Greg Arthur (00:00.622)
Welcome to the Product Design for Learning podcast. We've got Arash Mazanani, if I said that right. Yes, like the eighth time correct. From Agreco.
Arash (00:05.547)
Sorry.
Greg Arthur (00:30.034)
I'm going to read your LinkedIn bio to you quickly. Just to preface this, it's probably on the episode title, but this episode is all about the understand phase. So when we're talking about product design, we're talking about the very, very beginning of a process. Someone says something's wrong or I need something. That's what we're to get into. But your LinkedIn bio says, and I'm going to read this word for word.
Dynamic learning leader with over a decade of experience working in FTSE 100 and private equity companies. Skilled at leading teams to help employees and businesses grow and do their best work. Experienced delivering leadership development, global transformation projects, people insights and human centered design. Specializes in experimentation, disruptive thinking and performance consulting to craft solutions that get to the heart of employees challenges and concerns while supporting business priorities. That's the kind of person I want to work with.
Is that you? Is that you every day? Tell me what's going on.
Arash (01:29.646)
I that's probably the Instagram version of me.
Greg Arthur (01:34.413)
What's the Instagram vs Reality? What's the Reality version?
Arash (01:38.124)
That's, yeah, that's a full transparency. Everybody has a swanky title on LinkedIn and social media, but I think we all wrestle with on a daily basis, doubting ourselves, second guessing ourselves, wanting to do more, maybe not always being as happy with the stuff that we've done as we could be. And I think that's just the part of being human, I guess.
Greg Arthur (02:08.012)
Yeah, yeah, 100%. There's a few bits in there that I really liked actually. The one I've seen that I love, there's a few that I love actually. One just got people manager and that's it. Or it was like people specialist. And I was like, that's you, that's everything about you, fair enough. But in your one, there was bits where you talked about, I've still got it up on screen actually, where you talked about human centered design. But then you start to get towards the end of that kind of paragraph.
We say about performance consultants, craft solutions that get to the heart of employees challenges and concerns while supporting business priorities. So for me, when we're talking about product design, that's one of the things that I usually explain to people is that a good product, whether we're talking about learning or not actually, but we're talking about learning today, it doesn't or it shouldn't, a good product shouldn't just work for one or the other. So as we talk about user experience,
Yes, the user is incredibly important because they need to be able to use it, but the product as a whole has to work for the business. People work at the business, the business makes money to pay the people, a secular thing. I'm sure we all know how that works. So first question for you on that is, how would you summarize this phase of understanding and this process of it and why it's important in a minute, there or thereabouts? Because you've touched on it a lot in your LinkedIn bio.
Arash (03:32.457)
Yeah, I think...
If I was to summarize it, would be, it's almost like a North Star that guides everybody who's working on that project in one particular direction. And it also provides focus in terms of what it is that you're working on. So that would be a succinct way because as you know, people can come to you with a request and if you don't really define what that request is,
Greg Arthur (03:44.928)
Mm.
Arash (04:05.653)
then you could end up doing absolutely anything and everything. And also there's an opportunity for them to keep adding to it whenever they want, because it's not being clearly defined, which is also a potential risk and pitfall.
Greg Arthur (04:21.898)
Yeah, yeah, and I'm sure we've all seen people just turning up and saying I want something very very specific Or being the complete opposite and just saying can you just make this problem go away? without really understanding What the problem is and how you know what makes up that problem? so if we take that as a scenario so like you're And again, this could be fictitious, but if you can Without mentioning names, maybe give us some real life stories of when you've been presented with a problem
or even a request if someone is very definitive around, would like this type of thing. What are the first things that you do and why do you do them to try and help yourself kick that project off?
Arash (05:04.288)
be really non-specific and vague. Ask lots of questions and be inquisitive. I think that's, I know I jest, but I think having that curiosity is pretty vital. It's easy to slip into a frame where you wanna run and jump into a solution, but I actually think it's a great opportunity to be inquisitive to...
Greg Arthur (05:07.647)
You
Arash (05:31.519)
really try and explore what is driving that request or that ask or that problem and try and get into the thick of it. yeah, and I mentioned the word problem. I guess that's another thing to ask is what problem are we trying to solve? What's driving this? How does it align with our business priorities? What's already been?
Greg Arthur (05:52.501)
Hmm.
Arash (06:00.907)
done, if anything, what assumptions are we making? This is something that I think is a bit of a maybe underutilized question, but I think sometimes we can start with a set of assumptions that if we don't really explore can quickly end up derailing us. So I think that's a really good one.
An example of that might be that...
recently I've been working on a project and the stakeholder was, I can't remember exactly how he phrased it, but he was like, we just need to get them to really understand how this impacts X, Y and Z. And the assumption was that they even care about it to begin with. And I think it's things like that, people come in because if they're working in that particular environment, part of the business every day.
Greg Arthur (06:57.451)
Mm.
