S4 E5: Featuring Mel Tingey

Tracie:

Hello everyone and welcome to Traceability podcast. I am your host, Tracie Edwards, and today it is my good fortune to be here live at Software Technology Group or STG, as we call it, and talk with their chief technology and strategy officer and my boss, Mel Tingey. So Mel, thank you for joining me today.

Mel:

You bet. Hi, Tracie.

Tracie:

I really appreciate it.

Mel:

Yeah, this is fun.

Tracie:

Well, I usually like to start off with a little bit of career background and how you got into the tech industry and that kind of thing.

Mel:

Okay. So I definitely consider myself a lifelong geek. I stepped into this world of tech when I was 14 years old. My dad, who was a school teacher and a farmer... He still has the farm. He's 91 years old and still runs the farm. Since his retirement the farm actually keeps getting bigger, and it's funny, we all laugh about it. We're like, "At what point are you going to stop?" He goes, "Well, I'm not going to die so I'm going to keep going." At any rate, he had a couple years in the eighties where he had back-to-back bumper crops, and his tax guy basically said, "Well, you can buy some equipment for the farm or you can pay Uncle Sam." Two years he bought I think a tractor and stuff. And then I think it was the third year, which was 1984, he goes, "I don't know what else to buy." And his tax guy said, "Well, why don't you buy a computer?" And so it was probably around February, March timeframe in 1984, he bought an 8088, the IBM 8088. And with it came the three-pack, the MS-DOS, Lotus, 1-2-3, WordPerfect. It was in a three-pack. I actually still have that part. I don't have the computer. I wish I had the computer Sat in the box for about a month and I begged and begged to have him let me open it up. And finally, he did, and I opened it up and I read through. And I had a brother-in-law who was in computers and so he sat with me and we geeked out and I started writing programs. And I wrote some programs in basic and I would compile them. And then with Lotus 1-2-3, the spreadsheet package, in those days, it wasn't as sophisticated as a Microsoft Excel or Google Sheet where you can just put the equal sign and then some stuff. It was almost programming in those days. So I just dug in, as a fourteen-year-old, and I learned things, and I built spreadsheets to help my dad track yield by crop type and by location, orchard. And my dad loved it because he was keeping track of all the stuff in little notebooks. So we started using these spreadsheets, and I just fell in love with actually doing something that would help people. And obviously, first person to help was my dad. So that's where I got my start. In 1991, I got a job working for Morton International, the airbag company in Ogden, and I was their night tech guy. So I worked the graveyard shift and I ran company batch processing. And the Unix admin took a liking to me and so he taught me VI and he taught me all these different things on this Unix platform. And so I went to school, studied computer science and worked the graveyard shift. It was the perfect job for me to get my start. And then from there I just moved through different things, got into leadership in my twenties. Anyway, that's my background.

Tracie:

Well, at a certain point you came to STG, and then at a certain point other career things happened. Do you want to talk about those a little bit?

Mel:

Yeah, so I was one of STG's first clients. So I was working for the state of Utah helping to build the state of Utah's first online applications. So we had a number of projects in the mid-nineties that I was leading, building some online services, renew your driver's license, buy a fishing license, things like that. And I got to know STG and used STG as a development firm and worked with them for a number of years. And then I left state government employment, went back to the Midwest in Wisconsin, and for a company I built LandsEnd.com, built their full e-commerce suite. And then my wife was having some health issues and so I put the word out to just a couple of people in Utah that I needed to move back to Utah. And STG was the first company that called me and they hired me in 2000 to be their director of software development. And so I moved back to Utah, worked for STG. The dot-com bubble burst, and so I shifted out of full development mode into a half development, half sales mode, which scared me to death. But I am grateful for that experience because when you learn to sell services, you actually understand in a better way the whole ecosystem of why a company would buy and what it takes on the delivery side to sell it correctly so you don't over commit or under commit. And so it taught me some really, really valuable things. A client actually recruited me. And I didn't want to leave, I absolutely love STG. Jeff Soderberg, who started the company, dear friend of mine, and just the whole culture at STG, I really just did not want to leave, and ultimately felt like it was the right thing. And I told Jeff, "I'm going to be back in 18 months." So I left, took the job and it just never worked out. And so then almost 20 years later when I got laid off from Henry Schein Dental, Crystal and I talked and she was like, "What would you think about coming back?" And I was thrilled. Number one, I felt very... I don't know, I was really honored that she would want to do that. But I've also told people, this is a perfect example of why when you leave an organization leave on the best of terms because you just never know.

