Greg Arthur (00:01.652)

Welcome to the product design for learning podcast. We've got Matt Ash from changeably on and today's theme is production. And Matt and I were talking about this just before, where there's a lot of people that are interested in production, but there are only a handful of people that I've met so far that are super, super credible in this space. And that was somebody that I actually actively went out and found and said, please come on and talk about production. and he's very kindly agreed to be here. so Matt.

Could you please tell us a bit about yourself, who you are, why you're here, apart from the fact that I dragged you on and bullied you into being on this podcast.

Matt Ash (01:34.642)

Thanks, Craig. And I appreciate being asked. It's always good to kind of explore these topics and try and spread the word a bit around different ways of approaching projects. My background is learning design. I made a lot of baddie learning when I was young. I won't bore you with that story, but I ultimately ended up being head of learning team at an agency that was...

creating content for large corporates mostly. And so we took that team from being quite small to scaling up to about 50 or 60 people. But early on in that, I pioneered, I'm gonna say, an agile process that involved mostly sprinting into walls head first.

But what we did manage to do was accelerate production speeds, not necessarily increase quality, but increase the consistency of the quality and really got a much better handle on scope, time and cost where those were things that I struggled with in my career up to that point, but very much at an agency perspective were like.

you just kind of deliver work and the clients that don't like that and you just take it back and redo it. And so the amount of rework was, was crazy. but I think we should probably get into, I can get into some of the problems in a second before I start going on too much, but yeah, that's, that's kind of my background. And, I work with businesses right now doing a lot of consultancy and strategy kind of pieces around how they structure their teams and how they set up their engine and whether that's internally or externally. So, yeah, it's.

Greg Arthur (02:51.266)

Yeah.

Greg Arthur (03:08.631)

Mm.

Greg Arthur (03:13.005)

Yes, yeah. Cool. Nice one. And I looked through your LinkedIn, there was a bit in your... So usually I read someone's about section out to them. I'm gonna have a little chuckle because everyone writes just nonsense on there. I don't even know what mine says off the top of my head, but please don't look at it until I've edited it. But there was a few bits that popped out specifically about us talking about production where you said you're talking about that particular agency. You were named in the Sunday Times Fast Track 100.

but you're talking about your particular area being the best performing area of that agency at that time. And it's this specific pic where you said, you had a team of consultants, developers, graphic designers, filmmakers, animators, and project managers. And on top of that, you won multiple prestigious awards for different types of projects, but also film and animation was in there as well. I'm assuming there are, I actually mentioned compliance as well. So I guess it's the kind of what's usually considered.

boring projects of compliance, but then things like film animation could be quite interesting. But how you, but it's that middle bit around the different disciplines that were in there. That's why I wanted to talk to you and see how you bring all those kind of largely creative fields of people that I guess if they had a choice probably wouldn't work in learning. They'd want to work somewhere a lot more exciting. But how do you make that exciting? How do you make sure that you can bridge the gap between

Here's a learning project, but here's the creative side of it.

Matt Ash (04:43.39)

That's a good question. It's like herding cats. Yeah, it came down to really the creative freedom that we could offer people, ironically, and especially within compliance and other spaces where...

Traditionally, think people would expect to be told what to do. part of the essence of Media Zoo and why I love to work in there is the heritage of the founders who are ex-BBC. So there was this journalistic production aspect through everything they created, which is very audience-centric. And so I learned how to not write dull e-learning through working with the people who they're filmmakers and journalists there. So we came from a really creative

audience angle around what's going to engage people. And that was really game changing, but it allowed us then to pitch much more interesting projects back to clients. And likewise, when you've got a, let's just say a seasoned, very good filmmaker who's used to making cinema length documentaries, and just sort of, could you just come and help us out with this film for...

for a retailer to make something around customer service. And they're like, what? And I was like, the thing is, right, none of us are filmmakers, our clients aren't filmmakers, no one is gonna tell you how to do your job. And so you've got this freedom of really making the films you want to make and not be hamstrung, as long as it fits within the tone and the structure of what we're trying to do. And that sort of, that worked really well because,

Greg Arthur (06:07.97)

Mm.