Arash (07:04.897)
and they're obviously in it for a reason because they perhaps enjoy it. They assume everybody else is as interested in it as them. So that's that potentially is one thing. And then the other question as well, which is an interesting one is what would people be able to do the thing that you wanting them to do if you were to give them a million pounds or a million dollars. And that's really to explore.
Greg Arthur (07:29.589)
Yeah.
Arash (07:32.565)
to try and get the stakeholder to understand or work through the idea of, is it a capability challenge? Is it actually perhaps something else like motivation or is it an environmental challenge? And then the other sort of key thing is obviously who needs to be involved and at what level, again,
Greg Arthur (07:41.428)
Mm-mm.
Arash (07:58.177)
I'm sure we've all had people parachute in at the end of a project and really they should have been in at the beginning and you're like, if only we'd asked that question or if only we'd actually got the right people involved. And then the real sort of me of it, of that sort of understand phase for us is about asking and exploring what people need to think, feel and do. And that's kind of centered around the 5DI processor.
Greg Arthur (08:06.112)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Greg Arthur (08:23.403)
Mm.
Arash (08:27.772)
is I guess the process that we typically follow.
Greg Arthur (08:31.455)
Yeah, and then you mentioned about a couple of things in there. So we'll take stakeholders as the first one. So again, in our product design process, we always think about, and we always ask people as well, not just who should be involved, but also why they should be involved. So know, stakeholder number one could be in because they're the sponsor. Great. But do they have a technical interest or know how on this to be able to guide and shut things down or improve?
push things along, or they're just there because they're providing the money. Like they just want to see the outcome. So it's almost like this kind of high interest, low influence kind of, you know, and the varying degrees of high and high, low and low, where they should or shouldn't be involved. Then it's also when you start to figure out, do we need all of these people right now? Do we need a handful of them? Are they just a lovely person that shouldn't be involved in this project for whatever reason?
And also is anyone missing? So as you said, people jumping in at the end. I just want to go from the slight tangent on this. How do you deal with people coming in at the end? Because we've all had it and I don't think I've ever worked with, I've worked with some great people. I still don't think I've worked with anyone that has handled fictitious stakeholder number nine popping in at the very end and just blowing up your project and handling it well. How do you handle that?
Arash (10:04.001)
try not to handle it at the end and handle it at the beginning is what I would say. So in essence, and avoid it, I think.
Greg Arthur (10:08.171)
Nice, nice swerve.
Arash (10:15.234)
If I think about the past when it's happened, I don't know if there has necessarily been a technique, a tactic or whatever that I've successfully kind of deployed. I think it's one of those evolutions as a professional in this space that, okay, you take the loss maybe, or you take the consequences of not.
getting the right people in, you learn from it. And then the next time you try and implement the things that you've learned and whether that's just asking the question, have we got the right people? Like you said, what level of involvement? I think the other thing is, is it realistic? I think sometimes people want to be involved, but the reality is they can't be involved because of their...
Greg Arthur (10:43.625)
Mm.
Arash (11:10.881)
their day-to-day jobs. I've worked with a lot of people at a director level and they want to be involved. They've sort of delegated to somebody in their team, but it's almost, and again, this could go off on a tangent into like culture and sort of leading people and things like that. But they've delegated it to somebody in their team, but they've kind of not...
It's like they don't fully trust them to sign it off and to see it through. So I think it's about having those honest conversations and being realistic and having that honest conversation with them around actually what's involved. Can they commit to that? they sort of deliver what it is that we need them to deliver?
Greg Arthur (11:41.822)
Yeah.
Greg Arthur (11:58.249)
Mm-mm.
Arash (12:05.853)
And a lot of it is through experience. And like I said, getting your fingers burned and then coming back around and implementing that. Again, keeping sort of stakeholder groups tight as well. That's another lesson that over time you've learned where you've had people and you look and you're like, I don't even know why you're involved in this. So because somebody at some point has said, yeah, we want this person. And it's like, And I think it helps if you have,
Greg Arthur (12:28.166)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Arash (12:36.073)
as part of your L &D function, a set of principles, governance, guidelines and practices that help dictate all of that. And you have senior leadership within your function that are signed off on that and agree that's a non-negotiable. So at my prior organization, we would have like a set of five people and that would
be it like legal compliance, somebody from L and D and then somebody from the business. And I think there was another person that I can't quite remember what their role was, but that just kept it succinct. And it's like, we only need your sign off. We don't need X, Y and Z person sign off as well. Otherwise it's like the can that gets kicked down the road that you never end up achieving the end sort of deadline.
Greg Arthur (13:05.831)
Hmm.
Greg Arthur (13:20.635)
Yes.
Greg Arthur (13:26.684)
Yeah.
Greg Arthur (13:31.931)
Yeah, 100%. And I love that kind of like narrowing them down to not just a number, but they've got to have a purpose. So in our product design process and our log book, we always, when we're doing this kind of stakeholder, almost like ranking. So whether it's two people or they go, here's all 10, whatever it's going to be, they all get ranked and they'll get ranked in importance. Then they will have to be ranked in importance, but also a category.
