0:00 Raise your hand if you have an AI pilot that worked. Great demo, good feedback, and the steering committee loved it. Now keep your hand up if you've been able to deploy it to your production systems. Nobody? 0:12 That's pilot jail, and most procurement teams I talk to have at least one inmate. Some have five or more. The technology mostly works, but what keeps a pilot locked up is everything around it. 0:24 Nobody thought through the deployment plan from sandbox to production, nobody raised their hands to own it after go live, and nobody told the buyers that their judgment will still matter. 0:34 Heading into 2027, getting out of pilot jail is the job for procurement. 0:39 My guest has taken enterprise rollouts from pilot to daily use numerous times, and she just wrote the book on the human side of it, which makes her the perfect person for this conversation. Let's get into it. 0:49 [upbeat music] Technology presumes there's just one right way to do things, and there never is. AI will do what you tell it to do, but that may be very different from what you had in mind. Computers are useless. 1:02 They can only give you answers. For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve our quality of life, please press three. 1:11 Welcome to ProcureTech Unpacked, the show for procurement professionals who wanna master the technology shaping our function. I'm Joel Kanematsu. 1:18 Today, we're covering three things: how procurement teams end up in AI pilot jail, what the way out looks like, and why how you lead your people is the biggest factor determining the outcome. 1:30 To help me with this task today, my guest is Amanda Prochaska. 1:34 She led the Coupa rollout at MGM Resorts, ran Source to Pay at Kraft Heinz, and now runs Wonder Services, a professional services firm which helps procurement teams with every aspect of digital transformation. 1:45 Her new book, Alice: Leading Change in the AI Era, is also out now. Amanda, welcome. Thanks for having me. I am so glad. 1:54 Like, when I see, when I saw, like, the, the agenda for this conversation, I was like, "Yes, let's have the conversation." I am so excited. Likewise. I'm looking forward to it as well. 2:04 Uh, where are you joining us from today? I am in beautiful Dallas, Texas, today. In fact, my entire team, uh, joined here in an Airbnb where we're planning 2027 and having some good time. 2:16 But we're all remote, so it's the one time of the year where we all get together and trade stories and look forward to the, the coming year. That's very cool. 2:26 And I-- Well, thank you for taking a moment out of that s- special time to chat with me this week. So let's get straight into it, right? This first segment, how teams end up in a pilot jail. 2:36 So, uh, pilots, uh, are often scoped as, as tool tests, but then nobody changes how the work gets done, so the pilot has nothing to graduate into. 2:46 Um, what does pilot jail look like from where you sit, and how many stuck pilots have you seen, uh, in, in the graveyard in the last couple months here? Oh my goodness. Okay. 2:57 So I think it was partly because of how we were exploring AI, right? AI was this new frontier. We're going to start experimenting. And what happened was we were focused on the tech, right? 3:11 And the tech came across as many little pilots, and we were focusing on, does it work? What is it going to do for us? And there was a lot of learning in that process. However, does it create sustainable solutions? 3:24 And we've known this. It's nothing new. We've known this from digital transformation. When we go technology first in digital transformation, what do we usually get? Not great results, right? 3:35 [chuckles] Like, not something sustainable, not an operating model. 3:38 So I have seen so many pilots this last year, but I've also noticed, like, CPOs or CFOs coming down into the organization like, "You're going to build five agents this year," right? Like that type of goal. 3:53 And it's like that's not really what we're looking to achieve. The unlock with AI is really about how do we operate better and how do we upskill our teams into something new, um, what I'm considering modern procurement. 4:06 And, um, so if you do a tech-first implementation, you are going to get stuck in pilot jail. That's all there is to it. Yeah, and it, and it feels like, um, 4:19 for lack of a better way of putting it, like vendors also fell into the trap, right? 4:23 Like, so they, they allowed this to happen as well, and they said like, "Oh yeah, let's do that," right, with, with clients, uh, without necessarily having some of the key success factors to ensure that the pilots have something to graduate to. 4:35 Would that be a, something that you've, you've, uh, witnessed as well? Um, uh, I, I will say that it was on vendors, but it was also on investors. 4:46 Like, if you, if you peel back the onion of what the vendors are trying to achieve, they're trying to get logos, right? 4:52 The more logos you get early on, the better you look to investors, the more fundraising you're going to be able to achieve. So it's not only, quote-unquote, "a better sales process," it's easier. 