Tracie:

That's a great [inaudible 00:06:28].

Mel:

And Crystal and other people here at STG, they've always been my friends. And so it was really comfortable to come back. And STG's got a great culture where it's a revolving door and I'm a living example of that, that I was able to come back to STG.

Tracie:

That's awesome. And coming back to STG, opportunity for you to take on an expanded role, but also do you feel like speaking about some of the things that STG was facing that led to this time of growth and change that STG's embarking on?

Mel:

Yeah, so there's an individual, Brad Fisher who Crystal had brought in as a business consultant. And it was really the formulation of a strategy to have STG start to do more strategic consulting, which ultimately created the opportunity for Crystal to even hire me. So it's always important to understand sequentially even how an organization makes decisions, because had I gotten laid off a year prior, this opportunity would not have happened. Because it takes time. It takes time for a board, it takes time for an executive team to formulate, "Okay, this is what we think we need to do, this is what we are going to do." And they had already gone through all of those change activities to go, "We need to move..." STG's been doing engineering contract consulting, project consulting, that's been the staple of STG since 1996. But STG's never really done strategic consulting where we work with CEOs or other C-level folks. And so they determined it was very necessary to start doing that. They just didn't have somebody to lead that effort. And so that groundwork had been laid by Brad and Crystal for almost a year. And so when I got laid off, it was just like this perfect, "Oh, well, Mel, you would fit." And it felt good to me as well. It was like, "Okay, yeah, this is something that I would absolutely thrive in." And I know Crystal well enough that I knew that her leadership style would also really help me. It's interesting, every one of us, we have certain leader types that we will connect with and others that we won't, and I knew Crystal well enough that it felt really comfortable.

Tracie:

Well, that's fantastic. You and I started on the same day, which was fortuitous for me as well.

Mel:

Coming up on a year.

Tracie:

Yeah. And coming into an organization that needed to make some more strategic decisions and maybe go a bit of a different direction, spin itself out a little bit. It's one thing to make the strategic decision, it's another thing to bring on the rank and file that have to change along with it. So I wanted to get into some of that a little bit. Most of the Traceability listeners are business analysts, PMs and architects and that kind of thing. And so what is our role when it comes to culture change, whether from a leadership perspective or from a grassroots or bottom up perspective?

Mel:

Yeah, that's a great question. As you and I were talking about today's podcast and the hoped-for message out of this, I love how you pose that question, because inside of an organization, culture is something that people feel. I think the best measure of culture is how individuals, rank and file, feel on Sunday night. When they're wrapping their weekend up and they're watching a show or they're brushing their teeth or they're laying in bed Sunday night, it's how they feel about what will happen Monday morning. That to me is the definition of culture. And so when we think about organizations that we have worked for, I think if you've been in the professional world for even five, eight, nine years, you will have experienced the full spectrum. You will have experienced Sunday nights where you're like, "Oh my gosh, I'm so excited for tomorrow. I'm so excited to see so-and-so. I'm so excited to get this project kicked off." Or "I've got this presentation on Tuesday and I'm so excited for it." Or inversely, you lay there Sunday night going, "What am I doing with my life? This is a freaking nightmare. If I have to go to one more meeting in this company, I think I'm going to die." There's just this reality that sets in on both ends of that spectrum. And so when you find yourself in a role, moved your career forward, and you're an architect, a really high-end analyst, a project manager, you also understand you actually have the ability to affect culture. Who you are as a person is connecting directly to improving the quality of people's lives that work around you, or it's quite frankly, you're actually causing problems. And I know for me over my career, I've been both, sadly. I've created some messes. I would like to think I've done a little more good in my career than negative. But the way you pose the question is very insightful, and that is that companies through employee surveys or just common sense, if the culture's bad, oftentimes CEO, HR leader, they'll pull the executive team together and say, "We actually need to do a concerted effort where we as executives, where we lead out and say, 'We have to change our culture.'" I applaud any organization who does that. That's awesome. Because that's really stepping into a lot of vulnerability. That's a CEO who, she's going to put herself out there and say, "Okay, it starts with me and I want to do better. I've got to be better. I've got to operate and think and work in ways that are going to be more right with people." Sadly, that doesn't happen enough. Sadly, what happens is that you're going to bed on Sunday and you're that senior project manager, senior analyst, and you're realizing, "Hey, I've only got influence for this team." It's 20 people, 30 people, whatever. "We're all working together." If there isn't that top-down air cover or top-down initiative that's helping, then you are influencing without authority. And I would say 90% of the time, that's reality. That's the world you'll step into. And so to take an actual proactive, very conscientious mindset that says, "I'm going to do all I can to make our little world of 10 people, 20 people," whatever it is, "I'm going to do everything I can to make our world as good as it can be." And the reality is that as infectious as bad culture is, good culture is 10 times more infectious. I think it's the equivalent of you turn the light on in a room. How quickly does light dispel dark? You turn that light on and instantly, it's permeated every corner of the room. And so light becomes what everybody sees. Whereas if you turn the light off or as it starts to get dim, it's interesting how darkness can just take over. And so the point being is that most of the time you're in a role where you're the person who's organizing the meetings, you're the person who's calling things to order, you're facilitating conversations. And so recognize that even though there are actual things you need to do to work through a checklist, to come up with a series of questions as an analyst that you're going to... Today or over the next week, I want to get the following three questions asked and answered. And so it's that hard skill of an analyst. It's the meat of, "Okay, this is what I've got to do." The real value, the real culture change isn't the questions you asked, it's how you asked them. It's what you leave people with. It's that essence of, you had to meet with somebody in marketing to tease out some nuance of a requirement. Well, at the end of that conversation, did they leave with, "Oh my gosh, Tracie's amazing"? "I can now see why that project's so important." Because in their mind, yes, they're going to answer the question. They're going to give you the information that you need to get, but culturally, you have the opportunity to influence things far beyond just getting the question answered, just documenting the next requirement. And so to really embrace that you can actually move the needle culturally, that actually makes work way more fun, way more fulfilling.