So who's responsible for budget? Who's responsible for technical knowledge? Who's responsible for visual design? And they can't be in there just because they're really senior. That's not a category we offer them. So someone can't define a category or can't define a purpose as to why they should be there. It's not a, it kind of removes that, what's the word? It kind of removes that kind of feeling like it's a personal attack. Like we don't want you here. You can't play with us today.
And it's not that at all, it's just, I'm really sorry, but for this particular product and this project, you don't serve a purpose, but you probably will on the next one or another one. But let's just make sure that we, as you said, we keep our stakeholder group tight, we move on, and then everyone knows exactly why they're there and why they're not there, which I think is super key to getting people to all kind of be aligned, lined up front.
So what kind of bits, when we talk about the understand phase, so we talked about problems, problem definition. Just on that bit, what kind of bits in problem definition do you find easy to get into? What kind of bits do you find not necessarily harder, but kind of more challenging to, when you're working with bigger groups basically, like if it was just you on your own, I'm sure you'd be able to figure it out pretty quickly, but obviously you need to speak to others. So what kind of bits in terms of defining that problem do you?
Do you do? Do you like? Do you find hard? Do you find easy? That kind of stuff.
Arash (15:30.506)
I think it's probably been a bit of a evolution in terms of growing to like it. And that's been a process as I've evolved as a learning professional from being a designer into the kind of role that I'm in now. And I think I've grown to love it because I think I'm a naturally curious person. So it's an opportunity to be curious, to be inquisitive, to kind of like...
unpick a problem and scratch beneath the surface, but there's also an opportunity as well to sort of like take stakeholders on a bit of a journey as well because they're coming in and they might not be familiar with the way that you work perhaps and it's also getting them to think about their problem or their challenge in a way that they maybe not have thought about it before.
Greg Arthur (16:10.555)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Arthur (16:30.023)
Mm-mm.
Arash (16:30.43)
So I think that's something that I've evolved to kind of get into and see as almost, I suppose, a bit of a challenge in itself. So I wouldn't necessarily say that I find any of it.
Arash (16:48.652)
boring or difficult per se. I think the biggest challenge maybe is sort of drilling down and getting them to really sort of give up all of the goods, if that makes sense. But what it does do is it does also by asking the right questions and really sort of being inquisitive and nudging them in terms of
Greg Arthur (17:05.691)
Yeah, yeah.
Arash (17:18.454)
what you need to get out of them to be able to take this process further and build a product out of it, is it quickly determines whether or not they actually have that knowledge themselves. Because I think sometimes from a learning perspective, people will quickly go, we need training on it. And it's maybe a knee-jerk reaction. And they've not really taken the time and consideration to go, okay, what does good look like? If we were to...
Greg Arthur (17:26.534)
Yeah.
Arash (17:48.936)
sit down and think about, I don't know, somebody in customer service, what things would they be doing? What conversations would they be having? What kind of, what would, how would we know that this person is performing at their very best? And sometimes no one's really taken the time to sit down and really define that. And when you're starting to inquire and prompt and probe them,
Greg Arthur (18:15.175)
Hmm.
Arash (18:18.069)
that can become apparent. So I think that's something that I don't, I won't say I enjoy, but I think it's eye-opening and it's all part of that experience.
Greg Arthur (18:28.615)
Yeah, and there was two things that actually there's about five things that you just said that they kind of got my brain going. But there was two I want to touch on one is just a bit context for anyone listening. So when you'd when you'd said you'd grown to to enjoy or grown to like this part of the process. But in mind, there are six parts of the process that we said to you, you choose which one do you want to do you navigated to this one straight away. And you just say maybe this one, but this is the one I want to do. But then
Arash (18:57.601)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Arthur (18:58.351)
So I was, I was under the impression this is your like slam dunk. but you're, but you're, but you're just saying you grew to like it, which is, thought was quite interesting. I want to touch on that in a few seconds. And then also, you're talking about drilling down and making sure that stakeholders, you're almost interviewing them for their own project. They would say, are you good enough to be in this project? Or do you know enough to help me move along? So.
We'll come to that in a second, we'll park that for just two seconds. What made you choose this process for this episode? Bear in mind there were five other options.
Arash (19:41.246)
I think it was probably the one that resonated with me the most and probably the one that I felt like I had the most experience with, at least recently, or the part that I'd been thinking about the most more recently, I suppose.
Greg Arthur (20:01.58)
Okay, and then so leading on to back to you kind of like a I guess like a polite interrogation of your stakeholders around do they know enough to to help you do what you do best? Where do you where do you spend most of your time in this phase specifically around stakeholders and trying to to paint a picture from
maybe a vague idea or a vague perception of what's going to be happening. How do you know firstly where to spend your time, then where do you spend most of your time and how do you know enough is enough? Like this is all we're going to get out of this phase, it's time to move on.
