Dr Dani: [00:00:00] Hey, Peter. 

Designer Peter: Hello, Dani. How are you? 

Dr Dani: Good. How are you? 

Designer Peter: I'm very well, thank you. Yes, 

Dr Dani: I'm very well. We have another exciting episode , and we've got a guest here with us today.

Designer Peter: Yeah, it's going to be a I've been looking forward to this one, Dani. I'm really excited to have this conversation. Do you want to introduce our guest? Yes. Our listener. 

Dr Dani: I'm going to have her say hello soon, but Suzie is Suzie and I have done some work together and today's episode is going to be a little bit different because we're going to be talking about we talk on this show a lot about design thinking as a concept, but today we're going to be talking about design thinking in action and share some of the ways that Suzie and I have put some of the things we talk on this show into practice.

Suzie: Cool. So that's the point I say, hi, kia ora everyone. We'll 

Dr Dani: Suzie, do you want to just say two sentences about what your role ? 

Suzie: Sure. I'm currently the people [00:01:00] and culture director across our operations part of the business at Fonterra. Fonterra being a cooperative, so owned by farmers in New Zealand. Just under 10, 000 farmers who create and farm milk.

And we, the part of business I'm in has just under 9, 000 people. So that's everyone from tank operators who pick up the milk every day, and right through to the supply chain and quality testing and shipping it all around the world to about 130, Also countries and lots of customers who we make all sorts of things from not only milk but when you're high end proteins, et cetera.

Yeah, and cheese, so much goodness, yogurt, the works. So it's a really dynamic role with 9, 000 people or just under in Fonterra in total has about 18, 000. Our people play a core part in. Making the product and getting it there, getting it out to our customers. 

Designer Peter: Amazing. And as you were describing the role and the organization, especially Suzie, I thought occurred to me that [00:02:00] for international listeners often the kind of the default mental model or picture that people have in their minds of New Zealand is Mountains and sheep, and I think the sheep and the wool is definitely maybe a little bit outdated these days, and in reality cows and dairy in particular play a significant part in New Zealand's economy.

That's true to say, isn't it? 

Suzie: Yeah, amazing our primary industries. I'd add in fruit, kiwi fruit, , wine. All of our primary industries, I think there's a lot to be proud of in New Zealand in terms of, 5 million people is our population. And I was actually at a US conference a few months ago for the first time and introducing yourself from New Zealand and they're like, don't you have as, more sheep than people?

And I was like, yes, that is still true. But I think in terms of the world stage, the Olympics, everything, we for such a small population, there's. Whilst we like to be humble, there is a lot to be proud of as [00:03:00] a New Zealander. 

Dr Dani: Yes. Tiny but mighty. 

Designer Peter: Tiny but mighty. And that, I would get into what we're going to talk about today, I think is one example of something something different coming from New Zealand and something really interesting that has lots and lots of potential, I think.

 Back to you, do you want to do a bit more introduction? 

Dr Dani: Sure. , I'm going to introduce this in the way that Suzie introduced it to me. Oh, 

Suzie: cool. Oh. Oh. Okay. 

Dr Dani: My first conversation with Suzie, we got on a team's call and she goes, right? Imagine this. Imagine a SWAT team in a helicopter.

And I'm sitting there going, where is she going? I 

Suzie: can't believe it was the first thing I said. It's embarrassing, looking back on it. 

Dr Dani: No, it was, I did wonder wait a minute, I thought this was Fonterra. But it, I think it was a great introduction and had I known the knowledge of what we ended up doing [00:04:00] with this, it is the perfect introduction to the work, right?

 At the time it probably didn't make sense because we were embarking on something that we had a vision or you had a vision that you wrangled me into and I bought into the vision. Yeah. But I didn't really, until I understood and saw it happening, the vision, like the picture that you were painting didn't click but your enthusiasm for the vision, that's what got me hooked.

I'm like, I don't know how this is going to work, but I want to figure it out. It's 

Suzie: So cool to hear it. The helicopter was just an analogy and a picture in my mind, really. Where I was, I think I was trying to articulate, Hey, we've got this 20, 000 feet strategic problem to solve.

And The visual of the SWAT team, so S W A T, in case my accent's not so easy. In terms of, special weapons and tactics from the military [00:05:00] inspiration where you typically see that helicopter and then they dive into a problem with different skill sets get some stuff done.

And then zoom out and go to the next one. So that was the analogy that was in my head at the time and somehow stuck. 

Dr Dani: Just to give our audience a bit of context, do you want to just share at a high level what the problem was that needed solving? 

Suzie: Yeah, sure. So who I had been in this role about maybe three or four months.

 It was about the week before Christmas and the chief operating officer of the Times, my boss said to me, are we going to have enough people to pick up and process the milk next season? Because he had been hearing , from other industries that we're just coming back off of COVID.

That had been a challenging time from a people resourcing perspective anyway at the cusp of some, economic challenges aging workforce, you name it, that other [00:06:00] people were looking at sourcing internationally to make sure they had enough people. So meat industry, et cetera, others.

So he was like, are we going to have enough people? And I was like, ah, let me come back to you on that. And I went to obviously colleagues in my leadership team who run manufacturing supply chain, et cetera, and said, Hey, this is the question. What are your thoughts? And what data do we have? And so I went to my team and we pulled some data and also anecdotally what the leaders were saying.

And that was like, Ooh and it was predictive data. So just a call out to not perfect at all. Whilst we're a reasonable size, the data in our systems are not necessarily that easy to navigate. So it was call it 80 percent data. But it was saying we might have a good sort of 20 to 30 percent shortage.

in five of our most critical roles when you think of picking up and processing the milk. So just to give a live example our tanker operators, we have 1400 tanker operators because they're running, shift work, picking up the milk [00:07:00] and taking it to our factories. We thought we might have somewhere around 200, 210 shortage and across New Zealand.

So not just in one location, right? Up and down the country. And to be a tank operator, it's a really tricky job. You've got to have a level five license. So you can't just train those people in three months. It takes a couple of years and in New Zealand you have really tricky rural roads. So that's just one of the five critical roads we thought, where would we find them from?

in that time frame. So just taking it back to the problem to solve was, are we going to have enough people? And our season here is around August that it starts. We only had three or four month window. We would only have three or four month window to find those people, train them up and in terms of our way of doing things and food safety quality to get them, to get that season started.

The other roles were things like lab technicians, et cetera, again. Really technical roles that forklift operators, process and packing [00:08:00] operators up and down the country. Three or four months in as well, I was like, Ooh, the data's indicative but that's quite a size of the problem.