Tracie:

Well, I like that... At least starting out in my career as a business analyst, doing that for several years, I often didn't really have a view into the company bottom line. I was working on more tactical, granular type things. And so as a senior analyst to be involved in some of those larger initiatives and really understand the impact that I'm having is a wonderful thing. I think we don't always realize that when we're starting out in our career, the potential impact that we have working in our own little space.

Mel:

Yeah. Yep.

Tracie:

So STG is a staffing and a consulting company. They have internal employees, but they also send out employees to different clients and such. Does that look different from internal to external?

Mel:

From a culture perspective, one thing I love about the way STG is structured is that we really try to just see people as people, regardless of what type of employment they're in. Honestly, sadly, US employment law creates some funny lines. And because the way we engage with companies already puts us into a, "we are different," mode, it's almost like the odds are stacked against us even before we start. And most contract firms have very short lengths of employment. Often, a contract firm is just a career filler, the place where somebody goes to make sure they can make their mortgage payment for a year and then they're onto a more permanent, more full-time gig. And culturally... And this goes back to Jeff Soderberg, it goes to Crystal, Camille, our owner today... Jeff and Camille were married. Jeff passed away a couple of years ago, but his influence is still felt here. How he culturally wanted our company, his company built, it's still alive, and that is that he wanted to be in a place where we did enough right that individuals who chose to come and work at STG would want to stay at STG. And so now that we've got all these years under our belt, we now have a track record where we have software engineers that have been here 10, 15, 20 years. That's unheard of in the contract world. Project managers, analysts, others who have been able to make a career here. If individuals are really skilled we've also solved the problem that exists in most contract companies where they don't know how to manage a bench. What happens between projects? What happens when an individual is not billable between projects? And I've literally seen companies that just start freaking out with one, two days of non-billable and they don't know how to manage it. And so then they make a rash decision. Well, then that creates a culture where then individuals know, "If I am wrapping up this project, they're not going to keep me, so I better take care of myself." And so then they're out looking, and so then the project comes to an end and boom, they move on. And so there's never an opportunity to create longevity in the contract company world. And so it's a complex answer to your question because we have a lot of W-2 employees, and we have some independent contractors, and those are usually by choice. The individual actually wants to work with us in an independent contractor mode. And then some are temporary or hourly where they want to just fit in some work with STG, maybe 10 hours a week or five hours a week. And so we have an employment type that allows for that as well.

Tracie:

Speaking of things that are going on in the world and in other organizations, specifically as a strategy and technology guy, are there some things that you're foreseeing in the next five to 10 years that may help to precipitate some of this culture change?