Arash (20:49.164)
So I think the majority of the time that is spent in this phase is in the think feel do kind of place, if you want to call it that. So yeah, it's around just inquiring. if we have a particular challenge and let's say, don't know, sales people aren't selling enough of our new fancy product, then.
Greg Arthur (20:58.765)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah.
Arash (21:18.026)
It's really about exploring, okay, well, you've come to us with this request for some learning on sales because specifically around this product, what do people need to do in order to be successful? What do they need to feel? What do they need to kind of think? The natural inclination for most stakeholders is they gravitate to that think sort of section because quite often they're
Greg Arthur (21:43.853)
Mm-hmm.
Arash (21:47.948)
thinking in terms of education and topic-based. So it's kind of like, I want them to understand, I want them to understand, I want them to know this. So quite often we will lead with the do and it's like, okay, we'll come to the think section last, what do want people to do? And I think that's a bit that often gets neglected. Cause at the end of the day, we're talking about performance capability. We want people to behave in a different way. So.
Greg Arthur (21:51.373)
Mm-mm.
Greg Arthur (22:02.87)
Hmm.
Arash (22:15.893)
to us that's the most important bit. And I think that's the way that Cathy Moore talks about it in her action mapping. She's always said, start with the do and then look at what things that people need to think about in order to enable them to do that. And go on, sorry.
Greg Arthur (22:26.637)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Arthur (22:32.535)
Yeah, and I'm sorry, just to cut in there, sorry. I think that's a really simple but clever way of like shortcutting people just jump into the easy answers. But also as you're saying, you're almost cutting them off from going, I want them to think this and this, and I want them to know this, this and this. Because ultimately if you're dealing with people, can maybe suggest what you'd like them to be thinking about. But who knows what's happened to them that day.
or that week or what engagement or enjoyment or hatred even they have for that or just kind of non-committal to that particular action. So starting off with a do is basically you just want them to do something like.
Arash (23:17.922)
And also it's, sorry, yeah, also the other thing is that just experience where we haven't started with the doing of, I've seen this, it always frustrated me is that it gives stakeholders an opportunity to go back into that tried and tested behavior of dumping a load of information. As I mentioned, I want people to know, I want people to know this, I want people to know that. And it's like, okay, and what you end up with,
Greg Arthur (23:34.957)
Hmm.
huh.
Arash (23:45.866)
is this exhaustive list of crap that they basically just wanna dump on people. So that's when by switching it to the do, you go, okay, right, what are the things that people need to do? Sometimes that as well is a challenge because they've not actually thought about that. They've just come at it from like a cognitive, cerebral perspective. I just want people to like know this information. And you almost, I won't say trip them up.
but you act as that catalyst to shift their mindset to go, actually, yeah. And then what you can do is once you've got the do section complete, if they start to add unnecessary items to the think section, you can challenge them and go, okay, well, how does this help them do that thing? And if we go, well, I don't know if it does, I just want them to know, it's like, okay, well, if it doesn't help them do it,
Greg Arthur (24:38.978)
Mm-hmm.
Arash (24:44.788)
it comes off, don't necessarily kind of like need that. So it gives you that foundation to be able to challenge the stuff they're listing in the think section without coming across like a prick basically.
Greg Arthur (24:58.625)
Yeah, yeah. that last two or three minutes should be played to every stakeholder for every learning project for all time going forward. And the only bit I disagree with is I think you should trip them up. I think that's perfectly fine. think that's how, is it our role? If not, it's maybe something we should be doing more of as an industry. I don't know. I see a lot of people that kind of just go, well, they're really...
Arash (25:14.049)
Hmm.
Greg Arthur (25:26.523)
they're the expert in this field. It's like that's great but you're meant to be the learning expert. So it's not to say that one is higher than the other, you're there to work as a partnership to be able to say we both need to understand this from all angles before we move on. So if you don't start tripping each other up, you're just going to either agree with each other or just sort of quietly and passively disagree and then you've almost set yourself up for failure before you've got the project started.
Arash (25:31.521)
I
Arash (25:56.053)
Yeah, no, it's a good point.
Greg Arthur (25:58.883)
But yeah, that was, I was just waiting for you to sort of just step down from your soapbox there, because that was just brilliant. If I can draw a little crown on you in the post edit, if I can figure out how to do that, that was brilliant. One of the bits I asked you about was where do you spend the most of your time in this phase? So I see a lot of people, and this is not taking anyone out in particular, this is just people in general. I've done it.
Arash (26:05.749)
Hahaha
Arash (26:18.721)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Arthur (26:28.013)
probably done it we've all done it at times almost rushing certain phases of any part of a project for various reasons but the understand phase does seem to be somewhere that people rush it through because they either worked it somewhere long enough to go I already know this because I work here or this is fairly straightforward it's maybe process driven so we just need to process to be quicker
or leaner or whatever it is they want to say about it. But where do you find yourself spending most of your time to make sure that you have what you need and how do you know enough is enough? We're not, we're just kind of the wheels now. We need to kind of start to move on to something bigger.