Greg Arthur (06:15.809)

Okay.

Matt Ash (06:27.142)

As soon as you get a project, even with a retailer and you're talking on the shop floor, flip it, talk about the customers. We've always got these really interesting ways to create narratives in a different space. So from that perspective around developers, filmmakers, animators, we were able to offer a kind of creative freedom in a space that other...

and film roles, know, when they're working in corporates pay but don't give you any satisfaction or freedom. And a huge part of that was, you we made a film for vulnerable customers that for a client who put on a very brave request, but you know, we entered that into the Cannes Corporate Film Festival and that won the Grand Prix.

Greg Arthur (06:56.258)

Yeah.

Greg Arthur (07:11.425)

Wow, congratulations.

Matt Ash (07:12.154)

and then also entered into the film. Thanks to, yeah, I mean, I'd like to say I was a big part of it, but really it was just my client and part of my team. But yeah, and that also won the grand at the New York Film Festival, which is really much bigger than, it's not just corporate stuff as well. And the fact that's a learning film, and it was about...

Greg Arthur (07:21.207)

Yeah.

Matt Ash (07:33.5)

vulnerable customers to compliance was just like unbelievable that we were able to have the space to create really compelling content. And I know that's kind of your, the space you like to operate in as well around, we're looking at comms and internal things. It's like these people are your customers and look at your brand, your brand's awesome. Why do you create content internally that's terrible?

Greg Arthur (07:46.604)

Yeah.

Greg Arthur (07:55.581)

Yes, and I think there's a point you made there around where you basically just smashed apart the bit where I'd said earlier about, I think your compliance is largely quite boring. But I guess that's what we're used to. And you kind of go into corporate company, as you go into most companies, not just corporates to be fair, most compliance things are usually there's a legal requirement. We've got to get this done. You have to say you've done it. You probably forget it straight afterwards. It's usually something that will never happen or happens.

once in a blue moon, but we've just got to make sure that you've read the thing and done the quiz and all the rest of it. But then your example of we made a film, won two huge awards for it and it's about compliance. So like there is a very, and that was in that one, four minutes you managed to explain that. So you just flipped everyone's perception of compliance learning on its head and just debunked that myth of compliance learning has to be

boring, brand, brand locked basically. Like you can't step out of these boundaries. You can't say these types of things.

What kind of struggles do you think you have with, if we go back to corporate, so corporate is with learning, like how do you struggle to get that creative freedom from, you as a freelancer now, but you as a studio then, bringing that production and that creative freedom into a client, was it, I'm assuming there were some clients that were very open, others that weren't, but how do you kind of bring them more towards that kind of ethos that you guys had?

Matt Ash (09:32.924)

Yeah, it has its flaws and also it's worth saying there's a time and a place. Sometimes, yeah, don't pay us any money, just write a press release and get them to read an email. So there are spaces where there's no need and there's other things where you can buy compliance training off the shelf and it's perfectly fine. I never ever want to make content, and I probably will these days, but around how to lift up a box.

Greg Arthur (09:35.7)

Mm.

course.

Matt Ash (10:00.796)

That's, you don't need to, you don't need to create kind of bespoke content for that. But the, yeah, the challenge is how to, how to bring a different perspective for anything really, not just compliance with clients. We lost a lot of work because we would push boundaries. And I say lost a lot of work is in didn't win pitches because we'd go up against someone who, who deliver what the client asked for. We want three pieces of e-learning. We'd kind of pitch something a bit different.

that was just in our DNA. We'd come in with a much more blended approach with multimedia and look at it from a campaign perspective rather than just three pieces of content. And that steps back to a bigger piece, which I guess sort of mentioned a second. But the other challenge was when we'd won work and working with clients and we wanted to try something different, really I just ended up with a rule with the team of

just if you've got feeling this isn't the right way to do it or you've got an idea to do something different, we just ask, we suggest. And if the client says no, there's a point where we have to just accept that we need money because we're an agency who need to pay our staff and do things, right? And we can also make it better than anyone else would even if it's not the thing that we think is the best thing. There's all these kind of trade-offs.

