Calculus of IT - Season 2 Episode 7 - Part 1 - Establishing Boundaries and Principles for Autonomy

In this episode Mike and I continue on the path of IT Leadership and Autonomy with a focus on establishing clear boundaries and principles for how IT Leaders conduct the delicate balance of decision-making. This episode explores how to balance autonomy, risk, innovation, and productivity while maintaining meaningful principles that survive real-world challenges. Learn about the essential qualities of effective boundaries, including the importance of unambiguous criteria, actionable guidelines, and evolving standards. The hosts share practical experiences and frameworks for creating principles that work in the trenches, not just in PowerPoint decks. Plus, catch the latest IT leadership job updates in the Boston area. This episode is Part 1 and next week we will be on location at Trillium in the Seaport for an episode on Security but then back on April 2nd with Part 2 of this episode.  Stay tuned!

Transcript

Nate McBride: [00:00:00] That was loud.

Mike Crispin: Oh my God. Gotta love it. Gotta love it.

Nate McBride: I was catching up on email, uh, when I got back from

vacation and. I get these digests from a couple different, um,

technology sources related to AI and I have to tell you that there's

absolutely no freaking way to keep track anymore of either the engine

updates, the engines themselves, or, um, all the new, uh, gadgets,

gizmos, and bolt ons that are now available.

I don't know if you read that 404 article on AISlop. Yeah, I've been

reading a lot of 404 media

Mike Crispin: stuff this week.

Nate McBride: Yeah, that one article on AISlop was pretty insane how,

um, about 80 percent of what's now being posted on social media

platforms is [00:01:00] purely generated by AI. There's no humans

anymore.

Mike Crispin: Yep. No, I did read that article.

I know what you're talking about now.

Nate McBride: I mean, that's That's pretty insane. And Meta, Meta is

actively sort of, um, Broadcasting that, that's just, that's what they

want to happen. They want the platform to be, to be dynamic. But, I

mean

Mike Crispin: Isn't there, isn't there, there was an article also

about how people are using like Uh, the Google Flash, uh, image, like

the lowest image, the fastest image, AI editors, they're able to take

watermarks right off of all of the pictures now.

Yeah,

Nate McBride: yeah, definitely, yeah.

Mike Crispin: Um, I'm, I, you know, I'm honestly, I think along the

lines of some of what you're saying, I'm, I'm losing track and almost

a little bit of interest. It's like a tidal wave. And it just, I'm

waiting to see what the wave washes away or what's left behind, if

anything.

Nate McBride: Well, I, I justMike Crispin: pay.

focused.

Nate McBride: It is. I don't, I don't really beat computer world

anymore [00:02:00] because they just can't get their opinion straight.

But there was an article that I just could, the headline caught me

about the glut of options now. Um, and so, you know, uh, contextually

speaking, I, I gave a, um, hour long pizza and learn today at my

company, which was actually really well attended on notebook LM.

Oh, nice. Yep. So we officially announced it as our third platform for

approved for use. Um, I think what's, what's going to follow is going

to be, um, deep research, uh, will be next. And, um,

Mike Crispin: on which, uh, which platform are you doing deep

research?

Nate McBride: Gemini.

Mike Crispin: Oh, Gemini. Good, good. Yeah, not it's kind of that,

Nate McBride: there, there, there, there's a lot of, there's a lot of

people right now that are trying to compare, um, open AI's deep

research versus Gemini's deep research.

And depending on who you read, you know, there's. People that are

obviously pro Google camp and pro OpenAI camp, [00:03:00] but, uh, the

fact that, the fact that it natively works directly with NotebookLM is

why we would endorse it. But I still need to do some more research

because it's, it's hard to find, um, information about how deep

research works.

It's actually quite, quite vague out there. But anyway.

Mike Crispin: It's very interesting. It is. That's one of the things I

have messed around a little bit with. But I think it's hard to keep up

with all these little, the tiny Small language models that have

emerged this one like 10 every day, almost one one every hour.

It feels like it's like, I can't even keep up with any of this stuff.

It's like so many newsletters and other stuff going through trying to

look at and just rolling my eyes. Like, how can anyone keep the

onslaught of all this stuff that's

Nate McBride: so? So Google also released learn about, um, in

production, what, two months ago and learn about it.

Yeah. So there's like this trifecta approach now that's being heavily,

um, blogged about, which is [00:04:00] the notebook LM learn about in

deep research trifecta. Whereas if you're able to use all three in a

workflow format, you're actually able to do research some X percent

faster. And I'm like, I'm not sure I buy that.Yeah. So there's like this trifecta approach now that's being heavily,

um, blogged about, which is [00:04:00] the notebook LM learn about in

deep research trifecta. Whereas if you're able to use all three in a

workflow format, you're actually able to do research some X percent

faster. And I'm like, I'm not sure I buy that.

And I'm not even sure that the order that they're recommending and

most of these blogs are recommending is working, but certainly there's

something to it, right, where, where you can, you can increase your

capabilities as an individual to do vast amounts of research in a

short period of time by using three tools at once, as opposed to a

single tool, but those tools must work in harmony.

You can't like, okay, I'm going to use. I'm going to use Clawed, and

then I'm going to use OpenAI, and then I'm going to use NotebookLM,

because you're just moving shit from place to place, and, and

corrupting it all, all in the way. Anyway. The benefit

Mike Crispin: would be to have an agent that just uses all three, and

you just have it go do it for you, and come back in 15 minutes with

all your answers.

Against, across all of them, whichever ones that you choose. Yeah. Uh,

it seems like that's [00:05:00] That's sort of how the deep research,

at least to my understanding, works, is it's kind of crawling a number

of, it's combining an LLM with a crawler. And it's putting that

information together and bringing it back to you.

And all along the way, it kind of shows you what its thought process

is, depending on, you know, which model you're using. And in a weird

way, that gives you a, somewhat of a pseudo audit trail, if you want

to call it that. It gives you at least its process it's trying to go

through, but who knows what it's worth.

It's really

Nate McBride: It was, it was good. It was good for the company to be

exposed today to some new, new terminology. I mean, I don't often talk

about explicit versus implicit LLMs and in my general training, you

know, a lot of this stuff is sort of buried, uh, and not implied. So

it was good to get through that.

And I think a lot of people have now significant interest in using NLM

going forward. But anyway, this isn't the. Generative AI bullshit

[00:06:00] session podcast. It's the Calculus of IT podcast.

Mike Crispin: Still good stuff. It's still good stuff. I know we can,

I just, I'm overwashed and here I am talking about it. So,

Nate McBride: no, no, it's a, it's difficult to even find people that

can talk about it today because everyone seems to be going in a

direction.Um, Oh, I, I don't know. I guess I'll just say one more thing, which

is, and then I'll shut up about AI, but did you, did you see that

video I posted on the Slack board about, um, the, uh, black hat? That,

that guy who talked about the X fill functionality for co pilot, how

anybody can X fill out a co pilot. Um, and there's a whole discord

board devoted to X filling out a co pilot.

No, I didn't see that. I didn't see that. Oh man. It's a great chance

to jump through

Mike Crispin: it.

Nate McBride: It's a great video. It's this wonderful presenter at

black hat. Uh, 24, um, was talking about. Literally how there's people

that are spending every [00:07:00] single day dissecting the co pilot

language to figure out what all the secret words are to exfil from any

corporation's co pilot environment.

It's funny, he did some live demos that are pretty Holy shit, like

Okay, I'm not using co pilot anytime soon. Um, God bless you if you

are, good luck with that. So

Mike Crispin: I don't know, two weeks ago now, just, I just don't feel

like it's even in the same league. I mean, it's not even close. It

hasn't really progressed, but it doesn't feel, maybe it has, but it

doesn't feel like it's progressed much since we were talking about it

a year ago.

Nate McBride: Yeah, it's pretty crazy. Like a year ago, we were able

to say, look, here's the four models. Now it's like,

Mike Crispin: yeah. And part of it is, you know, I, I was, I think I

was saying, imagine where we'll be a year from now. And I don't know,

I don't think it's moved as fast as I thought it was going to move

some [00:08:00] of this stuff.

And to your point, it was probably in a lot of ways, really overhyped.

So I, you know, we're over a year from December, right? And so, I

mean, we're still chatting with the chat bot. We've got, uh, these

agents that are going through, we've got better models, get cheaper

models. So that's, that's better. Uh, but no, no other mind blowing

things.

And I, maybe that was, that was definitely probably false on my part

to think there'd be something a little more sexy.

Nate McBride: That you want, you want, you want to get right, go right

ahead and skip to subdermal implants. I know you. Hey, yeah, thatMike Crispin: was it. I just said, I want to put a sticker on my, my

head and, and see, see my dreams.

You know, that's what I want.

Nate McBride: Okay. Well, uh. Why don't, let's instead of stealing

dreams, let's live the dream and do episode seven of our podcast. How

about that for a segue, huh? Uh, are we

Mike Crispin: giving away free Humane Pins this week?

Nate McBride: Yes, free [00:09:00] Humane Pins to everyone.

Mike Crispin: You see they're gone, they're like long gone.

Like a month ago they, I guess they shut down completely. The one, the

pin, remember you got the, what was it, what was it called? The red,

red box, what was that thing called? The little AI box you

Nate McBride: ordered, the uh, The Rabbit R1, Michael. Rabbit

Mike Crispin: R1, that's right. Yes, and then at the same time that

humane pin thing you could talk to and it would, it would broadcast on

your hands.

Remember that? Yeah.

Nate McBride: Yeah, I remember that. I also remember you buying a BR

headset from Apple that I still I, I used it this week! Yeah, you say

this, but I, I, it's, I call bullshit. It's

Mike Crispin: right, it's sitting right here next to me.

Nate McBride: Okay, next time you use it, I want live video proof that

you're using it, and we're gonna

Mike Crispin: I just went to 2.

4. 2, uh, Vision OS 4, 2. 4. 2, which, uh I don't know what it does,

but it's new. It's a new version that just came out.

Nate McBride: There's absolutely no way to dispute that what you just

said is true or not. [00:10:00] So, we want a live video, okay?

Mike Crispin: I'll use it during this podcast.

Nate McBride: Fine. So, welcome to the Calculus of IT podcast, uh,

episode 7 of season 2.

