff Stanislow, CEO of Chief Internet Marketer
Transcript of the Digital Marketing Podcast
Jeff Stanislow
Hi this is Jeff Stanislow, the chief at Chief Internet Marketer. Today I have a special guest; Mr. Dave Dragon, and we're going to talk about solving mysteries. How're you doing today Dave?
Dave Dragon
Great Jeff, how are you today?
Jeff Stanislow
Good, good, I love the title of your new book and I think it's fantastic, but tell me a little bit of the backstory before we get into “I Solved Mysteries.” Your book that's coming out a little bit later this month.
Dave Dragon
Well, I'm a Consultant; both a Process and Technology Consultant. And I focus on fixing broken business processes through optimization and transformation programs. So that's kind of like my area of specialty, and the book really is kind of you know based on the work that I've done over my career in the things that I've learned in doing these you know complex optimization and transformation projects. So it's a culmination of many years of work, and really targeted at early career and mid-career professionals, to give them some insights into the things I've learned over the years.
Jeff Stanislow
Now, you've done some work with some pretty big companies which kind of validates and give you the credentials and the authority to write such a book. Tell us a little bit about some of the projects or clients that you’ve worked for and the companies you’ve worked for and go from there.
Dave Dragon
So you know, I've worked with a variety of clients across a number of different industries. So in the manufacturing area, in automotive, I've worked with a number of the leading automotive manufacturers and process optimization and transformation programs. I've worked in the CPG area with a number of clients on these kind of programs, and they're all well-known names. I have a background in the chemical industry also where we work on these projects. And in today's world when you're working on optimization and transformation projects, you're also aligning that with some kind of a digital technology platform. So these companies look to us to be able to help them not only with the process but also with the technology. And then some other industries I’ve been involved with are industrial manufacturing, aerospace and defense. So a wide variety of companies of well-known brands. You would know who they are if I specifically mentioned them.
Jeff Stanislow
Now, I understand saying some of the client work they can do you; you can say some, you can't say some, and it's better off to leave some just left alone. No problem there. Some of the technologies that you’ve worked with though, you can probably talk a little bit about?
Dave Dragon
Yeah, sure. So I’ve have a background on working in projects with Oracle, SAP and some of the other leading technology providers in the marketplace. You know, Oracle and SAP are the big ERP providers, but there are a lot of point solutions that you use in these projects that bring a lot of value that at Oracle at SAP would not necessarily have at the time. So it's a combination of the big players like Oracle and SAP and some of the specialty technology providers.
Jeff Stanislow
Great. Now, we talk a little bit about technology and how fast it grows, and you mentioned there's a quantum leap and the advancements of technologies every 5-10 years, and you can kind of see it and hear it going on in the marketplace today with regards to AI or artificial intelligent, machine learning, robotic process automation, predictive/prescriptive analytics and all these acronyms that are kind of flying around. But it's gaining steam and if you did a Google trend search for artificial intelligence, you could definitely see it's on the rise. But tell me a little bit about you know, what really is that? Is it something new or is it just a new way to do things?
Dave Dragon
Well, technology evolves. In artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotic process automation, the advanced analytics that people are talking about today, are really an evolution that's happened over time. Some people want to market it as a revolution, but people in the technology and consulting area realize that it's really an evolution. And basically every 5-10 years as you mentioned, there's this quantum leap in the advancement of technology. And typically, it has to do with the hardware, the software, people's understandings on how those integrate with each other, to really bring these really game-changing moves in the market place. So kind of as an example, if you're not talking about AI these days, people are talking about the cloud. Everybody's talking about the cloud, you have to go to the cloud. Well, the cloud is really nothing that new. Alright, so when I was with Oracle back in 2000, the first early versions of cloud computing we're starting to be visible in the marketplace, and it's 20 years ago now. And at the time, everybody kind of poo-poo them you know, nobody's going to go to the cloud computing, people don't like these abstract changes in technology. You know. CIOs were very slow to you know respond to it, but today in over the last 2 years, if you're not hearing about AI, you're hearing about cloud computing. So again, that's an example of a game-changing technology that came out a number of years ago, but the adoption and evolution really takes a while to resonate in the marketplace. With AI, machine learning, robotic process automation, these are things that people have been working with for a number of years, but now the technology has really caught up with the vision and you're seeing a much more rapid development and deployment of these kind of solutions right now.