Mel:

Yeah. I mean, the need for culture change improvement obviously exists everywhere. And I even think about it from the perspective of, if you're fortunate to be on a team that is creating that thriving feeling, that feeling of Sunday night, "Hey, I'm excited to go to work Monday morning," even in those situations, you have to care for it. Because I was raised on a farm with plants and trees, those metaphors are very alive for me. And my dad, who is a very soft-spoken, says very, very little... I got my ability to talk from my mom. But so often it would be July and it's a hundred degrees outside and we're watering the trees, and my dad would... He would point out the obvious to a little kid. He'd be like, "If we don't do this, these trees will die. We have to do this." And so even though the tree's healthy, it came out of winter, it's thriving in March, April, May, you've got to care for it. And that same thing exists with culture. I mean, if we are fortunate and the culture's right, take care of it. If something happens where a meeting goes off the rails and people start to speak about... They start to go personal and attack rather than focusing on the problem, you have an opportunity as an architect, as an analyst, as a project manager, you can pull people aside. I found it's far more effective sometimes as a peer after the meeting to pull the person aside and say, "Hey, is everything okay? That's not who you are. That's so counter to what I've experienced with you for the last year. Help me understand what's going on here." And having that type of heart-to-heart conversation is how you care for culture. If the culture's toxic and bad, you actually have to go at it a little differently. You have to start creating experiences where people know that it's safe to speak up, actually talk about and set some ground rules on the team. When we hit problems, because that's what we do, we just solve problems day in and day out, that let's focus on the problem and never attack the person. Sometimes people will say, "Well, it's so nuanced." And I say that's fooey. That's like a Grand Canyon difference. On one end of the canyon is we focus on the problem, and on the other side, two miles away is where you attack the person. There is nothing nuanced about it. And you can feel it in a meeting, the moment somebody says, "But you said you would have this done, and I don't understand how you missed this estimate so badly," that's an attack of the person. Whereas the same thing can happen where it's like, "Hey, what can we learn? How can we estimate this better as a team? Did I miss something in the requirement? Help me understand. Let's talk about this so that we can be a little bit more accurate with our estimates." What I just displayed there between attacking an individual and attacking the problem creates an entirely different feeling on the team. And when you model that in a toxic environment, then people are like, "Ooh, I want more of that. I'm okay answering questions from Tracie because she creates a safe place." And often they don't even know consciously why they're more comfortable talking to Tracie as opposed to somebody else. But you know what you're doing, you know how you're modeling it, and that creates culture change.

Tracie:

One of the things that I appreciate about STG is we have a bit of a mantra. Are we thinking of them as a person or are we thinking of them as an object? Little reference to some of the Arbinger works there. Yeah, I think that's a big key. Maybe you've talked about this a little bit, but some of the challenges and pitfalls of a culture change, especially with more long-term employees, some of us are more adaptable to change and some of us like it a little less. So do you have any tools for dealing with that?

Mel:

Yeah. So some of it I'll build off of some things that I've already said. Challenges and pitfalls, I always think about it through the lens of am I being proactive or am I being reactive? In culture change if I am reactive, I've already lost in most situations. In other words, if I'm the analyst and I show up to the meeting not prepared, I'm already in a mindset of being incredibly frustrated or upset with this developer or this business person. And so my mindset going to the meeting is already in a bad place, then the whole way in which that meeting's going to go, the probability is it's going to probably go bad. Whereas if I am proactive and very mindful that, "Hey, I am frustrated with this developer, I am frustrated with this person. What are some things that I can do in preparation for this upcoming meeting that can help it go right?" Sometimes it's a situation where you send out a note maybe prior and say, "Hey, I'm not as prepared as I would like to be. I think there's still value for us to meet. I've got a couple questions I need to pose." That alone often sets a tone that you are creating a space of vulnerability and a space of honesty that allows the conversation to go differently. Whereas if you go into it and you're reacting, you'll be far more prone to blame or attack, which then, what you get in return, you get them defending or attacking or blaming in return. And so the challenge and pitfall is that number one, you have to recognize you are influencing every time you open your mouth because you are a leader on that team. You may not be the named leader on the org chart, but in most situations that analyst or project manager is having far more interaction with those developers and those business stakeholders than the actual manager on the org chart. I've seen situations where a dev manager or a director is only engaged over a six-month period in two or three meetings, but you as the analyst, because you are the one leading the effort, you're spending five, 10 hours a week with the team. It's your voice that they're hearing non-stop. And so first, recognize that you have a significant influence on that team. Now you get to choose, is my influence going to be positive or is it going to be negative?