5:03 It's less friction to get into an organization, maybe to sell a pilot, but they're also accumulating all of your logos across the way to be able to fundraise, which I don't blame them. 5:13 Like, that, that's just how the game is played. But, like, once you know both sides of that coin, you're like, "Ah, I see what they're doing." 5:20 [chuckles] It might not be the best long-term solution, but it, it is a good solution for the time being. Mm. And so if we have like a blank page, right, and we're- Mm-hmm... 5:31 remaking the world, just you and I, nobody else listening in- [gasps] Yeah... what would you, what would you, uh, you know, if you go into a new team, right, or a new, a new client- Mm-hmm... 5:41 a- and you help them kinda scope out or give a shape to a pilot, what does that, what does that look like, uh, in your mind? Okay. 5:48 The first things that we always start with is what's the mission, what's the measurement, right? And that mission is not to deploy an AI solution. 5:56 The mission is what does pur- modern procurement look like for your organization as a result? Right? So how do we align to a bigger picture of what we're trying to achieve with modern procurement? 6:10 But then how are we also going to measure that? And that unlocks the whole conversation, moving away from a AI pilot technology conversation to what are we going to do with our organization? 6:22 How are we going to relate to the rest of the organization? What skill sets do we need to have to make that come true? Um, maybe policies need to change, maybe processes need to change. 6:34 Like, that is the conversation that people need to be having if we are going to truly move the needle into the next era. 6:42 And it, and it feels like, um, you know, just based on, on what you're saying and, and what we were discussing previously, the pilots may have been used as a way to learn, right? Instead of as a way to, you know... 6:53 'Cause what you're saying, I'm, I'm going, "Oh, well, I need to sorta know what the, the, the art of the possible is before I get- I can actually define that measurement, define that outcome," right? 7:04 And so I'm wondering, like, what, what tips do you have for folks, instead of going straight into the pilot and then reaching a dead end, and then kind of having burnt your, your, your goodwill inside the organization for deploying AI, uh, to help solve a business problem? 7:18 Like, how should organizations think about cultivating digital literacy and learning before getting into pilot mode? Oh, yeah. 7:26 I actually, I actually just posted about it- uh, this a couple of days ago, where I was witnessing an organization. They were having a brainstorming session around, um, what AI use cases they could identify, right? 7:40 But as the conversation was going on, I also knew that most of the room had never built anything in AI. [laughs] So I'm like, "You're kind of, like, having a chicken and egg conversation." Mm. 7:51 Like, if you don't know the capability, you're not going to be able to identify the use cases. So what I tell people all the time is, and my, my partners might not like this, but this is [laughs] how it goes. 8:02 Like, go out and build something on, on your own, right? And it's not necessarily like, "Hey, I'm gonna solve this big, massive problem within my organization." 8:12 One of the first builds that we ever did for, um, people that came onto a webinar that we did was recipe management at home. Mm. Right? 8:20 Like, how do I take what's in my pantry and turn it into, this is what I'm going to make this week for my family, and this is what I'm going to shop for, right? Like, it can be something as sim- as simple as that. 8:32 But go and build something on your own. You don't have to buy it. 8:36 Like, just go get your hands dirty and experience it, and once you experience it, then you can start thinking about, "Ooh, the skill sets that I need," and, "Oh, this is how my organization's going to look," and, "Oh, this is what I need to buy in the marketplace to make it happen. 8:52 And this is truly how I'm going to extend into an operating system versus just an AI pilot." Uh, and I just... Allow me to go on a tangent here- Yeah... based on your- Love that... 9:02 your example, which is, so even, even, I think, I think in, like, the, the late 2015s and that area, right, like, uh, of time, I had actually put a slide together. 9:12 I was going like, "I would love an MRP system for my fridge," right? Where, like, I- Yeah... I, I have what's in the fridge. 9:18 Like, it just, I have recipes, and then it goes, "Oh, you can, you know, here's the most optimal recipes you could do to use the stuff that's in your fridge. 9:24 And oh, by the way, here's, like, a grocery list for what you need to buy, uh, to, to complete that. 9:31 And, like, and then if you have leftovers or you have stuff in your fridge next time around, like, we'll start that process over." So- Yeah... uh, that example resonates, uh, highly with me. 9:39 [laughs] Um, I will say that we had a gentleman on that phone call where we, we just said, "Hey, this is what you have in your pantry or in your refrigerator. Here's the recipes, and here's your shopping list." 9:50 He then went to the next step and integrated that shopping list into Instacart. Yeah. So I was like, "That, that's how you do it." That's, like, pure, like, making your life simple. Yeah. So I, so I- Yeah... 10:02 I love it, and I couldn't agree more, right? I think there's, you have access to AI tools and LLMs outside the firewall, maybe inside the firewall in your organization as well today. 