Greg Arthur (11:18.578)

Cool, sir.

Greg Arthur (11:24.539)

Mm-hmm.

Matt Ash (11:26.674)

But as long as my team, and I was sort of saying, it's like, as long as we can go to sleep at night knowing that we suggested or asked, can we suggest something different? And they said yes or no, then we're kind of clean. know, it's like, we're still trying to work in the best interests by hopefully nudging people forwards. But in that kind of world, I'd seen clients over five years go from having every page on a piece of e-learning locked down to them doing an onboarding where we let people run around. was funny enough, another retailer.

Greg Arthur (11:33.51)

Hmm.

Matt Ash (11:55.996)

run around their shop looking for products and then scanning it through the till themselves. And that was part of their onboarding session. Whereas before they would have had them in the back area telling them how to do things. And so that journey was incredible, but it took five years of working with them to get there. So yeah, unfortunately you can't just come in and go, I've got the best idea. And they go, cool, let's do it.

Greg Arthur (12:03.964)

Yeah. Yeah.

Greg Arthur (12:10.236)

Yes. Yeah.

Greg Arthur (12:15.496)

Like the on-boarding one just on a side note the thing that drives me nuts is when you look at an on-boarding people go right we're gonna start with a company history. You're like I'm here on day one and as far as I know time doesn't go backwards so why are you telling me about and this is really important to right now I need to know things like who's that guy and what's happening over there and how do I do this and how do you get the best out of me how do I get the best out you this is a relationship blah blah blah

rather than, you know, 200 years ago we did this. It's like, if that's gonna be important, great, tell me. If you're just telling me because you tell everyone, I mean, you've now just wasted an hour of my life watching this film while telling me, and then you make me do a quiz on it or a fun interactive game. But again, I probably don't care. Like, I've got other things that are probably more pertinent on that day. But some of you said, sorry, I've to go.

Matt Ash (13:09.392)

I was going to say, I think that's a really important point and it sort of actually ties in really well to what I was sort of referencing about when you feel that something's not the right option. Discovery being that critical part of project design. Production doesn't exist in a vacuum. You can only create great things when you know the problem you're trying to solve and who you're solving it for. And very much like that, that,

Greg Arthur (13:20.966)

Mm-hmm.

Matt Ash (13:36.924)

That's how we would reinvent onboarding is go, okay, what do your people need to do? What do they struggle with? And then we'd ask stakeholders and then we go and talk to the new joiners and people who joined a year ago and managers of new joiners and start to build a framework, you know, and that was that piece where you sort of define the problem, you do discovery and then you diagnose. And that's where we would move to production after that point. So you've got that really important area, which I know that you have a process for, and you'll be talking to different people about those parts.

Greg Arthur (13:55.516)

Mm.

Matt Ash (14:06.834)

And without that, production just... And that is one of the biggest fallacies that we get in our industry of people going to production before they know what they're building.

Greg Arthur (14:13.138)

Yes.

Absolutely, and that's one of the things I wanted to ask you about was production, as you just said, doesn't sit in a vacuum. So there's been workshops where I've run about the process and people, just even just speaking to people about the process when we've been working with them. And I don't know if you've found this, but I've seen a lot of people when it's the very beginning of the problem or defining the problem or very early in the project, someone says, problems this, I want to, I think we should do this. Or they start just shooting ideas out.

But rather than just, I'm just saying the first thing that comes into my head, these ideas aren't valid yet, we're just talking out loud. Half the time, if not more than half the time, people are going, yeah, yeah, let's make a video. You're like, hang on, this is super early on, like we're not making anything, we don't know what this thing's gonna look like. This product doesn't really exist yet. It could even be a service, it could be an experience, could be a mixture of all things. Currently, that's not our problem yet. It will be later on.

