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The Catch Up Podcast brings you candid conversations with industry leaders, consultants, and change-makers from the Microsoft Dynamics and tech ecosystem. Hosted by Phillip Blackmore, Sales Director at Catch Resource Management, each episode dives into the real stories behind business transformation, career pivots, and scaling success. Expect thoughtful interviews, practical insights, and honest reflections. Brought to you by Catch Resource Management, a leading UK recruitment specialist for Microsoft Dynamics and ERP talent, this podcast is your inside track to the people shaping the future of enterprise technology.
Phillip Blackmore
00:00-00:09
You are listening to the Catch Up Podcast today with myself, Philip Blackmore. And today I'm joined by Lionel Wilson, experienced digital transformation programme lead.
Lionel Wilson
00:09-00:25
Very good question. Don't underestimate the time it takes to review the project plan, to create project plans. For a large-scale program, it could be anywhere up to a month to two months. I'll roll forward a number of years, but in essence. I am 35 international implementations later now.
Phillip Blackmore
00:25-00:30
Wow.
Lionel Wilson
00:26-00:31
I'm not counting the little ones. If they've never actually played the game.
Phillip Blackmore
00:31-00:37
Yep
Lionel Wilson
00:31-00:39
And they're just general. They've come from an IT background and never done ERP. It doesn't matter how good a people person they are, they will fail.
Phillip Blackmore
00:38-01:23
Where he talks us through his early career as an IT director, moving into a consultancy environment with the Microsoft Dynamic Space. to then delivering a multitude of large-scale complex D365 programs for a variety of large-scale end users. Lionel, thank you so much for joining me today and taking some time out of your busy schedule to speak with me. I always like to start off, and I think it's really interesting for the audience sometimes to give a little bit of perspective and a little bit of um a view on your career journey, how you got into the IT technology transformation space. And yeah, just I'd I'd love to hear a little bit about your background. How did you get into the IT technology space? And um yeah, what what was that first touch point with the Microsoft dynamics piece?
Lionel Wilson
01:23-01:27
Uh going back a little bit further than that, uh once upon a time I was made in Singapore.
Phillip Blackmore
01:27-01:29
Right, okay, yeah.
Lionel Wilson
01:28-01:52
Obviously the the environment was all change. It was in the early 70s and uh like with most of the Western world, uh computers started to come across. Um and very early age I was exposed to a ZX80. So around by age of eight and nine, I was constructing my first PCs. By the time we got to run eleven were all Apple IIs and
Phillip Blackmore
01:47-01:51
I love it. Yeah, yeah.
Lionel Wilson
01:50-02:27
all the the different makes of pineapples and mangoes, etc. , which a lot of the copy PCs were out of the time. And um I remember uh my dad who was very much an old school autocrat. getting really upset with this compared to the the everyone had this idea of a word processor and this is amazing. And I would see these PCs of the PCs literally flying out of the window, literally with all the cables literally as as their secretaries were screaming as this P2 would fly across. one story of of uh of um an apartment who hit the deck because he would just get so upset with these things. I remember him saying, what's the point of having uh computers if you can't fix them? So I got good at fixing.
Phillip Blackmore
02:26-02:35
Yeah yeah
Lionel Wilson
02:27-02:44
I think I was fixing by 85, I was fixing my first stone virus and trying to set the speed of through five and a quarter inch fluffy so that they would read correctly. All those crazy things. And fixing monitors and checking for capacitors. I the only reason why I mentioned that is because it was a hobby.
Phillip Blackmore
02:44-02:46
Yeah, yeah, fun.
Lionel Wilson
02:44-02:57
I've always wanted to be an engineer, so whilst at university I um I was taken aside by um uh accountants and uh the HMRC saying I couldn't be doing what I was doing because
Phillip Blackmore
02:46-02:47
Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
02:55-03:15
I was approaching a VAT threshold, apparently. I needed to make a company. And I was doing this in my spare time, putting networks in for people, putting in Sage account systems, etc. , etc. Just because it was fun, um, for no other reason. Uh yeah, so long story short, I very quickly went into because my background was in design and engineering.
Phillip Blackmore
03:15-03:18
Right.
Lionel Wilson
03:15-03:22
I focused at on 3D at that time, uh, mostly around finite element analysis under mechanical engineering.
Phillip Blackmore
03:18-03:27
Okay
Lionel Wilson
03:22-04:05
So checking for stress and strain of bodywork. And from that side I went into animation. The company did really well. Um, but we needed to separate at the time. And uh the that company is still working to this day. Uh I went into retail at that point. In that time I'd uh spent a lot of time with MSN and we were creating uh for a product called Chicago at the time, which is actually become Windows 25. My focus on the MSN side came from my background in ComputerServe. I managed the Windows forums and the TCPIP forums and the 3D animation forums. We had around about 250,000 uh users, active users at any one time, which is quite a lot on the old BBS systems and the old uh AOL CompuServe stuff.
Phillip Blackmore
04:01-04:11
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah
Lionel Wilson
04:05-04:16
Um and uh so we created MSN1 um on the back of and we cr and my specialty was something called VChat Rooms and the spin-off from the VChat rooms where you could go in there as a character and start talking to people.
Phillip Blackmore
04:12-04:18
Right. Okay.
Lionel Wilson
04:16-04:21
Wasn't that it it simplified at Microsoft to comic chat, if you remember that at all?
Phillip Blackmore
04:20-04:20
Mm-hmm.
Lionel Wilson
04:21-04:24
You could Right.
Phillip Blackmore
04:24-04:26
Yeah, I don't remember the the the the other.
Lionel Wilson
04:25-04:35
So off the back of comic chat was chat and then Messenger came out as part of it because everyone thought the chat was really good and half the team, there were 35 of us which spun up MSN.
Phillip Blackmore
04:30-04:37
Mm yeah, Messenger. Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
04:35-04:43
Um we um Huffed and became chat hosts and became chat queens at AOL and stuff, and that was like the big thing at the time.
Phillip Blackmore
04:41-04:44
Wow. Yeah, yeah.
Lionel Wilson
04:44-05:05
Long story short, uh I went back into retail god you know after spending so much time there. And uh and that's where my first exposure to SAP and early day Microsoft systems and at that time uh Novation Damgard uh through uh a very very colourful pair of characters.
Phillip Blackmore
04:59-05:05
Yeah, yeah. So yeah, that was the first
Lionel Wilson
05:05-05:27
Um Ian Humphreys and Paul Macon. And uh within a very short space of time, over a couple of years, we had become the largest implementation of of Novation, doing e-commerce through finance, through uh and that was in '96. So we had two thousand four hundred e-post tilts. So HEC was choices video. So if you ever went to Blockbusters, they were the main competitors, Blockbusters.
