Alright. So I'm excited to be co hosting this webinar with my friend and colleague Martin. My name is Naim Ahmed. I'm the head of strategy and solutions at Ener Works. I'm also a certified project management professional and a certified scrum master. I've been practicing this craft for, fifteen years now. And during my heyday as a program manager, I've had the opportunity to manage some really large programs. We're talking about environments that had upwards, fifteen, BI tools and fifty thousand, personas, and consumers. As you can see from my picture, I live closer to the mountains in Colorado on the western slopes. I think it's obvious, but maybe not. But my family and I, you know, we we certainly appreciate the, the beauty and the outdoors, especially now because we've got, ski season. Martin, will you please say hello and, introduce yourself? Certainly will. I'm also excited to be cohosting with, with Naeem. He's a nice enough guy. No. Kidding. He's a very nice guy. But but more importantly, it's a it's a really good topic to have him involved to discuss, to discuss about with him because he has a lot of knowledge and experience, and you'll you'll see it firsthand. So my name is, Martin Plourde. I'm a delivery architect with InterWorks. I've been involved with data analytics for, some time, from the standpoint of a consumer of it, developer, an architect, and a project lead for, let's call it, twenty plus years. So I've worked in, as part of analytics department for different organization, and also I've been a consultant in different industries, and more recently with a health care organization. Now as you can see from my picture, I don't live close to a mountain. I, I I live close to a metro or subway as we call it in Montreal. So I'm I'm based in the Montreal area, and I'm for myself, I'm returning my home province. I've lived in different parts of Canada and the US, so I'm somewhat, back home, and I'm really looking forward to the discussion. Thank you, Martin. So today, we're discussing project management, secrets for success. This webinar is part of the mastering data, initiative series, which we, kicked off at the beginning of this year. Alright. So we have five topics we'd like to share with you followed by some some time for q and a, like I said. There is some interesting trends in project management, specifically related to data. We will share our approach to project management with some use cases. We'll tell you a little bit about sort of how we report on project data, and certainly cover some of the tools we use. We'll take a few minutes to share some, I call it learnings on being an effective project manager, and then we'll wrap up with, some practical things or projects we're seeing in the AI space, related to data data management. Alright. So, first topic as technology evolves, so does, the project management framework. So we'll we'll talk a little bit about how we got here. Alright. Sorry. This is the screen I want. So full disclosure, this is from a project management institute article published in twenty twenty four by Aaron Shenar and, Dov Dare. I found this interesting, so hopefully you will too. The timeline highlights the evolution and some of the bigger updates to the project management framework. So in the nineteen sixties, companies began to understand the value of organizing as a group and coordinating the work. In the seventies, in the eighties, in the nineties, We kept on adding more processes, to the framework, and these are practices related to, you can see on the screen, teamwork, risk management. And and, certainly, you know, we got to a point where we wanted to run multiple projects so understood how to how to orchestrate multiple projects. I think some of the most exciting, and you can argue relevant development came, in the two thousands. Part of it could be because that's, you know, obviously, where my experience is. But, really, as a group, as a as project managers, we realized that one size does not fill all fit all, and we started using agile, the agile methodology. We learned to work remotely, obviously, during COVID, but we also benefited from global organizations, that use maybe an offshore model. And we emphasize developing a strategy for projects. Organizations realize that it's not enough just to get the job done on time and within budget. Instead, outcomes, you know, needed to be or were tied to a bigger strategy or business goal. A good example is, you know you know, we we do projects because we wanna increase market growth. Maybe we wanna establish, data observability capability, or we're improving data literacy in the organization. And the good news for professionals like us is that the demand for what I call structure or project management, really for, project managers and program managers is trending up. So the project management institute forecast that we need twenty five million PMs by twenty thirty. This is a global number. And in case you're wondering, I looked it up according to, a group called Zipina. There are roughly four hundred and twenty five thousand project managers currently employed in the United States. So that's obviously a very big distribution outside the US. According to, Mordor Intelligence, that's a very clever name, the project management software market is expected to grow by sixty six percent, to twelve billion by twenty thirty. And according to, again, PMI, sixty two percent of the project management professionals are working remotely, and this is a statistics they published in twenty twenty four. There is another one by McKinsey that says ninety projects