Uh, the greatest podcast on the internet, as everybody knows. Um, Mike

said Mike's at home in his, um, in the basement of his mansion. I'm in

the bar, I'm in the barn on my estate. And, um, why are we here? Oh,

that's right. We're here to do a podcast. Um, so I was in Belize last

week. Uh, just chilling, which is to say drinking, drinking my ass

off.Uh, the greatest podcast on the internet, as everybody knows. Um, Mike

said Mike's at home in his, um, in the basement of his mansion. I'm in

the bar, I'm in the barn on my estate. And, um, why are we here? Oh,

that's right. We're here to do a podcast. Um, so I was in Belize last

week. Uh, just chilling, which is to say drinking, drinking my ass

off.

They have these drinks called rude boys and penny, penny rippers. Um,

and you just kind of go back and forth between them. And it's a

magical combination.

Mike Crispin: When did you start in the morning? What time did you get

going?

Nate McBride: Well, I was, it was, it was an all inclusive place that

we stayed at, so [00:11:00] literally I'd go to breakfast and then I'd

come back and I'd go grab my book and my coffee and sit down on my

little, my little beach chair and the guy would come over 9 30 and be

like, can you, would you like a drink, sir?

And I'd be like, of course it's 9 30. Uh, I'll take a panty ripper and

a rude boy. And.

Mike Crispin: Now, do you have to, those have to stay cold or are they

any temperature?

Nate McBride: They don't last long enough to stay, to get warm.

Mike Crispin: So they're coming, they're coming all out on ice.

Nate McBride: They're

Mike Crispin: smooth. You drink them. Yeah.

Nate McBride: Uh, perfect. A rude boy is a combination of ginseng,

taurine, um, some other, uh, ancient Chinese herbal remedies and hard

spirits.

And on the label, it literally says.

Mike Crispin: That's

Nate McBride: good. They don't say what kind, it's just alcohol.

Mike Crispin: Just, you know it's alcohol. It's just alcohol.

Nate McBride: Well, I think honestly, let's cut to the fucking

[00:12:00] chase, right? Don't tell me it's like, uh Uh, Tito's or

whatever, just say the, uh, the bottle, just call it alcohol, and then

put a percent at the bottom, just a white label, black lettering,

alcohol.There

Mike Crispin: you go.

Nate McBride: You would, you, dude, honestly, you would sell a

bajillion dollars of it. You know that company that made the liquid

death water?

Mike Crispin: Oh, I don't.

Nate McBride: I don't. You can buy cans of the stuff called liquid

death. I'm not kidding, you can google it. I believe you, I believe

you. And so liquid death is just water.

But they canned water, and they call it liquid death and they put this

like, kickass viking logo thing on it and grim reapers and stuff all

over it. People buy that shit like you wouldn't believe but it's just

water, it's water from the tap. Oh my god. Liquid death, you look it

up.

Mike Crispin: Murder your thirst.

Murder your thirst, that's right. This [00:13:00] is the stuff, I love

it.

Nate McBride: Uh, so, we should just create a drink called alcohol.

And, we're not the person to think of this, I'm sure, but Rest in

Mike Crispin: peach.

Sweet reaper. Severed lime.

Yeah, that's worth the price. So this is great. This's some. Great.

Now look at the merch. We gotta get

Nate McBride: on board. So while I was away in Belize contemplating

autonomy and our, our searching for, for everlasting autonomy, uh,

Ringo Star had a birthday and all I have to say is listen to the

lyrics on Sergeant Pepper after three rude boys.

And you'll understand the conspiracy that's at play here. Wow. Um.

Mike Crispin: You've got to see the Liquid Death homepage and the ad

they use at the top. It's beautiful. [00:14:00] Alright, I'll bring it

up. LiquidDeath. com and then um, My husband loves this water. Hold

on, let's see. Go to the ad third from the left. So keep going to the

right till you see.

Hold on. They have all different flavors now. I know. I know. I gotta

get some of this stuff. You sold me.Hold on. They have all different flavors now. I know. I know. I gotta

get some of this stuff. You sold me.

Nate McBride: Pegs for pregs. My husband loves this water. You won't

believe it's not soda. See, they, they figured out that people are

just stupid. And they're making It's

Mike Crispin: branding, man. It works.

Nate McBride: It's branding. It's cause they're making like a killing

on this.

I'm telling you, alcohol. I'm gonna look into it. We're gonna, we're

gonna just sell alcohol. Hey, we have to just figure out a percentage.

Like what's the percentage of people would buy 8%?

Mike Crispin: Well, all you have to do is, is, is, is use the name Al

like Albert and [00:15:00] somehow, you know, play up, uh, Cohal.

Nate McBride: So Al and then Cahal, K A H A L,

Mike Crispin: yeah, Cahal or Cahal,

Nate McBride: Cahal, yeah, Al.

So Al Cahal. And I think, so Root Boys are 7%. I think 7 percent is

the way to go. And then you can have,

Mike Crispin: you

Nate McBride: can have, and basically you buy your alcohol by the

color of the of the bottle. So if it's purple, it's purple flavored

alcohol. Yeah. Green, green is green flavored.

Mike Crispin: Well it's, it's really a place. So it's Al Company.

Al Co Hall. It's a hall where I don't have

Nate McBride: to cut all this out of the zoom because we have to

patent this shit

Mike Crispin: This is great. I mean we should do this right now. Okay,

shut this thing off Let's go. Let's talk build a business plan on this

right now

Nate McBride: Go buy a vat of grain alcohol and then just [00:16:00]

condense it down to 7 percent I don't know how science works, but I'm

just using fancy words there.

But um aged aged water Aged,Mike Crispin: mulled water, mulled. I love it. Malted up. All right.

Malted water. Just take it, man. Just take it.

Nate McBride: Just take it. Don't ask questions. Just take it and

drink it.

Mike Crispin: Just take it and drink it. That's how it's going.

Nate McBride: We could go to all the big biotech conferences and IT

conferences and just have a booth.

Absolutely. People are like, what's your sort of technology digital

transformation approach? We're like, I'll We're the Alco company and

we sell

Mike Crispin: alcohol,

such a dad joke. It's worse than a

Nate McBride: joke. It's a great joke. Oh, let me tell you the worst

dad joke. So we were in the, in, in Belize and, um, it [00:17:00] was

myself, my wife, uh, my son and his girlfriend. And you know, one of

the things that you hope to see when you're in Belize or manatees,

right? Sometimes it's, they're hard, they're hard to spot.

And so by like the third day, everyone's kind of bumming, you know, we

haven't seen any manatees yet. So just, I was standing there on my t

shirt and I said, Hey, look, it's a man in a tee.

Good one. That was great. You can use that. Also, people were like,

how was your trip? I'm like, it was unbelievable. Did you say how

Mike Crispin: was drip? Was it drip?

Nate McBride: How was the trip? It was unbelievable.

Mike Crispin: Unbelievable. That's great. No, that's a good one. I

like that.

Nate McBride: You can use that one too. Alright, I'm writing these

down.

Yeah, I can see you writing them down. My next, uh, Put your Apple

headset on and why don't you write them into your screen or something.

This is Mike, this is Mike Crispin. I'm Nate McBride, and each

[00:18:00] week, as you've already been able to realize, we bring you

a sweet, sweet IT leadership donut laced with knowledge, guidance,

paradoxes, and just a hint of strict nine.

We just open the knowledge nozzle and just let it waft your way in a

giant gush. All you have to do is breathe it in. Breathe it in.

Breathe it in. Feels good. So if you missed it last week, we released

two of our jorts in one week. Boom. You're welcome. And we hope you

enjoyed them as much as we did in making them.We just open the knowledge nozzle and just let it waft your way in a

giant gush. All you have to do is breathe it in. Breathe it in.

Breathe it in. Feels good. So if you missed it last week, we released

two of our jorts in one week. Boom. You're welcome. And we hope you

enjoyed them as much as we did in making them.

Plus we released, uh, an article. Uh, so busy, busy times over there

on the sub stack. And I wasn't even here. I was in another country.

How about that? Magic of digital twins. Exactly. And robots. So, by

the way, um, there was an ad, I forget, oh no, I don't forget, I

remember now which company it was, but there was an ad at Logan

Airport for, um, a company that's very big.[00:19:00]

And they had a, they had like a, one of those billboard banners there

on the wall that said, digital transformation for AI. Wow. And I

wanted to ask you, what does that company, what is that company

selling?

They're not even saying the company's name, but they're a big company

that's just a bunch of, you know, like, terrible people. Is it

MuleSoft? No. No. Uh, Workato or, uh You can't, I'm not gonna get you

to tell you the company's name. Oh. I don't want to give them any

credit on this podcast. I'm just asking you When you hear the words,

when you hear a company promising to digitally transform you using AI,

Mike Crispin: yeah.

Nate McBride: What are they selling?

Mike Crispin: Services.

Nate McBride: Services. That's what I figured.

Mike Crispin: Yeah. It doesn't matter what kind of services,

[00:20:00] but they're AI services. Data governance, data integration,

data integrity, machine learning, integration and automation services.

Absolutely. Get the A team on the phone, you know. Reach out to the C

Levels, get everyone plugged in.

Nate McBride: Yep, the C Suite. Spin a great yarn.

Mike Crispin: Then have the IT team jump in and start talking to them.

And they get excited. And then we spend all this money and you get

completely different products. And, um, you know, a bunch of calls.

Cross functional meetings. Meeting minutes. Blah, blah, blah, blah,

blah, blah.

Transformed. Transform it. Give me everything you got. Oh wait, we

have a template. We have a template for that meeting. Uh, that we can

send around to everyone. It's a template and every week it's Oh,

sorry. I can't make the meeting. I've [00:21:00] got something else

going on. We can't transform this week. We're gonna have to move it

out a couple weeks.Transformed. Transform it. Give me everything you got. Oh wait, we

have a template. We have a template for that meeting. Uh, that we can

send around to everyone. It's a template and every week it's Oh,

sorry. I can't make the meeting. I've [00:21:00] got something else

going on. We can't transform this week. We're gonna have to move it

out a couple weeks.

I'm sorry about that. Oh, the project lead left the company. So we're

gonna bring in a new personal transfer. Actually, why don't we? Can

you forward all the presentation minutes over to the new person that

this company that we're paying for to to, you know, Okay. Go through

it all again. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's, that's what it is.

Digital transformation. What is one product you could buy that, um,

Yammer? We need dashboards. Dashboards. Reality is, uh, It's, it's,

it's not a company service that can be provided. It's not a

technology. It's a, it's a huge cross functional organic business

movement and cultural shift. It's not a product on a billboard at an

airport.

Nate McBride: So, well, so next week [00:22:00] We are next week, by

the way, we have a special, so Mike and I are going to be at the Octa

event at Trillium and we're going to have a special segment of the

show next week, which is I'm going to read, um, people's, uh, LinkedIn

profile blurbs. Uh, just randomly selected without telling you their

names.