10:12 And so the, you know, hackathon comes to mind as a term, right? Like, how can you get your team together and force them to actually experiment with the art of the possible? 10:22 Um, and I don't think your partners will be very angry about that because once you start building, you realize what's involved with not just building, but maintaining, uh, things over time, right? 10:33 So, like, do we have access to the right data? Do we have access to, you know, how are we gonna version manage this over time? Uh, do we have access to the guardrails, to the, the, the user permissions? 10:44 Do we wanna start maintaining that ourselves, um, right, and, and build for it? And so I think to your point, as you start building something, right, if you, if you have a list of use cases, great. 10:55 Try to build them out yourself on, on very low cost, uh, outside the scope of a formal pilot with IT tools. 11:04 And, and you'll start getting insight right away on what's possible, what's not, and, and what it's gonna take to get it to production before you ever enter into pilots. Yeah. 11:13 Can I give one suggestion for someone that's like, "Oh, I am, like, super restricted internally. I'm not allowed to do anything much because of data concerns or regulations or whatever." Fill in the blank, right? 11:26 Um, y- we built, at ISM earlier this year, we actually built, um, a, a geopolitical risk monitor for procurement, um, in front of the entire crowd there. It was, it was really cool to do. 11:40 But, um, that geopolitical risk monitor didn't need any of your information. 11:45 Um, it would just look at, okay, enter in a category, and it would give you a report every morning of what the geopolitical risk might be for your category. Um, it's a super easy kind of way to pull it together. 12:00 We just get, we put together a script, and then it was on a scheduled run, right? 12:04 Like, um, so that is a great starting point if you're looking at, like, how do I get my hands a little bit dirty in, um, a controlled environment within my organization? That might be a good option for you. 12:17 Yeah, and, and it's so such a great point, right? 12:19 Which is why I was trying to allude to, like, inside the firewall, outside the firewall, which is like there are use cases that you can do yourself with a personal LLM license, whether it's Cha- ChatGPT, Claude, whatever, Mistral, whatever else, right? 12:33 I think there's, in the show we covered earlier this year that there's like 105 different LLM providers, uh, today on Earth, if not more. That's crazy. 12:40 Uh, so all depending on where you are as well, like if you, if you don't wanna use certain models for certain reasons, you don't have to, right? 12:47 But find one to experiment with and experiment with u- use cases in your daily life and/or that could be useful for work, but that have nothing to do with the data a- and/or the context of your work. 12:58 Uh, I think that's a- Yeah... that's a great piece of advice, Amanda. Yeah. Perfect. Uh, okay, so if we shift gears here, right? 13:05 Like we're talking about like where to get yourself educated, and then once you get into the pilot, you have a much better idea of how to define success and how to set yourself up for deploying to a production system. 13:16 That's the- Mm-hmm... tech side of things. But what about the, the operating model for, for 2027, right? How, how would you, um, 13:24 suggest people think about that, or what have you seen in the things that you deployed that, that change versus, I'll call it traditional or like existing operating models in procurement teams today? Mm-hmm. Yeah. 13:36 So, so there's a couple of things that I always like to point out to people as they're going on that journey. 13:41 First of all, I always start with you have such an opportunity to rethink the process, and I know that might be daunting to people, but the, the cool thing about this AI technology is that you do not need to be locked in to what Ariba told us to do in 1998, right? 13:59 Like [laughs] and I, and I only use Ariba as an example 'cause they were the front runner, but, but we had to conform our processes to what the procure techs were giving us. That's not the case with AI, right? 14:11 AI can be designed in your environment with your different handoffs and needs. It is truly a game changer when it comes to process. 14:20 So that is the first place to, that I always think of is like, "Okay, this is not a technology thing. This is like how do I want this to work for my environment?" And start there. 14:30 So process is always, um, a, a cool thing to be, to focus on. I also talk a lot about what are we going to do with our people? 14:39 Um, people still are going to be needed, they're still going to be foundational, they're still going to be the heart of everything that we do. But what, what do we need them to do is the question, right? 14:52 So, um, start upskilling your teams today. Uh, I would be looking at training where you're more focused on becoming what I consider a founder. 