Arash (27:13.963)
I think, I guess it comes down to their knowledge and expertise as a stakeholder and us doing that inquiry in that think, feel, do phase. And until it gets to the point where we will ask them is like, is this everything? So if we're talking about what good looks like, have we captured everything that we need to? And if they answer yes, then at that point, then that's when we will make the decision to move forward.
And you have to use a bit of your own initiative as well. So if you're talking about sales, that example I gave earlier, and they're saying, they need to build a customer proposition, they need to do X and you need to do Y, then you might have to think about, if I was a salesperson, and this is perhaps sometimes not having that.
Greg Arthur (27:52.608)
Mm.
Arash (28:12.193)
Not having that expertise in that particular domain can help because you can put yourself in the shoes and go, okay, if I was doing this, what would I need to know? Or what would I need to do? And be like, sometimes for example, in at least at a Greco, I often find the conversational element is often missed. It's like, okay, what do people need to do? Well, they probably need to have a conversation with somebody in order to sell them something, I'd imagine. Yeah.
Greg Arthur (28:21.169)
Mm.
Greg Arthur (28:30.976)
Mm-hmm.
Arash (28:40.662)
Well, what does that conversate? If we were listening in to somebody who's excellent at selling that particular product, what would that conversation sound like? And sometimes we go, actually, not thought about that. So you might have to use your initiative to kind of ask them and perhaps make suggestions to help nudge them in the right direction to make sure that you have captured everything and then you know that it's time to move on then.
Greg Arthur (28:49.44)
Mm.
Greg Arthur (29:08.064)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I feel like I've asked this before, but I apologize. When we talk about moving from this phase to the next phase, know, product design processes is talking about data gathering. So what you know already, which you probably would done a little bit in the understand phase, but also data that you don't know. You just kind of know, I want to know about this demographic, but you also don't have the information yet. So.
We're obviously talking about the understand phase, very beginning. How do you know I've maxed out what I can get in understand? I now need to start to hand the baton over to either somebody else doing the data gathering phase or you're moving into that data gathering phase. Where do you kind of draw the line and say, right, we're moving on now. How do you know that that's the time?
Arash (30:03.266)
I think it's once we've sort of exhausted everything and we've got maybe a bit of a hypothesis in terms of what we think we're going after, at that point we would then decide to move forward and see if we can validate that hypothesis. Because as we said, they may have given us information based on what they think is the reality of the situation.
Greg Arthur (30:14.176)
Mm.
Greg Arthur (30:32.288)
Mm.
Arash (30:32.521)
of what's going on. And then we obviously want to test that to see when we actually speak to people doing the role, whether or not that holds up or whether actually there's other things that perhaps the stakeholder hasn't been aware of or whether or not, yeah, it all aligns, which is obviously rarely the case.
Greg Arthur (30:55.902)
Yeah, yeah. And you mentioned about you mentioned we a lot. I do this all the time. Let's talk about talk about the bits and pieces. And I say, we, and sometimes it's just me. And sometimes it is we it's, you know, it's we right now. How much are you working alone in this phase? So you mentioned stakeholders, I appreciate there is a bit of, of kind of group conversation, but how much ballpark percentage wise are you are you kind of working on your own in the understand phase?
Arash (31:22.305)
I'd say it's 50-50, so I have a small design team and the really it's kind of a collaborative effort. Some of it is around helping their, supporting them to get to grips, because it's a new, still a newish way of working for them. And some of it is doing it alone. typically if we are, that's why I kind of say we a lot.
Greg Arthur (31:31.23)
Hmm.
Arash (31:52.255)
And typically if we are doing it together, it's, think, more recently it was actually a discussion that we had and it was like, should we do it alone or should we do it together? And I kind of put the ball in their court and their preference was to do it in pairs because what they found challenging was asking the questions and trying to capture the information at the same time.
Greg Arthur (32:17.959)
Mm-hmm.
Arash (32:18.431)
So they found actually it's helpful to have somebody to ask the questions and that's their sole focus. And then somebody to also capture the information on like Miro or if you're doing it in person on a flip chart or Post-it notes or whatever. But it also having that extra person just helps because they might see things from a different perspective and they may contribute with additional questions and just additional nudges that
Greg Arthur (32:28.742)
Mm.
Arash (32:48.385)
you might not see. it kind of just gives you, I suppose, some extra extra bump behind your questions.
Greg Arthur (32:55.998)
Yeah, yeah, 100%. And then I'm gonna, maybe I've done it. Maybe we've both done it today. But I think as a group, we as a group of learning people, we do it a lot, we kind of give stakeholders a bad rep and it's not their job to be learning people. Their job is to be the stakeholder or the SME or whatever they're to be. But I do see learning people doing it a lot as well. And weirdly, I see them doing it a lot now more than
more than I'd expect purely because of the amount of noise that's on LinkedIn, the amount of people talking about process, exactly what we're doing now. In this early phases, so this one in the kind of data gathering phase, I still see a lot of people, not just stakeholders, jump into solution. They kind of hear a problem and then before they've really kind of even spoken about it, they then come out the other ear and then all of a sudden the solution comes out. We should make
podcast or a video or this or that and they kind of jump into what the product's going to be. How do you, how do you deal with people that in the super super early phases, how do you deal with people that want to just kind of run away with an idea?