sorry. Ninety percent of companies have sort of embraced a hype embraced a hybrid approach to project management. So that that's a I think that's a, you know, certainly a a good trend. And, really, I think what it does, it sort of validates that, you know, project management is definitely here to stay. Naeem, from from your perspective, what what resonates the most of I mean, this is obviously trends that are being observed, but from from your hands on experience. Sure. Yeah. Thanks, Martin. I think, you know, the the things we're seeing is projects are definitely getting more complex. Right? And they tend to include multiple work streams. What I mean by that is if you are doing, say, a data modernization project, certainly expect it's gonna include the strategy, the data, the analytics, the integration, the change management, and then, of course, you know, things like training and support. The other one, you know, it's an interesting, observation that, you know, doesn't matter the size of the company, big or small. Everyone obviously is expecting a project construct, you know, to, to execute a scope. So the value is well understood. And, you know, one trend maybe for, us as a company for Innerworks, you know, we find ourselves certainly being an extension of a PMO in some organizations, or, center of excellence as an example in other organization. And, typically, you know, what our role is to certainly help with some of the planning, but we we tend to bring sort of the analytics expertise as well to the project. Thanks. Alright. So, you know, it in there was lots of trends, and, I'll be, you know, transparent to say that there are you know, if you if you read read different articles, you'll find different trends, but these are the ones that we felt we can relate to, especially as a data consultancy. We talked about number one already. You know, I think according to, Forbes, you know, this is a newer trend, but I think it's been around for a while. And it's focusing on really sort of talking about maximizing the value of a project and not just on project delivery. The other one, you know, the agile approach to portfolio management, really speaks to the ability to react to changing business needs, and it's okay to be making iterative progress, when you have a big program. On number two, we completely agree. You know, the the shift, you know, certainly is, driven by the complexity of the project. We've always valued technical subject matter expertise on a project, but there is, you know, more and more, I think we're seeing that, you know, a realization that interpersonal skills or some people call it kinda like the, the emotional intelligence that you need for a project are equally important today. On the third one, the the remote work we talked about this is obviously here to stay, combining sort of, you know, the adaptive and, traditional methods. And and we'll talk about that in in a little bit more detail as we look at some of the use cases, is a good balance. A balance that provides a little bit of a structure, but, obviously, the flexibility you need to get the project done. And and it's certainly useful for bigger, larger complex projects as well. The other one, I think, again, we'll talk a little bit more about this. I just wanna call it out. You know, as an organization, it it takes a little bit of time to find the right, tools, specifically collaborative tools, you know, that that's gonna allow asynchronous work, you know, to be to be really effective. On the last bullet, you know, there's sort of AI for project management. Right? So, you know, in our case, I think, you know, we talk about automation, and Martin will sort of walk us through how we automate our pulling data and and doing the reporting. But there was another survey, which I thought was an interesting one, so I'll share it. It's the World Economic Forum. They stated that seventy five percent of surveyed companies are looking to adopt big data, cloud computing, and AI technology over the next five years. I feel like we've been hearing this for a few years now, but, really, this is from twenty twenty four, so we still have a lot of ground to cover. Alright. So it looks like we've got our first poll question. We'll give everyone a minute to sort of read the question read and answer the question. The question is, which trend can you relate to most? Is it adopting agile methodologies? Is it having a project manager that's also a subject matter expert? Are you seeing that you do more remote work? Are you outsourcing work? It could be all fit. And if it's not any of it, we'd love to hear from you. If you wouldn't mind sharing, you know, your your response in the chat, that'd be great. Alright. We may have a tie, so I'm just gonna give it a few seconds here. Okay. The the the the top two responses are well, the top answer now at thirty two percent is agile. And and that's, you know, makes a lot of sense to me, especially in this field. The second one is the subject matter expert as a project manager, at twenty eight percent. We've got a nineteen percent response on remote or outsource work and a and a and a big number and significant twenty one percent that said all of it. So thank you for that, for the responses. Alright. Let's see. So we'll talk about data use cases. Really, we you know, it's describing our approach to project management. I've got two use cases. Use case number one. So we mentioned this a couple times, right, around aligning your projects to strategic goals. So what if you are still trying to figure out what projects should be included in your data data or