I'm going to tell you their title and then their blurbs, and we're

going to go through my favorite top ten over the last two weeks.

Mike Crispin: I have to update mine from my title to some neat, like,

tagline. I haven't done that yet, and I need to do that.

Nate McBride: Just make sure that when you do yours in your blurb, you

put Digital AI Transformer.

Architect.

Mike Crispin: I was thinking of just doing, uh, Michael Crispin. I'm

ready to believe you

Nate McBride: that's good digital custodian, uh, [00:23:00]

Mike Crispin: you know, ready to listen like the Ghostbusters to

believe you that's, I

Nate McBride: got the joke, Mike, you don't, if you have to explain

the joke,

Mike Crispin: I thought it was like a dad joke thing where you have to

kind of like push it through afterwards

Nate McBride: to push it through. I got it. The audience will get it.They can Google it.

Mike Crispin: It's going to take it.

Nate McBride: All right. Well, speaking of taking it, we do have a

sponsor this week. Oh,

Mike Crispin: separate incidents.

Nate McBride: Yes. Uh, this week we're sponsored by rope. Really?

Mike Crispin: That was a giant rope that was on your pizza. That

picture of your pizza you sent.

Nate McBride: Yes. Well, Rope has got many uses. Rope has got many

uses. It comes in many forms.[00:24:00]

We're not going to get asked to do their, their, um, ad promo again.

I'm sure the people at Rope are not going to be happy about this. But,

uh,

Mike Crispin: okay. Well. Hey, hey, look, I mean, it's a, it's a great

sell point, whether it's on top of your filet or on top of your pizza.

Where, where you go, you know, rope can make it a better time. It can

make it a better experience for everyone.

Nate McBride: It can, it can. Rope is [00:25:00] flexible. It, uh,

spreads well. It does. It does. Um, and it's, you know, it's got a lot

of purposes. It's got a lot of utility. I like the utility.

Mike Crispin: It's a very agile product.

Nate McBride: It's an agile product.

So, um, well, what can we say? I mean, we love Rope.

Mike Crispin: Yeah, I mean, this is a great sell. I think we're laying

out very clearly. We have a good marketing message here. A clear use

case. We're very clear on this one.

Nate McBride: If you, if you're looking for some rope, um, there's

lots of places you can go to find it, but all right.

Rope, you know, thanks rope

Mike Crispin: people. This is the word that this is great. We fully

endorse it.

Nate McBride: Fully endorse the rope. So great job rope. Keep going.Mike Crispin: Great, great sponsor. I'm glad.

Nate McBride: Well, there's a lot of, there was a lot of back and

forth. A lot of, um, up and [00:26:00] down, back and forth.

Mike Crispin: It was great, really great as a sponsor that they came

out for us and they really helped us out.

Nate McBride: We negotiated, um, just a good spread.

Mike Crispin: Yeah. Good for them to, to, to do what they did. Oh, we,

we got a really serious podcast tonight. And we're really, we're

really churning through this, uh, core subject material.

Nate McBride: We are, we are. I mean, well, you know, we had to,

there's a lot of things we got to do to keep the show running and keep

us in business.

And again, good people at Rope are paying good money to give us the

Rope, uh, spiel for this show. They even sent us

Mike Crispin: those photographs, which is nice. Yeah, they sent us the

photographs. The marketing, uh, sorry, the marketing materials.

Nate McBride: The marketing materials, yes. I wish we could show them

on the podcast. They were, they were quite compelling.

Um, just, just so much rope. No question about that. Tons of rope. Um,

so if you missed our, our last full episode from three weeks ago, the

hell is wrong with [00:27:00] you? Um, but seriously. You've had three

weeks to listen to it. What's your fucking problem? Um, that was

episode, that was episode six and that's your, that's that, you know

what that is, that's your loss of autonomy.

It's taking control of you, like you didn't have the time to listen to

our episode, you got to get control over your autonomy, you got to

figure out what is holding you back from being you, and then listen to

episode six, and also episodes one through five, and then also season

one, um, just in order. You

Mike Crispin: know, you need a podcast prioritization committee to

help you decide.

Nate McBride: Yes. God, get that shit together, then come back and

listen to this episode after you've gotten it all prioritized with

your committee.

Mike Crispin: And then it has to be good criteria, so Nate and I will

try and lay out the appropriate criteria, measurement, and metrics.

That's aMike Crispin: And then it has to be good criteria, so Nate and I will

try and lay out the appropriate criteria, measurement, and metrics.

That's a

Nate McBride: good point. Literally, everyone [00:28:00] else can

wait.

We, we, we've proven it. The data shows it. Everyone can just wait

because, and you tell them like, you're going to have to wait because

I have this other, I'm priority, prioritizing the podcast. So episode

six was like, awesome. We hiked up our trousers, trousers, we hiked up

our, our jorts and went waiting through the I might have had a few too

many, um, something before I wrote this.

What did

Mike Crispin: you drink tonight? What have you been drinking?

Nate McBride: I'm just drinking Woodford Reserve right now. No, I

wrote this, I wrote this like two weeks ago. Oh. But I, I, I

potentially had some stuff while I was, while I was writing it. But

here's what I wrote. We hiked up our trousers and went wading through

the cow patty pasture of creating technology diversity without chaos.

But then it makes sense and I said, and then man, we just laid right

into it, which we did. Plus we have special guests with Kevin coming

back. It's always great to have special guests and special guests

whose names are Kevin. [00:29:00] So we hit like, we hit like the

trifecta basically. A special guest, a special guest named Kevin and

Kevin came back.

So, boom, nailed it. I'm not sure, I'm not sure this show is going to

be as great because we don't have a Kevin. But Mike and or I can play

the role of Kevin or a Kevin tonight to make up

Mike Crispin: for it. We'll try to make up for Kevin not being able to

join us.

Nate McBride: And, and when we had episode six, we, the point of that

episode was trying to put some sense into how to maintain or achieve

technical diversity.

Yeah. So, so basically how to keep your world in a place where you can

make decisions, uh, on the fly to flex and be agile about your

environment, um, and maintaining autonomy while you do it. So we left

a lot on the table, but I think we hit all the high points. Um, I

think, I think it's, I think it's sometimes it's not a bad thing to

leave stuff on the table, [00:30:00] leave some rope on the table, uh,

so everyone can go imagine and self practice on their own about the

things that you talked about.

Um, it's either that or we go back to four hour episodes, which I

don't think anybody wants us to do. Yeah,Um, it's either that or we go back to four hour episodes, which I

don't think anybody wants us to do. Yeah,

Mike Crispin: no, we can, we can, we can stay to the 40 minute

episode. I think, I

Nate McBride: think the way tonight is trending. We might have a bit

of a long one, but it's okay.

Mike Crispin: Yeah.

Nate McBride: Why not? We have, we, we have a great sponsor.

So that brings us to this week, um, which is like, we're kind of,

we're continuing to move the ball down field. I was going to say the

road, but that doesn't make any sense. Um, We're establishing clear

boundaries and principles around autonomy. So we've moved away from

diversity without chaos. Uh, now we're getting to sort of your

leadership element, which is establishing the clear boundaries and

principles, um, about the decisions you make in order to maintain

autonomy, risk, innovation, and productivity.

[00:31:00] So basically having a path. staying on that path, even if

there are overwhelming zero choices or one choices along that path. So

if you remember zero choices are choices that were, you're just

accepting the status quo, um, and not making any sort of autonomy

decisions on your own, which sometimes you have to do.

Um, And other times you make a one decision, which is when you're

going to sort of deviate from the herd and go ahead and do something

that's best of breed for you and your situation. So, this whole theme

of establishing clear boundaries and principles is so big that I had

the precognition, I had the sense of foreboding to break this into two

episodes.

So we'll do one tonight, then we'll come back in two weeks and do the

second part. Next week, we're like I said, we're going to do a fun

event at Trillium. If you're going to be in the Boston area, come to

Trillium and be on the podcast. Okta is buying all free beer. We don't

have to pay for a single thing other [00:32:00] than maybe parking,

which you can expense your company.

So come down to Trillium. Get loaded and be on the podcast. Don't get

loaded. I mean, get loaded on, on liquid death. Um, so before we get

to that though, the jobs update is back and it looks like some people

got hired in the last two weeks and so the list is a little shorter,

but we have some new entries, so that's always good.

So listen up. If you are out there looking for a job and I know

exactly who you are and well, some of you anyway, um, listen closely.

So akibia, and I don't know, but I think there's somebody on this

podcast who's not me. There's not Kevin who worked at Akibia, but

they're hiring a VP of IT. Mike, would you know anything about that?So listen up. If you are out there looking for a job and I know

exactly who you are and well, some of you anyway, um, listen closely.

So akibia, and I don't know, but I think there's somebody on this

podcast who's not me. There's not Kevin who worked at Akibia, but

they're hiring a VP of IT. Mike, would you know anything about that?

Mike Crispin: I don't know anything about that, but I think it's great

that they're, uh, they're hiring a head of IT. Cool stack. They get a

good set of technologies in there. Who built [00:33:00] that stack?

Who's that guy? Anonymous. Anonymous. Is it a non a hacking group?

Anonymous? No, no, it's, is that, is that

Nate McBride: group still around? Is anon still around, by the way,

Mike Crispin: is Oh, they are, but I think, well, that's the thing.

I don't think they technically, there, there are assimilation of many

different groups, aren't they? Or different people and they're

probably under one handle. I'm not sure it's, there's any way to

validate that they're still around or that they're real. Let's start

up Q,

Nate McBride: let's start up Q anon again. Let's start up a new

chapter.

Mike Crispin: Not QAnon, Anonymous. I thought you said Anonymous.

They're

Nate McBride: two different things. Anonymous, oh, I know.

Mike Crispin: Anonymous is the group of hackers, and QAnon is the uh,

the uh, what the what, the conspiracy group there that was on. Oh

yeah,

Nate McBride: let's not do QAnon. Let's do Anonymous. Let's do an

anonymous group, anonymous Boston chapter, and everyone has to

[00:34:00] wear, um, uh, a mask at our meetings.

Mike Crispin: There's, there's a good, there's a good team, good

platform at, uh, at Akibia. So, uh, hopefully someone jumps on that.

Nate McBride: So Mike's giving the plug for Akibia. If you're looking

to be a VP of IT at Akibia and adopt Mike's stack that he built while

he was there, um, just reach out to Mike directly. Call him, call his

house or just stop by his house.

He'd love to talk to you about it.