15:02 So like if you're an entrepreneur spirit and you're building something new, you're building modern procurement, what are the skill sets do I need to make that happen? 15:12 So obviously great relationship building, great sales skills, trusted advisor, really great on economics and, and financials. 15:21 Um, all of those things go into building this next generation of procurement, so I would be focusing on that type of training to get your people ready for what's next. 15:31 I, I just used this this morning, but um, great example from Ikea. They took, um, 8,500, uh, customer service people and upskilled them. 15:41 Um, they no longer do customer service, and now they're selling and building revenue for a division of Ikea, which is incredible to me. So as a leader, and you're thinking about AI and what it means to my organization, 15:56 if you want to have a modern procurement organization, now is the time to s- be talking about the value that can shift how we're going to be adding more value into organizations and what those people that are now unlocked from the day-to-day that we have today to be more creative, to be more innovative, to, um, be more forward-thinking in organizations, um, what that can mean for the business. 16:21 I highly recommend having those conversations today so that you're not caught into a situation like what Microsoft just came out with this week around, um, laying off a bunch of people. 16:33 Like you need to be getting ahead of it and be, be out there championing your people. So when I think of op model, all your people are foundational. 16:42 Obviously the tech, your process is the heart, I mean, that's the people process to technology. The other thing that I wanna mention is data. Um, when it comes to data, we've heard this since I started. 16:54 We're probably around the same age, I don't know. But like we've been around a long enough time to know that we've been talking about how bad our procurement data is since I started 22 years ago. 17:04 Um, that's no longer the case. 17:06 And I'm not saying that our data is good or our data is ready for AI, but what is a game changer in this, um, op model kind of conversation is that we don't have to wait for our data to be perfect anymore. 17:18 AI is going to elevate where we have opportunity, and A- AI can also help fix that in certain senses. 17:25 There might be a human service, um, or component to that too, but to be able to identify exactly what is needed in our data to be fixed is what AI is very good at doing. And so I don't wait. 17:38 Like an AI pilot, go forward with your AI pilot, but know in your planning that it's going to identify where you have data issues, and you're going to have to fix those, um, as you move forward. 17:50 So I know that was a very long answer. I could talk about this for hours. 17:55 Um, but it is so critical for us to move out of, "I'm going to deploy an agent," to thinking about this as a true op model opportunity, and, um, and then we can step into that to really provide the value that, um, AI can unlock for us in procurement. 18:11 Sure. Yeah, and I, there's a couple things I'd love to riff on and, and I'll get your thought- Yeah [laughs]... get your thoughts on the back end as well. 18:17 Like one of them is you said process, but to me I, I hear like domain expertise as well, right? 18:22 Because if I don't have to fit To a technology's linear, modular, sequential vision of what a procurement process or a sourcing process or a contract process is, it means I have a blank canvas and a paintbrush, and that can be really scary if I don't have domain- Yeah... 18:37 expertise, right? And so I think it's like it, it just, it gives a lot more value to the pure procurement experience, pun intended, in our organizations, right? 18:47 And that, that expertise is now at a premium because, oh, I can actually unlock it, um, using the, the, the agentic technology, right? So that's the first thing that came to mind as you were talking. 18:58 The second thing around the op model is like you were talking about all these skills of the future, right? Uh, like, you know, I don't think you termed it that way, but like business analysis. 19:06 Uh, a- and I see that as really like if you don't have a COE, a center of excellence, or you don't have a role that's like a digital procurement lead or something termed like that, like somebody that's going to bed and waking up every day thinking about how do we get more efficient in our work with the use of technology and process optimization, like you should have one even if, even if unofficially, right? 19:29 I think. A- and then that person becomes kind of the, the, the spearhead to dr- dragging everybody else along to developing the, the capabilities that you need to, to get to that new op model. 19:40 So I think that's a practical, a practical way to think about it. And now the third thing is escaping. Oh, data. Yeah, data, right? 19:46 You said, like I, I couldn't agree more w- what you were saying around AI, kind of getting rid of that myth that you need good data to get good results. 19:56 And, and one thing I would add to what you were saying is, why don't you build your process, given it's the blank canvas now, so that you can validate the data quality at each instance of each transaction, right? 