your strategic goal? Or I should say strategic goal for data. For example, if your, head of data comes to you and says, hey. I need a road map for a modern data stack so we can start leveraging AI. So our approach to structuring this work, is, really a management consulting engagement. The objective, of course, is to develop a strategy and create a road map from, an existing vision, hopefully, that that, you or a client has. It can be done, you know, either well, actually, a combination, not either. A combination of an assessment assessment of the current capabilities, and then certainly developing, you know, sort of a near term, long term. So it could be multi quarter, multi year implementation plan. And these are, you know, what's valuable, especially from a project management perspective, is getting some sense for how big is this. Right? So a rough order of magnitude and, possibly some staffing requirements. There's certainly around your budgeting and staffing requirements. Alright. So, a quick glance at this. This is how we describe the initial scope to our clients. Again, I think, you know, we we are mindful from a project management perspective. So these are inputs for a project charter on a project management plan. The way this is broken out, you can see there is an overview section on the top left. This is, you know, really describing what the engagement is. There is a description of what to expect and the approach and milestone. That's, bottom left as well as, top right. And the bottom right is really sort of the section that talks about the deliverables from the project. Alright. So in terms of deliverable, what can you expect? Strategic engagement, especially around road mapping, for us tends tend to be a, a presentation, maybe a PowerPoint presentation or a brief. It's pretty healthy. It's it's about thirty to sixty slides. Really, the expectation is talk about current state, future state, provide road map recommendations, obviously, for, the vision elements. It does include an implementation plan. Right? Again, from your project management perspective, it it helps you with, setting priority, meaning the sequence project should be around level of efforts. You could do budgeting exercise and sort of the mix of staffing necessary to do the different work streams. It certainly includes, architecture diagrams for current future state and, anything else that may be relevant for the project. Alright. So what have you learned? We've done literally, we've probably done hundreds of these. And and, the the the learnings from this is, you know, these are, you know, again, shorter engagements, usually four to eight weeks. You are dealing with, a wide area of stakeholders from c suite all the way down to analyst. So expect to play heavy Tetris with your schedule at the very beginning to make sure that you can set up all the different sessions. We we like the structure up front, and I'll show you a notional schedule in just a second. But the structure really, you know, helps you kick it out, set expectations with the group. And, it's particularly useful if you've got remote participants, on the, on the assessment. I will say, you know, change management tactics are very useful here. There there is a thing called a stakeholder assessment metrics. And what that allows you to do is identify all the stakeholders that are participating, and and you have the abilities to show current state. Are they neutral? Are they your change agents? You know? Are they a resistant group? And and tactics on how to move them to, more of a, you know, a positive outcome. Group facilitation obviously is wonderful, which means you're setting up a workshop meeting with maybe a a number of people from the same group. What this allows you to do is, everyone hears the same thing. People, you know, they they correct each other. If someone didn't know there was an existing process or something they're already doing, that does come up. And, honestly, it tends to be a a little bit of an moment for the participants as well. Certainly expect lots of deep dives. Yes. We said this is more of a assessment management consulting, but the reality is very much on the technical side. We bring a lot of technical sneeze to the workshop, and we go deep. We talk about, you know, capabilities and pain points and challenges they have with particular technology stack. And, really, it's a fun exercise. I mean, I think you get a lot more input from the participants that are there. One of the overwhelming feedback we get from our clients is, you know what? It's very refreshing. I don't think we've done this ever or in a long time. So we have a lot to say, and it's quite alright. You know? I think if these are not relevant to the immediate sort of problem that you're trying to solve, it certainly helps to just create a parking lot. Alright. So from a scheduling perspective, you can see, you know, again, it's it's eight weeks, so there is an ability to say we're gonna bound the schedule. Right? So you you set the expectation of fraud during the kickoff and the planning. You can see we use, a mix. You know, we you like we like the traditional, for, you know, structure and the agile obviously is getting input, getting more input, go back to stakeholders. If you have more questions, do more deep dives, but that that's the agile part of, this engagement. Alright. So moving on to case number two use case number two. To use case number two, you know, we see this quite often. Right? It's, really sort of heavy on the technical side. Obviously, has some management consulting to it. Lots of flavors, call