Phillip Blackmore
05:25-05:47
Yeah, yeah. Okay, fine. Was that quite unique at the time in terms of a a uh because it damn guard the vision at that time in terms of uh a size of implementation. That must have been fairly unique, because I can't uh
Lionel Wilson
05:39-05:53
It was. We became their primary reference site for a long while. Um and to be fair, uh it was a relationship. And that's how I've always remembered that I've built on that because they were real characters and
Phillip Blackmore
05:46-05:47
Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
05:51-06:00
Ian, even though he's the managing director, um, knew everything about the product and still probably does to this day. He's probably one of the leading lights in the in the nav world or BC world.
Phillip Blackmore
05:57-05:58
Sure.
Lionel Wilson
06:00-06:30
And they went on pick-home owners of the whole retail space eventually, until the early 2000s where Microsoft opened up to other SI's. It was it was an experience. Um, and there's lots of things we did well, lots of things we did wrong. I'll roll forward a number of years, but in essence I am 35 international implementations later now. I'm not counting the little ones. That was everything from one of my most experience, my most bizarre one was I was at a company which doesn't exist anymore called Rosebay's. Do you remember Roseb's?
Phillip Blackmore
06:30-06:33
I don't what what was the business?
Lionel Wilson
06:32-06:41
It was a software nutrinks company. It's it's uh for a valley for towels, curtains, those kind of things off the shelf.
Phillip Blackmore
06:34-06:41
Fun. Oh I do. No, I d yeah yeah, no, I do. Now you say that. Yeah, it rings a butt. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lionel Wilson
06:41-07:08
And it was it was great. And the other side of the company was fabric warehouse. It was it was a fantastic and amazing energy in the business. But it was clear that um there was a separation between the leading light and the logistics part of the business and they weren't listening. And um it wasn't coming together very well. Um and suffice to say that uh external uh LDC came in, that's the uh the venture capitalists, Lloyd's Development Capital, and mistakes occurred.
Phillip Blackmore
07:05-07:06
Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
07:08-07:13
I'm not sure going, I'm sure I want to expand all what things happened, but it went h south really fast.
Phillip Blackmore
07:13-07:17
Right.
Lionel Wilson
07:13-07:17
uh mostly to do a bad conversation over a table with someone who shouldn't have been there.
Phillip Blackmore
07:17-07:18
Okay.
Lionel Wilson
07:17-07:19
I'll leave it at that.
Phillip Blackmore
07:18-07:21
Yeah. Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
07:19-07:21
And the value of the company dropped in one day.
Phillip Blackmore
07:21-07:23
Wow.
Lionel Wilson
07:22-08:03
Oh yeah. It was three thousand staff. We then separated oh well I didn't separate. I came back on the Monday and the and a plaster board wall had been spot up between two sides of the company and saying fabricware is on that side, rosebrees is on the other. Uh and they said, right, um, we're gonna give you a choice. What do you want to do? And I thought, well, I see all what was happening on the Rosby side and I knew they were caustic and and volatile. And I'm and a fantastic leading light on the um logistics side had just left the business, one of the founders. And so I said, Well, I'll go help out the other side. So the the FD and myself helped fabric warehouse. We had to put in water, gas, power in that first few days.
Phillip Blackmore
08:01-08:02
Oh wow.
Lionel Wilson
08:03-08:10
And uh and it was just me plus one other. And we had to build the server room. We then got now I I brought K3 in again at that time.
Phillip Blackmore
08:09-08:10
Yeah, yeah.
Lionel Wilson
08:10-08:25
Uh between us, we got 170 shops up and running within a week or so. We got logistics up and running. We got HR payroll up and running. That was a baptism of fire. Just me plus one junior IT person. That was
Phillip Blackmore
08:23-08:24
Incredible. Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
08:24-08:35
But you know, I don't want ever do that again. It was
Phillip Blackmore
08:26-08:37
Yeah. But at the time I imagine it's quite good fun. You're kind of You're learning every day, I imagine, in that sort of environment. You're being challenged regularly, but I imagine the days just absolutely flew past.
Lionel Wilson
08:35-08:38
Yeah.
Phillip Blackmore
08:37-08:45
I can't I can imagine sort of m Monday to Friday went in the blink of an eye when you're in those kind of programs and those situations.
Lionel Wilson
08:38-08:47
It did Yeah, you're fixing printers and trying to work out why payroll doesn't work the next second.
Phillip Blackmore
08:48-08:59
Yeah, and I think what happened, I guess, do you find I guess that there probably is instances of people performing roles like that still still in this day and age, but certainly with the Microsoft Dynamics product.
Lionel Wilson
08:56-08:56
Mm-hmm.
Phillip Blackmore
08:58-09:10
as it is now, the evolution of the product over time. It's got so big that, you know, people you can't really find yourself doing that role in this day and age now with the Microsoft Dynamics product.
Lionel Wilson
09:08-09:25
Yeah. Well you say that, but there are modern equivalents I've seen a lot lately. I think the most I've seen is um where companies grown fast and they're organically a massive company, but they're still running small company mentality and processes.
Phillip Blackmore
09:25-09:26
Mm-hmm.
Lionel Wilson
09:25-09:27
And that's really common.
Phillip Blackmore
09:26-09:53
Yeah. Yeah, I bet. Absolutely. And I think that's probably just quite simply through from from the perspective of the individuals that are there and leading it. Have only seen it as it is in that business. So they they haven't seen it from the larger perspective. They've just started at the business at a smaller scale. The business has evolved. And they are learning as they go, like a lot of people do in life. And I think that's sometimes a lot of the time the only way you can do things is learn by learning and and and experience.
Lionel Wilson
09:48-11:10
Yeah. That's right, but that what happens is that there is the lack of experience. What happens is that they skipped all the middle steps and all the pain they would have gone through and the things they would have fixed and realized uh the kind of processes they need to adopt just got missed. As an example, I'm right now at uh a very large PE equity company with uh 60 subsidiaries, 18 holding companies. uh anything up to 500 million to a billion pounds in these companies. Some are running SAP, some are running Excel. And almost across the board to a fault. There's a lack of understanding. For example, ITEL's never crossed their, they've talked to about it, but they've never implemented any common frameworks. So they've got the size and capability, but they have missed the very common thing. So if a problem fails, which is a company wide problem, what they do is they panic and try and solve it. That's the wrong thing to do immediately. If you've understood this background, the first thing you do is you communicate. You tell the world that this is occurring. We'll deal with it. We haven't got the answers just yet. But let's get on top of it and I'll come back to you. I'll keep you informed every few minutes or whatever it is. And that basic lack of experience is still there. And the they've got very professional processes you've got a good breakdown of this is marketing and this is sales. But at no point have they defined the critical paths. So this is what you do to hire a person.
