Transcript

[00:00:00] Teaser

[00:00:00] John Abdulla: I think one of the most exciting things for me has been this transformation from technology gatekeepers to technology enablers. Maybe I even stole that from reading you, who knows, there's so much in my brain.

[00:00:11] Sam: No, no no, we’re going to steal that from you.

[00:00:13] John Abdulla: Go for it.

Digital should be this place where teams can flourish, right?

And try things out. And so the enabler, as I'm calling it is, a team that comes to you and says, what can we help you do?

[00:00:26] Build Tank Intro

[00:00:26] Sam: The Greatmakers!

It's the tone of voice that I suddenly adopt as soon as the light goes red.

[00:00:36] Chris: I don't think you sound that different. I'm not sure what, what this tone is you're talking about, but it's, you know, that sounds like you, to me . I mean, if you should, you should put it on a little thicker- The Greatmakers! - if you're going to make fun of yourself.

[00:00:48] Sam: It's The Greatmakers with your very special guest... That also is straight from Muppets. It's The Muppet Show with our various special guest...

[00:00:56] Chris: That's pretty good!

[00:00:57] Sam: That's just printed in my circuit boards. Um, today,

[00:01:05] Chris: That was out of the Simpsons.

[00:01:08] Sam: Today we have the amazing John Abdulla from Oxfam. He has an awesome title which is slipping my mind, but it has constituent product. He leads the constituent

[00:01:17] Chris: Director of Constituent Product?

[00:01:19] Sam: That would make sense. And he's just a thoughtful, awesome guy. We had a conversation with him a year or two ago, and it was really cool to hear how he had built this at Oxfam.

Fortunately I can't remember anything because that's the way my memory works. And so we'll be able to ask him all over again, his story, but I remember that he had a cool story about just sort of building the structure, rebuilding, restructuring the way that Oxfam works.

[00:01:43] Chris: Let's talk to this guy.

[00:01:44] Sam: Let's talk. Okay. Here he is John Abdulla from Oxfam, Associate Director of Constituent Product.

[00:01:53] Interview intro and background

[00:01:53] Sam: So this is not foreign to you. You, you podcast.

[00:01:56] John Abdulla: Yeah. Yeah I've been doing it for a few years now. It's like a weekly or bi-weekly thing. So.

[00:02:01] Sam: That's fun. Can you tell us how to do it?

[00:02:04] Chris: What have you learned?

[00:02:06] John Abdulla: It's called just winging it. So in that ethos, I would say...

It's a podcast about being a parent more than it is about parenting if that makes sense. Because, you know, we're just two dads trying to figure it out like everybody else. And, we do not pretend to be experts on anything, but I think really enjoy working through stuff. But , it's pretty light overall in terms of the tone and our approach to it because we are all just winging it.

[00:02:31] Chris: Totally.

[00:02:32] Sam: That's great. Well, yeah, it is interesting how just listening to people talk through things similar to what you're going through is, is nice to hear, sort of meditative, interesting. Maybe that's a good segue to why we have you here today.

Because, you know, this show is called The Greatmakers and it's about the people who sort of do this platform, product work in their organizations to try to help everyone use technology to its potential.

I remember we talked to you a little bit ago, about what you'd done at Oxfam . And we were hoping we could just sort of ask you about that history. You coming in , and the things that you put in place in the way that you structured it. And so you seem like a perfect person to have on to talk about that.

[00:03:11] John Abdulla: Well, I do appreciate that. I do hope that a test of every great- maker on the show is that they would not call themselves a great maker. Um, uh, I, I,

Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, it's been quite a journey. I've been at Oxfam now for 11 years. I started on the digital marketing side, more focused on web.

We were called New Media, um, which is like such a perfect, right. I mean, back when there were New Media teams, um, and which is now no longer new. And we were just this small mighty team that worked on email marketing and web and a little bit of advertising.