Jeff Stanislow
I know in the digital marketing world and how things have transformed and how the marketplace looks at web development differently because of the advancements and technology and content management systems. A lot of the buyers see an advertisement done on Wix or Go Daddy for 50 bucks a month, and all of a sudden it hurts the industry. But in what you're doing in putting things to the cloud or removing data and things of that nature, it is not as easy as copying and pasting and you know, why do you need a plan and a strategy? But I know it's big-time business, talk to us a little bit about how you go about planning. This is kind of your specialty, right? This is your sweet spot as far as helping companies really look at AI or these machine learning.
Dave Dragon
Sure. So you know, when you when you see all the marketing of AI and machine learning and robotic process automation, it's being driven by people that want the gain that a [Word missed 07:36] of the c-suite and companies. So what happens is you get bombarded with these advertisements, and then it starts resonating in the c-suite. So the next thing you know, the chief marketing officer is going to the CFO or the Chief Information Officer and he’s’ like why aren't we doing AI yet? So it's there, you really kind of drive demand in the marketplace. And it's good because a lot of these things are very very valuable to business, but the problem is if you don't have a strategy on what you're going to do with AI or robotic process automation, you may jump into something and you may be not prepared to do it. And what happens is if you're not prepared, then the experience of the organization gets tainted. Because again this is the new flashy thing that's coming out, and if you get a bad rap and a bad start on these projects, it really permeates the whole organization, because we've been there and done that. We’ve tried to implement technology before, we didn't have a plan, we didn't know what we were up against, and the next thing you know, the technology implementation isn't working. So it's really important to really think through what you want to do from a strategy standpoint with these technologies that people are talking about. So as an example, say you're looking at doing a marketing campaign or maybe you want to take a look at AI or machine robotic process automation and new product development. Well, marketing campaign is pretty straightforward and it's relatively contained in a small population within the company. So the implementation of something like a marketing campaign automated and use AI in a big picture is going to be more easy to implement and it's not that complex, and the ROI should be pretty good. But if you're going to be looking at doing new product development with AI and robotic process automation and analytics, this is much more complex, you're cutting across a lot of population of the organization, you have a number of different organizational silos that you have to integrate into something like that. So the complexity is much more, but the ROI could be significant. So one of the things company has to do when they're looking at their strategy is you know, how well has our organization handled previous technology implementations. If we're good at it and you can see the large ROI, maybe that's a way of really kind of changing the game within your organization. But if you're not proficient and you've struggled, and you want to do a project in AI or RPA, then you may want to take a little more cautious approach to the first venture into these areas, because these projects are going to definitely be under the microscope for those who value and also user acceptance.
Jeff Stanislow
Certainly. You know, it's interesting talking to a tech guy about the marketing aspect and how it works. And I always say digital marketing and marketing in general, I don't think they do a good enough job at looking at the holistic business ecosystem. And oftentimes, people struggle for content, and that content is just a floor away or a few offices down the road when you go talk to HR about what's going on in your hiring processes or what are we growing, what are we doing and what type of jobs are we looking for; that's content that a marketer can use and apply it across the whole system. Now you have a plan. But before we get into that, one of the biggest challenges that I think that a listener might have or is thinking about is the size of my project. Should I consider AI? What are the value propositions? Or even how much does this cost? Now, you have kind of a program, and you I'll let you steal the thunder on it, but I'll call it the 3Ss. And it's not for Dave Dragon, right. So tell me what those are.
Dave Dragon
No, I'm only D squared or Double D. So I'm not 3D yet.
Jeff Stanislow
Not 3D? Well, now you're going to be 3D, that you're expanding your horizons.