When we're talking about production only, it obviously sits between, so you're releasing a project, a product even, and it also sits after all of what's happened before, all the kind of research gathering, the figuring stuff out. What are the things that you need to have before you get into production, where you almost kind of say, we're not ready yet? And what are the things that you commonly see people knowingly or unknowingly?

leaving in the production phase where you kind of like and I've got my own bug bears but I could go on about those for hours so it's your episode you tell me

Matt Ash (15:54.238)

Yeah, it's I think and again with everything here, I'm gonna sound gone into consultant mode, you know, it depends. It's always balance and and I found out with clients with trying to work with an agile process with clients who didn't understand agile or didn't care about it all those kind of things is that our process had to mold to how the clients worked. But yeah, and there's a really interesting bit here that when we were selling products or projects, we were having to pitch something.

for the most part, and that was before we could do a real discovery process. So we were cheating a lot of the time, but what we would do is make sure that we had a really solid set of questions and approach as to the kind of mini discovery that we do with a client when we got the brief. And so a big part of that is if someone's gone, here's a client brief, the first question, you know, can we do a proposal? The first question I'd say to the account manager or to whoever passes me is like, cool, what's the client saying?

you have you spoken to them? Have you, we're not going to respond to a piece of paper. We need to go and have a chat with them. So those things are critical. And even at that point then we'd create a proposal that would be, look, we want to do a game that's based on a desktop thing. And it kind of brings to life how your people will operate. But, you know, we still need to do discovery and this may change, but this is our kind of creative lead. so...

Greg Arthur (17:03.558)

it

Greg Arthur (17:15.272)

Hehehe.

Matt Ash (17:23.526)

And that's really interesting angle of that. But that's also where agile helps is because we'd have so many review points and we'd be building as we go, the products will evolve anyway. So the client was less focused on, no, no, no, this is what I want. I'm buying this game from you, as it were. And getting them more involved in the process. But yeah, that's the thing, From my perspective, if I put my agency head on,

Greg Arthur (17:40.879)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Matt Ash (17:52.11)

hat on, I needed three things from my team. Scope, deadline, budget.

Matt Ash (18:00.144)

If any one of those weren't in place, we are in trouble. And so often, we'd have a budget and a deadline, of, but no real scope. And that was where everything would crash.

Greg Arthur (18:01.935)

Mm-hmm.

Greg Arthur (18:12.261)

Yeah, 100%. And I'm sure you've seen it a million times as well, but you mentioned a few minutes ago about you'd work almost like a campaign. So your products would almost come out of a campaign approach. When I've been speaking to people about production, I think a lot of people gravitate naturally to saying, I'm not a graphic designer or I'm not a developer. like, fine. Like you don't, and it helps if you are great, cause that's a, that's a big part of it. It's not the only part though.

So I trying to, and you talked about script writing earlier, so like we were talking to people about people that are maybe UX designers, UI designers, script writers, content editors, marketers, filmmakers, like all of these people, I would probably bring them in earlier than production so they can start to get an idea and put their input in. But the production is where they're gonna start to get maxed out, like that's where we need the bulk of their skills. What do you say when people's

sort of give you that response of, I'm not a graphic designer. And they assume that that's the end to end production phase is purely just somebody going, right, let's get on with it now. Let's make this thing.

Matt Ash (19:22.088)

Yeah

I'm trying to think again, because different clients, different people, I do different things. Some people want to know the detail. Brilliant. I will absolutely bore you with how complex this is. Other people, it's like, don't worry, we'll deal with it. For smaller projects, did, and maybe sometimes I wish that we could have involved production people more with client side. But when you've got low budgets, quick turnarounds, you sort of need people to kind of make stuff.

Greg Arthur (19:27.567)

Coast.

Greg Arthur (19:49.732)

Hmm.

Matt Ash (19:53.532)

And so we did get a bit of division sometimes, but on a larger program, generally speaking, in a, let's say a kickoff meeting for a sprint where we were going to have some films and content built, I would bring the graphic designer who was going to work on the project, I'd bring the film producer who was going to run the shoots. And ultimately...

we would have in every, and this comes down to a very agile kind of project structure of like clear roles and responsibilities. And so when we're the kickoff meetings with the client, it's like, right, here's all the things on the backlog, all the products we wanna create for this. We're gonna do them in probably in an order, we'll move it around, but we do need to book it in because we'll need to get the producer available at certain points. So we need to do the film in March. But then at that point, that's where we would.