Phillip Blackmore
11:09-11:11
Yeah, yeah.
Lionel Wilson
11:11-11:32
These are all the steps. Have you double checked all these things? So yes, they've done really good things, and individually when they say I'm gonna tune this process, they're not double guessing. the middle and high processes. They're just saying this is what marketing does, assuming that what marketing needs to do, well that's because they've always done it. And all they're doing is reinforcing what they've done, not looking it back and understanding what they needed to go back and do.
Phillip Blackmore
11:32-12:15
And I guess that's the the value of bringing in someone like yourself, someone that has been there, that has seen it, that has done it, that can merge those processes together and bring people together from different departments. Because I as well and and again I I only speak from a totally external point of view from from secondhand stories from people. Talking to people like yourself, bringing departments together, bringing people together is such a an important piece within these programs. You've got a CFO, a CIO. You've got a head of sales and trying to get those people together on a on a journey together and a similar way of thinking and an understanding. Is that something you'd probably say is one of the bigger challenges? Is is the the human element of these system implementations?
Lionel Wilson
12:14-12:18
I would argue that is the tangible difference between a program manager and a project manager.
Phillip Blackmore
12:19-12:21
Got it. Okay. That's interesting.
Lionel Wilson
12:21-12:39
Yes, you can say that you are experienced. Yes, we've done lots of programs, but it doesn't mean that you know all things, all things good for that company in that environment. And if you do, it's actually the wrong thing to do. And I've seen many times where they become God. They become the one one person to do everything and and you're like a savior.
Phillip Blackmore
12:35-12:36
Okay, there you go.
Lionel Wilson
12:39-12:47
Oh, thank God you're here. It's amazing that you're here. That's fantastic. But actually it's the wrong thing to do. And yes, you can do these things, but should you?
Phillip Blackmore
12:44-12:45
Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
12:47-13:00
Definitely not. I think there's a tangible difference between a good P a program manager and and a and a one who has just is trying to impress everyone. I see a lot of the ones which are trying to Build their own ego. This is me being very unsubtle here.
Phillip Blackmore
12:58-13:22
Yeah. No, that's fine. I I think James Downs, who you know very well, made a very good point when I spoke to him. The power of listening. As in listening to your customer, listening to the business, listening to people, what people say, and not always having to just be the loudest voice in the room for maybe your own ego because you want.
Lionel Wilson
13:20-13:22
I would go further than that.
Phillip Blackmore
13:21-13:22
Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
13:22-13:37
I've I see myself as a facilitator for them I know that my first engagement with a company is not processes, it's people. Working out who the right people are, who the most difficult ones are, and make them the first person I need to engage.
Phillip Blackmore
13:35-13:46
Yeah, it's just always one of the two
Lionel Wilson
13:37-14:25
And it's I know everyone says it, but the reality is in most of these situations, you work out what they're really good at. And when it comes to these environments, I'll say, right, we need to cover these kinds of processes. Phil, I've actually, I know we spoke the other day. You told me about this other process you had a real problem with. So I'm not trying to big them up, but I'm saying that I acknowledge your your ability. Tell me about those issues. They've got a platform now to talk. You're engaging them, letting them come forward. But I know all the w what they need to do to solve it, but what I'd like to do is get him to explain what it is. And then through the conversation, I'll maybe pose some questions out there and directed towards asking not your questions at all, have you considered doing this? I noticed that that um uh Craig has tried this other method. And through that process you manage to get them to come to the conclusion, even though that, you know, it's it's it's obvious things.
Phillip Blackmore
14:23-14:25
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Lionel Wilson
14:25-14:27
It it seems really obvious what you're trying to do.
Phillip Blackmore
14:26-14:28
Sure. Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
14:28-14:57
But I think it's very different to a normal uh to a PM for comes in from an ERP side or a And I think this is the other mistake I see a lot. A lot of people think that a very good PM can make a good ERP or CRM PM. It's very different. The level of knowledge difference is colossal. So in the uh just one project ago, we had a very large project, 180 million transformation program. We had HR apparel, um uh CRM finance and project management accounting all being fire and groffed at the same time.
Phillip Blackmore
14:54-14:55
Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
14:58-15:20
Insanity, but that that's how it was. The reality was that they didn't have anyone with dynamics or ERP experience in any of the streams except for my mainstream because they realized that this problem I was dealing with a problem stream. The other ones were considered okay streams. So I've I've I was brought on to to take on the whole program, but I thought this is a massive scale. We didn't need multiple program managers. Forget project managers.
Phillip Blackmore
15:19-15:24
Sure, mm. Yeah, yeah.
Lionel Wilson
15:20-15:29
And they were multiple project managers. And we did that. To a fault, no one on that side had any ERP or dynamics or SAP experience.
Phillip Blackmore
15:29-15:30
Mm-hmm.
Lionel Wilson
15:30-15:40
Uh and they started off on the basis that they knew what they're doing, and I and I did try and explain to them they need someone with experience, and as a minimum, they need a finance lead. who knew what they were doing or HR lead.
Phillip Blackmore
15:38-15:39
Mm-hmm.
Lionel Wilson
15:40-16:06
The HR lead had some experience, but not dynamics, which was good. That was fine. But no one else on that side had done any ERP. And it it always happens this way. If they make fundamental mistakes, then also affects how they choose their SIs. The SI was treated as a font of all knowledge. And at that point, without someone within the business to check them, to say that I represent someone here and that this is what we want to do.
Phillip Blackmore
16:05-16:05
Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
16:06-16:30
They did have someone internally with the business, but they didn't have anyone with any ERP experience. So when they said, well, project management accounting is not good enough. I'm not thinking and I was I was sitting on this thinking, well, that's interesting. Um because I'm I'm not into that conversation. They just told me afterwards saying, well, why did they say that? Well, because this is in this. And I was thinking, That's only because you didn't know any better to to challenge them on this.
Phillip Blackmore
16:30-16:30
Yeah, of course.
Lionel Wilson
16:30-16:56
You've got amazing systems here called Hyperion and other major platforms. And they're trying to convince you to move to a another couple of million pounds to move to project operations, which is an enterprise grade product, which you don't need. And so eventually they cancelled it all and they thought that and the the the SI, one of the big four Tot said, why don't we write a new p uh PMA module or FPP? I'm not thinking, oh dear God, oh dear God, oh dear god.
Phillip Blackmore
16:54-16:58
Yeah, please please, please do not go down that route.