And then we also knew at the time it was still in commercially sensitive stage where we'd had a really good partnership, recruitment partnership. For about 20 and we were going to close out of that partnership and do bring recruitment and talent acquisition in house. So that was still at a confidential stage.

So I could see there was a little bit of risk on the horizon that are we going to be able to recruit these people, find them, recruit them if to have enough people next season. So yeah, that was the problem that gave me quite a bit of nervousness, could you say? And yeah the other part to that was probably.

We thought about it in three, three kind of buckets. So we knew our recruitment process was not, we weren't necessarily making it easy for people [00:09:00] to get in the door. It was quite an arduous process, lots of steps along the way. So not not the easiest. The second part was we hadn't, even though we were a reasonable size in New Zealand, we hadn't really marketed.

The awesome, I'm probably a bit biased, the awesome career opportunities you can have in our cooperative. So we hadn't really talked about that. And so we didn't do much marketing and then thirdly, did we need to source internationally like others were, and that has a few hooks in it, obviously, but and we are a farming cooperative here for New Zealand there was also an element of all, if we could sort out our recruitment process a bit more and make that easier, if we could market what we do and reach.

Reach different people about the great job opportunities we have. Do we need to go there? But quite a bit of nervousness about, oh, how are we going to solve for this? So It's [00:10:00] probably why I was connected to you, Dani, and then we're so grateful after a couple of calls we had to work.

Assembled his team pretty quickly, right? So it was great for you came on board.

Dr Dani: I do want to point out a couple of things because one of the things that we talk about in design thinking is it's very important to have data and make data informed decisions, but it's also important to not wait till we know everything to move forward.

And I think that, we had to look at the data and go. We know 80 percent that this is an issue based on this data that we had, so we could have said, actually, we want to have 100 percent certainty, in which case we'd probably be still working on this problem, right? And have fixed nothing.

Yeah, completely. That takes a little bit of bravery and also some pragmatism to go, This is where the data's leading us, but then we also know from the pain points within the business that we're all living through that this is the case. So let's just go do it.

Suzie: Yeah. A hundred percent. One of my favorites is that progress, not perfection. [00:11:00] Yes. Probably my team are like, Oh no, but progress, we're all about progress, not perfection. And we had a real, it was a real problem to solve. We didn't, with human or people data, you can only get that far as well. I believe.

You have to go these are the indicators and, it's not an option to not have people pick up our farmer's milk. Not enough people to do that is, is, is not an option. 

Dr Dani: The other reason that this problem was a really good one to solve is that it had that sense of urgency, right?

Because we were, so these conversations are happening in January, February, and then peak milk season. These are all things I learned, by the way I, being a city girl did not know that there was a milk season. I just assumed cows just produced milk. I remember 

Suzie: that [00:12:00] moment and I was like, Oh, wow. Let me introduce you to a world of dairy.

Dr Dani: So we had six months to really get this all together. And actually less than that, right? Because you had to start your recruitment ahead of time. So there was this sense of urgency around we've got to move quickly and we need to do things differently. We can't do things the way we've done it. We need a different approach because time is of the essence.

Suzie: Yeah, completely. And that's probably where that's coming back to the crazy SWAT helicopter analogy was here's the problem to solve who are the people we need to be involved on a SWAT team, which I think at the time I thought sounded exciting rather than let's get a cross functional team, but that's what it was, let's get a cross functional team on this problem. So I was like, it's a SWAT team, let's go. And I remember someone saying so does that mean we get weapons? I was like, oh no, just to be clear, no, no weapons in this situation. But yeah, so we quickly went who needs to be on the [00:13:00] group? Connecting with the leadership team and who's going to give them the phone call first.

So little human things like that matter that I think now we've got so much technology. Calling each of those people, we split that up between the team and I to share the problem and share what we'd really love them to be a part of. And very, within a couple of weeks had our first call which actually was going to be face to face, but in New Zealand at the time was when there was a lot of flooding.

Unfortunately some devastatingly, it ended up being quite flooding, but so we couldn't get, the flights were cancelled and we just got online. But it works, right? We've got different people together. And in that first kickoff meeting, shared the, it's the pre read, the briefing document.

So see, this is the data we have. We know it's not perfect. This is the three areas we think there's an opportunity in. But come to the first call with what do you know? What do we know? What do we not know? Add to the picture. And then we're going to figure out how [00:14:00] we're gonna do this together.

Dr Dani: I kept saying to Suzie we have to go slow to go fast because everybody just wanted to come in and go let's go fix this, which. It's a little bit ironic because the whole point of SWOT was to jump in and fix things, but we also needed to take the time to one, get on the same page because these are people that haven't necessarily worked together before.

And this was a very different way of working for them. But also for SWOT to be effective you have to have a clear plan of what are we going after? And to really distill that down, I think we needed to go through three workshops. But once we landed that, It went pretty quickly. 

Suzie: I remember that because we'd have a, like 15 minute quick debrief after the calls of getting it going And you'd be like now we're gonna have to go slowly here Suzie And I'll be like, oh which is beautiful coaching to me as well, right having to just go wait Let's go slow to go fast.[00:15:00] 

How are we gonna get, chunk this down? And bring in some beautiful, design thinking, behavioral science. One of my favorites was the, which I didn't, I hadn't heard of yet, was the now, next, later. So when you brought that to us, Dani, okay, what do we do now? What do we do next?

What do we do later? And I use that all the time now, just to help chunk it down. 

Dr Dani: Yeah, because I think sometimes when we go into planning one at that stage, there were so many things that could have been done that it was just overwhelming, right? Because we put everything on Miro and it was like, how are we ever going to get this done?

So then I, we literally went through this exercise. Okay, what are the things that we need to do right now? And some of those things were like, there was things that the team knew just needed to get done They knew how to get it done, but they just hadn't had the capacity to get it done So this was the opportunity just go do those things, right?

And I also like the now next later model because We tend to get hung up on time frames like two [00:16:00] weeks, you know Dates all those kinds of things and the now next later is like it's it is conceptual but it just lets you get on with things and not get caught up In the time frames 

Suzie: Yeah the other bit I remember from that time was, because it had all happened so quickly kick started the team, urgency is sometimes really a friend, right?

Dr Dani: It 

Suzie: really drives some momentum. Yet we were building the approach as we went took some things from agile methodologies, but the quick standup meetings, the, some techniques from there, then some of the techniques from design thinking, and some of that was because of the time pressure we'd, other companies were looking at.