it a proof of concept, proof of value, proof of technology, minimal viable product. Really, I think what the what the organization is trying to do is, they want to know they're experimenting. Right? So they want a good option for I'd like to add a new approach or a new capability. I'd like to make an informed decision. Right? I wanna know if there there will be potential issues and and certainly sort of, you know, make sure that I can sort of tie back to you my goals and and business value. And, really, it's a it's a you know, we say it's lower risk because, you can prove it out quickly, and then it gives you lots of insights on maybe the level of support you may need post production. Alright. Again, just like the last use case, this is how we describe it. We we like it because it it input for the project charter and the project management plan. Just like the last one, again, we've got an overview. We've got what to expect, the approach, the milestones, deliverables. We've got an extra section here, which is the bottom right. And for POC, I think, you know, a a good example is these are dependencies. We wanna make sure that there is a large enough data set obviously to, to make an informed decision. So oh, we like to add a diagram like this, you know, which, you know, it it it promotes a lot of discussion because what this is is a target state. So the people that are responsible for not just building it, but potentially maintaining it, they have, you know, obviously, a a big stake in this. And and having an idea of what this might look like in the future, promotes discussion early that you can include in your POC or POV. Alright. The deliverables are straightforward, technical feasibility assessment, implementation plan, architecture diagrams, and and, on this one, note that, you know, training is useful. Right? So training from the vendor that's selling you a piece of architecture or training from a consulting firm that's, that's got the experience on it. Alright. Cheat sheet. As expected, heavy lift from the technical team. Again, this can be bound. We'll talk about this in the schedule four to six weeks. Need a subject matter expert, you know, plus a PM, hybrid, you know, we we like to sort of, you know, sort of I think this is a good one for leadership. Right? They sort of talk in terms of, well, how many days or what's the timeline. I think having the ability to say, hey. We we can get a POC done or a POV done in zero to forty five days, I think just gives you a little bit more ability to say, this is the priority. This is what we're gonna focus on. If we're deliberate, we can get it done. I think what we learned also is you kind of have to look at compliances, you know, whether it's from internal SecOps or, oftentimes is GDPR requirements or or some sort of a, you know, governance like that that you have to be mindful of. The last two are very obvious, you know, good criteria from both technical functional teams. And, you know, it's it's okay to do a minimal viable product for fifty k. I think it's very different when you say, hey. I need to go ahead and put this in production, and I'm gonna serve up to, oh, I don't know, you know, ten thousand people, and and your cost is obviously very different. Martin, I see you off mute. Did you wanna jump in at all? No. No. That's, it's a it's a good cheating. Okay. But those are really good ones. Alright. On the notional timeline, very similar to last time. Again, you can kinda see a mix of traditional hybrid time bound. You know? The agile part, of course, is the execution in as you implement, test, you know, you know, do some rebuild if necessary, things like that. Okay. So we're gonna move on to the next topic, which is, around project data and project tools. And, Martin, I think you are up first for this one. Yes. Thank you, Nahim. One so you you go from the planning of a project from, discussing with the different stakeholders of what's needed. I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm a lot focused on the execution of the project itself and how to lead a project with with, with an organization. So what we found is and what's pretty important for us is the ability to have these this reporting on a regular cadence, but having automated. So meaning, for instance, for us, it's you may bring Salesforce data together, time entry data, publish that into a a a a Tableau dashboard, for instance, and the same on on the task, side where you have the ability to create a a quick report that is updated on a regular basis. So then you avoid this challenge of having to get spreadsheets maybe from all over the place and then compile a a message or summary for for, the stakeholders or different members of the organization or your internal team as well. So the automation of those reports where, you know, it's it's it's on demand, it's available at all time, and it's a great as a internal as a planning tool. So if we think of a burn report, for instance, and external is great also to report on what you've done and and, and and what you plan on doing. So one of the one of the chart the open issues chart there is, forms that we have in place with a client. We just created we're using Jira to manage, a a workload. It's more of a program management, situation. And then we have the basically, Jira just feeding this dashboard and with the ability to filter all these views and see what's the status based on either your category, who's requested it, who's who is it assigned to. So, the interactivity just makes it a really, a really good tool. So, again, having this automate this automation is is