Mike Crispin: Hey, yeah, sure. Beers, I just want some beer or coffee

or, uh, green tea.

Nate McBride: Just go to dogequest. com, look up Mike's Tesla address,

and then go to his house. ThatMike Crispin: is just fantastic, man. Yeah. I tried to see if I was on

there, but luckily I'm not.

Nate McBride: Yeah. So J& J, that's just to say Johnson and

Johnson, is looking for a head of technology discovery.

You have to read the JD because [00:35:00] it's kind of ambiguous. I'm

not really sure what it means, but it has technology in it, so it's

probably pretty cool. Um, if you like wearing suits to work every day,

Fidelity is hiring a VP of Gen AI, which I'm going to go out on a limb

and say will be the easiest job in the world.

Literally walk in day one, be like, boom, Claude, uh, I'll be, uh, on

the golf course.

Mike Crispin: Wow. Why don't you apply, Nate? You should, you should

go to Fidelity. I can't imagine you at Fidelity.

Nate McBride: Why don't, why don't I just go ahead and try to recruit

myself to be a Marine? They'd kick me out after day one.

Mike Crispin: I don't know, man.

I think you'd fit right in.

Nate McBride: Like, why are you all wearing suits? It'd be like in the

movie Big. Okay, you're fired.

Mike Crispin: Tom Hanks comes in and the CEO's like, Hmm, they get a

little bit different approach.

Nate McBride: I don't think Fidelity's looking for like a rebellious

iconoclast to come on and join their AI team.

Because I would just go in there and probably not get [00:36:00] Past

day one, but still on the hunt after all these weeks

Mike Crispin: episode, if

Nate McBride: I brought my podcast live from day one at Fidelity, look

at everybody. Here's me stealing all the snacks from the lunchroom in

my, in my suitcase. I

Mike Crispin: think there's a, the videos. The, uh, life at Google and

they're wherever I can run, if it's Google or what they go in in the

morning and they're having, they're at the gym at the, at the, at the,

the office and then they go and they have a big breakfast and then

they work for an hour and then they go have a coffee and they go, it's

working and it's, I go read a book at three o'clock.It just goes on. Small,

Nate McBride: small bites, Mike, small bites. You can't, you can't

just do all the work all the time.

Mike Crispin: I think that video is like 10 years old now, but it was,

I remember seeing that and be like, well, I'm going to go work at

Google. Sounds awesome.

Nate McBride: Well, I don't know why. So there's a couple other

companies.

So [00:37:00] Maverick tech partners is looking for a CTO, uh, to join

their top gun team. Oops. Uh, the Brian group is looking for a CIO.

Boom. I just, I'm just dropping the dad's fire tonight. I'm on Fuego,

Bronson search group is secretly looking to place a global head of it

destination, unknown scientific systems. And I have no idea what they

do could buy the title of their company is looking for a director of

it, but this is the best one manscaped.

Yes. Is looking for a VP of IT, look at manscaped. com

Mike Crispin: The best thing, in the script, Nate has all the letters

capitalized. Manscaped. It's, it's all capitalized. Because,

Nate McBride: how can you not capitalize, there's a company called

Manscaped! And they want a head of, a VP of IT. Fucking apply!

Everybody who listens to this show should apply for that role.

Just [00:38:00] get the door for

Mike Crispin: And that's key for your LinkedIn profile. I mean,

that's, that's beautiful.

Nate McBride: So where, where'd you work a lot? Where was your last

job? Uh, manscaped. Yeah. Um, what'd you do there?

Mike Crispin: Digital transformation.

Nate McBride: Well, one of my, one of my key projects is working on a

device that had autonomous agents built into it for shaving your

privates.

Mike Crispin: We've been working on getting as close to the product as

possible. That's the goal of our it firm is to move closer to the

product.

Nate McBride: Yes. We don't just sell the product. We use the product.Mike Crispin: We're product managers now.

Nate McBride: Would you like to see my chest? Um, so MANSCAPED, all

caps, is looking for a VP of IT. I love it. Cartwheel is looking for a

head of IT. Um, now Some of the companies that are [00:39:00] still on

the hunt, X4 Pharma still has not found a VP of IT or they haven't

taken LinkedIn, whichever one is happening.

Ironwood still looking for a VP of IT. Formlabs five weeks later,

still looking for a CIO. MIT still looking for a CIO. Um, now this is

interesting. Scholar Rock. And we know, uh, the head of it there,

scholar rock is looking for a director of the it project management

offices, but Boston medical center kind of right down the road is

looking for a senior director of the it project management office.

They're gonna have to duke it out over the title director versus

senior director, uh, time for the Thunderdome Harvard business

publishing is looking for a senior director of business systems. So

all the systems.

Mike Crispin: Verve

Nate McBride: Therapeutics is still looking for a director of IT,

G& A business partner, and SOX compliance lead.

And I think that their number one problem is, and I'm just gonna, I'm

gonna [00:40:00] spitball this, is the title is like 17 words long. So

you got to kind of like just slap that up, shrink it, director IT. You

Mike Crispin: may want that G& A business partner to be the SOX

compliance lead.

Nate McBride: Anyway, responsibilities. So that's the job update for

this week.

Hope good luck to everybody applying again. I've already submitted my

resume and um, private picture portfolio to manscaped. So good luck to

all of you competing against me for that role.

Mike Crispin: I take back the fidelity comment. I think manscaped is

the only way to go.

Nate McBride: That's the only way to go. Every just pull all of your

resumes back and just apply to manscaped.

And if you, if you do become the manscaped, you have to come on the

podcast because we want the, we want the T we want to understand. I

want to know the secrets because you know that they got, they got a

whole section of their, their box drive or a SharePoint or whatever.

That's like secret confidential [00:41:00] methods.And if you, if you do become the manscaped, you have to come on the

podcast because we want the, we want the T we want to understand. I

want to know the secrets because you know that they got, they got a

whole section of their, their box drive or a SharePoint or whatever.

That's like secret confidential [00:41:00] methods.

Right. And they're like, okay, Mike, today you've been here for a

week. We're going to give you access. We're going to change your life

right now. We're going to give you access to the diagram.

Mike Crispin: Probably just bring the shaving kits in and put a label

on the side.

So, it's like a, yeah.

This, this, this man, this manscaped, um, I think, isn't their model

that they sell the, they sell the, the razor refills? It's not, it's,

their business isn't as much on the, on the, On the actual device.

It's more in the subscription model, I think is not that I would know

her.

Nate McBride: So this is from the leadership page manscaped.

And by the way, they use all caps. Manscaped is [00:42:00] they do.

Manscaped is helmed by a well groomed and gifted bunch of created

professionals with decades of experience in their respective fields.

Mike Crispin: Ooh, and they sell like spray and like all this cream

and everything.

Nate McBride: And look at that leadership page. Everyone's wearing

black.

But they have, and they're, but they have, um, most like mouse over

gifts.

Mike Crispin: Yeah. I'm on there right now.

Nate McBride: Actually, it's their entire company's page. It's not

even their leadership page. It's like

Mike Crispin: their websites.

Nate McBride: It's good. I like it. So

Mike Crispin: it might have, uh, you know, they may not have to change

much. They just go in and kind of,

Nate McBride: by the way, we have to get managed as a sponsor because

they have the peak hygiene plan for 19 a month.

Wow. The peak hygiene plan, which comes with like, so they have foot

duster, crop preserver, crop mop, crop reviver, [00:43:00] and beard

conditioner. Oh my God. All right.Mike Crispin: I'm looking at the section around growing tools.

Nate McBride: Yeah. Growing tools.

Mike Crispin: The lawnmower, the lawnmower, the lawnmower, and the

crop shaver.

Nate McBride: I feel like, I feel like I just learned something all

new just tonight. Amazing. This site is incredible. The body buffer,

they have the shears 3. 0. What happened to the shears 2? Oh, there's

a shears 2. 0 right there.

Mike Crispin: I wonder what the, when you go up, like how they improve

these things from new versions. Well, so faster,

Nate McBride: but think about it, right?

So you have three options. You have the lawnmower 3. 0 plus the

lawnmower 4. 0 pro or the lawnmower 5. 0 ultra. Which one are you

going to buy? You're not buying the 3. 0 plus. Everyone's buying the

5. 0 Ultra.

Mike Crispin: Buying the Ultra. Exactly. No, I agree. [00:44:00]

Nate McBride: They're not. But the, uh, the crop preservers anti

chafing ball dealer but the crop reviver.

Is ball toner and refresher.

Mike Crispin: Love this stuff. This is great. These products are

fantastic.

Nate McBride: Crop mop is ball butt and body wet wipes.

Mike Crispin: Wow. Yeah, we're almost at the hour. We're going to have

to close it up soon.

Nate McBride: What happened to their previous EPIT?

Mike Crispin: That's what I want to know. It's like we're I

love Manscaped. This is great. I feel like they're already a sponsor.

Like, it's fantastic. We can just pretend almost. Even if

Nate McBride: they're not a sponsor, we're gonna just They're now,

they're now one of our sponsors. They don't even know it.

Mike Crispin: I'm looking at the apparel right now. We've got t

shirts. Oh, this is fantastic.And look at 20

Nate McBride: vacation days, 40 hours paid sick leave, nine paid

[00:45:00] holidays, 401k match, employee discounts. I bet. And so t

shirts are great. They need a, they need a project program management

office, remote finance, senior manager, FP& A and a VP of

technology. Let's read the job description.

Mike Crispin: Yeah, 300,

Nate McBride: 000 a

Mike Crispin: year.

Jump in, man. Let's go. And I bet there's a great, like, uh, employee

discount as well. I mean, just

Nate McBride: Hell yeah, dude. Wow. And, and for the record, it's

remote. Work from home, work from home. Well, you got to, you got to

just do all the things to yourself. And they're like, they're

multinational South Africa, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Australia.

Oh my God. All right. So global opportunity, global ops, baby. So come

on our Slack board and we're all going to talk about the man scape job

opportunity. And we're going to try and make sure everyone gets this

job because we all want the discounts [00:46:00] for like the friends

and family.

Give everyone a

Mike Crispin: chance.

Nate McBride: So if you go to any of the places where our podcast is,

just give us five stars. I'm not even going to, you know what to do.

Just literally find the highest possible rating on all the things and

just give it to us. We already are the best podcast on the internet.

That's proven. So you're just basically helping to keep us in the top.

Um, that's what we like. We don't want, yeah, we don't want to slip

down the rankings behind like some of these other podcasts, quite

honestly. Getting me higher than where we're at. It's all AI crap

anyway. This is real people. Um, if you want to buy us a beer,

obviously it's always welcome. If you want to buy us some alcohol,

just any alcohol, you can go on the buy us a beer link and just give

us money.