Where we got challenged, I think is the way that our systems, the systems that interact with our constituents, so, you know, website was one, but CRM, fundraising and advocacy solutions. They were managed separately, by different teams. And it led to, I think a lot of challenges in, honestly, anyone kind of proactively driving those systems forward.

Right? Because so many of them were set up for where we were, you know, decades ago.

[00:04:12] Sam: Right.

[00:04:12] John Abdulla: And I currently now lead what we call a Constituent Product Team, a team that was yeah. Which is exciting. And really, you know, it was inspired by some of the work that Build Tank kind of put out there and some of the blogs that you've posted and ideas. And so I'm happy to kind of share what that journey has looked like and how our team came about.

[00:04:31] Making the transition to a product team

[00:04:31] Sam: To me, that seems like a, like a heroic achievement. You came in at Oxfam, you're on this sort of digital team that's, uh, New Media, you know, it's sort of the, the ultimate of just like 'take all the newfangled stuff put it over here,' and, and somehow then you've come out of that with a product team.

What was the name of your team again?

[00:04:48] John Abdulla: Yeah, Constituent Product.

[00:04:50] Sam: Constituent Product. Wonderful. And so that's a major thing. I mean, we spend a lot of time and energy with organizations trying to make that kind of transition.

How did you even know that you wanted to go in this direction?

[00:05:01] John Abdulla: Well, a few things were happening. One is having gone through agile training, it had me rethinking a lot of how we manage our systems. And how critical it is that we're able to work in an agile way where we have a small team that really works tightly together, and is tasked with this whole system.

Like that's what they're accountable for together, right? That hadn't happened before in that way. And so it kind of naturally led me to this place of asking, what could this look like if we actually had more of a concentration of technology experts who are actually looking out for where we need to go. So that was part of it.

Another part, honestly, you know, and I don't even remember at this point how I came across your work, but I remember reading some of your work, in particular the blog, and the idea that, you know, we were sort of mashing a lot together into this digital marketing or, or just digital team kind of structure.

It really resonated with me because I saw a team that often just got so bogged down in having to react to the ever increasing demand of digital, right? I mean, everybody needs something. I think, I think you guys said it, you know, there's no paper department at any organization other than, I guess maybe paper companies. Um, and so, why would we, why would we continue to have what is considered, you know, a Digital team that all digital flows through. It just doesn't make sense.

[00:06:24] Sam: Right. You know, I love actually that the team you joined was called the New Media department. Cause that's a perfect, that's perfect demonstration of how, like at some point it was just new and we're like, what do we do with this? So you put it in the New Media department and all things computer go through there.

And, and yeah, and nowadays it's like, everybody uses digital. You have to, to accomplish your work. And so you can't mix those mandates and mash them all up together. You got to have people that are going to be in charge of a long-term stewardship of those platforms.

[00:06:54] John Abdulla: Yeah. What I find exciting on the product side is really thinking about the long term, right? How do we set up our teams for success? How do we anticipate where they need to go? It's not purely thinking about the systems that we need.

I mean it is, but it's very much in the context of what are the capabilities that we need to build that maybe we're not ready for yet? You know, the systems part of it is almost easy, with some of the tools out there now. Working on the people and the process part of it where I think it takes a lot more time, I do appreciate, you know, the horizon that I get to operate on now and still bring some of that thinking into the kind of longer term product development.

[00:07:33] Distributed ownership model (blue/gold)

[00:07:33] Sam: You might be familiar with the way we try to separate out what we informally call the blue team and the gold team. Some people are, naturally sort of, inclined to iterate on the tools and to, you know, fiddle with the gears and levers in the machines. And some people want to use the, your systems to accomplish work in the world. You know, fundraising or digital marketing or advocacy would be in that category.

And we, we tend to think people are happier on one side of that divide or the other. It sounds to me like you lead, a, a blue team, a product side team and like many people who do that, it sounds like you started on a gold team.

[00:08:17] John Abdulla: Yeah, I guess I would have always considered myself gold team, certainly initially, being more on the communication side and creative side of the work, which is where I started.