very, very helpful when delivering the project. Next slide. Any method you wanna say? Sure things about yes. Yes. I'll on this one, I think you're, we talked about tools, that are useful for, specifically, you know, companies like us in the data space. Really, I mean, there is a common thread here at Innerworks. You know? We we we certainly like this is a given, SaaS platforms. Right? So everything here is a SaaS platform. We need the ability to collaborate, and with the right permission. So we may use you see on the top left hand side, there is a sample project timeline. Well, we'll share this with the groups that we're working with, and they have the ability then to move boxes or put notes or give you a reaction like a thumbs up. And, you know, we we just wanna make that an interactive sort of experience so we can get, really sort of lots of lots of feedback, lots of asynchronous feedback, because a lot of our clients tend to be, you know, either global or remote, and and we also have global teams. So the idea is, you know, how can you empower all the stakeholders, specifically around feedback, ideas, concerns, risk and issues, you know, the things that we care about as a project manager. So, again, you know, it took us a little bit to get here, and I think, you know, we we settled on we like FigJam for project discussions, for statuses, for brainstorming. We can create combine boards. We can do UI and UX design. We use Basecamp, which, you know, is, again, for projects. But it's also integrated with notifications so people know when there's an action item due or when it's completed with the cards. We certainly use communication tools, you know, Slack teams, obviously, like everyone else. And, and then, you know, the last thing I'll say is anything that client would like us to use, you know, Martin mentioned, you know, Atlassian Jira. We've got clients that are obviously using Google Docs and so forth. So, again, I think at the end of the day, I think it's as long as we can support collaboration, we can get the feedback, asynchronous work, you know, that that's really sort of the the formula for us. Alright. So now we've seen trends use cases tools. We're gonna pivot to, a bit of a different sec section here and and really talk about some of the characteristics, that we think makes a good, good project manager or program manager. Alright. So oh, it looks like before we dive into that section, we've got our poll question number two. And, again, we'll we'll give everyone, if it's alright, a few minutes to read and answer the question. The question is, from your perspective, what key project management ingredient is the most important in your mind? Is it someone who's got the project management experience and knowledge, maybe has gone through through the PMBOK or PMP cert? Is it the subject matter expertise? You know, we're specifically talking about data. Or is it the soft skills, the communication, the coaching, suddenly being, sort of a champion for the group? Martin, are you surprised? I am not surprised. It's just that it seems that I'll be stealing my thunder. But alright. I I think we should just cut it off right now. Yeah. It's great. It's great. Yeah. I I will if it's okay, I'll just read the answers for everyone in case you're not seeing it. But the clear winner is the soft skills, the communication coaching, cheerleading at fifty one percent. We've got a second one, data subject matter expertise at twenty five percent, and then PM experience and knowledge at twenty three percent. I realized that we didn't do an all in this section, so I feel like if we did, I think that would probably get a lot of votes as well. Thank you for that. Yeah. But the all sometimes, Nahim, can be just a just a too easy of an answer. But, I I find that extremely telling. And in fact, I I come to the to the world of program management because I don't have, like, let's say, the formal training certification as you do, Naeem. But to me, it's one of the main pillars because, ultimately, the project will be successful if, you know, if those soft skills are properly deployed, inside inside your group, inside your working team, but also with with the stakeholders and and sponsors. So there is I mean, if you go and look at what are the the key ingredients, you can get a list of twenty twenty items. We we're just focusing on on three of them just to have a a more focused discussion. The the one thing I wanna say off off the top is that the everybody well, not everybody comes to project management from the same angle. Some of us have worked with technology, and then they've developed expertise in technology maybe first on a very specific platform, then on a tool, and then it expands to another area of, of the data of a data project. And then somehow they, you know, they they they acquire PM, skills along the way and hopefully have also been able to develop some of their soft skills. So it seems to me there's different different ways to get to this role and to be successful in it. And I think it's also understanding that you don't necessarily get to that, you know, to the to the to that target in the middle, immediately, meaning that you you may need to develop and may need to have some support, coaching, mentoring from other people to develop these these these other areas. So and I think inside an organization, it's also important to recognize talent and say, oh, I have somebody who's really good in the technology, seems to have the ability to have this overview of where the project needs to be, and then help them maybe by doing some coaching on some, let's say, on