Um, a good portion of our proceeds after we buy the beer goes to

Wikimedia. Um, cause they're awesome. So [00:47:00] tonight's topic,

47 minutes later, um, establishing clear boundaries and principles for

your decision making as an it leader, not a small task, but any

measure. Um,Um, a good portion of our proceeds after we buy the beer goes to

Wikimedia. Um, cause they're awesome. So [00:47:00] tonight's topic,

47 minutes later, um, establishing clear boundaries and principles for

your decision making as an it leader, not a small task, but any

measure. Um,

Mike Crispin: we're going to be taking it so seriously. No,

Nate McBride: we're now I'm trying to put my serious face on now.

Mike Crispin: This is, this is when we get really serious.

Nate McBride: We're now really, this is the thing that just got real

up in here. So, and not just any boundaries, Mike. But one is to help

you balance those four pillars you've been talking about.

Oh, that's right. The four pillars. Autonomy, risk, innovation, and

productivity. So let me ask, let me ask you a question, Mike. Have you

ever been in a situation where you had a clear principle of how

something should be done, but when push came to shove, you had to

throw it out of the window because of pressure?

Sure. [00:48:00]

Mike Crispin: Yeah, I can't think of, uh, one like it right off the

top of my head, but I think, uh, I, I can think of, I can think of one

that was a, Related to cyber security, um, and it was luckily

something we're able to remediate and work around, but we had a need

to have a massive amount of thumb drives available for a certain, uh,

certain exercise.

And, uh, we had to do an enormous amount of work to secure them so

that they could be used because there was an urgent. business request.

So we had to put them, we had to put them in place and immediately

research a way to secure them. But it was against the principle

basically, we're not going to allow these thumb drives and we were

very good about it up to that point.

Yeah. You know, a certain business event occurs and you need to do it,

and I remember [00:49:00] thinking about it afterwards, thinking about

was it, was it worth the, uh, was it worth the pain, and it probably

was, so I mean, but there was no real fallout afterwards and no real

risk that we, we observed from doing it, but sure other priorities

fell or we didn't get things done as quickly in some other areas as we

wanted to, but, um, we moved through it pretty quick, and, uh, Yeah.

All hands on deck type moment, but it wasn't something it did seem

like such an obvious thing to the the team that requested Oh, we'll

just get thumb drives. But for us it was a pretty huge lift to do it

in a way that was safe

Nate McBride: Well, I mean it's happened obviously to both of us a lot

myself as well These little Pyrrhic victories, we might, we might win,

but in fact, we actually lose way more than we won if we try to sort

of hold to our principles.Nate McBride: Well, I mean it's happened obviously to both of us a lot

myself as well These little Pyrrhic victories, we might, we might win,

but in fact, we actually lose way more than we won if we try to sort

of hold to our principles.

And this is kind of, it's kind of a trap that we fall into when we

have these grand [00:50:00] principles, like, um, we only use open

standards or we'll maintain data sovereignty at all costs. And then of

course, reality knocks on the door and suddenly we're violating our,

our principles, um, that we claimed to hold dear.

I mean, uh, Yeah, there's quite a few of them. So I know that, you

know, and I think, well, I wouldn't put you in the category, but I'm,

I'm sort of all like death before Microsoft in my heart and in

principle, but in practice. Sometimes I've had to lay down and take it

because sometimes that's just the reality of walking to a company and

I'm like, okay, I think it'd be a really good idea right now for us in

this growth stage to not be on Microsoft anymore.

And then you just get the people who are like, they're themselves are

in the NFW sort of absolutely not death before you take Microsoft away

from me position. And. To win would not be a victory. So [00:51:00]

today we're going to talk about that, how to establish boundaries and

principles that actually can survive contact, um, with the enemy, the

enemy being not people, but reality.

So we're going to teach you, Mike and I are going to teach you how to

take it. But just the right amount, not too much. Just the right

amount to balance it all out. So, what makes a good boundary? Um,

let's talk about that. So, not all principles and boundaries are

created equal. Some are very, very flexible.

They're done more because it's a good practice. Others are done

because you've had terrible experiences in the past, uh, with a

particular thing. And there's variations of those, but, um, I think

there's a couple different, um, Central qualities for a good boundary.

So they need to be unambiguous, right? So, um, if the principle is we

prioritize security, that means nothing.

[00:52:00] So big, big effing deal. Security over what? How much

security? Under what circumstances? Yada, yada, yada. Without clarity,

that principle is useless. So think about it this way, if five

different people on your team would give five different

interpretations of what your boundary means, it's not a boundary,

basically.

So instead of We prioritize security. Try something more like, uh, all

applications handling PII must complete our privacy impact assessment

and receive CISO approval before production deployment. You know, it's

very flowery and wordy and all that bullshit, but it is not

unambiguous. That is very, very not unambiguous.Um, so that's number one. Don't, don't be unambiguous. And your

principle two, your principle should be actionable. So, um, a boundary

or principle like we will never compromise on quality. Looks awesome

on your IT mission statement. [00:53:00] Sounds great in a company all

hands meeting. But again, what does it actually mean?

It's kind of meaningless. Like how do you even measure that? We'll

never compromise on quality. Well that, there's two measurements in

that statement already. So how do you know when you're about to cross

that line? Etc. So instead of we will never compromise, you would do

something like Um, all production code must have X percent test

coverage, have zero critical issues and undergo peer review.

And it seems like there's a theme developing here, right? Like you

take these little tiny pithy statements that keep showing up in IT

strategy plans and decks and whatever. And you actually have to, you

have to actually answer the, answer the question of what does it

actually mean? And so the third one was.

Your principal needs to acknowledge trade offs. So, and here the

example and this, you know, all these are just recent [00:54:00] for

me is we always choose the most secure option. Which is meaningless

because you can't always choose the most secure option. Sometimes it

doesn't work that way. So you have to sometimes choose the second most

secure option.

Because, which could be theoretically the most secure option for you,

but those two don't necessarily align. So, you want to make sure that

if you have, you have trade off capability, so instead of like the

most secure option, it's more going to be along the lines of, again,

it's like semantics, but um, we're going to always seek to make the

company as secure as we can, uh, by choosing whichever option best

aligns with whatever it is that we intend to do.

That's a little bit of a broader context and gives sort of some more

of that color you need. Um, uh, the next one was things need to be

context sensitive. So different [00:55:00] systems have different

requirements, obviously. So, um, for example, like, uh, I think you

might still do this. I definitely do this. I prioritize systems on a

scale of one to four.

Mike Crispin: Mm

Nate McBride: hmm. Where if it's a tier one system, it won't matter at

all if it goes down. No one will be affected. Tier four, it goes down.

We're all fucked. Um, these are context sensitive. There's definitions

around the system. They apply these metadata and these phenotypes to

them. It makes perfect sense. And it goes back to our evolution and

data mapping concept in episode 6.And then lastly, uh, any boundary or principle you have needs to be

able to evolve.

So, I don't, I mean, there's, I'm sure there's others. Like, those are

the ones I thought about for. Principles and boundaries, but I don't

know if you had any thoughts about that or any others that come to

mind for you.

Mike Crispin: I, I, I think in [00:56:00] terms of, um, talk about

systems being able to be integrated. Or open to some extent is a one

of one of the principles is not necessarily driving tight internal

application integration and taking a people use the best to breed,

which, like you said, I think you can't drill down on that.

You got to label what that actually means. What I mean is a product

that does its intended use really well and plays well with others and

does it in a way that it can be integrated that it has a P. I. S. That

they don't charge you for through the. Through the sky with low rate

limits and all these other things.

So an open is an open architecture you can build so that you can

prepare for any changes that happen within the company. Yeah. Um, so I

would just say kind of an open model is important. Um, but [00:57:00]

I guess from. I guess from a cybersecurity perspective, it's always

top of mind and we mentioned kind of the, you can't have it be too

secure and you can't have the best user experience because that

ultimately leads to, hey, if it's user experience, you're not focused

on security, but you know, I think it's now more and more you can have

both, uh, the most secure solution probably isn't really Enterprise

ready anyway.

It's, you know, 100 percent encrypted at risk. You're running at, uh,

operational risk unless you've got the, the best internal staff in the

world. If you're using a secure solution, um, the most secure solution

is not to put it on the internet. Uh, but that's the balance of, in

terms of what's online and user experience is so, so good now that you

can really make that one of your, your principles with security and

privacy.

And I think in fairness to the executive teams that you work with or

for, that's still the [00:58:00] buzzword or the concern or the risk

that they're going to come to you with the most. Um, and the other

being kind of the future state of the automated business. You know,

how can we operationalize a business better or how can we transform

the business?

We leverage AI as another buzz, you know, buzz, buzz piece that, you

know, is important. But security still seems to be the thing that from

peers and from, from, uh, management and all the companies I've been,

I've always been first and foremost, um, so in, and to the point where

some companies assume it's there if you don't focus on it.We leverage AI as another buzz, you know, buzz, buzz piece that, you

know, is important. But security still seems to be the thing that from

peers and from, from, uh, management and all the companies I've been,

I've always been first and foremost, um, so in, and to the point where

some companies assume it's there if you don't focus on it.

So it's. It's important to, to make sure it's not just we prioritize

security, it's, uh, you can have that as your, as your kind of tagline

on the slide, but you want to have a overall sort of mission or

principle that is spelled out in your [00:59:00] sort of dictionary,

um, for your group, your service catalog or whatnot.

That is very clear what that means. And I think, um, middle road. I

keep using that term, but everything is sort of a compromise on, on

your principles. It's weaving the road between your principles and,

and sometimes what actually needs to get done. And that's where I

think the, you know, point four around, um, around, uh, context is,

uh, important.

I, I think sometimes IT organizations lose sight of the business

context and they're focused kind of very inwardly on some very

important things they need to achieve. Right. And those could be

because of the principles they hold as a group, but also because

there's a lot of internal I. T.

Responsibilities or cyber security or data governance or just overall

I. T. Governance responsibilities or [01:00:00] regulated

responsibilities that they need to do, and they lose sight of the

business context in which things need to be prioritized or finished or

done well. So, um, That's why I think your point around context is

another good one and needs to be kind of lined is needs to be one of

your principles that you are context aware or business aware.