Doing like full agile, if you like which made sense for their context. But I think sometimes that's from what I've noticed is being used as a one size fits all in, in my personal view is like. I don't think that always [00:17:00] works, right? These areas you need to absolutely be agile in areas where that, that just doesn't match the work or the nature of the work.

Whereas what was cool about this is we had the freedom to pick the tools for the job. To be done, but also that the bit that I hadn't really appreciated, probably because I was new into this business unit area, was that people really hadn't operated in that way or necessarily felt empowered.

I know that's a bit of an overdone, overused word. But I think that probably best describes what was going on. So I was like might have tried that in the past, but came up a few times. I'm like why don't why not give it another go now? Tell me what would stop us or what could be possible?

Or yeah, we could get approval for that. Or why have we always done that? Testing in the recruitment process for that kind of job. And I would ask lots of questions. Dumb questions really, to unlock that in the team and say, I'm sorry, please, bear with me if there's an obvious answer here, but am I missing something?[00:18:00] 

And then that would really open up others to, to really bring their expertise 

Dr Dani: to the 

Suzie: room. 

Dr Dani: And that was a good example of in design. We also talk about thinking like a novice and I know in your case, you are actually a novice in that space, but it worked for the benefit, right?

Because then you weren't afraid to ask those questions and question why do we do it this way? Yeah. Does it have to and as 

Suzie: the kind of leader on those calls and sorts, but I also said, look, I'm going to lean in and lean out here. That's I guess that's just partly who I am in terms of my style anyway, but also wanted to make sure they knew that they had all the expertise.

What we needed to do was bring it together like we hadn't before and that balance of. Supporting them, no, and them knowing that the support's there, and if we need to move this and move that, absolutely, but equally I'll lean in and out. And I'd catch myself, oh, I'm leaning in too hard on something, [00:19:00] or, oh, I need to loon out again, and then catch up with a couple of the team on different things and they would give me that stare of, oh, no, I think you've leaned out too far now, Suzie, can you come to the next call?

Sure, absolutely, or I'd just come in to the last 10 minutes. Which I know are subtle things, but they're human behavior things that, that show trust and support, but often I see leaders might lean out too far in the spirit of empowering the team and giving them the autonomy, which is a great thing, right?

Everybody wants that. But at times you, you lean out too far. So it was a real challenge for me as well. And it's not the only thing we obviously had going on. This was one of many, so that kind of dance capacity wise to do this different approach and build it as we went, but I think that's probably one of the valuable things of who's on the team, who do you actually need on the team with the right skills and then the impact players, which.

It was just another fun way of saying [00:20:00] you're a person that has some awesome skills, but you don't need to be there all the time. You can have an impact, absolutely, but come in and out. And then, Dani, us very early recognizing we didn't have the design thinking capability, your skill set.

Come and join the team. 

Dr Dani: In that context, probably helped having an external view and because this was a new way of working for everybody. So not only did I bring the design thinking elements, but also bringing in just ideas of different ways that we could be working.

And also I didn't have any talk, like I didn't know much about the business I didn't. So I wasn't wedded to. Any one way of doing things like you like I didn't know enough to take a side Kind of thing right so yoga. What's the 

Suzie: history with that? Oh, I don't know So 

Dr Dani: I think that helped so just to Frame this up.

So the whole swat the problem that we were trying to solve is Making sure that we [00:21:00] had the recruitment process in a very updated, streamlined, modernized way that was able to move quickly in the labor market that you were operating in and making sure that the new, The target state recruitment process was able to help fill the business need quickly.

Suzie: Making sure we had the right number of people to pick up and process the milk. Really. It sounds quite simple when you say it like that, but we were looking at potentially 20 percent shortages. 

Designer Peter: Yeah. And the cows were I don't know if cows crossed their legs, but 

Suzie: No, that's not. 

Designer Peter: It's not an option.

Cows crossing their legs was not an option. An urgent, immovable deadline. It's, it's a perfect The milk 

Suzie: is coming, whether they were ready for it or not. 

Designer Peter: Okay, back up those tankers. Yeah, 

Suzie: and there is that, see, we are a cooperative, right? Yeah. Our farmer shareholders, how would we, Oh, that kind of, 

Designer Peter: how would we 

Suzie: explain that?

Designer Peter: This whole [00:22:00] story for me and Dani, you'll be familiar with the phrase, Suzie maybe already, but one of my favorite phrases, I think it's attributed to someone called Perry Klebahn, who I think is maybe a professor at the Stanford Design School. He talks about don't get ready, get started. And to me, that sounds exactly what you did.

Like you were doing the classic building the airplane while you're flying it, but rather than building the solution, which are they playing as a solution, you're building the way that you're going to operate and going with just enough information and just enough vision to and I guess maybe reading into

the risk of doing nothing was so great that any other risk was diminished in contrast to that. Doing nothing wasn't an option. What a great opportunity. I'm interested in whether the organization, Was used to getting things up and running quickly.

I know that the organization didn't have this capability. Suzie's shaking her head. So it wasn't. So there's so much new stuff in here. So it's such an amazing kind of story of [00:23:00] getting something going for. 

Suzie: Yeah, the I think what I noticed when I came into this area, I've worked in a number of areas across Fonterra.

But when I came into this area, I just noticed your had. Great expertise, great people in different areas, but there was something, and this is still a challenge for us that we're working on today, there was something about those people not necessarily coming together.  

And that, that cross functional collaboration kind of word. 

So that was, like, oh, but have you picked up the phone and talked to so and or how might we Who do we need? Who do we, and not who do we need as in everybody, just who are the fewest people we need and with the right experience and just different perspectives, back to Dani's point of the questions she asked us along the way.

And at one point there we had a rhythm of a debrief call, just her and I for 15 minutes, so I wasn't necessarily in the SWOT [00:24:00] sessions, in the middle, but we would have this 15 minute debrief call on how much you can get through. With great questions was like, Oh, okay. And what do we need to think about?

So we were constantly adjusting, but it was definitely, and that's probably something I underestimated, to be really honest, I underestimated that people weren't necessarily used to working in this way. And I think there's a mindset, but in that too, about what's possible. So sometimes when people have been in their jobs for some time or I just think that's really natural, right?

Whereas we were going wait a minute, what's possible here? And one other part was the, the kind of marketing campaign that, arguably you would have thought we would have done. For the sort of size of organization we work, but we got our people. So real people and talking about, what they loved about their jobs and a really cool funky way.