some of the soft skills. So the, I mean, needless say, when it comes to, you know, to, to PM experience and knowledge, I mean, the ideas of leadership, problem solving, risk management, having being able to to have all these, pitfalls or or, danger issues basically in your mind as you as you oversee your project. Needless to say that this is this is critical. Certainly on the, because we're involved in data project, for us, having some subject matter expertise is important. Now you don't have to be an expert. I mean, expertise does not necessarily mean that you're an expert, but you certainly have to have some, what I call, SMK, which is subject matter knowledge because we are involved in a very, very specific specific field. I'm not suggesting that somebody who's really, like, a professional PM cannot come to any industry and and do a project, but we find, certainly, when it's a data project that you need to have some of that exposure and understanding. And we'll look at the diagram just after to, to, to to highlight that. And then the soft skills was my thunder because I do feel it's it's extremely important. I mean, the communication part, that's a given. You need to be able to be very, very disciplined as far as the communication, I mean, with the project sponsors, with the stakeholders, also with your with your team, team members. And for me, it's it's like the rule of never leave things unsaid, meaning that if something has been said and you're not sure if it was quite quite clear, well, just say it again. And then to make sure that, you know, that that you follow-up with, with with with a paper trail. So typically just bullets of what has been discussed. The other the other thing I wanna mention actually also about the the subject matter expertise, what we're looking we work, you know, in our in our with InterWorks, we have different data we have different practices. So I don't need to be the expert in everything, but I do have access to expertise. Many organization will have access to that expertise. Somebody may be very familiar with the platform, with the tool. So the ability to reach out for us to offer our data practice, our consulting practice, our design practice is extremely helpful because it really gives us, all the skill set that are available that are available to us. So when it comes and going back to the soft skills, the communication, of course, empathy for stakeholders, you have to remember those stakeholders may have to report to other members of their organization how the project is is doing. So you need to have empathy so that they have they are well informed, and they have the content to make it very clear to other members of the organization about about how it's going. Now the the other items for me that are very important is is to is to be is the the is is the work that you do with the members of of the of your team that are actually doing, the real work. I mean, it's really being supporting those contributors, the people that are on your team. I mean, we often start our meetings by saying, you know, is there a block or issue? And sometimes it becomes just just repetition of us always saying that, but but you have to mean it. I mean, the members on your team are key to delivering a successful project. So if there's a block or issue, it's your responsibility of, as a project manager, as a project lead, to help them go through them. Because really what you wanna do is you wanna make sure that they are successful. And it's also building this success momentum, meaning that early on, when it's possible, is to build in your project some smaller deliverable. I don't wanna say low hanging fruit. I think I just said it. But really so that you can start registering a few a few wins and wins that you can share with your end users. I mean, those quick iterations where you can start delivering something tangible to to members, of, to the stakeholders project sponsor and also so that your team members can also feel that, oh, look. Like, we're we're making progress. We have a win because success really encourages success. So so to me, it's it's extremely important. So to aim a quick question on you. I don't have to spend a bit of time on this. Of those three areas, which is the one you have to be the most mindful about as you tackle a project? Yeah. Great question. So, you know, for me, I started off as a as a developer, so lots of, you know, technical work. So that was comfortable. So I think I started off becoming more of a SME as I learned about project management and wanted to be more of a project lead. I learned the craft and went through went through some training, so that came second. However, like, if I had to look back, you know, I can definitively say that I think the soft skills was probably the best learning. I can certainly, you know, do things you said, which is communicate better, talk about the business value, relate to stakeholders, you know, troubleshoot problems, and so forth. So I think I'm I'm grateful for the path I took, but the combination of the three and certainly the soft skills is what I rely on the most. Good. Thanks. So getting back to, quick word on this is that so we work with data projects. So when we say we need to have some level of expertise, so looking at this for somebody who's not familiar with the world of data, that may be a little bit intimidating. For those of you who have been involved with these projects, it it just resonates a lot. I mean, we don't always do projects where we do, you know, end to end from source data to to to the, to the interaction layer. But, certainly, if I'm