Lionel Wilson
16:56-17:14
Uh uh And at this point I said, you're clearly not listening to me because I uh because you clearly believe that they're right. Uh I need to step out of the conversations here because You're making some fundamental mistakes here. Roll forward another uh while they reached forty-five million and still had nothing to show for it.
Phillip Blackmore
17:13-19:24
The shame of that storyline is it's all too frequent and I I always really try and impress upon and I love hearing about The positive stories, because there are plenty of really good stories out there in the market. There are a a number of success stories. But but exactly that story that you've explained there is all too frequent where we hear about A customer embarking on a journey and an ERP, a transformation, a Microsoft Dynamics program piece of work, and they've engaged their consulting partner in SI, whether it be one of the big four or one of the other sort of common Microsoft Dynamics consultancy partners. And we will have some visibility of that. And it may well be, and I think I mentioned that you were some of us the other day, that our biggest challenge is, and exactly that conversation and what you've explained there is We try and approach those organizations and engage. And an initial piece of communication would be look at having your own client-side project program manager. Often the biggest pushback we get is our consultancy partner are doing it. And look, it might be a misconception or a miscommunication or me misunderstanding what they're saying, but sometimes it really does feel like they're saying to me. Phil, thanks so much. I hear what you're saying, but we're paying Company X twenty million pounds. It's their problem. They're going to deliver it. They've got two years to do it. And we're going to turn up in two years' time and we're going to log in and we're going to have a wonderful new system. And I think there's a real misunderstanding of it's your system. It's your business. You have to own this. They will help you and guide you, but the ownership and fundamentally it sits with you. It's like building a house and saying to a builder, Here's a million pounds, build me a house, I'll see you in a year. And then he builds you something. You come back and you go, Well, I didn't want that. And he goes, Well, you've you you haven't owned it. You've you've just passed the responsibility to me. Um and I think it is a problem. Um how we change it, I don't know, but I think having conversations like this does help and maybe people listening in and hearing and understanding especially from someone like yourself, Lionel, the the the the true value in having a client side PM and what what value it can bring to a customer
Lionel Wilson
19:19-19:31
I think there's two sides to this. If you are a s a company with a small team and my business makes beer, we have uh one or two IT people, we don't really want to get into it.
Phillip Blackmore
19:25-19:26
Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
19:31-19:33
In that situation, fine.
Phillip Blackmore
19:31-19:34
Sure, sure, get it.
Lionel Wilson
19:33-20:02
Uh do that and you can rely on it if you're a small business, you're you're maybe um a few million in size If that's the case, fine, have at it. But if you need to fit into a larger organization, you get caught in a trap where you've got a conflict of interest. In theory. the the team how are gonna do what you want, but at at what point do you recognize an upsell is occurring to you that you don't realize is occurring?
Phillip Blackmore
20:00-20:02
Sure. Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
20:02-20:24
And when you start to define what is nice to have or essential or core to the business, those kind of things need to be done by yourself. And yes, they can guide you through those kind of things. And that's where the limit of the local team goes, because if you need to make a decision on whether you run a certain reporting system or you want to adopt a new module
Phillip Blackmore
20:23-20:23
Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
20:23-20:47
when you want to put on a new thing to do with fixed assets or to do with uh payroll and the sequence of effects, then actually that's where some experience of someone coming on board will make a difference. As an example, another same S similar SI uh convinced this company to say, well, you don't need a test team. And you don't need a demo data migration team. We can do all four of you. I'm like thinking, oh yay.
Phillip Blackmore
20:48-20:49
Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
20:49-21:05
And it clearly came to mind that they, because they didn't understand the data inherently. they were getting mistakes coming through, but because they uh didn't understand the process apparently, they were letting tests through which
Phillip Blackmore
20:54-21:01
Raj.
Lionel Wilson
21:03-21:20
it which shouldn't have. And this is where having not just project managers, but test leads, data migration leads who represent you. And it is an expensive process. Don't get me wrong. And that's where, you know, if you do have all the right people on board, inevitably the program comes in very close to budget and roughly on time.
Phillip Blackmore
21:20-22:23
Absolutely. And I think sometimes what we're saying with some of the the better SIs is the SIs that are actually advising their clients, larger clients. And again, this is the other piece. If you're a an SI that is truly conscientious about a successful delivery, and having your name associated with that project by advising your customer to get a program manager to have some work stream leads across whether it be finance, manufacturing, distribution, supply chain, but also across testing, data migration. having a strong PMO, allowing them to build an internal capability gives greater a greater chance for overall success. So it works well. DSI has a great reference site. Look at what we did here. We delivered a great project. The greatest success stories we see in the market are those where the organizations do have a level of knowledge and ownership in-house and at and at a senior level. They're not just bringing in sometimes you say, you know, you you you you you speak to customers, or we've we've you know we've brought in a PM at
Lionel Wilson
22:16-22:17
Agreed.
Phillip Blackmore
22:21-22:35
like no disrespect, but a a a very mid-level PM into a large enterprise programme and you think they're gonna get eaten alive and the and and the SI unfortunately will will be able to
Lionel Wilson
22:27-22:29
They're gonna get eaten alive.
Phillip Blackmore
22:33-22:51
to kind of dominate and lead that individual. You need someone that's going to push back, challenge. And and even if it's I always say someone, even if it's just have someone for a couple of days a week to advise you and guide you, even if it's through the first three months. Just someone, 'cause just it it it will save you money in the long run, I promise.
Lionel Wilson
22:50-23:03
Uh it will. It will. I I think there's there's also again two sides to that. I think that you do need mid-level. However, uh again a situation where uh mid-level is put in the situation of a large corporate program.
Phillip Blackmore
23:03-23:03
Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
23:03-23:17
Large corporates have very strong alphas running them. And they can be demagogues, they can be charismatic. And it doesn't matter if they have a little bit of a knowledge, they can convince a mid-level project manager to do anything.
Phillip Blackmore
23:10-23:10
Mm-hmm.
Lionel Wilson
23:17-23:26
They'll commit to doing a program they cannot deliver in that time. An experienced person, I wouldn't say doesn't care, but wouldn't care about saying no.
Phillip Blackmore
23:25-23:29
Sure. Yeah, those feel comfortable challenging.
Lionel Wilson
23:28-23:56
I'd also rewind because you actually said that uh you know why do you have this situation? I think a lot of this there's an assumption that you get given what you get given. And I think that's a mistake with SIs. At no point do you have to accept anything from the SI. You have the right to interview that team. You have the right to make sure that the person who's running it is um is capable. A good example, you just mentioned James Down. So if if James came up with a program, hands down, without a kind of a level experience, you wouldn't even think twice.
Phillip Blackmore
23:57-23:59
Yep.