Um, and that's a good, that's a good, sure. Go ahead. And I was just

going to say in terms of the security, the security element of one

other thing I just said, but security is just the security element of

the, of anything that's public facing is often. is often, um,

overlooked because a lot of public facing, like, websites or, um,

third party survey tools, or, you know, this type of things that, you

know, go out the doors, assume that they are safe, [01:01:00] um, are

becoming one of the main areas of attack.

At a lot of companies, because they are largely overlooked. And they

end up getting crowdsourced to attack other companies. So it's, it's,

and that's another type of context. That's market awareness and

industry context and awareness, which is, is important too.

Nate McBride: Uh, I agree with everything you said. And I would say

that you, you mentioned security a few times and the reason we have

these four sort of key pillars of this whole discussion is because you

have, there is a, there's a giant risk element to all of this, which

is, um, you're going to go ahead and try to have principles and yes,

you can have a walled fortress, but then you're basically sacrificing

The other three key parts of autonomy, you're sacrificing autonomy

itself, innovation and productivity.that you, you mentioned security a few times and the reason we have

these four sort of key pillars of this whole discussion is because you

have, there is a, there's a giant risk element to all of this, which

is, um, you're going to go ahead and try to have principles and yes,

you can have a walled fortress, but then you're basically sacrificing

The other three key parts of autonomy, you're sacrificing autonomy

itself, innovation and productivity.

So you have to do it. You have to have a balance. You have to be

willing to relent [01:02:00] on the security side, um, striving to do

your best, but not at such a price that, um, you're, you're only

standing around one principle. That's, that's not really going to

work. And, and the last one about the evolution, I mean, that one to

me resonates the most.

Every single year you should probably reassess or at some regular time

reassess your principles. Okay, where do I stand? Where did I stand

last year? Where do I stand today? How much, how much have I changed

and grown? It is okay to change your mind. It is okay. Um, you have to

ask for permission from, from your boss, of course.

No, I'm just kidding. Um, you don't ask for permission, that's

autonomy. Yeah, that's autonomy.

Mike Crispin: Yeah, I was

Nate McBride: gonna say. Don't ask for permission.

Mike Crispin: I think if you're able to articulate and show that you

can change, and that, you know, especially if you dodged a bullet, so

to speak, people respect that. And it's, I think it's sometimes when

you hold You [01:03:00] hold on to something because you're afraid to

be wrong or afraid of how it might look that creates more downward or

tailwinds that, uh, or headwinds, I should say, to your future state

than other, some other things you can do.

So being able to change or kind of change course and be able to

explain why it's important that you are changing course or your team

is changing courses. It's important. You can't, don't just stick to

something because you're afraid to be, be wrong. I think that's one

thing that kind of spells all of these things in terms of your, your

ability and your, your drive to make inroads and be successful is

trust and building up the, through your principles that, A, you can

stick to your principles, but you're willing to change if need be.

And that you're always straightforward, because the one and the zero

is a risk reward. And is, is, you can balance those things, just kind

of, [01:04:00] how, how every, how everything works out in the end is

you're either taking a risk to get that reward, or you are, or you

are, you are putting a lot to reduce the risk, and hoping that you get

some sort of reward by avoiding something bad, which is often ignored,

because if something bad doesn't happen, it's like, well, You did your

job.

Good job. So I think that's why we think a lot of times of, you know,

we're taking more risk by not looking at risk. Um, and then somehow it

will be some trendsetter will, will, uh, will, will, will make this

big reward this, uh, that, you know, that that's coming down the pike

by enabling the business, giving some competitive advantage.Good job. So I think that's why we think a lot of times of, you know,

we're taking more risk by not looking at risk. Um, and then somehow it

will be some trendsetter will, will, uh, will, will, will make this

big reward this, uh, that, you know, that that's coming down the pike

by enabling the business, giving some competitive advantage.

So the thing I would say about that being transparent is so important.

Nate McBride: Again, there's no question at all that, um, coming at

any decision from a risk [01:05:00] perspective is valuable, in my

opinion, anyway. But, if you only come at things from a risk

perspective, you are sacrificing autonomy to do that.

Mike Crispin: And you won't innovate.

You won't try anything if you're only looking at the risk. Exactly.

The risk of failure, it might be a bit more to try something that's

unconventional or different or isn't proven by six of your other IT

friends, you know?

Nate McBride: Well, so I, I,

Mike Crispin: no more risk, right?

Nate McBride: I scratched out some notes regarding the four pillars

and um, And how we might sort of achieve this balance.

And so I'll go to the risk one. And so risk, um, a couple of

questions, right? So what types of risks are acceptable versus

unacceptable? Now, this is a principle. I think if I think about to me

and to my [01:06:00] company. What risks are acceptable versus

unacceptable? There will be alignment in some places and misalignment

in other places.

So I have to find all the places where there's alignment. And perhaps

I have to find a couple too where there's not alignment and then gain

alignment or else just simply don't gain alignment and, and move in

that direction anyway, because I feel it's the best thing to do. But

you have to know what's acceptable risk versus unacceptable and it's

different in every single situation.

But there are some, I think, basic common thresholds you can have that

would do that. That's one. Another one is at what risk threshold do

you have sign off? From executives. So we're resurrecting our I. T.

steering committee at, um, Exilio because we have, we've grown back,

uh, and we have a need again. And there is a line on the I.

T. steering committee charter. There's six criteria that can bring

your project to the I. T. steering committee. And one of those is

change in risk profile. [01:07:00] Now it sounds ambiguous, but it's

accompanied by a scorecard. And if so, so if your project that you're

bringing forward. from zero to two, it doesn't qualify for the ITSC.Now it could trigger one of the other things, but that trigger alone,

but if it's three to four, it triggers the ITSC. And if it's five or

six, it most definitely triggers the ITSC plus your executive sponsor,

which means you cannot put in that thing without an executive sponsor

behind you to do that. Now that's arbitrary.

I just, the scale of one to six, basically. But, um, That's something

too as to what threshold do I want another pair of eyes on this risk

I'm doing and then lastly What risks should always be mitigated

regardless of cost so and this goes back to my ITSC question But

there's a slide in that deck again in our in our charter, which

[01:08:00] states that if a project is is going to be a four or five

or six.

It needs to come with a risk mitigation plan for any risks that it

introduces. Sure. Now, these are principled by me because I think that

they're essential to understand we might still approve the project,

the project might still that the enterprise application might still

get installed and start being used, but at least there's awareness.

So I haven't stifled productivity. I haven't stifled innovation, but

I've brought awareness to the risk. Yes. And, and hopefully. A

mitigation strategy for it.

Mike Crispin: Transparency and visibility is hugely important with any

new system or risk that the organization is going to take on in terms

of the amount of work it's going to take, the [01:09:00] implications

from a regulatory or quality perspective. Um, business continuity,

productivity, and all the, all the words, right? So the visibility is

huge just for that piece alone.

We've had some instances where, you know, we've had like one or two

new projects and they were very small. Investments, but they needed

more visibility. And, you know, I think, um, you've got to have that,

you mentioned sort of a threshold scoring, and even if it is sort of

arbitrary or just gets you started, you know, that you're, you're able

to rank it or choice rank it based on maybe a few in your group.

Um, it, it helps a lot to gain that visibility. The big, the, if

you're starting from scratch and you're, you're, you're talking, Nate,

you've had this in place before you're re resurrecting it's. It's

keeping the content flowing and having a, [01:10:00] not just a strong

charter, but sort of a agenda that is enticing to the people that are

on the steering committee.

Nate McBride: Well, I mean, I've had it steering committee frameworks.

Now, I've worked with them going all the way back to 2005. And I can

tell you, if I was to go grab every single charter from every single

evolution, I mean, even going, let's go back to 2019. So when I was at

Orchard, the IT steering committee had four criteria, okay?Nate McBride: Well, I mean, I've had it steering committee frameworks.

Now, I've worked with them going all the way back to 2005. And I can

tell you, if I was to go grab every single charter from every single

evolution, I mean, even going, let's go back to 2019. So when I was at

Orchard, the IT steering committee had four criteria, okay?

And when we did our risk assessment, it was on a scale of one to four.

Um, And I've evolved since then, like I, not every single year, if I

changed my model, but I've gone through a couple of iterations since

2019, where now I'm looking at it and saying, I need more criteria. I

need, I need a broader definition and I've learned that.

Sure. I, I, but I haven't been so principled that I'm not going to

[01:11:00] change from my four tier model. I've gone, come a long way

since then. Um. You know, it's just, and, and, and you mentioned

productivity. And so I had some, some notes about productivity as

well, which were, um, and try to, so let me ask this one first.

Like, how would you, how would you quantify the minimum acceptable

user experience? If someone said to you, I want to do this thing and

you were to ask them back, well, does it exceed the minimum acceptable

user experience level? Very, very difficult.

Mike Crispin: What, what I like it to be, um, fewer clicks.

Nate McBride: If you were clerks, you

Mike Crispin: were,

Nate McBride: is that always the metrics?

Because I use that one, too. But

Mike Crispin: I want to say it's a metric. I think that for me, um.

Like the better user experience, it sort of models are the ones where

people have maybe [01:12:00] fewer buttons and fewer clicks. So simple

user. There's a user interface is very focused, intended use fewer

buttons. Uh, less text, fewer clicks across the board.

And that's a big struggle. It's almost going backwards when you're

talking about best breed because the more you integrate systems, the

more you have more clicks. And that's

Nate McBride: Let's suppose that, uh, again, I'm just, I'm just being

slightly rhetorical here, but I am interested in your point on this,

which is, I'm postulating that a productivity boundary does have a

user experience threshold.

There's a minimum, there's a maximum. Yeah. Um, and you should all

Always strive for the maximum, but what's the minimum and how do you

even define that? And if the minimum is 17 ways to log in before you

get to the thing. Obviously, that's that's just sandbagging a minimum,

right? Like it's an obvious minimum.Sure, but When I think about productivity, I too, I'm thinking

[01:13:00] about clicks to do a thing. I'm also thinking about

nowadays anyway, like how much automation is in the process. Yeah. So

from your user experience, do you have to click the whole way through?

Or can you have some of these things automatically done based on

catalytic events?

Mike Crispin: Yes. That's what I was generalizing, but that's no, no,

Nate McBride: so, so, well, when I think about my, again, using a

broad timeline, my minimum user, acceptable user experience from 20

years ago has evolved way beyond then back then it was like, here's a

laptop, you're lucky it works, that's your user experience versus now

the lengths we go to, to provide a minimum acceptable user experience

are pretty extraordinary.