Greg Arthur (20:31.428)

Hmm.

Matt Ash (20:45.544)

explained to the client and I think maybe this is the huge bit that is a long story. It's like clear communication. Here are the things we're to make. Here are the people who are involved in them and here's when we're going to get them in to do it. You will have your, you know, the project manager and the project lead who would probably be the learning consultant would be there throughout and then we would drop in and out the different specialists as and when we needed them. And sometimes, yeah, the, you know, graphic stuff, if it was just branding, that would be done in the background.

Greg Arthur (20:51.193)

Yes.

Matt Ash (21:14.214)

If it was kind animation creation, quite often we'd work with the client and do a bit more remotely around production. But there would always be this view that we are creating quality products and we want to make, and so we're going to bring people in. And I guess that's where some of the cost comes from and explains clients when they're like, it's super expensive. And you're like, yeah, but we've got to, you know, we're creating all these things and we're using people who know what they're doing to do it.

Greg Arthur (21:15.949)

Hmm.

Greg Arthur (21:27.939)

Hmm.

Greg Arthur (21:34.189)

Yeah.

Matt Ash (21:43.804)

So it's, yeah, think from my perspective, it was kind of within how we operated. And we would talk as if we were a collection of specialists in different areas to create this whole kind of endeavor. But also, yeah, breaking that down. When we're kicking off the project and it goes back to what do you need from the start, it's like a really clear plan of production as well. And agreement of when we're gonna meet, how we're gonna meet, what are we gonna show you when we meet, what to expect.

Greg Arthur (21:57.539)

Mm.

Greg Arthur (22:05.815)

Yes, yeah, yeah.

Matt Ash (22:12.336)

And again, anytime we deviated from that clear communication and style and structure and went a bit rogue without good reason, that's when things could start to quickly go wrong. And also that's the bit where I've done it. You try and hide it because you think, I can fix this. I'll fix this. worry. You don't tell your manager. And then before you know it, it's kind of escalated and things need.

Greg Arthur (22:29.078)

Yes.

Greg Arthur (22:33.367)

Yeah.

Greg Arthur (22:40.856)

Yeah.

Matt Ash (22:42.956)

more formal conversations. But I think that's a great example of how even in production, communication is the most important thing with your client.

Greg Arthur (22:49.699)

100 % 100 % I mean a lot of work that I did previously a lot of the work especially a lot of the work we do now with two circles is the communication is some of the biggest part of making sure that we get everything right before we start to lock things in for production. As you mentioned cost a few times obviously people that are doing those very specialist roles like a developer, designer

filmmaker, they're not cheap some of them, because they're really good at what they do. So if you want the quality product, it means that all the work that comes before it has to also be of a high standard to make sure that they can do what they need to do. And also so you don't kind of your budget and blow your timeline and all the rest of it. But how do you deal with them? Or kind of what advice would you give to somebody that says, I've done all of this, I followed the process.

I've done everything I need to do. Everyone said yes, everyone's aware that we're done, we're locked in for production. And then we get into production and someone goes, by the way, don't really like this color anymore. That's not what I was expecting. Or could you just change this? Or basically those little niggles that start to become, well, they start off as little niggles and they start to become massive scope changes. how do you, yeah, how do you handle those? What advice would you give to somebody that's struggling?

for that.

Matt Ash (24:20.266)

be flexible. I mean, I don't know a project where it hasn't happened and best laid plans and all. I think if you're dealing with that at that point, you've not prepared for it. And I say that as in making sure that your meeting cadence and your review process is open to discussion and you're doing it...

Greg Arthur (24:32.074)

Yeah.

Greg Arthur (24:45.09)

Mm-hmm.

Matt Ash (24:49.694)

face to face as well. So I often find that I'm not sure about yellow. For example, as a comment, usually comes on a spreadsheet, line 67 from some person that they're not even sure who viewed it. And you're like, OK, do we act on this? we, what do we, you know? And the thing is, even if you've got that spreadsheet, which I've done many times, when you're having a conversation with a client, you go, line 67, it says not sure about the yellow. Can you just talk to me about that? Suddenly, we've got conversation.