Which we hadn't actually done before. Quick, and it was [00:25:00] so proud of those people, how they showed up and. So even that, it's a marketing campaign, but actually it was on billboards everywhere. And we hadn't, we didn't have a lot of money, right? We're a farming cooperative. So we're really conscious about every dollar you spend.

So what I love about this too, is we were really deliberate about Dani's role in, in that piece of the puzzle as well as, okay, we could spend this amount of money on some great marketing, but we'll use our own people because it's better anyway. Really showcasing what these jobs are about.

We'll, pull in different people who, maybe their day job was a little bit connected to the problem, but just by the kind of, hey, this is what we're really about and what we need, the purpose, really. It's meaningful work, that was pretty cool. It was pretty don't get me wrong, it was bumpy along the way, because as you say, the, we were building it as we went and pulling on what tools do you need for the job.

But what I love is at the end of it, we did this [00:26:00] really cool, Okay, we call it a high performing team review, but which is just a bunch of questions really about what went well, what surprised you, what learnings could we take next time, and when we wrapped that, loads of learnings as well, which we've now taken in.

to the next SWAT team topic, if you like, or problem to solve. And those two, we've advanced the approach again. So we took all the learnings from the first time we did it. And then, and it's not the approach for everything, right? And I think that's important too. Like you've got to back to the helicopter, be, strategically, where does this approach, is this approach needed?

Designer Peter: It 

Suzie: got movement so fast, like I'm so proud of that team because we obviously, I should have said where the story ends. As we obviously were fine. 

Designer Peter: Yes. And we got 

Suzie: all of this interest and awareness about the career opportunity opportunities as [00:27:00] well. So thousands of views. We got, enough people to pick up really good quality people to pick up and process the milk in those five critical roles.

Was really successful. 

Designer Peter: Awesome. 

Dr Dani: I also want to comment on Peter's question around speed. The organization was not used to moving at speed, at the speed that Suzie was pushing this to be moved. Neither were the teams. So there was a lot of questioning around, we haven't done there's a normal process that you do within your organization to get a project stood up and people were still in that mindset a little bit and questioning we haven't done all these normal things that we do and really getting them to break up with, yeah, that is a way of doing projects, but that's not what we're doing here.

And. And constantly having to bring people back on the path and you'd get them on the path and then they'd start question, we'd move along and then they'd ask questions, they question, is this the right [00:28:00] path should be, and then having the same conversation and keeping. 

So it wasn't just that we were trying to create change for the business, but we were actually trying to change the way we create change for the business. 

Suzie: So it's That's a great call out. Like it's not the pro that's not the type of problem where you can actually do a project plan and a Gantt chart and have that all out to, months.

And yeah, I think there's a really good call out and it became quite embracing. For the people, but it was bumpy at the start because it was just not how the organization was used to working. And why couldn't we do that? Oh, what's possible. And, oh, what would what would be the next two moves?

Designer Peter: What's 

Suzie: the next move here? Or what's the next two moves? Let's do that. And then have you, so the week, they had the usual kind of almost agile one or two meeting cadence a week and kind of the stand up meetings and keeping the pace going there. And then for the three streams, they split off.

Into the streams and then it was then they'll come back together and to keep the [00:29:00] connectivity of how do we get movement and action and drive the next action and oh, we're going to need approval for changing how we do some of our health checks. Okay, that's great. Who do we need to talk to?

Whereas approval sometimes would take weeks.  

Same. Yeah, it was quite a change for people, but particularly when we did the debrief, it was quite, people were like, this is great, you can really move. 

Dr Dani: Go on Pete. 

Designer Peter: That leads me to the question of the people who've been on a SWAT team, and from what I understand, they were part of the team who would be, Continuing to, in this case, run the recruitment process, their recruitment experiences, once they'd accomplished their SWOT mission what sort of things did they go on to do or keep doing how, what's their kind of thoughts on.

Kind of going back to, let's say, having been in the special forces, they're going back to the regular army. What's that been like for, what have [00:30:00] they carried forwards? What are they, what have you seen from your kind of your point of view? What have you seen people start to use as almost business as usual that you learned maybe for the first time, that everybody learned for the first time in the SWAT experience that's almost rippling across the whole organization as a, just a, this is the way we do this as a cultural norm, if you like.

Suzie: I think for our customers, if you like, so for our managers and, doing all the interviews and getting people on board, they saw results in terms of, they gave us feedback about some of the things that weren't working and we acted on it. So for them, that was really valuable.

For people involved in the SWAT a real sense of some of the things that they'd probably, they'd tried to tackle before, but hadn't, for whatever reason, whatever context hadn't been able to get movement on. That was like, Oh, fantastic. And because it was real results, there was a lot of pride.

A couple of them were like, this is a career highlight which was pretty rewarding to hear in terms of how they'd also personally grown and developed [00:31:00] and the things that some people had worked in their own areas, so they hadn't had the opportunity to come together with other areas across the business.

To really focus on a problem to solve and get there. Yeah, those would probably be a couple of the key takeouts. And then we when we reviewed, probably the other one also, when we did the review at the end, we went back to the now, next, later. 

Designer Peter: Oh, yeah, 

Suzie: and we said, okay, we've done a bunch of the now stuff that you could do within that three, four, five month period.

Which also was a great way to split up. Actually, there's some bigger stuff we'd like to change, but that's just not, you're not going to do it in that time window. So let's move on the things we can move on rather than getting all overwhelmed. So we went back to the now, next, later. And near that time, also the talent acquisition team was then becoming stood up internally.

Dr Dani: So 

Suzie: then there was a natural home, whereas before there wasn't a natural home for a few of these [00:32:00] pieces of work, like the marketing campaign, if you like. So then it was like, oh, let's color code. Literally, color code that page to what goes to BAU roles and transitions, and then what is still needs to be done in the next and later buckets.

So that was actually a really useful way as the as that part of that, the recruitment or talent acquisition, as we now call it, was getting stood up. It was quite a good way to, to carve out who does what next to keep it going. Thank you. 

And then secondly we actually then moved into a much broader piece of work around strategic workforce planning.

So this was quite a focused five critical roles. How do you have the pipeline of people in those? And then, more broadly we were kicking off for us to deliver what we're here to do. as a wide organization, but particularly within, within operations of our sort of just under 9, 000 people what's needed from people in terms of what types of jobs [00:33:00] we are with, what skill sets in what culture.