Mike Crispin: Yes, yes. I mean. I think it's it's more it's more

subconscious to users, but having a consistent. Look and feel, color

scheme, um, [01:14:00] like, I mean, I, I struggle with having, again,

the best of breed solutions, they work great, they integrate well, but

you need some way to tie them all together so that people are like,

are you sure I can log into this third solution you've got in place

for me so I can enter something into a database?

And then I got to go over here and do this, and it's like, well, these

are the best to breed applications. It's like, well, they, they take a

lot of, are you sure it's okay if I use this? I don't recognize this

thing that just popped up. It's like, that's not a good user

experience. So you've got fewer clicks and having, um, I think we, I,

we got, you know, both you and I, to some extent being, I think coming

from like this.

Um, very much, uh, Mac centric UI experience kind of mindset. I think

we can both share, is that you go into enterprise software and that

stuff is very hard to, to find. And I'm not saying that, um, like a

Mac is easy for people to use because it isn't. But if you're used to

the, the [01:15:00] cohesiveness of, of, of a consistent UI across

multiple business tasks, that's where people, that's why people like

Microsoft.

I mean, as much as we don't like them is that they stay in one

environment. The menus look the same. The shortcuts are the same. They

click a button. They're already logged into all six of the services.

Yeah, clicks. And that's where I do think the, um, Zapier's and we're

going to the technology are very, very quickly, you know, having a

strong front end, whether it's a slack or some other workflow engine

or something in front of all this much better user experience for

people.

Oh, for sure. And that's where your automation comes in. You know, do

you have the ability to automate? Do you have the APIs? Do you have

the skills in house to do that? Can you document it so that it can be

reproduced with other, another team down the line, like all those

things. And it's composable architecture that is just in the

[01:16:00] background.Oh, for sure. And that's where your automation comes in. You know, do

you have the ability to automate? Do you have the APIs? Do you have

the skills in house to do that? Can you document it so that it can be

reproduced with other, another team down the line, like all those

things. And it's composable architecture that is just in the

[01:16:00] background.

And that's what we do. We create this great product for people that

they can get their work done on. And all that other stuff inside the

box should be relatively disappeared for them. That's hard to do. It

is hard to do.

Nate McBride: And well, so which brings up the other question about

productivity around, um, change management.

And, and transition planning. So, um, this idea, and I've been trying

to think about this for years, like what constitutes the need for a

change management plan? So, you know, when I'm working with clients,

uh, on the consulting side, a lot of times, these are very big

projects. And so it's easy to say, well, this is so big, we're going

to need to change management plan.

But when I'm like. When I'm thinking about my company and I say, well,

it's like 15 users. I'm thinking way too small in scope every time, of

course, because any change affects the whole company. Uh, it may

[01:17:00] not be the change you make, but the person who's changed,

they, all their behaviors change. And then it happens downstream from

a direct impact change.

Um, there should be like a, any change that impacts more than X people

users.

Mike Crispin: Yeah,

Nate McBride: would trigger a plan because that's definitely going to

have a productivity impact that you could have a scale where this

change might, it might impact productivity or this one won't impact

productivity, but then when you have the ones that are like, this will

sure as shit impact productivity, those trigger that change control,

which means productivity does goes uninterrupted.

Mike Crispin: Yeah, that, that intel brings out, uh, training plans

and communications and, uh, sort of a decision tree model that people

can see, um, which is, isn't, is important to have in place.

[01:18:00] And, you know, I go, I, with change management and, you

know, this is definitely something that I definitely struggle with

from time to time, is you've got It's never a good time to make a

change.

So the more deliberate you can be and try and front load the

communications and give people sort of unlimited access to ask

questions is hugely important. But I think it's Quite simply

impossible to do change, perfect change, change management perfectly

because there's too many, um, different ways of learning different

priorities within your, in your organization.So the more deliberate you can be and try and front load the

communications and give people sort of unlimited access to ask

questions is hugely important. But I think it's Quite simply

impossible to do change, perfect change, change management perfectly

because there's too many, um, different ways of learning different

priorities within your, in your organization.

So if you can be good at it, that is fantastic, but don't expect that.

You're never going to hit any bumps or that you're never going to get

anyone angry or that you're never going to get. I mean, I think some

people think, Oh, I've changed management. Like if I do it right and I

plan it out and all this stuff is, [01:19:00] yeah, no.

Yeah. It's just not what works. You can have a 25 person company and

still have someone who's angry and you can have a 5, 000 person

company where you have 200 people are angry and never hear from. So

it's not going to be perfect, but. And that's where I think you've got

to balance your approach and determine how much you want to have a

plan, you want to communicate it, and you want to put it out there so

it's accessible, um.

But the important thing is that you have the real stakeholders behind,

behind you. The people who have the most to gain, and the most to

lose. Uh, if it doesn't go well. And you need to be, have those

partners. Because, no one, not everyone's gonna be happy. And, the

plan is mostly For your team and those stakeholders and the training

that you spray across the businesses for the rest of the crew who, who

hopefully will, you know, know that it's a priority that they need to

learn this.

And if they don't in the first [01:20:00] round, they will in the

second round, once they start using the tool, it just takes patience

and, and, and, um, it also takes, you know, the ability to partner and

be to have some thick skin from time to time.

Nate McBride: I think that, um, On the topic of change management and

it's, this is the same, the same holds true for many of the topics is

the first maybe one, two or three times that you do a change

management rollout or you, you actively do change management for a

rollout, I should say.

Um, you have to make sure that whatever plan you don't have to, but

my, my experience has been that if I'm consistent with how I do change

management, then a future change management rollouts become quite much

easier because now people understand, understand the channels and the

approach and it's not foreign to them.

So they're [01:21:00] like, Oh, Nate just sent out an email. We're

going or slack. We're all going to change management on this thing.

And the last time he did this, we went through a, B and C steps. We're

going to do that again. And then again and again and again,so, um, so just keeping an eye on the clock here. I think what we'll

do is let's talk a little bit more and then we'll, um, we'll pause

for, for this week. But the last thing I wanted to cover tonight was,

um, uh, what's the best way to put this? So, so boundaries that are

actually Useful by I. T. So

Mike Crispin: and it to the team internally, you mean like and

Nate McBride: to the team internally.

So we start with the high level principle. Like the what or the why,

so let's go back to the early example. We must maintain data

sovereignty to protect customer privacy, blah, blah, blah. Well,

[01:22:00] we can't just stop there because that's where most

organizations I think fail. They create lofty vision statements.

And if you. Are a person who currently subscribes to a large analyst

firm, um, under a particular executive, um, program. You have been

given decks that have these very, very flowery, high level statements,

but they, and then they sound awesome. They look awesome, but they

actually have zero guidance within them.

So yeah, you, your, your principal, your, your, your principal

statement should have a clear conditions. So unambiguous, clear

conditions, uh, specific thresholds. And going back to the point about

change management numbers or measuring, uh, uh, user effectiveness and

experience. So you should have specific thresholds.

I'm talking about SLAs, I'm talking about thresholds. [01:23:00] You

should have required approvals to get a thing done. Who approves these

things that fall under these criteria? And lastly, compensating

controls. So Instead of saying we maintain data sovereignty, you would

say something like, um, like all customer PII must remain within this

particular AWS cloud environment, unless the following, and then you

would list out all the things like, um, the business benefit exceeds

some value or.

There's legal legal compliance have signed off on the approach in

writing or the solution passes a third party security assessment. Like

these are all Criteria that you use for that boundary all of a sudden

the game changes when you do this so another example I had written

down which is one of my favorites is We prioritize open standards

because I used to say this [01:24:00] I Used to be like all mister.

I have a very open stack People be like, well, what the fuck does that

mean? It was like, I'm an, I just opened to a stack. I'm not, I don't

have a closed stack. Well, that's meaningless. Actually these days

I've come to learn over my, over my experience. So now this, the way I

approach it is. All new systems that we put in must have the

capability to utilize open standards for all the data interfaces,

which is essentially another way of saying, if I'm going to put this

in here, it needs to be able to talk to the rest of my environment,

Slack box, you name it.I have a very open stack People be like, well, what the fuck does that

mean? It was like, I'm an, I just opened to a stack. I'm not, I don't

have a closed stack. Well, that's meaningless. Actually these days

I've come to learn over my, over my experience. So now this, the way I

approach it is. All new systems that we put in must have the

capability to utilize open standards for all the data interfaces,

which is essentially another way of saying, if I'm going to put this

in here, it needs to be able to talk to the rest of my environment,

Slack box, you name it.

It can't not talk freely. And I don't, even if it, if it can talk, but

it requires like 15 hoops and hurdles to get it to talk F that that's

not clear communication. That's not an open standard. Um, And so by

approaching it from that perspective, I've changed, I've taken my same

[01:25:00] message. Which is I'm a big believer in having a flexible

open stack and I've changed it to say I will take whatever's best as

long as it's able to communicate with everybody else.

And again, semantics, but it's actually a very big shift in my opinion

anyway. Um, and I've introduced thresholds into that statement. I've

introduced requirements into that statement. Um, I've put a lot into

that one idea. As opposed to saying, yeah, no, no, no. I prioritize

open standards.

Mike Crispin: It's very important for your own team to know what you

mean by open standards.

Even if it's, you use the term like the all hands, it's great for your

all hands slides. Yeah. Um, or you want people to ask the question and

you can, you can talk about what exactly it means. Um, but for your

own team, like having that completely defined, so they know what you

[01:26:00] mean and where, where you're going, uh, and also ask, you

know, sort of for their input, like, does this make sense?

Like, you know, we obviously open standards are good and having, uh,

the APIs and document, you know, API and data formats, you know, um,

explicitly laid out, but make sure Not so much get their opinion,

like, should we change it, but do you understand what that means and

how it affects how we, how we work?

Because if this is a boundary, you know, when we're having a

discussion with, uh, you know, a business partner or with, uh, a, uh,

a stakeholder that's within a different function as a project, we need

to keep these things in mind and you need to know what they actually

mean so we can back each other up on these things.

Right. And it's that's why it's more like the more actionable

statement is that your team realizes and it becomes sort of a

principle that's internal to your group, whereas I think outside the

organization, if you've [01:27:00] got the organization, if you've got

people who are, uh, you know, we talked about the business

technologist groups.

You know, uh, often on the podcast that are really understand the need

for data governance and interfaces and those type of things, then they

need to know too. But my level, I think your shorter mission

statement, it doesn't commit you to the specifics at a wider audience

where it creates maybe more confusion.You know, uh, often on the podcast that are really understand the need

for data governance and interfaces and those type of things, then they

need to know too. But my level, I think your shorter mission

statement, it doesn't commit you to the specifics at a wider audience

where it creates maybe more confusion.