Dave Dragon
Yeah. So you know, within the strategy, one of the things you put together is what I call a business case for change. So it's really kind of a business case to kind of document where you want to go with your introduction into these areas, right. And there's a lot of different components that you have to bring into the strategy and the business case for change. But one of the things that these technology projects really have to get their handle on before they even move forward are these 3Ds that we’re talking about? So the acquis ECO for any technology implementation is the quality and availability of data. So when a marketing campaign or some kind of digital marketing world, you have an abundance of data available to you. And it needs to be available to these systems and it needs to be of high quality. These systems are real data hogs; I mean, they just log, and they eat, they feed on data. So one of the critical approaches that you have to take is to really evaluate your data and make sure your data is ready for AI or robotic process automation or these advanced analytics. The other thing that you need to take a look at is really kind of the decisions in your organization. Because when you look at AI and when you look at RPA, all of those process steps that happen during that are based on decisions. So within an organization, you have a combination of what we call institutional and tribal knowledge. And this is a combination of written and unwritten knowledge within the organization. So if you're looking at institutional knowledge, it kind of gives you guidance on how the organization makes decisions. And when you look at tribal knowledge, that's the knowledge within the community and how the community makes decisions. So as an example if you're in the marketing department, the marketing department has their own tribal knowledge on how they make decisions within that group. So this has to be documented because you're going to be making decisions with these systems, and the system needs to know how you make decisions. So over time, it will take your decisions that you currently have and improve those decisions based on the algorithms that they have in these systems, but it needs a starting point. So in the marketing campaign, again you have these written and unwritten decisions based on policies that the organization may have, and that all has to be documented. So there's a lot of work to do. And again, decisions relate to in these systems what are call business rules. So business rules kind of define how these systems operate, and all this needs to be documented to make sure that your data is correct and you have your decisions documented at this stage. Now, that brings us to some additional documentation. The third “D” is documentation. One area that I see quite often on our projects and I’ve hardly ever been on a project where I didn't see this, is people don't have their processes documented. So when we're looking at a marketing campaign within a company, do you have your process documented on how you run your marketing campaigns? From my experiences, most people don't have their process documented. So again, AI or RPA, need to know what the original processes look like so that they can go and have a starting point. In the past, I've done projects where we've said “oh, we don't need to know the current process, let's just show them the future process.” Well, what's happened in that case is there's a lot of things that were missed, and then when you go when you roll out the system, it doesn't align with how they operate and then you get people frustrated. So it's really important to have your processes documented so that you have a starting point for these systems.
So those are the 3 Ds. We have the data, we have decisions and we have documentation. So those are really important areas that you need to get right to prepare for going into one of these advanced systems.
Jeff Stanislow
It sounds like a lot. Is there…. I mean, I think this is your sweet spot, this is where you're kind of living it and pivoting. You're writing a book to help people with that, and again I mentioned earlier on, I love the title “I Solved Mysteries.” So tell me a little bit about the book, how it came to be, what can be expected in it and how are you going to help people if someone buys the book.
Dave Dragon
Yeah. So excuse me, all these things that we talked about with the data and the decisions and the documentation, these are all things that happen in large optimization and transformation projects. One of the things I've noticed over the last 5 years in working on a variety of different projects with a variety of different consultants on my teams and also early career people within the clients, is they don't know what to expect in these projects. And we'd be getting ready to go into a meeting, and I'd say well we're going to expect to see this, and they go “well, how do you know that's going to happen?” Well, it's because I've been through these projects before, this is where we are in the life cycle of the project. So I wouldn't be surprised if this is the reaction we see from the people that were working with. And then we would go into the meetings and that would be exactly what happened. So I'm thinking to myself, there is no guide to how these projects are structured and how they evolve through the process. So what I did is I wrote “I Solved Mysteries” because that's what I do, that's what we do. We go in, we evaluate where a company is, we ask them questions, we look at their processes, we look at their data. And then all of a sudden, we find out that they may think their problem is A, but their problem is really B. So that's where the mystery is; it's really kind of uncovering where the real is with the company, in the process you're trying to optimize or transform. So this is really a guide to walk you through all those different things and we talk about, some of the basics that you have to do, the organization and its culture, the technology and the business processes, the data, performance management policies and procedures, change management. So change management is embedded throughout the book because the hardest thing in these project is once you figure out what the problem is that you're solving, what mystery you solved, you have to get people to change their behavior. So change management is embedded throughout this whole book. And so it's a user’s guide for people that really want to understand the nuances of how these projects operate.
Jeff Stanislow
And as we're kind of diving into the book and talking here a little bit on, I want to take a step back in the intake form that we kind of went through. I see you're touching on some of the digital marketing things and it's often in mind, it's probably broader than that as well, but you mentioned KPIs or Key Performance Indicators. That is used pretty loosely in the business world and you had some questions in here that I think is good to share with anybody who is looking to measure against something. So what are the questions that you would give to our listeners to jot down here, that she might want to present to executive management?
Dave Dragon
If you read about the impact that API, RPA and advanced analytics is having in the marketplace, people are seeing 10x improvement in their performance. I mean, that's huge in a 10x improvement, but that's based on what's the starting point for that, that metric or KPI. So there are a couple of things you really want to make sure that you have really tightened up around the measurement of your performance. So one of the things I see quite a bit is people don't have an owner of the KPI. So if you're in the marketing area, who within marketing has the responsibility the only KPIs that measures the performance of marketing. So you really need to have an own the KPIs, because that person kind of defines the KPIs, it defines what people can and can't do with it, it defines a whole lot of different things. Sorry about that, I had the phone shut off.