So we then went broad strategic and then went right. Actually, there's a couple of problems to solve in here that the SWAT team approach could work for. So one of them, when we looked at the skills we need engineering. So we did a matrix of what's critical for us to deliver and what's scarce in the market.

And when you put, when you plot that out engineering is quite a broad term as well. So that's what was called engineering plus which wasn't supposed to stick, but did and the, so then we got an even broader cross functional group together. So some of our our key engineering leaders.

Dr Dani: Yeah. 

Suzie: And working with them to say, again, here's the briefing pack, here's some data the problem to solve is how are we going to have the different engineering skillsets to make sure we can deliver and how do we actually be attractive? Because a number of the [00:34:00] engineers and universities, if you go and talk to them, they don't really know of us as, we're not in their top five, I don't know, even know where we feature.

It's not really, we're not really on that list. That was a broader challenge of how do we attract people? How also internally do we make sure we have great career paths? And, so again, we kicked off another SWOT team because it was the type of problem that a SWOT approach fits where it's an adaptive problem.

There's a, if you do something over here, it could influence something over there. It's more dynamic than say a really sequential, maybe complex, but technical problem to solve. This is where you need different thinking. Diverse thinking in the room to problem solver and again, use the now next later, use lots of different tools.

So we refined the SWOT approach and then applied it to that one. We've got some great results through [00:35:00] there. And then we also applied it to one of the other big trends when we looked at the data we have was the aging workforce. Or changing demographics, I would say, is the broader Broader topic in the workforce, which is not unique to us.

But it was pretty significant when you look at five generations in the workforce, but also when you look at a macro sort of data that we have, we'd have quite a significant percentage. Heading towards retirement age in these key roles. So how do you get the knowledge transfer?

How do you get that transition for people? And 

Dr Dani: What this shows is the first SWOT that we did it was really an experiment, right? Because I hadn't done that before. You hadn't done that before. And we were literally building the plane as people were boarding the plane and screwing on the wings.

It wasn't a physical plane. So everyone was 

Suzie: safe. Just saying, terrible safety joke, but important. 

Dr Dani: Yes. No humans or animals were harmed in this experiment. [00:36:00] 

Suzie: That's what I was looking for. 

Dr Dani: But then when we went to do the second SWAT we did the first SWOT, we're figuring it out. And then you start to wonder it was successful, but is it repeatable?

Were we successful because it was like a fluke. And so I think the beauty of doing it two more times now is that we've proven actually, yeah, this is a repeatable process. But I think the trick is you've like SWOT isn't for every problem. So it's being very selective about is. This a problem that SWAT can help with, or is it actually a different kind of problem?

So being very clear and had you pick the wrong problem, then swap wouldn't have worked, right? I 

Suzie: agree.

The other bit we changed with the SWOT on Engineering just for shorthand, was we also thought about, again, how you grow and develop people [00:37:00] through these opportunities. So one of my team was like, this is a great opportunity for you. And they hadn't had any exposure to design thinking. And so I said to Dani, Oh, actually, for this one, can do a two hour, they're smart people, so you know, do a two hour one on one on design thinking crash course with, actually with two of the leaders of the next two SWATs and and also then be the coach behind the scenes.

With a little bit of the right, I think, external expertise and coaching and support. I think that would so that's a smart investment to then the rest of it is these, there was no, this is not necessarily part of these people's day jobs. So you're really having also to say, Hey, what's the capacity we've got to be able to solve for this problem.

We need a little bit of that person, a little bit of that person, a little bit of person. But what I think works about that is they're invested in this and In what [00:38:00] you're doing, because it will help them ultimately or is relevant to the people involved, like the engineering leaders, like this is really relevant to them and their teams also to give a little bit of really purposeful support to someone and they just fly that's been awesome to see.

Yeah. So we tweaked also, what is the composition? 

Dr Dani: Of 

Suzie: the team, like who needs to be in there, what, with what skill sets. And for that one, another thing we changed was we did have the face to face as the kickoff. And so at the beginning of that face to face actually said, before we get into the problem to solve, particularly with engineers they love a really deep, getting deep and technical on it.

And I did make some terrible, don't over engineer this jokes a few times on that day, which Because I was actually, we're not building a biomass boiler, so sorry, that's very important to us because we're clearly sustainability getting out of coal and built these biomass boilers, which can take, [00:39:00] two years, like in need, very strong engineering.

So anyway, I'll come back to design thinking and their SWOT approach, but you're in a room with people who are really have that kind of, they're wired that way, they've been trained that way. So this is quite a different, Approach to say, we've got enough data, let's move. So actually the first session we did with them on that day, we said, don't worry.

We're going to work on the problem this afternoon and you can really get into it. But firstly, we're going to do this live exercise that is actually about collaboration because it's an overused word. So I'm not going to stand here and give the theory, we're actually going to do it by an experience. And so we did this awesome, anyway, one of those exercises where they have to actually, they've been given a whole lot of information, and they have to collaborate to get the answer, and it's a little bit competitive, and away they went.

And then we're like, okay, so what's the debrief there? How, what worked, what didn't, how did you work together, what did you learn from that, that you can then take [00:40:00] into This SWAT approach and I did put up the picture of the helicopter because I also said you're gonna ask me why it's SWAT And it's this is where it came from Don't go too far in the analogy 

Designer Peter: No weapons.

Suzie: Yeah, but again, it was you know, let's start with the how 

Designer Peter: yeah 

Suzie: rather than before we jump into the problem and I do think, there's a lot of talk about how amazing technology and hybrid and all of that is and you can do a lot through Teams calls, but kicking off face to face was, you just accelerated a bit of the trust and a bit of the approach that then helped when they're online and running at pace. 

Dr Dani: One of the things that I really found fascinating about first SWAT is that we actually ran the whole thing virtually. I think it worked because In the first SWAT, we didn't actually pull in the business and there was some reason for that.

So it wasn't true human centered design in that sense. [00:41:00] So I think it worked in the first SWAT because there was some, even though they weren't strong relationships, but it was a homogenous group of people in the sense they were all part of the people team, whereas I think in the second SWAT you were pulling in HR people and engineers and that needed to build trust quickly, right?

So there was. There's not a lot of strong connections there. So we need to value that the first team, even though they worked virtually delivered amazing accomplished, amazing things, which proves that you can do a lot of things virtually and do it well, I think in the second but I think it's, you've got to think about who's in the room, who's part of this and what do they need to connect and be able to do things together.

More effectively. 