Greg Arthur (25:14.828)

Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Ash (25:18.556)

So there's that running, making sure that everything is a conversation is a huge way of solving that. So you're not kind of yes knowing. But to protect against that, don't say protect is a terrible word. It's like having, you know, my rain jacket, which looks great. It looks like a rain jacket. And when it rains too heavily, it's not waterproof anymore. That's the level of protection I think that you can give yourself. It is about...

Greg Arthur (25:41.557)

You

Greg Arthur (25:45.111)

Yeah.

Matt Ash (25:46.65)

Going back to clear goals, clear scope. So one of my favorite things to do with clients would be when we do our discovery, you've got, you what are the three things you want people to do differently? Cool. We write them down. Every single time we meet and when back in the old days pre-COVID when we do it face to face, I'd stick them back on the wall. And then when someone says, yeah, so came across this new thing, I think we need to add in this bit. And you're like, cool, does it relate to that or that?

Greg Arthur (25:57.846)

Mm, yeah.

Greg Arthur (26:15.436)

Yeah.

Matt Ash (26:16.154)

all that and if it doesn't, yeah, but doing it very casually. So it's not like, okay, put it at the bottom of the backlog and we'll have a discussion about where it sits on the priority list. There is, I mean, there is that way of doing it where you can just add stuff to the backlog all the time and every time you meet, you go through the whole backlog and reprioritize.

Greg Arthur (26:17.74)

Do a like a feature requests. Yeah. Yes.

Greg Arthur (26:34.248)

percent but then but then that's an extra admin and you start to lose things and yeah I yeah

Matt Ash (26:39.562)

And it takes a long time. And so trying to sell to a client that you've got things that they want to make that you're not going to make is not cool. That doesn't make them happy. So we tried that one. And yeah, doesn't go down well. They don't really get. Because it's much easier to say you want to make stuff and not make it quietly because they're, know, but showing them the list of all the things that they're not going to get.

Greg Arthur (27:00.854)

Mm.

Greg Arthur (27:05.418)

So this is the thing and I really like your approach of does it relate to these three things that we all agreed on? That's what we're going for. So for me it's whether I was in-house, whether I'm doing an agency, the response is always the same and it's that response. I and I say it flippantly but it comes across very flippant and I really don't mean it that way but I don't really care what we make. Like the product that I want to make probably isn't the one we're going to make.

Matt Ash (27:13.021)

Yep.

Greg Arthur (27:33.9)

because that's what I as an individual want. But I'm either not your target audience because I don't work in your company or on the wrong demographic or I don't understand the problem enough again because I don't work in your company. I don't have this problem that we're trying to solve. So if I say me as an individual says I really love this as a product, people are going that's great or whatever they can say, shit, whatever. But it still doesn't matter because that's me, I'm only one person. So if I can drag this

drag everyone back to the point of we've got three things on the wall that we all agreed we want to change. I don't think there's anything better than that. To be able to say you're taking everyone's bias out of the picture, everyone's perceptions, everyone's hopes and dreams and wants and whatever they feel is the most important to them, you're putting it back on the audience and ultimately you're putting it back on the business to be able to say the business has this problem.

because the people have this problem. So whatever we make has to work for both of them. And if it doesn't, it's the wrong product or we've made the wrong decisions to produce it. but trying to have that conversation with some people is a bit like, yeah, but you know, super senior head of the world VP wants this. That's a tough one to handle.

Matt Ash (28:53.234)

Yeah, but that's when you had, so part of the other conversation is right at the start, who are the people who have a veto? And why are they not going to be in our review meetings? Because we're showing you products and you're gonna tell us whether it's working or not, and we're gonna move on to the next thing. We don't have time to then send it around the houses. And this is the moving from scripts into real products thing of like.

Greg Arthur (29:01.548)

Yes.

Greg Arthur (29:16.791)

Hmm.