Lionel Wilson
23:57-24:06
However, if you came across a major SI and uh beginning with A, uh and they come forward, double check that they actually have dynamic skills.
Phillip Blackmore
23:59-24:08
Hmm. Yep Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
24:06-24:29
And not just the fact that they've got a banking sector experience. And the program manager is also from banking banking sector. And they've got all this massive team. We're going to do this amazing job. And they can really talk the talk amazingly well. But if they haven't got that dynamics experience, it's actually a it's a problem because it'll manifest itself later in that they're not running it correctly and not recognizing the value of what's happening.
Phillip Blackmore
24:28-24:43
Yeah, absolutely. And Lionel, look, you you've obviously sat on both sides of the fence. If we sort of you you've worked partner consultancy side, you've worked um customer side. How does that differentiate kind of in your role as in how you sit?
Lionel Wilson
24:42-24:52
Uh the way I'm
Phillip Blackmore
24:43-24:51
Is there a differentiator in terms of do you find when you were working partner side, it felt slightly different to now today when you're sitting customer side?
Lionel Wilson
24:51-25:02
Very different realms, different people go for the different roles. I was thrown into an environment when I first joined Tectura, uh, and Tectura was the largest Microsoft consultancy uh for a long while.
Phillip Blackmore
24:57-25:07
Yep. Absolutely. At that time. Yeah
Lionel Wilson
25:02-25:11
Um and it they went to the buying spree and we had 1700 uh customers where I managed six hundred of them on as a global support
Phillip Blackmore
25:08-25:09
Mm-hmm.
Lionel Wilson
25:10-25:31
So we cross Nev, AX at the time, uh CRN, uh even GP and Solomon, believe it or not. Solomon is the very rarely known Microsoft product, which I think still exists to this day. It's a project management version of uh Dynamics. And so my experience was living with it. So I'd I'd spent time with every one of our customers, achieving, you know, I had Heineken and Carlsberg as our customers.
Phillip Blackmore
25:31-25:32
Yeah, yeah.
Lionel Wilson
25:31-25:33
Ernst Young was our customer.
Phillip Blackmore
25:33-25:38
Oh wow
Lionel Wilson
25:33-25:41
So it was difficult managing them because they couldn't actually touch their systems. They would only we could only talk to them and they would have to describe it to us.
Phillip Blackmore
25:37-25:38
Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
25:41-25:42
Uh because of security.
Phillip Blackmore
25:41-25:49
Yeah
Lionel Wilson
25:42-25:58
And it was Uh we it was it was an amazing experience and uh we did amazing things there, but I'm I personally prefer being client-side because I like to see a journey through from living with the company and and understanding their pain and getting it all the way through to actually living with that product.
Phillip Blackmore
25:50-25:52
Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
25:58-26:12
And I think that's far more fulfilling task for me personally. Whereas I do give up the security of being in a in a role where I can cycle through jobs. And if I didn't do a good job in that one, I c I'm not saying that they ever didn't
Phillip Blackmore
26:09-26:11
No, of course.
Lionel Wilson
26:10-26:15
But you know, you could just move on and you can learn quickly in those environments, and there is a massive learning experience, but it is safe.
Phillip Blackmore
26:16-26:46
Yeah, sure. When I think about that conversation, do you think if someone was starting out a career as a project manager, junior project manager, getting into it, actually starting off in a partner channel would actually be in some ways quite a good thing from the perspective of getting exposure to a variety of different customers, different projects, different environments, different people that that actually starting there's it's quite a good way really as opposed to sometimes just you go into one customer, you sit there for five years, you learn how that one customer does it. I I don't know.
Lionel Wilson
26:46-26:47
Yeah.
Phillip Blackmore
26:46-26:51
I'm just you're proposing the question to see what your thoughts would be.
Lionel Wilson
26:47-27:02
Well no, actually it it's it it it it sounds like a leading question, but it's actually a really good question. I would actually go a little bit further than that. If you're leaving university and you want to work somewhere and you want to be an entrepreneur,
Phillip Blackmore
26:56-26:56
Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
27:00-27:16
What you don't do is just set up a company and start doing it because you're gonna make some massive mistakes. You have no idea about how to manage a budget. You've got no idea how what sales is actually like until you realize you do it and realize What am I doing? Or this is really good, but I'm really bad at the technical piece.
Phillip Blackmore
27:16-27:19
Sure.
Lionel Wilson
27:16-28:06
A large corporate or a SI will not just teach you some of the skills of what you want to do. It's about living with the ecosystem. They will also give you access to learning, which you would never be able to afford yourself. An actual training course, even a boot cam, will cost you $3,500, maybe more, $5,000 for dynamics. Easily. And that's just your first foundation levels. Forget all the fixed assets. You want to do advanced management or inventory management, any of the real runs, retail, et cetera, HR. Each one of those, you just rack the numbers up. And they will give this to you as part of your training. Um, admittedly, you've got to give back to them. You've got to commit for something for it. But the learning is massive and you build up a great bunch of friends and you build up connections in the industry. Now if you still feel you want to move into consultancy a after that point or your own work after that
Phillip Blackmore
28:03-28:04
Mm-hmm.
Lionel Wilson
28:04-28:32
then fine, but don't make the jump early. I've seen a lot of people make the jump and realize they're not really good at it because they suck being good with people. Way back in 85, um I was 85, 87. uh I was fixing computers um uh at a place called Mastercare in Singapore and I loved it. You know, sitting there in the environment and but they sent me out into the field and we entered the customer sites and and in Singapore it's humid, it's dusty, it's a s etc.
Phillip Blackmore
28:30-28:32
Yeah, absolutely.
Lionel Wilson
28:32-28:36
And you'd go this and you'd fix this and it was amazing. At those time we were called whiz kids.
Phillip Blackmore
28:36-28:37
Right.
Lionel Wilson
28:36-28:59
And we would fix things and went back to the office. And we had a small team there which would fix things. And there was this one guy who was amazing. He was a wizard. uh he would fix anything in in a fraction of a second. So uh an unfortunately we were the situations you poke someone one step beyond what they're capable of. We moved him into the field and within that one day he resigned.
Phillip Blackmore
28:56-29:01
Right. Yeah, wasn't what he wanted to do.
Lionel Wilson
29:00-29:16
Uh no, what he wanted was a white coat, a lab, and an environment where he can just focus on this talking to people No, just no. He thought it was good going into the field, but when he realized he got it, that was it. In fact, it was so insulting he left the company immediately. Didn't even want to come back.