Designer Peter: Yeah. What people have in common to begin with, who's got a shared language sounds like the first group. They had a lot in common. They were already using a shared language that they were part of the same group already. So that definitely would have made a difference. Then presumably in the other two, once you'd had the kickoff, And people were dispersed [00:42:00] again and came back together virtually Suzie.

Suzie: Yeah. So for the next two we had that day kickoff. We also had lead team sponsors across them. So there was visible leadership support, but equally the approach of, okay, great problem to solve, go for it and let us know what you need. But and also myself I was facilitating some of that first day and and supporting Kate who was going to, and Dan who's going to lead these SWATs and be the partner or the, when I say lead, I mean that you're the business partner or facilitator.

For the group and so you play a role there and then I really leaned out and to make sure those two had support We had you know coaching sessions with dani behind the scenes And then also I end up I just had a monthly half an hour check in, On how it's going. What do you need?

Are you hitting any roadblocks [00:43:00] or momentum or also for myself, it freed up to go, work in other places. And also we keep learning through these ones. The learning never stops, I don't 

Designer Peter: think. Yeah. I love that. I love that. 

Dr Dani: Talked earlier about how companies commit all into agile and then it becomes a thing in itself or, and we see the same thing happening in design thinking, right?

It becomes so much about the process that you lose the plot and then it just all becomes tick the box activities rather than actually delivering value, whereas in the SWOT approach Every time you do it, you tweak it and you tweak it to the problem and you go what design thing? So when we did the second one there was a lot more discovery work and actually, that empathizing work that needed to happen up front that was added because it was needed in that one.

Whereas in the first one, people had been complaining about the pain points for a while. So it, so starting in discovery, what it just. [00:44:00] Pissed everybody off, like I've told you these days, just go fix it. So I think it's also this idea of when you stand up a SWAT, going right for this problem and for the people that are going to be involved in it, like what are the elements of the things we need?

And even in this first SWAT, we started with daily standups and then the team said, actually, this is we're not, we don't have enough time to progress anything. So this is not helpful. Then we said, okay, then what is helpful? Then we went to three days and then it got to a critical point where yeah, I think we need to come back to five days.

So there was all of, there's always this tweaking and it wasn't this the rule is we've got to have standups. Like it was, we were being very purposeful about what we were doing, what tools we were using and everything had a purpose. 

Suzie: Yeah, that's a great example. Cause if I think about the third SWOT, which came from the data of the demographics changing in particularly having quite a a workforce that's aging [00:45:00] and.

Actually, do we understand those people? We said, actually, no, we need to do what, design thinking empathy interviews. Yeah, we do need to use that. Let's not assume we know what some of those challenges are. about retirement or even having conversations about that time and what people want to do and how they might transition from being full time work to, and how do you transfer the knowledge and all of the questions that come.

So we did do empathy interviews for that. I think it's a kind of a key example to what you were just saying there. Yeah. Dani, we're that was absolutely what was needed to then shape how do you tackle , a very people focused challenge like that and shape it and then go back to those people and test it which is where we are now on what would work.

So very human centered design design thinking in that sense. At the same time, the other ones. Drew from different [00:46:00] methodology. So I think the simple kind of way is what's the tool for the job 

Dr Dani: to 

Suzie: be done. And that's what I love. Cause sometimes those other approaches, you keep going through this process and it almost becomes really process driven and don't get me wrong.

That can be helpful sometimes, but I think with the SWOT approach, you're really grounded. And the whole group is Oh, this is the opportunity. Or the problem to solve. And so what tool do we need? And so there's always an element of checking and adjusting as you go. Because you don't always know what you're going to get.

Designer Peter: Learning. Talking of learning, I've got a question. So you've done three so far, Suzie. What have you learned about what size helicopter you need? Like how many people are in a SWAT team? Oh, okay. I almost spoke you 

Suzie: literally, which is terrible. I was going to go, I might need to phone a friend on the helicopter question, but [00:47:00] I think you do, there's always the behavioral science around group size and what's optimal.

So you try and have that kind of not too many, seven or eight. 

Designer Peter: Yep. 

Suzie: But equally don't be black and white to that. It's about what skills are needed and how we've worked it now as you have a core team. 

Designer Peter: Yep. 

Suzie: So a few core players playing a role and again, it's alongside their, it's usually relevant to their current role, but they have to find the capacity.

Which, equally, humans find the capacity when they're really invested, it's meaningful, it's relevant work. So that's not a hard sell. The tricky part is when, oh, we need an impact player. So you have the core team and then you might have a couple of impact players that come in and out. And people being okay with that, we just had to be really explicit at the beginning.

And then at the beginning, you may not know if you're a core player, an impact player, but you gave people the language to go out and see, wait a minute, I think I'm an impact player and I don't think I add value until that [00:48:00] point. So can you call me then? Pull me in then. So there's a core group, your impact players, and then you are checking and adjusting as you go.

So that's some of the learnings of making that really clear at the front because normal day jobs. I think you could actually apply that same thinking. Yeah, 

Designer Peter: I just. People 

Suzie: still find it hard to say, I don't think I need to be in that meeting. 

Designer Peter: Yeah. I don't 

Suzie: think I need to be there. I think that's actually an interesting one that we could unlock more broadly.

Designer Peter: That's where my mind was going. The whole thing to me sounds, it's an amazing learning machine, almost a learning system within the organization that, the organization is learning to solve problems in a particular way. The people involved in that are also learning how to do that and that kind of layer in between of what you just described.

if the organization pays attention to it, it's learned something new about how people can make decisions about how they contribute [00:49:00] help them learn that it's not necessarily the job that they're doing, that they're being asked to do that is of value. It's how they do that job and how they think and how they operate that is of even greater value.

Yeah, to me it's a really amazing story of yeah, solving problems, obviously solving urgent problems successfully and yeah, building a learning it's a cliche about a learning culture, but an actual learning culture that isn't all about or just about learning modules or badges, it's so much more than that.

It's live and it's real. Yeah. I think that's 

Suzie: also the balance of, do you need to teach everyone? Yeah. 

Designer Peter: Absolutely. Yeah. 

Suzie: Design thinking or agile or any of those methodologies or do you just need to help them experience it? Yeah, so we're on that edge of it like do you use these tools?

And you don't have to necessarily Have been schooled up in them. 

Designer Peter: Yeah, 

Suzie: you've got someone in the room who can you know, who's facilitating you through it? [00:50:00] Because they're very easy to I 

Dr Dani: That's a really great point because when we started this thing the first SWAT, we did not do like a design thinking workshop, but, and actually, I didn't even talk about design thinking, but everybody experienced design thinking, because I was bringing in the tools and the concepts, but I was bringing them in as they were needed.