leading a a project, I have to have this understanding on how this all comes together. I have to have knowledge also of some of the tools, maybe not all of them. I mean, I printed this mad document. This is bad practice, but which has all the all of the logos of all the tools that are available for the day of well. But it it's amazing. But so you don't need to know them all, but you certainly need to know that certain tools, what they do, in which area of this, of this architecture so that you can be so you could say you can just lead the the project much better. So that's why we're talking about having some, some expertise in in in the area of of data. Alright. We'll talk about, this next section, which is really a little bit, you know, our perspective, how we're addressing some of the, the demands around artificial intelligence. And the the reality is, you know, there's a significant uptake, obviously, with clients getting ready for AI. Right? It's heavily skewed towards fixing your data assets, right, and making sure that the foundation is, you know, at a point where you can trust it. So we're helping clients with a number of projects, types of projects, I should say. There's certainly lots of data architecture, data engineering work. Typical work, you know, this is building pipelines, making sure you've got it in the, you know, sort of all the, the structures around the data to make sure it's maybe centralized as an example. There is lots of focus on data governance, and we see that in different flavors. We help clients with observability tools. To Martin's point, there is too many tools to mention, but know that, it's a it's a very active space right now. We're certainly helping with cataloging or catalog tools. Again, another big one. And then there's semantic layers, and semantic layers can be either a product by itself. It could be embedded in your BI tool. But semantic layer, you know, it certainly matters a lot, you know, especially when it comes to trusting and setting standards for your metrics and so forth. Other types of projects, you know, within BI tools, you know, there is you know, you've got some tools that'll say, hey. We've got Geni capabilities or we can, you know, deploy an agent for you. We find ourselves helping clients understand what it takes to put that together, instead of the, maybe the value you can get from from something like that. There are, you know, things that are data activation projects. Again, there are tools for that as well. We also have this other category I wanna highlight. You know, we call it Lego, but the idea is, you know, you are mixing sort of open source with COTS products, and you're doing it because you need to mimic a specific business, process. So it ends up being a a, you know, sort of a very rich, solution for the client because it offers a lot of flexibility in what they wanna do. Lastly, cloud migration. Yes. We're doing a lot of that, and this could be migration for, data or moving to, SaaS platforms. Alright. So, I've been you know, we're we're getting really near to the, at the end of the webinar, and I was talking about Martin and trying to figure out how to how to say this. So so bear with me. So the person you see on the screen, his name is Gene Kranz. Gene was known for his leadership, teamwork, and a can do attitude. He received the, presidential medal, freedom. He was the NASA flight director for the Apollo thirteen mission, and, he's, I think, best known for bringing the crew home. So if you are like me, you probably know the story from watching the movie with Tom Hanks. Ed Harris played that role. He played Gene. And, like all program managers, work behind the scenes to make sure the mission was, a success. So Martin and I, we just wanted to acknowledge that, you know, this can feel like every day for a project or a program manager. Maybe not at this scale, but, nonetheless, you're still expected to, make sure that everything is running smooth. Certainly, make sure that you're within budget, on time. You have to be a cheerleader for the team, and you have to step up if there are risk and issues. But then you also give credit to the team when the project is successful. So, you know, again, Martin and I, we just wanna say we see you, and, we thank you. Alright. I think that's, oh, that brings us to the next poll question. And this is the last one. So if you would Eamon, I think we have a question in the, in our q and a. It's, it's a it's a very good question. So Sure. And I'll let you speak to it first just because it's, you know, it talks about SVR, and I could add a few words to it. Sure. Let's see. I I think we're talking the the question's from Alvin. No. Where do product man no. In the q and a, where do product management and project management in SVR, differentiate? Yes. I gotta find you. You and I had the discussion. Yes. Oh, yeah. That's a great question. Product management, project product management, strategy vision, roadmap. Okay. Yeah. Great question. So the, well, it's it's, the honest answer is, you know, the SVR is sort of an assessment for both products and services. So the it's it's sort of the umbrella that's gonna cover discussions around if if the if the focus is the product, it's gonna be around the product. So we'll do an assessment of the product. We'll understand requirements and maybe a target state or where you wanna be. I think if it's if it's a product, there may be some additional work around maybe, maybe a solution design as an example. But but the answer is, again, the for us, we've done, SVR, strategy vision assessments around products