Phillip Blackmore
29:15-29:55
Well, no, I think you made a really good point there, Lana, earlier on. It's it is a case of, you know, learning to walk before trying to run, honing your skills, honing your experience before you you try and Take yourself into a role beyond your capabilities. I have I have many conversations daily where I maybe speak to some people that are looking to move from permanent roles into contract roles. than it may be slightly too early on in their career and experience journey. And I would always try and be very honest and open and say, you may well be better giving it another two or three years. learning and honing your skills and experience before you make that jump.
Lionel Wilson
29:55-29:56
Yeah.
Phillip Blackmore
29:56-30:22
Um because you're only g and and and the other side of it is people sometimes maybe that are early on in their contracting career then asking for rates that are comparable to people that are very experienced. And I always try and say you do realize Your rate will have a level of expectation put upon it. So if you are going to ask for the top level of rate, the client, the customer, the business will be expecting a level of work and delivery.
Lionel Wilson
30:22-30:23
Indeed.
Phillip Blackmore
30:22-31:00
in line with that. And I think sometimes people just just f forget that. They think about, oh well, I just want to earn X amount per day. And it's like, okay, but are you willing to do what is required for that? And do you have the experience? People sometimes, I think in this day and age, they just need to take a breath, learn the job, get very good at it. And when you're capable The opportunities are there. It's a great market. It's a great industry, the mic, Microsoft Dynamics Market. Some wonderful people, some wonderful projects. But sometimes I think for people that are sort of going on that career journey, it's about just being a little bit patient at times.
Lionel Wilson
30:58-31:12
Yeah. I agree. I'm gonna ask you a question. How many of your um contractors are really good about submitting all their expenses and stuff on time? It's it's all done to his letter, it never gets challenged.
Phillip Blackmore
31:13-32:02
We we have a very, very well organized back office team that That trying that try and facilitate it and manage it in as easy as a way as they can do it for them. It without singly doing it for them, we try and create a platform and a portal that means it's very easy. But yes, you have to chase, you have to ask, you have to encourage. And I'll never forget this actually years ago there was a chap and he he he won't mind me mentioning him. He was a he doesn't live in the UK anymore, but he was a at the time where you would get the sort of techno functional solution architects line or people that could kind of sit across the breadth of the product. And um he used to enter a timesheet every three months. because he just didn't couldn't basically be bothered to do it, you know, monthly.
Lionel Wilson
32:00-32:01
Yeah.
Phillip Blackmore
32:02-32:10
He that was just him. And to be to be honest, we understood it was him and that's how it worked. So we didn't bother chasing him month in, month out, saying.
Lionel Wilson
32:09-32:10
Right.
Phillip Blackmore
32:09-33:16
Please can you sub your submit your timesheets? Because we just knew that you wasn't going to do it and we lived with it and we learned with it. It wasn't ideal. But I think it's as a business, you you you do have to try and work with the contractors. You set up a framework, you try and keep it as fixed as you can, that this is when you need to enter your timesheets by, and we kind of work to that. But yeah, in general, most most most experienced contractors are pretty good. But there is, as you say, there is a real piece around. that as in you have to be responsible for your own business. So Lina, when you look back across the multitude of D365 programs you've been involved with, I mean I mean sure some incredibly complex. Is there a sort of does anything stand out about a a significant single challenge where you think, oh god, I remember walking in or being involved in this program and this project there was a significant or standalone challenge that you face. And then when you do look at that, how you then overcome that kind of challenge or how did you overcome that challenge? It'd be really interesting to, you know, I don't know if you want to call it war stories, but uh certainly a a war story.
Lionel Wilson
33:15-33:21
I've got lots of those. I think uh most of it's down to characters
Phillip Blackmore
33:19-33:20
Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
33:20-33:39
And a lot of the time it's demagogues uh who dominate. I think that's my biggest learning. Uh at no point Do you think you've you've achieved everything you can? Because every even 35 projects in, I'm still finding brand new things to to resolve or otherwise, things I've never come across.
Phillip Blackmore
33:30-33:31
Sure.
Lionel Wilson
33:39-34:02
There was one with a very large office supply company, which has 4,100 offices around the world, has had a very strong CEO and a very strong uh CIO. It's a good example where a program manager doesn't just support the company. It supports the SI2.
Phillip Blackmore
34:00-34:04
Mm-hmm. Okay.
Lionel Wilson
34:02-34:12
You're a balanced person who has to make sure both sides are held, both accountable, and that it uh you're putting forward both people to make sure they both do the best that they can.
Phillip Blackmore
34:04-34:06
Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
34:13-34:23
And when the the SI had made a mistake, got it, but they were resolving it, but the CIO wanted to come in heavy-handed.
Phillip Blackmore
34:17-34:18
Mm-hmm.
Lionel Wilson
34:23-34:36
and during a board meeting said in front of the CEO of the S of the SI and the C the sales lead uh and the project team who were had put forward their best foot to solve it and they admitted there was an issue.
Phillip Blackmore
34:34-34:38
Yeah, yeah. They were trying.
Lionel Wilson
34:36-35:16
Didn't didn't give him a chance and uh basically said that I want it resolved. Uh I'm not gonna pay you till it's done. In a board meeting, in the worst possible time where everything's recorded. And they came down hard because they are a 20 billion pound company. They can do this. It's not an issue that you have to follow in line with what I say. And I basically turned back to the company and said, you can't do that. They have done an amazing job. They have turned this around. They'll have it done in the next week, but that wasn't being heard. He just wanted it done, and because he'd already said it out loud, he well, he didn't wasn't gonna pay anything. Uh this created a legal scenario. And eventually I was engaged with Microsoft and I supported Microsoft as a partner in this situation.
Phillip Blackmore
35:16-35:18
Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
35:17-35:19
It did lead to me leaving eventually.
Phillip Blackmore
35:18-35:22
Hmm. Well, sometimes you have to do the right thing though, don't you?
Lionel Wilson
35:22-35:32
But you have to support and it and it did admittedly didn't solve my it didn't help me, but everyone recognized and they'd get the program forward. But there you go. It just sometimes you just have to do the right thing.
Phillip Blackmore
35:31-36:27
Yeah Yeah, I think I think that's it. And when you talk about sort of the makeup of a good project program manager, program manager, program director, do you think, Lionel, one of the biggest pieces is is the human element of managing human beings, how to manage, like you say, that one character, how you manage that character from how you differ manage a totally different personality. Bringing people together, I always look at it as like when you look at like a a sports coach, as in you look at, you know, the great rugby coaches, cricket coaches, football coaches. They have a persona that it feels to me like teams buy into them. Sometimes people lead maybe by a little bit of authority, sometimes people lead by example like I will lead, I will do, but they all seem to have like an air of authority, but but also I think really good ways of engaging and communicating and understanding how to communicate with a work stream lead and a CIO.