Arash (34:13.791)
So I think, just to answer, you didn't ask a question, you just, you made a statement. Yeah, so I think I've matured as a learning professional. I would definitely say when I was starting out as a designer, I just wanted to create cool stuff. And that was it. And I think when you're given a project or you start having conversations with stakeholders,
Greg Arthur (34:20.005)
I just rambled at you.
Arash (34:44.353)
my head would be sort of going 150 miles an hour over cool stuff that I could do. And I think as time goes on and you learn and you mature as a profession, then it becomes more around, or at least this is how I found it, as I explained earlier, I found that I actually enjoy it more going in and not having any preconceived ideas and...
Greg Arthur (35:10.652)
Mm-hmm.
Arash (35:11.979)
find enjoying the inquiry, find enjoying that curiosity and sort of just trying to understand the whole, the challenge really. So that's from a personal perspective. I think stakeholders, as you said, are a little bit different. I think probably as a profession, we've maybe not helped them as much as we could because if you think about
Greg Arthur (35:27.078)
Hmm.
Arash (35:42.751)
what you see online and your experience over the however many years you've been in the profession, all the buzzwords and the technologies and the different things, micro learning, e-learning, social learning. And we quite often will throw that in. I don't know whether it's just out of enthusiasm and naivete or we're trying to bamboozle stakeholders or trying to justify why we're doing the things that we're doing. But I think...
Greg Arthur (35:44.283)
Hmm.
Arash (36:11.691)
you can't really blame them because they're coming to us trying to speak our language sometimes, or I want to e-learning and they think that might be helpful. So one of the ways of helping them not to get into solution mode is just to get them to bring it all out upfront. So if they have got anything that is festering away at the back of their minds, then
Greg Arthur (36:21.147)
Mm.
Arash (36:40.255)
get them to spit it out right at the beginning. I know recently I'd watched a, it was some kind of video and they were talking about innovation workshops. And one of the things that they did was a similar practice. They phrased it a little bit better, but the premise behind it was they were liking it too during the plague where they asked people to bring out the dead. And we were good on the street.
Greg Arthur (37:08.411)
I'll stay with you on this one, sorry.
Arash (37:10.881)
Yeah, but that's what she referred to. It's like you want people to bring out your dead and it's not to say that their ideas are dead, but what it does is it just allows them to get everything off their chest because otherwise if they've like, or in their mind, I've got, I don't know, a half day in-person workshop and you're trying to ask all these questions, like that's just gonna be gnawing away and potentially gonna derail or influence their...
input and you don't really want that. So if you can just be like, everybody's just, you've got some, if you've got an idea or a preconceived idea that's sat at the back of your head, let's just get it out, let's park it and we can come back to it when we're actually in a space where we're coming up with ideas of what this solution could be. So they know it's not lost, it's there, it's safe, it's not going anywhere, but then they can 100 % focus on
the task at hand and that's answering those questions and being exploratory and trying to give you that rich information that you're after.
Greg Arthur (38:21.913)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think, I mean, we could all, we could all sit and get on our high horse and say, you shouldn't be thinking about things. It's too early. And you know, I probably didn't put more than I should, but you can't stop someone having an idea. Like if you have an idea, it just happens. But I think that whole bring out the dead thing is great to go, it's going to happen. So just say it, but it doesn't mean you're going to do it. All it means is that you've just kind of voiced it said, this could be something we gravitate towards at some point.
But right now we're not, we're not worried about what the solution is. And I think to your point about, I mean, this is going to be a whole separate episode about LinkedIn, buzzwords, all the rest of it. And I would love you to come on because we have talked about that before. but there is a lot of noise around phrases and product types and formats and what we should be doing as an industry. So you hear more people talking about experiences right now, which
by no means is a bad thing if anything, I'm a big supporter of it, but you need to make sure that you're tying that experience into firstly, a genuine experience and not bastardizing the word, but also making sure what else are you putting around that experience? Is that you talking about as a whole thing or as a part of the thing or what is it? Like tell me more than just a phrase. So I think with this bit for me, I'm gonna start trying your bring out the dead idea.
I tend to just shut people down right now and say, no, we're not even talking about that at the moment.
probably wrong. I'm gonna try your idea. I think that's a nice way of doing it. But yeah, so to the last proper question which will probably have some tangents off. So I'm taking that advice. That's bit of advice for me. What advice would you give to someone who struggles with this understand phase in general? Maybe they struggled to get a project moving in a way...
Greg Arthur (40:26.957)
that maybe you find a lot more enjoyable or a lot more easy. Like you said, you're about maturing in your role, that kind of stuff.