and services, equally. Martin, anything you wanna add to it? Or No. That's good. No. That's, that's good. I think it's the scope of of the assessment that's being done. I mean, it can be as narrow as for a very specific product. I've been involved with those discussions where we look at product selection and then the SVR helps you maybe position that product better, bet yeah. Better with the other tools you already or the other, the other tools you already have in your on, you know, in your organization. Yeah. I should have said, a lot of a lot of our clients are in the product business, and we do lots of SDRs for them specifically for, again, understanding, you know, how they can accelerate maybe their product product development or benefit from some of the, you know, day data they get across the board. Right? So we're talking from maybe marketing and sales and so forth. You know, I I wanna call out. There was a question from Melvin in in the, in the chat here. So I think the question is, you know, related to hybrid. Right? So hybrid is interesting. So, really, there are two big methods. There is the traditional, which is very much waterfall, and there is adaptive. And, really, the the the framework is maybe a little bit more what we showed you on the schedule. Right? So it's it's your ability to sort of take a look at it. And the advice is, you know, your your beginning has to be structured, so it has to be more waterfall. The planning sort of the planning as well as, maybe sort of, initial, maybe requirements, discussions because that's gonna drive the rest of the project. And then if you've got, you know, something like you build that can certainly be more agile or if you need, in our example for an SVR where you are getting feedback from stakeholders, you need to go back to them again, you're writing a draft output, but then you need to get more input from the stakeholders to finalize. That's where we see it. So that's what we mean by, you know, sort of using the hybrid approach. So provide some structure at the beginning so we've got solid timelines. We know who's gonna participate. We know what this is gonna look like over time, and then be flexible with anything that seems like, you know, iterative, you know, input from stakeholders or input, or or build. Alright. I know we have a few more minutes. I'm gonna share the results here, but, if you've got any more questions, please, post them in the q and a. Alright. So the question was, what is your organization's biggest challenge when managing data driven projects? And there are one, two, three, four, five choices. The top one, and I'll read them off to you. The top one at thirty one percent is limited resources to scale data initiatives across the organization. It's actually a very good one. We hear that quite a bit. So not having enough people to scale the data initiatives go as fast as you want. Number two at twenty two percent is challenges with data quality governance and compliance. Yes. A hundred percent. We alluded to this, you know, as a dependency, obviously, for accelerating your AI road map as well. But, yes, we can relate to that one. Number three is at twenty percent, difficulty integrating data from multiple systems or sources. Again, another one we see. Number four at eighteen percent is struggle to translate data insights into actionable business decision. And then number five, is, a ten percent is a lack of in house data expertise to properly scope and execute projects. It's hard to say that one is more critical than the other. These are all very valid, but we really appreciate your input. I think, it resonates with, you know, what we're seeing with clients as well. Dame, would you say that, you know, the the the most popular one, limited resources to scale, that's where the the proof of concept, for instance, can be a good approach because you can prove value. You can also provide a projection of what the cost would be if you were to expand that to the rest of our or, the organization. So it's often a good way to address that challenge. Mhmm. Yeah. That's a good one, Martin. I think, again, it's it's the informed decision you wanna get out of the POC. So absolutely right on target. Give you a sense for, you know, what will it take you to manage it, maybe post production, gives you an ability to either train your staff or say, hey. We're gonna you know, I think a lot of times, you know, the the p o POC, POV, minimal viable product is all to accelerate development. So so it's it's a it's a good one. It's a good one. You know, again, bring some expertise, get it done, and then it's gonna give you a lot of information on how to how to maintain it. Yeah. Alright. So let me go to the next slide. Oh, I just wanted to let you guys know. If you wanna reach out to us, please do so. We'd love to hear from you. I've got our emails on the slide. The other way to get to us is obviously you can go to our website. We have a page on meet the team. There's a way to get to us. Call the main line if you like. But we again, like I said, we'd love to if you wanna discuss some more on on project management or your data projects, we'd love to talk with you. Alright. So, if there are more questions and we don't get to them, we'll we'll certainly, you know, make the effort to reach out to you directly. Again, the the QR code is here for the next series. It's for, you know, the the data governance discussion. It should be a good one. Please register. Again, thank you again. We we really appreciate it. Thanks for joining us and, we hope to see you next time. Bye, Jerry. Alright. See you guys.