Lionel Wilson
36:26-36:27
Oh it's cool.
Phillip Blackmore
36:27-36:31
Do you know what I mean? It's about being able to communicate at all levels.
Lionel Wilson
36:30-36:39
I think there's many characters of doing it. I think yes, people i the people is ultimately a very broad subject, but the dynamics world is slightly different.
Phillip Blackmore
36:37-36:39
Ajá.
Lionel Wilson
36:40-37:02
um and uh or anything in the ERP space. I would argue that yes, people management is ultimately where it's at. But like your examples of a rugby coach or a football coach, if they've never actually played the game. And they're just general, they've come from an IT background and never done ERP, then no. Uh it doesn't matter how good a people person they are, they will fail.
Phillip Blackmore
36:59-37:08
Yeah, yeah
Lionel Wilson
37:02-37:13
And I've seen that a few times before. Uh admittedly you don't have to be deeply technical. I admittedly I am deeply technical, but I don't use it to I use it to mentor. I don't do it to to push in people's faces.
Phillip Blackmore
37:10-37:14
Mm-hmm. Understood.
Lionel Wilson
37:13-37:24
But it also means I understand that the the the area. But if you are coming from the other extreme where you don't have experience and you are just a very good program manager, then no, that's not a good fit.
Phillip Blackmore
37:23-37:35
Mm-hmm. Yes, such a good point. I didn't think of that. It's almost like just because someone's a an elite level coach at cricket doesn't mean that they're gonna jump over the fence and be an elite level rugby coach.
Lionel Wilson
37:35-37:42
However, if you're an elite-level coach for cricket, then you probably would be a very good business leader.
Phillip Blackmore
37:37-37:43
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Lionel Wilson
37:43-37:56
That alternatively would be absolutely right, mostly because the complexity and granularity of Of ERP is insane compared to IT. Let's say I'm not dissing a D IT manager and that yes, it's complex.
Phillip Blackmore
37:55-37:56
Yeah, yeah.
Lionel Wilson
37:56-38:02
If you've got an IT project, you want to upgrade a data center, you've got 30 servers, you've got different file servers, etc.
Phillip Blackmore
37:56-38:01
Yep. Mm-hmm.
Lionel Wilson
38:02-38:20
In in ERP, you've got a finance system which has at least 670 chart of accounts, lines of a chart of accounts. You've got at least Something in the in the order of around about 5,000 processes you need to ratify to um a s a core set of processes and to levels.
Phillip Blackmore
38:21-38:21
Yeah, yeah.
Lionel Wilson
38:21-38:30
And then you've got stakeholders. You've got stakeholders which number to thousands of people or even hundreds of people. And all of this needs to be coordinated at the same time. And it's overwhelming.
Phillip Blackmore
38:30-38:32
Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
38:30-38:48
And if you're just an IT project manager, You just you you'll be too overwhelming and and you try and get on top of it and you look like you're doing it, you don't know what's going wrong because you're not seeing the signs that actually it's not working
Phillip Blackmore
38:43-39:29
Absolutely. Is it easy to gauge like success of a project? In terms of like measurables and because when you you you know you talk about being involved in these programs for two, three, four years. For you as the program manager, do you set your cell phone you Do you have your own personal sort of deliverables in your own mind of thinking, if I can get this program to this stage, you will feel like you have delivered. success to that business? Is it something that you just look at it quite tangible from we get the business live, I'm getting great feedback from the key stakeholders. That's the overriding success piece as a program manager. It'd just be interesting to hear your thoughts on, I guess, how you as the program manager, program director, you know, measure that success or feel success or what success looks like.
Lionel Wilson
39:28-39:52
Mm-hmm. Very good question. Success can be subjective. However, and yes, you can create KPIs, and I'll talk through that in a second. But let's deal with the subjective piece. Success is about understanding what your original requirements are. And it's a lot of the time when you're thrown into a project, you're recovering a project because the local team couldn't deal with it.
Phillip Blackmore
39:50-39:53
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Lionel Wilson
39:52-40:00
But if you're starting from scratch, that's great. And a lot of people assume that because this is how the company run, we just need to refine it, that's what they need to do.
Phillip Blackmore
40:00-40:00
Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
40:00-40:11
And I think There are a few pieces which make sense. If you can separate the operational side from the business from the technical delivery side, then you create a point of allowing yourself to succeed.
Phillip Blackmore
40:05-40:06
Mm-hmm.
Lionel Wilson
40:12-40:28
So yes, you've got governance, yes, you've got managing the budgets or project, but the issue is setting it up for success. A good example of that is People forgetting the fact that I don't need to look at my SS processes. I don't need to look at a target operating model. I just know I need to get there.
Phillip Blackmore
40:28-40:30
Right.
Lionel Wilson
40:28-40:31
And I know everything about what what's gonna happen, so you just need to fix this.
Phillip Blackmore
40:30-40:36
Sure.
Lionel Wilson
40:32-40:39
And the problem is you don't know when you get to the other end whether you've caught all of the issues or the fact you've addressed all of the oper other processes.
Phillip Blackmore
40:36-40:37
Yep.
Lionel Wilson
40:39-41:04
You don't need to do it to an nth degree, of course in large programs you do, but If you start with a target operating model of saying, well, this is what the business wants to do, but that also means that it's going to take a change to the structure of the business and the organizational structure of what we want to do and the governance of the business is affected. If you implemented this part of an SAP system or a dynamic system and it goes wrong, it doesn't matter how good your system is at all.
Phillip Blackmore
40:55-41:04
Yeah. Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
41:04-41:30
They will blame you and that system for everything that goes wrong with it. And it and and it's just how it's gonna be. But if you separate it, the weird thing is people are more forgiving with operational side of the business. If you say we're gonna restructure this and the head of that department or that team is gonna say, right. We've got a new cell structure which is going to happen according to this. We needed to work out this governance model and we want to move our central um help desk system to Rizhao in in China or we want to move it into Dallas.
Phillip Blackmore
41:30-41:32
Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
41:30-41:39
for for the payroll, fine. You pay that as a structure and you make that as a separate separate stream from the IT project, which is running ERP or CRM.
Phillip Blackmore
41:37-41:38
Mm-hmm.
Lionel Wilson
41:39-41:50
And then what you do is you match the statement of work in the PID to their target operating model. You get that signed off. So any changes to that model reflect in yours. So what you're doing is accommodating the shift.
Phillip Blackmore
41:48-41:51
Right. Yes.