Matt Ash (29:17.49)

I'm going to show you the product, you're going to play with it and you're going to tell me whether it works or not. Films is a bit different and animations, you can't quite make them in an agile way, but with digital content, it was much easier for us to build and show. And so, yes, we would send a link to your boss, but if they're going to come back with fundamental feedback, please ask them why they didn't come to the meetings. If it's that important to them, and I would say it in nicer way, but...

Greg Arthur (29:40.012)

Yeah. Yeah.

shit.

Matt Ash (29:45.014)

If someone's got a veto, please, please, please bring them to the meetings because otherwise they will put a fork in your project halfway through. And the other piece that really helped apart from being super flexible was being open to change. But also, when you get to that stage, you sometimes come to the point, OK, right, we can do that. But if you want to deliver this on time with things we've built, it's going to take longer.

and or it's going to cost more money or this is rework and it's something we signed off and we need to redo. That's when the project manager is a godsend because the project manager plays bad cop or not bad cop but structured cop. The learning consultant and obviously that was my role originally and that's why I created the role to be good cop who's like yeah we can do that yeah we can do that.

Greg Arthur (30:23.997)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Matt Ash (30:34.332)

Just sort of yes to everything. You're the enabler. The PM sat next to you is managing the scope and the money and the time. And we'll go, hold on, can we deliver that in the same time? And then the console goes, actually, no, because we'd have to build this and this. And it's like, I think that's a really good idea, but we might need to change what we're doing later on. And then again, conversation again.

Greg Arthur (30:40.531)

Yes.

Greg Arthur (30:50.793)

So this is great. So I like to play the role of good and bad, but almost like play as just very logical cop. As in, still don't care what it is we're making. Like, I only really care about, is this going to work? So someone starts coming in with changes, whether it is this kind of fictitious head of the world, you know, doesn't turn up kind of guy, or people that are really involved in the meeting.

they want to start adding changes especially once we're kind of mid-production I tend to always go back to firstly the three points you made like are these going to be the three things that are going to move the needle for us all or get the thing you want to happen happening or can you explain to me how what we're currently on track to be doing and are doing or in the process of producing at the moment how are these changes going to make it even better

And is it going to make it 1 % better or 50 % better or 80 % better? Or is it going to make it minus 30 % better? So it's actually going to be getting worse. So, and then you start to add on the time, the costs, the scope creep and all the other nonsense that goes on top of it. Cause that is also hugely important for them to know. But I always find framing it that way kind of stops people when they go, well, it will be better. You're like quantify it then.

Like, and also give me some data that shows me how much better it will be. And I don't want some like generic LinkedIn post of someone going, we did a thing and it was great. And it's like, was it great? Cause was in Mauritius for two weeks or their top 200. Fair. I will do it. I'll go. But like, yeah, it's those kinds of things that I always find a little bit frustrating, but

Matt Ash (32:44.382)

Yeah, I think it's exactly the same mindset. You're bringing it into a conversation and you're a very data led kind of person. So I think that totally makes sense. And that's one thing that from doing this 10, 15, no, not 15 years ago, I'm about 10 years ago.

that I wish we'd been more data-centric back then because that's so important and we delivered a lot of great stuff that we would always have to chase the impact after we did it rather than designing from up front. And that's a huge change of what's happened to my process over time of building in that piece around what are the metrics we're going to work with as well as what are the things we want to achieve. I think the other great thing about that and probably is just that sometimes then that person will level with you and go, my boss wants it in.

Greg Arthur (33:09.233)

Yeah. Yeah.

Greg Arthur (33:19.173)

Yes. Yeah.

Greg Arthur (33:29.309)

Probably.

Matt Ash (33:29.495)

And then you're like, cool, if that's what we're playing with, you've got it.

Greg Arthur (33:33.339)

Yeah, I mean that's happened to everyone and if it hasn't happened to someone or they've got around it every single time, please, please write in. Find me on LinkedIn and tell me how you get around this because like I don't know, I don't know a simple way of getting around that. You just have to kind of, you have to approach it with, as you're saying, your consultancy hat on and get a conversation going.