Tracie:

Right.

Mel:

Because having influence, regardless. And so the pitfall is, people just fall into a reactive state. They show up to the meeting ill-prepared, they show up tired-eyed, they schedule the meetings at the wrong times. Know yourself. If you are a morning person and your team is willing to meet with you in the morning, then maybe have some of those meetings between eight and 10 o'clock in the morning. If it's better for you to do it in the afternoon, then shift them to the afternoon so that you can come to the meeting with a better mindset. In other words, first know yourself, know when you are on your A game. And just those little things of being proactive, it's amazing how it helps you overcome the common pitfalls.

Tracie:

That's a really good point. So I know that as executives and as business owners and that kind of thing, it's one thing to talk about culture change, but it's another thing to ensure that whatever you're undertaking meets the bottom line. Do you have ways of maybe measuring some of those culture change things?

Mel:

So there's two perspectives where we started. If the perspective is that the culture change is being driven by the executives, it's really... I wouldn't say easy, but it's easier to jump on the bandwagon. Again, you're the person, you're that analyst, you're the individual whose voice is being heard by this team nonstop. And they're hearing about it in emails, they're hearing about it over Slack, over Teams. For sure in meetings, they're audibly hearing your voice. They're hearing you nonstop. And so what a cool thing to say, "Gosh, guys, since the CEO, since he started this change effort two months ago, gosh, I can see how the needle's already moved. What a cool thing, and we're a part of it." And even though that's not necessarily your quote, unquote job, jumping on that bandwagon, you can ride the wave. That's only about 10% of the time. The majority of situations, in order to create measurement, you have to have... It's almost like, as a team, can we agree upon some... I hate to use the word ground rules or whatever. Sometimes it's like, "Hey, can we come to an agreement as a team on how we do estimates or how we do this? What is our team norm? Can we just spend 15 minutes establishing, what do we all agree to? Here are some things that I'm thinking about." Because if there's a collective buy-in that this is our team norm, then over time you can just drop in little anecdotes like, "Hey, I just noticed, I've kept track, over the last two months, we've met our norm 90% of the time. That's so awesome. Thank you guys. I hope you guys are feeling how much different we are today than six months ago." And we agreed to this back a couple months ago. We're hitting it 90% of the time." In other words, make the measurement less formal and more connecting them to the feeling. Because again, culture is a feeling. And if you connect them to that, then they're like, "Oh, yeah, this is a lot more fun. I like being on this team. We're way more productive." But sometimes formal measures are fine. Do a little survey or things like that. But I find the informal, dropping a comment here or there, is a much better way to essentially measure progress.

Tracie:

That's great.

Mel:

Focus on the positive is obviously way better. Catch people doing good. Don't measure it by, "Okay, last meeting, man, we were all a mess. And John, you went at Sue and I don't know what was off with you." That's not going to create any measure that's going to help in any way, shape or form. Those kinds of conversations, you need to be private, they need to be one-on-one, and they need to be very safe, especially where you have influence without authority. It's pretty powerful in a bad situation to pull someone aside and say, "Help me understand, what could I have done differently?" Or, "What you said, I mean, do you recognize what you said really hurt Sue? I mean, we've been doing so good for a month and a half." Sometimes we don't realize that almost more important than getting that user story written, having the other conversation really moves the needle on productivity, really moves the needle on culture. Great, you got the user story written, but man, that conversation you had at 10:30, 20 minutes after stand-up, that made a difference.

Tracie:

Yeah. So maybe that leads us into our next topic. Any lessons learned as you've been leading some of these culture change initiatives? Any gotchas or any things you would do differently?