And it was this evolution where I had the technical background with web in particular with previous experiences, but I saw myself as a gold team for a while. And it was really unexpected actually, the way that that evolved, um, because I think, you know, I brought the gold team perspective and understanding of the tools and what they needed to do, and then applied the technical to that.

I still would not consider myself... I mean, my team, all of them, are, uh, exceed my technical abilities, right? And I would say, I hope that that's a strength in, in my leadership because I'm trying to think about it more on the product side of, how people use systems and kind of where we need to go in order to get more as an organization.

[00:09:08] Sam: Yeah well that's, so cool. And it's not unusual, actually, for the right fit for the person to lead this sort of team to not necessarily be highly technical. But the key skill sets are strategic thinking, good communication, ability to build relationships with people. And you know the realm, but you're able to apply that with your knowledge of what the organization is trying to accomplish, what your colleagues are trying to do and how can you help them do that down the line. Then you can turn to your resources, your people who know everything about the machine itself, to say, okay, how can we accomplish this?

[00:09:41] John Abdulla: Totally. And I think frankly just to work with people on the other side, it benefits us all, to experience the systems as users to understand the business objectives and what they're trying to do, and to really, you know, get in there and work as a partner, with the other team.

[00:09:56] Technology gatekeepers to technology enablers

[00:09:56] Chris: Well, it's such a good point, what you're saying about really understanding what the needs are. And we recommend, as a way to start on a blue team, is to just embed in a gold team, just do the work for a little while.

And to constantly be taking as much time as possible to have conversations. And getting out from behind the ticketing queue, and talking to people. Really understanding what's needed over there.

And I guess one of the things that you touched on that I'd love to hear more about is just how the collaboration is going between your team and these other teams?

What works best? What do you need from them and, and what are they getting from you?

[00:10:31] John Abdulla: I think one of the most exciting things for me has been this transformation from technology gatekeepers to technology enablers. You know, if I were to put some simple kind of labels on it. Um, the idea that... the idea, maybe I even stole that from reading you, who knows. There's in my brain.

[00:10:48] Sam: No no steal that from you..

[00:10:50] John Abdulla: Go for it.

You know, I think the idea that I think this is true for so many digital teams, they're sort of seen as either gatekeepers, right, they're controlling the technology and I need to basically win them over to get my thing out there in the world or get my thing built, right?

Or they are service providers. So they are- they have no autonomy or agency they're really just there to put my stuff out there in the world, right? I think those are two models that still kind of exist, sadly. And what I've seen us have to operate kind of in both of those spaces. And I think they're both wrong.

Um, I think while the, what I'm calling gatekeeper role can be tempting in that, you know, we say, okay, we've got to manage digital. We've got to really get in there and own it and control it so that our constituents, our brand, all of that is protected. And that we're really, caring for them, right? I mean, there's a good intention there.

But I think if you go too far with that you can really restrain and constrict your ability to innovate. Because, I mean, Digital should be this place where teams can flourish, right, and try things out.

And so the enabler, as I, as I'm calling it is a team that comes to you and says, 'what can we help you do?' Um, and this is, you know, some of the, some of what I'm saying is aspirational. We're working towards this. We've not arrived. I'm not sure we ever will. We're always sort of evolving.

But the idea is we, we have gone from being a team where it is just a matter of, you know, tickets and things that we know we need to react to, to a team that actually does engage people proactively to say, we think we can build a better system. We're going to spend time with you to really hear what you're doing now and how we can build something that's better.

We're also going to have at least annual, intake sessions with you where we can hear about your plans, your wishlist, to some extent where you think technology could help you. We're not going to say yes to everything, right, that's not possible.

But you have a team that can help prioritize what we should say yes to. Because if we don't have that, then it's just chaos and nothing gets done. So that for me, has been so exciting to see, um, uh, you know, the fact that we even have the space to go to folks and say, 'What can we do for you?' I think has been a surprise to a lot of people.