Arash (40:33.822)
I
So I think there's a few things. I think the first thing is be curious. As you said, if you've personally got an idea already or you're jumping into solution mode, I think you need to kind of park that because it's easy to do. And that's an ongoing practice. It's something that you have to work at. Be curious, as I said. Ask lots of questions. That's the best thing you can do.
Greg Arthur (40:43.363)
Mm.
Greg Arthur (40:54.105)
Hmm.
Arash (41:06.081)
be inquisitive, try and get to try and sort of keep digging. I know there's a whole infamous, if that's the right word, Toyota five wise, that I see. if you can, if you can, if you can weave that in without it being obvious that you're doing it. I think everybody knows that what it is that if you just ask why five times, they're like, you're doing that thing, aren't you?
Greg Arthur (41:21.312)
yeah.
Greg Arthur (41:35.405)
Yeah, yeah.
Arash (41:35.713)
But I think if you can ask why and that comes back to that curiosity. I know somebody that I used to work with and she used to frame it. She was like, imagine I'm your grandma. I don't know anything about this. You need to explain. I think it was more around getting stakeholders to explain challenging concepts in a simple way. So that's the way that she used it. But.
I suppose having that mindset and framing it in that way is that just be that person who's eager to understand and explore and really ask a lot of questions. Also make sure that there is a conversation around sort of metrics. So how are you gonna know that you've achieved the thing that you wanted to achieve? Do they have metrics in place?
Greg Arthur (42:23.565)
Mm-hmm.
Arash (42:32.127)
I think that's definitely a key thing to include within that. I'd also say, yeah.
Greg Arthur (42:38.329)
Sorry, just on that point, mean, that's, so metrics me is a massive part of this. So if someone says this is a problem, if there isn't data assigned to that, it could almost just be opinion. And your opinion could be different to mine, could be different to someone else's. So I always find if you can ask people to sort of map out an as is and a to be stays or what's happening right now, how do you know this is a problem? Give me some sort of.
Arash (42:42.741)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Arthur (43:06.176)
metric or data or evidence exactly and then what does not having this problem look like? Either it goes away or it's fewer, it's more, it's quicker, it's slower, whatever it's going to be. I find that trips people up but then but not in a bad way, I'm not trying to trip them up, it's more gets them trying to think a bit more on track is what I'm trying to say but I'm sorry to cut you off.
Arash (43:06.325)
evidence.
Arash (43:11.617)
Mm-hmm.
Arash (43:27.744)
Yeah, yeah, no, no, it's a absolutely great point and it's vital to kind of this phase really. And it also helps define that, as you said, there is a problem to begin with and it's not just them putting their finger in the air and going, ooh, I think we need X, Y or Z. I think the other thing is try and enjoy the process. think one of the...
Greg Arthur (43:36.951)
Hmm
Arash (43:56.531)
One of the things that I was thinking about more recently is I've always been throughout my career, it's like scrambling to get to the promised land, trying to get to that state where all the stakeholders are bought in, they're all happy to go through your process, each part of your process works like clockwork. And I had this realization, and again, I don't know, we can talk about this perhaps in...
in a future episode, going back to what I said at the beginning, Instagram versus reality, you have this perception that other people is seamless, it's slick, it just all works and visit that constant.
Greg Arthur (44:31.744)
Mm-mm.
Arash (44:41.119)
like constant strive to get to that and you find it frustrating until you get to that point. But then there was a part of me that had a realization more recently where it's like, well, maybe that will never come and you have to like the journey, the striving to get to that is the destination essentially. So.
Greg Arthur (44:43.863)
Mm.
Greg Arthur (45:06.933)
Mm. Yeah.
Arash (45:09.078)
You have to kind of learn to enjoy the messiness of it is what I'm saying. And the other thing is, a simple thing is to kind of make it a non-negotiable. So that's one of the things that we, but we sort of early on decided in our team is that if you wanna, well, you can't pass go.
Greg Arthur (45:16.567)
Mm.
Greg Arthur (45:26.903)
100%.
Arash (45:38.003)
until you've done and collecting money until you've done this phase and that is a non-negotiable because we'd seen too many times in the past where either with ourselves or other people in L &D who have picked something up perhaps when they shouldn't have created something and you just see the mess and then they're trying to or how do we work out the ROI on this and it's like you've not even had a conversation
Greg Arthur (45:39.222)
Yeah.
Arash (46:07.263)
to define what the problem or anything like, and you're trying to work out what the impact is, you've basically just taken a request and ran with it. So I think that's something else. And you do need support in order to do that because the challenge is if you say, no, we're not gonna move forward with any projects unless we do this phase and they go over your head and you don't have that support, that's difficult. And I've not for that specific example.
Greg Arthur (46:07.807)
Yeah. Yeah.
Greg Arthur (46:28.684)
Hmm.