Lionel Wilson
41:51-42:17
All you're doing is making sure that anything which happens, if there's a problem with that, they deal with it on the resource side. On our side, we're delivering a game set, we're double checking that is this right, because in that Tom, you've got your KPIs, your OKRs, your uh key performance metrics, say this is what good looks like. I need this NPS. I need these value levers from IPE. All these things are set up aside. And so you're not getting caught in that brat race of trying to catch up and getting caught in that dialogue.
Phillip Blackmore
42:16-42:17
Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
42:17-42:22
But coming back to what Ultimately comes down to it. It's money and time.
Phillip Blackmore
42:22-42:26
Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
42:22-43:20
You always must come in under or on budget. 90% of programs do not do that. And they just take that as accepted. And I don't think that is acceptable. There again, this comes back from running within a consultancy and being in charge of teams. There's metrics and models for managing a project. Most important, which I, as far as I'm concerned, is a metric called ETC, estimate to complete. If you're running waterfall, there are different measures if you want to run agile. But on a waterfall program, estimate complete is everything. Everything. Every step of the way, I want that team to tell me how of this program, of all things that you've got left, roughly how much of this, and how what does your gut feel tell me that you're doing? If you're saying that We're out on fixed assets and we're we're not getting anywhere near it. I'm gonna have to load this up as part of the program. And you don't you don't give grief to the consultant who says that. They're basically saying you're lifting this by ten days. Uh and this has a knock-in effect of let's say a thousand pounds a day. Uh and if you do that enough, you can be off drift.
Phillip Blackmore
43:20-43:24
Absolutely.
Lionel Wilson
43:20-43:34
So as part of your reporting, you make sure that's it's ETC is constantly reported on. And what is the consultancy and what are you doing to get that back in track? And that's a really tough call. And if they're not used to doing it, they will feel affronted. They will feel defensive about doing that.
Phillip Blackmore
43:32-43:35
Yeah, on that.
Lionel Wilson
43:34-43:40
But if you get on top of that and it's not a concern
Phillip Blackmore
43:35-43:40
Yeah, early. Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
43:38-43:41
That's really important and everyone's happy with you at that point.
Phillip Blackmore
43:41-43:43
Yeah, absolutely.
Lionel Wilson
43:41-43:55
And the other part of it is that against the comms is keeping that dialogue up Keep the meeting short but regular for everyone and your main stakeholder. A lot of people make the mistakes of leaving the project running and they come back and this massive thing occurred and why didn't I know about it?
Phillip Blackmore
43:55-43:59
Yeah, yeah.
Lionel Wilson
43:56-44:03
keep the dialogue short, keep us every meeting 30 minutes or less. And then including including steering group meetings.
Phillip Blackmore
43:59-44:06
Yeah, absolutely. Just keep the uh the information to absolutely what's necessary.
Lionel Wilson
44:03-44:07
Yeah. Absolutely.
Phillip Blackmore
44:06-44:44
Thank you very much for your time as well today. It's been fantastic. The insights have been wonderful. But one thing that I always like to ask everyone, if you're sat opposite from a friend or whatever it might be that says to you, hey, Lionel, we're going to be looking to implement Microsoft Dynamics 365, global scale. Are there any sort of key pieces of advice that you would look to give to that person before embarking on the implementation process? So they've selected a product, they're about to start, you know, implementation. Is there any two or three key pieces of advice that you would sort of say just before you start this piece of work, some things to think about and some things that you should probably make sure that you've got in place before you go on that journey?
Lionel Wilson
44:44-44:49
Yes, I would start at the basis of the RFP, the tender itself.
Phillip Blackmore
44:48-44:48
Okay.
Lionel Wilson
44:49-44:52
And I'll come back to your question if you're just about to start as well.
Phillip Blackmore
44:51-44:53
No please, yeah.
Lionel Wilson
44:52-45:06
But I think the most important point is the RFP is ridiculously important. The more time you spend on that, A lot of people spend two weeks putting it together and they think they've quite captured everything. But I would argue this is probably the best place to bring on board someone who's experienced, like a program lead.
Phillip Blackmore
45:06-45:12
Yep, sure
Lionel Wilson
45:07-45:52
Because they can shape that from all the experience they've had and understanding your business, what they need to get into the RFP and to catch things like project management accounting as an example. Or understanding the fact that you've got seven payrolls and though of the payrolls they're taking us uh around about a month to deal with these payrolls because of all these issues. You need to capture this as part of it. Because it You're setting yourself out getting for success because you're giving them the the SIs a chance to properly pitch for it and to properly evaluate the size and scale of the project. Going forward to let's say you started and this is and let's say this is out of your control happens and you sit down, don't assume that everything's okay. Uh the sales team, not being horrible, are going to be the most gifted people at getting this this project over to you, and they're really lovely people.
Phillip Blackmore
45:44-45:56
Yeah. Yeah
Lionel Wilson
45:52-46:04
And By the nature of of the of the fact that they're willing to please, they will promise things that maybe they shouldn't have. Or they'll commit to something to squeeze the project plan without the project manager's experience to actually do it.
Phillip Blackmore
45:59-46:00
Yep.
Lionel Wilson
46:05-46:14
It's better to have that that discussion at the start, not two months into the program, and you realize that they're no way gonna deliver this program in this timeline.
Phillip Blackmore
46:14-46:15
Absolutely.
Lionel Wilson
46:15-46:34
And the other thing I would say is don't underestimate the time it takes to review the project plan to create project plans. For a large-scale program, it could be anywhere up to a month to two months. It's really significant. It's a massive piece of work. Smaller programs, uh maybe the program is a two million, four million pound implementation.
Phillip Blackmore
46:32-46:33
Mm-hmm.
Lionel Wilson
46:34-47:10
I'd still say you need around about three to four weeks. If you just and just for the project manager, given it the size and scale of the of the complexity of the pro job they've got, they've got all of these programs trying with all these people trying to line in these uh 500 processes with the resource management they have on their side, the availability of their staff and the availability of your staff coming together in this one project plan. This is why people buy ERP systems, but you're expecting this project manager to come out of the the the reads to say, it's all good after three minutes of looking at it.
Phillip Blackmore
47:08-47:09
Yeah.
Lionel Wilson
47:10-47:22
It it really isn't. It takes time and it's worthwhile spending that time. Do that up front because if you get that right, time obviously directly affects the cost of your resources and anything which is missing coming through.
Phillip Blackmore
47:22-47:42
Brilliant. Lionel, thank you so much for your time today. I've I've honestly it's been It's been really interesting talking to you, getting your views on projects, programs, how they run, what they look like, what success looks like. Um the insights you've provided have been really fascinating. So yeah, thank you ever so much for your time with that today.
Lionel Wilson
47:41-47:43
Thank you very much for your term two.
Phillip Blackmore
47:45-47:56
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