Jeff Stanislow
It's okay, that's okay, this is conversation. When there's value being given, I'm always willing to work through a little hiccup.
Dave Dragon
So again it's the who is the owner of the KPI, so you want to have an ownership over your KPI. And then another area that is always of interest is when we work with clients is how, is the KPI or metric calculated. You'd be surprised that people don't know how the KPI or metric is calculated. And they may be using it and they don't really know how it's displaying the information to them, they don't know the source of the calculations. So it's always interesting when you work with a client and you start reviewing their KPIs, and after you ask them who the owner is and they usually say “well, we don't have an owner or how is it calculated.” And then when you go and dig in there and find out how it's calculated, that's solving a mystery. It's like “well, we didn't realize how that was calculated now we understand why it doesn't show us the stuff we expect to see.” So the owner and then the calculation. And then the final thing, and this relates the calculations you know, what's the data source for the KPIs. KPIs are fed by maybe multiple different systems. So you know, what are the data sources that are being pulled from to produce the KPI. And again with data, what is the level of availability and accuracy of the data. So again, KPIs are very touchy, but there are some basic things you really need to do to make sure your house is in order, particularly when you're relating to trying to see 10x improvement in your performance. Who owns the KPI? How's the KPI or metric calculated and what's the data source coming to be able to calculate the KPI or metric? All this needs to be cleaned and ready to go. Again when you want to make sure that you're prepared to go forward with implementing one of these advanced solutions.
Dave Dragon
You know, that's really really some good information there, and I often do it too as well. It's like you know, here's our KPIs, and you look at it and it's a report that's calculating data or a dashboard that's calculating data. And you kind of have to circle back and say well, what's the source of this data, that's even it's already in a spreadsheet and you guys are using it or graphing it from a spreadsheet. And is it the right data source, and what type of biases might be related to that data. So oftentimes, I work with clients or people that I'm coaching and working on, they don't even take out their own internal data, which can account for depending on the company. If it's a b2b company and they're spending a lot of time on their site because they have resources on there, they can account for 20-30% of your traffic if you’re a smaller company.
Dave Dragon
Oh sure, yeah. And you know, it's always interesting, this is a very very interesting area. So as an example, you look at a KPI and it may be an average of an average of an average. Averages distort information. As an example, if I have 100 percent accuracy and I have 50 percent accuracy, I have 75 percent accuracy in total. But 50 percent accuracy is terrible. So averages really distort, that's why you want to understand how the KPI is being calculated. If you're calculating averages upon averages about averages, the KPI is basically useless.
Jeff Stanislow
Exactly, because you just have yourself out of some real numbers.
Dave Dragon
Yeah, and its these funny numbers exactly.
Jeff Stanislow
Yeah. And what's the old saying, there's lies, damn lies, and then there's statistics, right?
Dave Dragon
Exactly. And you can interpret things whatever way you want to interpret them and what you want to show.
Jeff Stanislow
Well Dave, I really appreciate your time. Again, can you recap a little bit about the book and when it's it coming out, and pre-orders and you know…. I'm looking forward to get my signed copy from you here when you get it in your hand and you know, tell our audience.
Dave Dragon
Yeah, sure. So the book will be coming on pre-order probably the 9th of August, and we'll have a discount on pre-order, and that'll be up on the Amazon book site for Kindle. And hardcover, the book will come out in hardcover first.
Jeff Stanislow
What you saying?
Dave Dragon
That that will come out…. And when I say a hardcover, I mean softcover, it's not going to be a hard book, but that book will come out at the end of September. So the actual book will launch, but we have a month of pre-ordering, and you can get a discount on the book. And then the digital version will probably come out at the end of October. So the book is called “I Solved Mysteries; The Art and Science of Business Process Optimization And Transformation.”
Jeff Stanislow
Certainly. So are you going to have it up on your website, and what's your web address, and I'll put all this information also in our page when we push it socially, you'll have your dedicated Dave Dragon podcast page with me, but what's the URL for your website>
Dave Dragon
Yeah, so my url is [dragonmcllc.com] so dragon management consulting llc.com. There'll be a link on the website for the pre-order for the book that'll bring your right to it at Amazon.
Jeff Stanislow
Fantastic. Fantastic. Well Dave, I can't tell you how much I appreciate the time, this is a fascinating subject. And maybe some other time we'll dive in a little bit further, but I think our audience here today, I always say if you can take back one thing with you, then it provided some value for your 20-30 minutes of time today. So thanks again Dave.
Dave Dragon
Yeah, thank you very much for your time too Jeff, I really appreciate it.