Mel:

So for me... I mean we mentioned Arbinger. Arbinger has been a very foundational part of my leadership style for many years, going on 23 years now. I believe one of the most important lessons learned for me is always start with yourself. Be honest with yourself. Recognize within yourself where you are getting it wrong, where you're getting it right. Correct those areas where you're getting it wrong, make that phone call, apologize. Sometimes the very basics of the words, "I'm sorry," they're so powerful. When it's a private conversation and you say, "Look, I know what I said last week hurt you. I'm sorry, I'm going to do better." Looking this direction is the way to start, and then model it and make it real. Over the years, I've definitely got some wrong. Like I say, I'm hoping that I'm doing more good than ill. But be honest in the context of what you are doing personally. And then because when we get into the mode, we kind of get blind, find ways to see yourself. One of the things that's always interesting to do every once in a while is to say you're the analyst, you're the person who's constantly asking questions, constantly writing user stories, writing requirements. Every once in a while just do a self-assessment check and ask yourself this question... What is it like to be on the receiving end of me? What is it like to read my requirements? What is it like to read my status report? What is it like to hear questions that I'm asking? And if you can legitimately say it's well received, great, keep doing it. But a lot of times, especially as the relationship gets longer and deeper, you'll find, "I'm a little short with so-and-so. I'm less patient with her. I'm showing favoritism to this individual." Because the team notices, the team sees it. And so if you start to be honest with yourself and recognize, "You know what? I've got to take more time with so-and-so. Maybe I need to call her the day before and just go through a couple things to make the conversation more comfortable for her. Maybe I'm not understanding how she thinks about things. Maybe she needs a little bit more prep." Just being sensitive. Because we're all human, we're all different. And so sometimes we just get in the grind of work and we're just like, "Ugh, they've got to deal with it. I've got to get my job done. I've got to get this report done. I've got to get these 10 years of stories. This backlog is killing me. This backlog has got to get prioritized." Yes, all that is true, but how you go about it is going to make a big difference. Stepping back from the situation... And for me, that cadence is about once a month. Because I've worked with lots of different teams, and so I can go, "Okay, well, with this team, what must it be like to be on the receiving end of Mel? What's it like when he opens his mouth? What's it like when I open my mouth?" Sadly, oftentimes I'm like, "Oh yeah, I probably need to speak a little slower, slow down a little bit, ask more questions, talk less."

Tracie:

Well, that is a terrific note to end on. Once again, I just want to thank you for your time and your leadership and gracious opportunity from STG to be here today. Do you have any questions for me?

Mel:

Based on what we've talked about today, the questions you've asked me, you've had me talk a lot. I'd love to hear from you. Given what we've shared in the topics, how would you summarize this? I mean, you've been in this career a long time and I have watched and admired you in so many ways. How would you summarize this role relative to what we've talked about? What are some things you've learned personally?

Tracie:

The big thing for me has been that self-reflection, especially as we talk about, "Are we seeing each other as people or as objects?" The other learning for me, I think has been just understanding that really, no matter what role I have in an organization, I have opportunities to influence. What is my influence going to look like today? Less so much the nuts and bolts of here's how you change, here's maybe how you approach change from the human side of things.

Mel:

Yeah. One thing that I have seen a few people... Because I've been in roles where I've had a lot of analysts and project managers report to me. There's been a couple who have done some things that I just have absolutely loved. So if you think about how an analyst or a project manager reports and has one-on-one, has either maybe a monthly status report to their direct line supervisor, the essence of that conversation is often very tactical. It's very much, "We had these meetings, we got this backlog back into a healthy state. We're now two full iterations ahead with this team, with user stories. This requirement that's been plaguing us for the last couple months, we've finally got clarity on it. WE got these three groups together, we finally got it where it needs to be." And that's an appropriate reporting. That's an appropriate accountability, if you will. But having gone through Arbinger, a couple of them started adding in to their status reports. The relationship now between these two people on the team is significantly better, and this is what I've done to help facilitate that. "I screwed up a month ago. I fixed it, I corrected it. I got things within my own relationship with so-and-so to a better place." And I found that so helpful to see the influence that's coming from an analyst or a project manager through the human side of their interactions. Again, they're with the team way more than their org chart manager. Anyway, I just wanted to throw that out. As you were talking... Don't underestimate your role in how you communicate that value upline in your organization.

Tracie:

I love that. That's something I never thought of before.

Mel:

Help them see that you are a human too. You're not just some AI robot pounding out user stories. What you're doing is making a difference.

Tracie:

That's terrific. I appreciate that, and that is a fantastic note to end on. For those of us who are analysts and architects and project managers, etc, don't overlook the influence that we are having, and don't be afraid to sort of share that with your teams. Mel, thank you. We appreciate it.

Mel:

Thanks for having me.

Tracie:

And for our listeners, your call to action today is, if you enjoyed the podcast, please leave us a review. We are on Apple and on Spotify. And if you'd like to connect with me on LinkedIn, you can find me on LinkedIn. Thank you, all.

Mel:

Thanks.