Matt Ash (33:52.124)

Yeah, it's always sort of like I stare into an unknown future and we know we want to create impact and like you're saying, it's sort of, it's, I care, I'm sort of very similar in that thing of like, I don't really mind what it is we make, but what I'm really interested in is how we're going to make change and what we, know, what we're going to make is going to be really good quality and designed for the audience, but it will change depending on the context and things that we get.

Greg Arthur (34:17.789)

Hmm.

Matt Ash (34:22.172)

And I think having an open mind, being somewhat constructive and sort of positive, even in the face of adversity, is a skill that you learn as an external consultant. But that's what I love because you bring that fresh energy and you can challenge people and you can sort of, you get given a bit of automatic respect when you're being paid to come into a company, which is kind of helpful.

Greg Arthur (34:45.25)

Yeah, think I agree with that. I think there's also an element of them on the flip side. You're a hired gun. We're paying you. Can you get on with it? But I think it's trying to bounce both because technically you are, but you're also being paid to get on with it because you maybe have a different experience or a different perception or a higher skill set of skills. Yeah, that they don't have. So I think there needs to be again, ideal worlds.

more of a kind of a mutual respect, which doesn't happen all the time but I think it's something that comes over time. Last question before we go Matt, so if someone is struggling in any way with the production process, like well the production part of the process, what is the one bit of advice that you wish you could give yourself maybe like 10 years ago, 10, 15, we'll call it 10 years ago?

Matt Ash (35:16.946)

Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Ash (35:44.702)

Stop. Breathe.

take a moment, talk to some people.

Greg Arthur (35:50.491)

Yeah, what are you talking to them about?

Matt Ash (35:54.622)

sharing the problem and yeah it's trying to change the perspective and look in a different way and I think

I know that's vague, that's always a problem is when something's going wrong and you're like, right, let's try and fix it you go into solution mode. But it's using your own process to help you. That's the advice. Use the process you tell your clients what to follow because the first thing, someone books me for a presentation or anything, the first thing I'll do is not do my clear goals, not do my audience. I will just do the content. So the advice would be follow the process that you sell to your clients.

Greg Arthur (36:08.669)

Yeah. Yeah.

Greg Arthur (36:31.101)

Yeah, yeah, 100%. And my wife is always very good at telling me that if there's an issue, I'm very logical and I'll go straight to, right, let's fix that problem. But then sometimes she's like, I just need someone to listen to me going, this was rubbish. And I need to just tell you for the next 10 to 15 minutes why it was rubbish, get it out of my system. And then I can think logically and get on with it. And I never really think about it when I'm doing that.

I was going to go, right, I've to go fix this and go, but then your advice is basically what she's telling me to do as well. It's just shut up, have a think about it. If you need to just unload on someone and then get them to like talk it through with you. the amount of times I've started doing that, I guess in the last 18 months, it's getting better, but I need to do it more regularly because in hindsight, those are the ones where you actually fix things quicker.

Matt Ash (37:31.102)

the best thing I've learned in the last 12 months, changed my life. By saying things, it turns the crazy thoughts in my head into some structure that I didn't realise could exist. So I think it makes a huge difference. Really powerful stuff.

Greg Arthur (37:39.111)

Yeah. Yeah.

Amazing, amazing. Thank you, Matt. Usually we would just say goodbye, but we've actually started adding in, is there anything you wanna plug? You got a book, you got a podcast, are you on tour? Are you playing the O2? What's going on, Matt? Tell us.

Matt Ash (37:59.551)

Neither, nothing, no thank you. I won't try and push my ways on anybody. Yeah, it's just a pleasure to be on here and to catch up with you, Greg.

Greg Arthur (38:02.129)

You

Greg Arthur (38:08.829)

Cool, you too sir, lovely to see you as always. We will be gone, thank you very much and you will be able to hear the next episode which is around review and innovate with somebody else. I will chop this bit out because it was terrible. Matt, thank you so much. I'll speak to very soon. Cheers, nice one, thanks sir, cheers. You too, bye.

Matt Ash (38:28.626)

Yeah, nice one. All I'll leave this up. Yep. Cheers, man. Have a good day. Good to see you. See you.