20:08 Whether it's a sourcing project, well, validate the stuff as you're doing it or before you do it, right? Or so that- Yeah... you don't... You know, data is always decaying. 20:15 It's always getting worse from today unless you actively, proactively nudge it forward or bring it back up to quality. 20:22 So how are you building data quality as part of your processes, your transactional day-to-day processes? Yes. Um, a- and agentic AI unlocks that ability, I think, right, or that possibility, I should say. Mm-hmm. 20:36 Any- Yeah, you can have, you can have guardrails set in. 20:39 Like I, I was, I was just talking to a bunch of, um, uh, supplier inclusion professionals who are engaging maybe your, your SME-type, uh, suppliers across the way, and we were having a conversation about agentic sourcing, right? 20:58 Agentic sourcing is great for procurement, maybe not great for small businesses because the agentic, [chuckles] um, AI solutions are picking up the results from the LLM, but if these smaller businesses are not showing up in the first five or 10 suppliers on the list, they just get automatically excluded. 21:18 So that is a data issue at its heart, but not a data issue that we usually think of within procurement, right? 21:25 So is there a check in your sourcing process right up front to say, are we including all the suppliers that we want to include, 21:32 um, even if the LLM didn't pick it up or the sourcing agent didn't pick up that, that initial list? Yeah. And- So-... or are we supplementing- Yeah... 21:41 with like external proprietary data sources that allow us to, to do that, right? And I think that's- Correct... 21:47 yeah, one of the big moats for, for software providers is like, do you have proprietary data to, to help drive certain outcomes, right? Yeah. 21:56 Validated data, uh, proprietary data, like any, any data ins- in, um, I guess relationships and inserts into the process are only going to make that experience richer, right? 22:08 And that is a very good, uh, differentiator in the market for these tech providers. 22:14 And so if we shift gears here to this third question around, around people, you alluded to it a bit earlier around, like, you know, getting people to, to, to get more digitally literate or to have new skills, you know, is easily said, but probably very hard to do. 22:28 And I know you have, um, you have some ex- expertise around that, that point. 22:33 Am I mistaken or when you started Wonder, it was really more on the change management and people side of things first, and then you expanded from there? 22:41 Yeah, I mean, uh, Wonder was developed all around solving the change adoption problem because what I was seeing in the market at the time, at least with digital transformation, was, 22:50 uh, that tech was getting easier to deploy, easier to configure, easier to integrate, although some people might argue with me on that, but this was like eight years ago. 22:59 And, um, but the hard part was getting people to actually adopt the new ways of working, and so I wanted to solve that problem. 23:06 Um, we still very much do that at Wonder Services, but our mission is to really unlock the next generation or what I consider, uh, modern procurement across, uh, at least the United States, if not globally. 23:18 And so i- it's kinda shifted into a framework for you, right? Uh, the ALICE framework. 23:24 And I feel like we, you know, we've covered, okay, how to, how to scope pilots, how to educate yourself before getting into pilots, and then once you're deploying pilots, getting to the op model and what that should look like and the different components that are important, data process, um, and, and the actual org structure and the roles. 23:40 But then there's how do you, how do you get that adoption? How do you get that, the people to get from point A to point B in the change? 23:46 So I'd love for you to walk through that, that, uh, ALICE framework and give us a, a bit more detail on how you think about change. Yeah. 23:56 And so when I wrote ALICE: Leading Change in the AI Era, it was all about this notion that we're, we're leading change maybe for the first time in our lives where we don't know what the outcome is gonna be. 24:08 It's not like you're in the old days, like when I first started leading change, it was like, "We're going to SAP," and you're like, "We kinda know what that looks like." 24:15 [chuckles] Um, now in the AI era, there's a bit unknown that we're trying to navigate through. We're kind of like the pioneers crossing, I don't know, the United States for the first time. 24:24 We know that there's gonna be rivers, we know that there's gonna be mountains, and maybe a desert in the mi- in, in the middle. But we don't know exactly how long that's gonna look. 24:32 It doesn't-- We don't know how it's going to impact people's jobs necessarily. We just kind of have a hint at this moment in time. 24:38 So it's a very different leadership skill to lead people through that type of change, and that's really what ALICE focuses on. 24:46 Um, leaders, and I will say this, uh, I was one of these, they make it difficult for themselves to lead their organizations through change sometimes. 