So people were, people were learning like now, next, later. Let's break that in because it actually makes sense for us to talk about how we organize our work that way. We did the journey mapping of the pain points. Brought that in because at that time, in that context, it made sense and I just brought it in, I showed them what it was and they just went to work on it.

And they just started to build it right this is our recruitment process end to end. Here's where we're seeing the paying points Okay, and I don't know if you remember we created that thing with the numbers and then the poster done posted. I remember I can see it yeah But we were essentially journey mapping, but [00:51:00] there was not a big To do about this is what it is.

And this is the theory, but it's like, when you bring in concepts, as they make sense, as people are learning, so then they learn the thing, but they learn the thing because they're applying it to the real world and it's not them sitting in a classroom wondering, how am I going to use this in the real world?

 You used it in the real world and now, it's and there's no 

Suzie: resistance to it either, or no kind of, Oh, what's this tool or what's this? Cause you're just straight into. Using them and it's really relevant. I think also back to the learning culture bit, which is a sort of a yeah, it's a bit of a cliche, but I think the art of this and the tools as well means they don't get to it.

You don't get too attached. To any one particular idea because it is the classic, some of the agile thinking, I guess you bring into it, which is the classic, Oh, let's just go [00:52:00] test that, see if it works. And you're not that attached to it. So you also take the feedback or the the different perspectives much more lightly and you take them on board rather than working for months and months on something and then sharing it with your customer or whoever.

Whether that's an internal partner or whomever is, and you might have spent a whole bunch of money on it as well. So I actually quite like it. It's a pretty cheap and cheerful, not that I'd want it branded that way, but cheap and cheerful SWAT team is you're going, who are your current people?

There's no extra resource that we've thrown at it other than to get some specific expertise. You're building capability as you go, I think. Just by people who have experienced it even talking about what will the next one be. We're, and so with one of the leaders I was talking about on my team, Kate who's been facilitating the Engineering swap.

It's actually, for this next one that we might not do yet, we're just planning for , actually she could coach. The next person, so she could be across, so she's no longer [00:53:00] hands on in it, but that's also the growth for her, is to step away and be guiding it.

One of her team can be the coach, again with a bit of Dani support, and so you're really growing people and they're learning. In the flow of work in these experiences. The other part I think is helpful is often people find it hard to stop work. And, sometimes saying, Oh, what are you going to stop doing?

Is a question we put to teams. And that's actually really hard because they're either deeply attached to the work or they can't imagine how might I do it differently. Sometimes it's not. It's something you can solve as one team individually or in one function, whereas what the SWOTA team is a much more kind of positively framed, let's all this problem, this opportunity, let's solve for that together, brings them together for a short period of time, so that you get commitment.

For that and energy around it [00:54:00] and then like with the engineering plus one we paused it because they got to a certain point and it made sense in that time of year to deliberate. It makes it easy to go cool. We've come to the we've done the now things pause and then we're going to pick it up in a couple of months time and look at the from the now, next, later, look at the next, later, so it actually makes that conversation much easier to go no, it doesn't make sense to do the next bit yet, we're going to do the next bit in a few months time and pick it up, which also workload wise helps as opposed to, projects that go on and on and, you lose a bit of energy to be fair.

Dr Dani: That's also one of the reasons that SWAT is different and it is more effective is that because initially, we bucketed the work to be done in about eight week increments, right? So it was an eight week commitment, which sounds a lot doable. Then here's an 18 month project.

Can you carve out, figure out how [00:55:00] you're going to make capacity for 18 months versus. Eight weeks, figure out how you can create capacity for eight weeks. Yeah. 

Suzie: And there is a little bit in there of, we don't know. So right from the front, remember we said, we don't know what capacity this.

So we really respect that. Of course, you're going to say, How, many hours what do I need to do here? So let's keep the conversation live because it's quite hard at the beginning to really know how many hours is it over that period. So that's the tricky part. It's still hard to forecast how much work a thing's going to go because it's changing and adapting.

 The best thing you can do is, clarify that upfront and then also I think what's helped the second and third swats is that we've deliberately Talked about you have a core team. We have a one pager now that says this is what we mean by a SWOT, so it speeds up the way of working and the expectations.

[00:56:00] But we also explicitly do the, this is core and this is impact. And we might not know yet, but in the first few weeks we figure that out. So dive into the problem to solve. Dive into how we might chunk it down. Dive into where do you think you could add value and where your skills and experiences and ways of thinking can add value.

And so it's really quite empowering for people because they can, there's an element of saying choose where you add value. And if you don't think you add value until that point, then great. You say I'm an impact player. I'll come in when you're there. Awesome.

Designer Peter: I'm 

Suzie: I'm very excited about this topic. 

Designer Peter: It's a very exciting topic. We don't have infinite time to talk about otherwise, they'd be asking more questions, Suzie. But the question a sign of this kind of starting to spread through an organization is if, I think of it as people are coming knocking on your door, or maybe there's like a phone line installed in your desk that's like a SWAT hotline.

Hey, Suzie, I need a [00:57:00] SWAT over here. 

Suzie: Imagine that. 

Designer Peter: Have you had people asking you what SWAT is from far and wide at all or from nearby? 

Suzie: We've had a few people say, Oh, what's maybe we should do a, you know what, that SWAT approach. Maybe we should do that cross functional teaming. 

Designer Peter: Yeah. Yeah. That's good.

Suzie: And then, I think that's probably one of the things that that Dani's helped me with, has given me a nudge recently and said, we should write this up, we should do a white paper on it and actually take the time to do that, because that's probably, A bit of my personality where I'm like, let's get on with the work and add value.

And what's the next SWAT and let's keep moving, but there is value in stopping and telling your story. Hence coming on this 

Designer Peter: podcast 

Suzie: today was actually, it's great to reflect on and actually tell the story so it can help others. But equally, SWOT approach, which so I think writing down and packaging up.

How it works so others can have value. Yeah, we're starting to get the questions. So we thought Better write it [00:58:00] up. 

Designer Peter: Nice. Nice. I love it. Deservedly from what I know of it it does sound like a great approach that combines our old friend Agile bit of cognitive science and of course design thinking and action.

So great story. Thank you for sharing it with us today, Suzie. 

Suzie: Thanks for having me. It's particularly relevant for there's so many challenges. There's so much going on in the world or wherever people work in organizations. And the need for change has never been faster.