So it's, I like to have kind of two statements. It's kind of like the

high level tagline, if you will. Um, and then sort of the. The more,

uh, descript mission statement that goes on the inside cover of the

book. What goes on the cover of the book is the, is the splash

statement. You know, it's a nice, uh, short, buzzy thing.

And then when you open the side of the, first the cover and look on

the back of the cover of the book is the, is what's the What's that?

Naughty words. Naughty words. You [01:28:00] have to buy the book to

see inside. Exactly. Well, that's the marketing term, right? It's

like, hey, just get, get, I gotta get you inside so we can be in the

office having a discussion of what this means, or in a meeting, what

does it mean so we can have the time to explain it and go through it.

And have it in your um, you know, your set of principles. Your

enterprise architecture principles your IT principles or whatnot. That

they're all there, they're all there and your team and, uh, your, your

close partners within the different functions know what you're trying

to achieve. And that, and that we can't cross those boundaries.

Like, we're not gonna, we're not gonna, yeah, we can change over time,

but we, we thought these through. We're not creating boundaries we

came up with yesterday. These are the boundaries that we've worked

through. We've thought through the risk and the consequence and the

rewards, operationalizing and making a safer environment and

everything else that comes with the why you do these things.

[01:29:00] So, um, you know, a lot of this is about company growth

too. Um, but, like you're saying, it may seem like semantics, but what

it really is, is describing in a language that your team and the

people who are going to be hands on keyboard. Need to understand and

as well as the decision makers that these are what the principles of

the group or the team are in your strategy Yeah And there are plenty

of thresholds, you know, you got to run up against but I think it's

trying to keep it simple Oh,

Nate McBride: so back to two points, one on the thresholds part.

Um, again, uh, my experience over the years has been the thresholds do

need to change and they change almost on a company by company basis,

but even more than that, they can charge on, they can change on a year

over year basis too. When I had, so Exilio, we've had now two

iterations of the it steering committee, the initial iteration

[01:30:00] and the brand newest iteration, totally different charters.

Uh, there's still some, there's still some elements that carry over,

but I've had to modify the charter because the company's, um, approach

towards technology has changed dramatically enough that the original

charter, um, was too strict. So, so there's a con, again, constant

reassessment of thresholds, too, uh, which Does take work, but you

can't just go year to year to year using the exact same formulas I

mean they change probably quarterly.Uh, there's still some, there's still some elements that carry over,

but I've had to modify the charter because the company's, um, approach

towards technology has changed dramatically enough that the original

charter, um, was too strict. So, so there's a con, again, constant

reassessment of thresholds, too, uh, which Does take work, but you

can't just go year to year to year using the exact same formulas I

mean they change probably quarterly.

Um, that was one point second was It's very easy to make a template to

do this I do it in Lucidchart and I have a nice little tiny mock up

that I do but for any System there's basically six things that I want

to know Um, number one, the principle, which is the what and the why.

Why are we doing this?

Like why, why is this choice being made? And this could be done in a

[01:31:00] PowerPoint deck too. I just like Lucidchart. But then

define the default position. Like, so what's happening today? What's

the sort of current situation as it is? And what would be the default

situation with this new change? Um, identify any exception criteria.

So like, what might, when might we have to deviate? So we're proposing

this particular principle, or this particular standard, or this

particular change. What are the scenarios that we might have to pivot

from that? And let's understand those and get those out front now. Um,

we get all the required approvals out front.

You know, and again, it depends on the threshold, right? It could just

be me, or it could be a whole bunch of people. A business owner, etc.

You have your compensating controls. Your, or your mitigation plan.

And then lastly, um, your review triggers and the review triggers. So,

uh, for the last four companies, this has been, uh, this has not

changed.

So this part I have [01:32:00] kept, which is if you get approved for

a process and actually learn this from Cubist, if you get approved for

a thing, a principal processor change, you have to come back on your

anniversary. Of that original approval and tell us how it's going. How

has your principle evolved? How has your change improved the business?

And if you come back a year later and say, actually, it hasn't, or

actually it's, it's, I did the wrong thing, or actually it's freaking

awesome. And here's all the ways I want to continue to improve it. No

matter what you have, you're accountable to come back and. Whether,

and so that's an annual review trigger.

You can have review triggers that are. Every time that we add 50 more

employees to the company, we're going to do a review. Every time that

we do a budget cycle, we're going to do a review, like whatever that,

whatever the triggers are going to be, [01:33:00] you're going to have

these established review triggers. in place.

So those would be, and that's a, it's a very simple template. You can

probably, a lot of people probably have more things in there than

that, but that's what I use today. Um, anywho, so, so we'll pause

there. I don't know if you have any last, last words, but, um, and

then we're going to continue in two weeks from, from this point.So those would be, and that's a, it's a very simple template. You can

probably, a lot of people probably have more things in there than

that, but that's what I use today. Um, anywho, so, so we'll pause

there. I don't know if you have any last, last words, but, um, and

then we're going to continue in two weeks from, from this point.

points,

Mike Crispin: but that I think this is all very important to be

talking about and to be having. You know, in terms of the talking

through the four pillars and how this applies to our autonomy as

leaders.

Nate McBride: Yeah.

Mike Crispin: Uh, it, it's continues, it continues into so many, every

day you're kind of thinking through the, what the next day is we're

going to bring or the [01:34:00] next year and how, you know, whether

it's, uh, what, what other, uh, things are going to come into view

that are going to affect your strategy and change your next steps.

Uh, and not always thinking a hundred percent about that. the decision

up front. And I need to think more about the, uh, the long term

effects of the decisions. Sometimes it's like, you, you're going to

put something in place and you need to really think through or try and

predict best where you're going to end up from a risk perspective or a

productivity perspective.

Sometimes you, I think you were talking about being in a hard place

sometimes and having to move quickly. Um, I've found, I think myself

in the last year being in a smaller company that trying to move

faster, like. Yeah. Trying to take advantage of being in a small place

before it gets too, too big and too wildly.

So, it, it's caused me to act faster than I normally would. Um, so I,

I think that's when I start thinking about, oh, [01:35:00] am I

thinking about my, uh, enough? Am I thinking enough about the risk and

the, and, you know, what boundaries I've put in place, uh, for my own

team? You know, I need to think, continuously think about that.

So I think even going through this tonight is, uh, is helpful for me.

Nate McBride: Yeah, it's something that I you can't think about

enough. I think in my in my like when you have time to Think about how

your boundaries and principles that you've established today are

either negatively affecting you because trust me that they are And how

they're positively affecting you and what changes you can make to

evolve yourself I think when we get to Episode eight in two weeks.

So we'll be talking about things like the zero choice decisions. So

you'll have to make decisions no matter what that are the zero choice

decisions. Um, we'll talk about some of the options you have for how

to sort of navigate those. And, um, we're going to [01:36:00] get into

a couple other things. Ultimately, this is a big fricking topic, but

the idea of having a principle, no matter what.So we'll be talking about things like the zero choice decisions. So

you'll have to make decisions no matter what that are the zero choice

decisions. Um, we'll talk about some of the options you have for how

to sort of navigate those. And, um, we're going to [01:36:00] get into

a couple other things. Ultimately, this is a big fricking topic, but

the idea of having a principle, no matter what.

It's, it's critical to being successful. It leader. I mean, it's in

the book. Uh, I wrote about, um, on Substack last week, what does good

look like? Uh, and we tackled this problem. Um, you have to have a

position.

Mike Crispin: Yes.

Nate McBride: And, I mean, forget principles and, and balances and all

the other things. I mean, just the position.

I, and you have to answer the question, I believe that blank. And have

the ability to justify it and stand by it for better or for worse. But

also be able to be flexible in case you need to change it. When you do

have to change it. Um, so. Yeah, good stuff. So next week we're on,

we're on location at Trillium in the [01:37:00] seaport of Boston.

So if you're in the seaport, come by Trillium, uh, join the podcast.

I'm sure we'll, we'll be talking about all kinds of things, security

related. We're going to continue this conversation that's from tonight

and two weeks. Um, in the meantime, again, if you listen to the show,

give us all the stars, um, on your platform.

If you don't, it's kind of not cool. Um, it's really cool to give us

all the things we have to describe. We have a link to our merch store

in the descriptions of our shows, along with our bias, a beer portal.

Yeah. Donate to Wikimedia and also the ACLU, um, speak up, if you have

a voice, don't be a dick, uh, don't be a dick to the hardworking IT

folks in your department, in your company, um, they're, they are

working hard, uh, even the ones that are dicks, um, they're still

trying to [01:38:00] get it done every day, be cool and then we'll get

paid back in spades, uh, be nice to animals, have your pets spayed or

neutered, and be nice to old people, um, And I want to thank our

sponsor rope for once again, giving us just a nice big, um, supportive

dose of rope to get through this, this episode, uh,

Mike Crispin: gotta love a rope.

Nate McBride: Um, Mike and I are starting a new company called Alco Al

company hall. Uh, look for, look for that on your nearest liquor store

shelves and, um, visit manscaped. com, uh, slash pages slash careers

for their latest VP of it role.

Mike Crispin: Sounds great.

Nate McBride: Did I get everything?Mike Crispin: Yeah, you got it all. I think you got it all and then

some.

Nate McBride: Wow. That's pretty good. I nailed that. I'll just split

hog. [01:39:00] That's pretty good closing. Right there. Well done.

All right. So next week you're going to bring the equipment for

recording or what are we going to do?

Mike Crispin: Yeah. Yeah. I should, uh, I think we'll do is we'll just

do it and probably do it through an iPad or something like that.

Nate McBride: Okay.

Mike Crispin: Maybe,

Nate McBride: maybe, maybe we should bring a couple options to make

sure that it works.

Mike Crispin: Yeah, well, I have the four different mics. We'll see

how it works.

Nate McBride: Okay, Mike's gonna bring four mics.

Mike Crispin: Well, the clip on mics that we used before. Clip on

Nate McBride: mics. Yeah, I have a pair. You have more than, you have

four of those yourself?

Mike Crispin: I have two. I have two that are wired. Okay, you have

Nate McBride: two and I have two. Okay. No, no, we should, we should

just do the wired Apple headsets with the thing. Those, those work

well too.

Mike Crispin: The AirPods? Hey, I, I, I did that too. Yeah, we can do

that.

Nate McBride: should work. All right, everybody. All right, Mike. Good

night. Great to see you.

See you next week. Good to see you. seaport.

Mike Crispin: Yeah. See you at Trillium, man.

Nate McBride: Be good, dude. Later.

Mike Crispin: [01:40:00] Thank you.