[00:13:11] Sam: And to me, it really comes back to- it's so powerful what you were saying about this sort of flip, going from reactive to proactive. Which is exactly what you were describing, this sort of really transformative moment when your technology people, instead of being sort of like, 'I have to put a ticket in and who knows what will ever happen?'

And they they're maybe, you know, stereotypically misanthropic, uh, crew of IT people or whatever it is, you know? But no, instead of that, you have John and his team coming to you being like, 'Hey, like what are you trying to do? How is this working for you? How can we help, where are you headed?' It's just so transformative.

And I think people just, they're not even considering that that could be possible. And once they have that, you can never go back. You know what I mean? Once you understand. Yeah. You can relate to this. Yeah.

[00:13:59] John Abdulla: For sure. I mean, it's so motivating right. To, to be in a position where you have agency and you're accountable for work that you feel good about . I mean, frankly, that people like working with you. It's not just this, you know, that structural setup of you as a service provider or a gatekeeper is destined to fail because that, that human interaction is going to fail.

[00:14:20] Working in an agile way

[00:14:20] John Abdulla: I think the engine of that transformation is agile. Like that has been so transformative to see us move away from a model where we try to plan out projects that inevitably take longer. That inevitably don't pan out the way we think they will, and involve a lot of like expectation setting and deep planning and all this work in a waterfall mode that led us to, I think, never feel like we had the space to be proactive. Um.

To where we are now, you know, where we work in these small two week increments, um, small batches of work that are delivered every two weeks transparently to stakeholders. That has been transformative and allowed us to even think about a roadmap and think about, you know, where we want to take things with, with complete adaptability, right, along the way.

[00:15:21] Sam: Yeah. Yeah. That's so interesting. And you know, if you are doing that kind of proactive work of going out and meeting with people and being like, 'how's it going?' And 'let me see' and 'share your screen for a second and let me see what you're doing. Oh, I see what's going on.' You'd be like, 'well, let's fix those three things.' And then, 'oh, I see we got to prioritize this thing and this is going to take a little longer.'

So you would naturally do it that way. Uh, you know, if you're really out there in the field, so to speak, trying to help people, you would never then plan a project for six to nine months before doing anything. You'd, you'd get 'em help.

[00:15:50] Communication and caring as technology superpowers

[00:15:50] John Abdulla: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think we've got to start with whole different frameworks to get work done. We just, so much of our world is still operating in a more traditional sort of project planning mode or work mode where, you know, it's kind of built on factory work.

Um, and we've got to get out of that, you know, with knowledge work in particular. And so yeah, when we go out there and have those conversations with our partners about, you know, what to build, I think what has been appreciated is that we can more easily project what we can and can't do. Sometimes it's like the thing that gets the most appreciation from others is when we say no, and it's based on some evidence, right, of like, 'This is actually not going to be possible for us to build.'

So we're not going to just over-promise and say yes to everything, but it comes with a more sort of evidence-based model where we know generally how much we can accomplish in a two week period. And we can help project out to folks, you know, this is when we think we'll get to this. We're not committing to anything cause everything can get, you know, can shift.

Um, but it really, yeah, it just allows us to be more adaptive and plan for things that otherwise, from my experience in technology, expectations always, uh, they fell short.

[00:17:03] Sam: Yeah, absolutely. We always say that communication is, is a key superpower of the, of the people who do this kind of work. Because people generally, yeah, they're okay with being told no, or, or being told it's going to take X months, if you can explain the reason and the prioritization and, and then it makes sense to them.

It's this sort of not knowing, not getting feedback, not understanding that is so frustrating for people when they don't have the basic tools they need. If you have someone like you in place, who they trust that is looking out for their best interest and the org's best interest and can communicate well with them, then they're usually only too happy to, to just, be treated with that level of respect and partnership.

And, they know that they're going to get what they need as soon as it's viable.

[00:17:46] John Abdulla: For sure.

[00:17:47] Chris: That's a big part, Sam, the thing you were saying about being a partner who cares. I think that sometimes that gets lost. You know, John, you can hear it in the way that you talk about it, the fact that you are concerned about these higher level objectives. You actually do care about what their needs are, about putting out the right kind of product, that your constituents are getting a good experience.