And so this kind of approach, what's also been really rewarding. Is you don't need to know everything. You don't need to be the expert. You just need . The right combination of people in the room. And then you need to set it up. With the right mindset. And the vibe.

In the room. So that you do get the best of people. And they can bring all of that. But once you set it up that way. And you keep, you keep fostering it as you go. It's really, the results you can get and [00:59:00] fast are pretty awesome and faster than you would before. So it stops some of the overthinking, it stops the, actually, I need to be an expert before leading this.

No, I don't. Be like. Yep. Dani, come on board. Yeah. So you get the right people in the room. It's really we can do amazing things as people. I think when you do get the right mix. 

Designer Peter: Definitely. 

Dr Dani: Definitely. And I, and to Suzie's list, I want to add one other thing and it's autonomy. This is what you did brilliantly.

Suzie is you brought the team together. You laid out the mission. You set some boundaries and then you got out of the way and you came in when you needed to But you didn't become a bottleneck, right? The team wasn't having to come to you to go Is this okay? Is this okay? Is this okay?

There wasn't this constant need for approval. It was Get on with it. And then there were some moments where the team were like, I don't know about this. And then we said, Okay let's bring Suzie back in. So if you want to move teams along [01:00:00] faster, if you want to solve problems faster, if you want to get on with change faster, Actually giving teams autonomy , to make the decisions that need to be made.

And that has to come with balance, right? Cause obviously you can't have teams making, and they weren't making these decisions that they were making. They were all reversible decisions. They weren't going to put the company at financial risk or regulatory risk. And the team understood like the things that we, brought Suzie in on or the things where the team felt like I don't know if this is a regulatory thing or it's just something we've done.

So , we brought Suzie in and Suzie's I don't know, let's go talk to legal. And it turned out it wasn't a legal thing. It was just a thing. So giving people autonomy, but also teaching them when they need to reach out to leaders and then leaders learning how to stay out of the way.

Suzie: Great point. Nice. 

Dr Dani: Nice. All right. So we usually wrap up our podcast with each of us [01:01:00] sharing something that we're taking away from this conversation. So Suzie, as our guest, you can go first. Oh, 

Suzie: I was hoping to go last. When you said that the thing that came to mind was, oh, I just the main takeaway for me was actually just grateful to.

be invited to tell the story, but also to be asked the questions and stop and pause and reflect on how far we've come. And we've still got a way to go. This journey never ends and we've learned so much, but yeah, thank you both for inviting me. And just the work that we do really. It's pretty cool.

Thanks for making me stop

and share it. Peter, do I hand to you? 

Designer Peter: You may, and I accept your your baton. My takeaways goodness there's so much and so many. Where do I start? One, it's a great [01:02:00] Real life story of design thinking in action. I love one of the points you just made about it's fast and it's faster than taking another approach or the business as usual approach, because often as design thinkers or designers in an organization, the easy kind of.

No, thanks. Message we get from our colleagues is that we don't have time for that, 

Dr Dani: whereas we 

Designer Peter: know that actually taking a design approach and incorporating with others can actually make things happen a lot faster because we're iterating towards better solutions by understanding the problem better in the first place.

And then maybe my take away in association with that is just a really nice positive story of how design thinking and agile and combined together and taken from a mindset capability and perspective and building up from those foundations rather than alternatives I've experienced where the tools are [01:03:00] imposed and processes are rigorously adhered to.

I think that's a great story of you have those two things working together when approached in the right way. Thank you for that, Suzie and Dani. Yeah. Dani, over to you. 

Dr Dani: All right. I feel like I need to come up with something really cool because I've had the longest time to think about 

Designer Peter: that. But we know you've been busy listening.

Dr Dani: For me, two things. One, I'll obviously it's been really awesome kind of reflecting on it. And like you, Suzie, I know I, I pushed you to pause, but I'm also one that just keeps on going. And so this has been a really cool thing to just pause and think back to these things.

And the. The thing that I'm really grateful for and taking away is, when you first came to me with this, I didn't know how to make it work. I knew it could work, but I did not know. And I know that, people describe me as like an expert and I'm using quotation air quotes here. Cause I don't like that word, but I get why people say that.

Feedback received. [01:04:00] How should we 

Suzie: describe you? 

Dr Dani: I understand why that is a word. I think my personal beef with that is that I am also always learning. So I feel like it's not, I can't call myself an expert because as I'm saying in this example, I didn't know how to do this. I had to learn it, but I, so it was this idea of being open to, if you like it and you think something could fall in love with the idea and making it possible and figuring out the how you can always figure out the how. So I think the how is not the thing you need to know. It's the, are you passionate about the outcome? Do you believe in the outcome?

And then if you believe in the outcome and you want to be part of making that outcome a reality that you'll figure out the how so that's what this conversation and preparing for this conversation and then also that, Even after I said to you, I don't know how, but I'll figure, I think I said, I don't know how yet, but I'll go figure it out.

And then you just taking the [01:05:00] chance and going, okay we'll bring you on and you can figure it out. Cause one of the challenges when you are an independent consultant is you feel if you don't know the answers, then why am I bringing you on? And and the thing is, it's not about knowing the answers, but it's about knowing how you might get to an answer.

Suzie: So that's the, when we had a call and your expertise were clear from right up on LinkedIn and the link it's, that mutual colleague, it shared with me, and then we had a virtual call and. I think the approach and mindset even in that call was so open and great questions and, so it was like absolutely add value and we'll figure it out together.

Come on board.

Dr Dani: And then I think this is a great one of the crazy ones. You know how the crazy ones are the ones that change the world. Cause I think in the beginning when we talked about this SWAT idea, people, we got some looks. 

Suzie: I know. I did feel like no, don't be your full self. People [01:06:00] are like, what are you talking about with this?

Like a SWAT team helicopter, strategic problem to solve. And then we just got to get the right skills and then zoom in. And then I got these looks and I was like, oh no, just felt a bit self conscious. But 

Dr Dani: I am grateful that you pushed through and we were the crazy ones.

Suzie: Pretty cool. 

Designer Peter: Very cool. Hats off to you both. 

Dr Dani: Yes! Fairly 

Designer Peter: crazy ones. 

Dr Dani: This has been amazing, so thank you Suzie for joining and making time for us today and thanks to our listeners for tuning in on this very different episode. Thanks Tim. 

Designer Peter: Thank you Suzie. 

Dr Dani: Thanks everyone.