Arash (46:37.13)
I have been in situations like that in the past. So you kind of do need buy-in from your senior L &D leaders to trust the process. But I imagine it shouldn't be too strange for them because they should have, there will be some process in place.
Greg Arthur (46:37.163)
Yeah.
Greg Arthur (46:56.746)
Yeah. And I think if that, even if there isn't a standard product design or a five DI or a double diamond, whatever it is you're using, they're not complicated processes. I think the, the, the, the risk here is, is as you were saying, is getting people to trust the process. It's like, you are going to get a thing at the end, you're going to get a product or a service or an experience or a mixture of all those things. But right now,
Arash (47:17.857)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Arthur (47:23.69)
we know we're nearly at we're at the beginning, we're literally at the opposite end of the process. All we're doing is asking some questions because, to your example, treatment like I'm your grandma, I usually say treatment like I'm a five year old. But like, it's that same approach of, imagine I don't know anything, I've got no life experience that is relevant to this, so you need to tell me and educate me, then I will start asking questions around, as if I'm playing that role of, this is all brand new to me.
Arash (47:35.766)
Yeah.
Greg Arthur (47:53.91)
And only then can you move on. We're about to close, but just on this last point about advice you give people that are struggling with this phase, how long, this is maybe how long to paste a string, how long would you suggest someone spends in the understand phase?
Arash (48:17.121)
But,
Greg Arthur (48:17.155)
Hehehehehe
Arash (48:20.479)
My default answer to questions like this is it depends. But I know that, yeah, until you feel like you've got what you need to move forward is, yeah, yeah. As long as you feel like you've got what you need and maybe over time, if you're learning to do this, you'll get to the end or halfway through a project and go, you know what, we messed up. Maybe we should have.
Greg Arthur (48:27.669)
That can also be your answer if you want it to be.
Arash (48:49.417)
spent more time in it. And I think that's, that's part and parcel of learning to grow and develop as a, an individual. And it comes back to what I saying earlier in terms of like the journey is a, is a destination as opposed to just going, I need to be perfect first time. Don't work like that.
Greg Arthur (49:04.021)
Yeah, gotcha. Absolutely. I think, I think for me, the only thing I'd add to that is I think, I think you're right. It does depend and you, you, you can do all the planning in the world, but you need to kind of go through it and understand where you went wrong, where you went right. Those kinds of things each time. But I think having a, having a plan upfront, as in I'm going into any product or any project. What are the things I want to know? Cause you're gonna, you're gonna
pick up things that you didn't even think about asking, but they come out in conversation anyway. But trying to eliminate and exhaust all the things that you think you should know. And at least you've got some sort of yardstick around. Did I get all the important things that I need to know? So stakeholders, budget, timelines, data, all these kinds of things that I need to kind of get upfront and then I can move on. But again, a window of time on that could be, you could get that in an hours long call.
you could have the most perfect stakeholder and where it goes, yep, here's all the answers you need. Might take you two weeks. But it's, there you go.
Arash (50:04.895)
Yeah, we had once a stick, sorry, we're gonna say we had a stakeholder once that came, they printed off a little booklet of like, it was like a little magazine that they'd created about everything to do. And it sounds silly. Obviously it was, yeah, but.
Greg Arthur (50:24.2)
Sounds great.
Arash (50:26.313)
It did help because a lot of it they'd already thought about it was in there they could refer us to the page and we'd get the answer and stuff like that. So yeah, if you've got somebody who's well prepared or just really knows their subject matter in an area of the business inside out, knows what KPIs they're measuring all that kind of stuff. It just makes it way, way easier.
Greg Arthur (50:46.292)
Absolutely. And I think, I think helping somebody to prepare, giving them that kind of a, that nudge upfront before they come to that meeting with you is probably also not a bad shot. If you know what you want to know, give them a heads up. But, but anyway, that was incredible advice, incredible monologue halfway through. I'm going to try and animate a little crown on your head during that bit. I probably won't, but I'll give it a whirl. but thank you so much.
Arash (50:59.893)
Yeah, definitely.
Greg Arthur (51:14.9)
We're at end of episode. Is there anything you want to plug? Anywhere people can get to you? Anything you want to say? Your final thoughts?
Arash (51:14.955)
No worries.
Arash (51:19.695)
and
I'm not selling anything, I'm not, no shameless plugs. LinkedIn is mainly the main place. I'm down as Orash Rezaim Azanani, but I'm sure you'll be able to tag me when it goes out. So to save people having to try and spell it. And I also have a bit of a informal podcast, I call it. It's kind of like an informal chat between me and a former colleague called Another LND Podcast.
And that's available on all places you can listen to podcasts.
Greg Arthur (51:57.844)
Nice, cool. Thanks, sir. I'm gonna check that out. Well, thank you again for talking to us and we will no doubt see you again on another episode where we bag all over LinkedIn and Buzzwords probably. So yeah, we'll get that sorted. Cool. Thanks, sir. Cheers.
Arash (52:04.725)
Been a pleasure.
Arash (52:13.867)
Cool. Cheers.