If you're bringing that to the table and you can speak well to it, it's what it's about.

[00:18:12] John Abdulla: Yeah, for sure. I mean, just that, it seems silly to have to even say it right. But caring about the work and what other people are trying to do, you know, from their side, their business objectives, and having a team that actually even has space to care about what other teams are doing, right? If you have a certain team that owns a system for their specific business case, and then other systems that are owned by others, that can get real messy because the care that you're describing, I think isn't happening across teams, um, to allow for those systems to work well together.

I mean, in a sense that gets at the sort of integrated ecosystems that we need to build with our systems to get data flowing through them in order to leverage them.

[00:18:54] Chris: Well, I love what you just said about the space- giving people the space to know and care. That is really, what's so often missing, what keeps people from being able to understand what other people are doing, you know? Is if they don't have the space to, really know they're not going to be a good defender.

[00:19:10] Sam: Absolutely. John this is amazing. You mentioned that there was whole other subjects and I feel like we have 10 to 15 other whole subjects we could go through with you, but we've already kept you longer than we promised. And this has been a great conversation. So hopefully you'll be able to- be willing to come back.

But really appreciate you, you having this chat with us and it's just so cool what you've built.

[00:19:29] John Abdulla: Absolutely. I enjoyed it. Thanks for having me on.

[00:19:32] Outro

[00:19:32] Sam: There it is. You know what I always think about John. He, he makes it sound so effortless, but can you imagine the, the lift, for an organization like that has been around as long as they have, and is probably as complex as they are and as large. And when you talk to him, it just seems like, it just feels like everything's going to be all right.

[00:19:54] Chris: That points to something that, it's so important for this role, right? That you're trusted. You have to earn that trust.

And what does it take to, to earn that trust? And I think there's a lot of components. There's, knowing what you're talking about and having proven yourself. And, what are you proving yourself as? You're proving yourself as a real ally. And that's what I think John really comes off as, just the right kind of ally minded person who knows how to get things done and knows how to coordinate a lot of different people and a lot of different skill sets that need to be brought into the conversation.

And, uh, that's, that's why we call them Greatmakers.

[00:20:33] Sam: Yeah. Yeah, it really is. And maybe it's just intuitive, why you would want someone who's trusted and who's an ally, but among the many reasons is that people have been so historically territorial with technology for good reason, you know. Because they haven't gotten what they need out of it.

But they don't really want to own those things. They just want to be able to do their damn work, you know?

And so when you have a, then a trusted player who comes in and is like, we're going to own this, we're going to steward this really well. We're going to geek out on all the pieces that you'd rather not spend your time on. And then we're going to go out there and make sure that you know how to use it.

And you're it, it works well for you and, things that need fixing get fixed and new features get added. And you know, that that's where the trust is so critical.

[00:21:13] Chris: Yeah. It's so far beyond technical. We always talk about how this is strategic more than technical. And you know, all these giant challenges. You imagine working with someone like John, and then you imagine working without that. You just you're, there's no, there's nobody to synthesize all the needs. You just have technical resources scattered here and there. You have a firm that's doing this, or you have certain people who are good at this technical piece. It's, it's unthinkable. It's unthinkable that anything cohesive would come out of that.

And when you listen to John talk, it's so clear that that's the, the force, that's going to pull it all together.

[00:21:50] Sam: Yeah, that's right. This might be taking it too far, but you know how sometimes people say once you've had a good relationship, it's hard to go back to a bad relationship. But if you've only had bad relationships, sometimes you don't know what else could be out there.

And I feel like the same is true in some ways for technology, which is just, like, everybody everywhere has had only bad relationships with technology systems. And once you have a good one with, you know, a John there, who's leading that kind of a team, or Ananda who was on our last show, it's like the idea that you could ever go back to the old way is, yeah, it's like you said, it's unthinkable.