24:55 So I'll, I'll give the A in ALICE, which is, um, acting with authenticity, 25:00 and when I, when I say that, um, everyone likes to be authentic, but when you say stuff like, uh, fill in the blank technology is going to solve all of your problems, it's not really authentic, right? 25:11 You might really truly feel that way, but it's probably not gonna solve everyone's problems. [chuckles] Um, so, um, leading with or acting with authenticity is all about sharing the journey with people, right? 25:24 Describe what the journey is going to look like, understanding that it's going to take work. There's going to be agita. 25:31 There's going to be maybe some, some fears that come up, but describing that journey that you're gonna go on together is more important than describing the outcome, okay? 25:43 So that's when I, when I talk about acting with authenticity, that's what the book focuses on. That's the A in ALICE. Leading with love is the second one. Um, how do you lead with love? We, we cover up in corporate. 25:54 We don't talk about love e-enough in my opinion, but we say, like, empathy and vulnerability and all of this kinda stuff. We just put different labels on it. 26:03 But in the book, we, we talk about leading with love is really about listening. Um, when people are going through change, the number one need that they have is to be heard. 26:13 And so how often, even when I was one of these people, when you ask the same question 12 times because you don't like the answer, my teenagers do that to me all the time. 26:23 Like [chuckles], um, uh, do you still listen to that person and try to dive deeper into why they're asking the tw- the question for the 12th time? 26:32 That takes a certain type of leader that's really focused on making sure that they're caring for the people around them. Inspiring others is the I. Um, this is all about, I mentioned it earlier, mission and measurement. 26:46 Uh, how, how do we describe the mission, and how do we measure success? And the mission, uh, for everyone listening, it is not a jargon-filled run-on sentence with em dashes and semi-colons. 26:59 [chuckles] Like, that's not it. I am talking about when one of our, uh, mission statements with a client was clearly visible procurement, right? That's it. That's our mission. We are creating clearly visible procurement. 27:11 Or I had another one was making purchasing easy. Like- Mm-hmm... it is a, you know, very short, memorable, almost a tagline type of a mission that you can champion, um, and bring people along with. 27:23 The measurement side, I think we're, uh, maybe, uh, very, very well aware of. We do that really well today. Uh, my only caution there would be, like, to have, like, two to three different metrics instead of 15 [chuckles] 27:36 'cause we like to measure everything. Yeah, and making sure that, uh, with KPIs, my biggest pet peeve is, like, make, put them in pairs so that you don't have, uh, perverse incentives, right? 27:44 If you maximize savings- Yes... you might draw down quality or to- Right... to think about that, right? Mm-hmm. Um, perverse incentives that you're creating. Yeah, absolutely. So that's inspiring others. 27:55 We have a lot of people that like data. Maybe we're not so great at sh- uh, storytelling, so the mix of the bowls is really key there on both sides of the coin. 28:04 The, the next one is create community, and that is making sure that no one goes down this path alone. 28:11 Um, uh, having open forums, open dialogues, creating that sense of, like, "Hey, we're, we're going to be all in this together." Um, I created a Coupa corner at MGM Resorts, well, almost 10 years ago. 28:24 Well, not 10 years ago, maybe eight years ago now, um, and it still exists today, and that was just an open forum to pe- for people to come in and ask their questions about Coupa, right? 28:34 Like, but that was a sense of community where nobody was out there feeling like they are the only ones that have those questions. 28:41 And then the E is inspire or en- engage purposely, and that is, um, all about engaging your influencers within an organization. We do it all the time in social media. You have influencers within an organization. 28:55 How do we build a ground game to make sure that your influencers are activated, that they're sharing the message? 29:02 And oh, by the way, for everyone that's listening, some of your influencers are also your naysayers, which we kindly call convert champions. They are a very important influencer to engage in the process. 29:15 So I go into a lot more detail in the book, but that's, like, your general overview of the ALICE methodology. 29:20 It's all about how do we as leaders, uh, think about change and lead our p- our teams through change, especially when there's a change where we don't exactly know what the outcome is going to be. 29:32 Yeah, 'cause two things stuck out as you were going through that is, one, uncertainty being much m- much higher. 29:38 Because if I give you a canvas and a paintbrush, to use my earlier example, like that can be very scary if you don't feel like you're a good artist, right? 29:46 And, uh, and so being able to authentically say, like, "W-we're gonna figure it out," and being okay with uncertainty is, is probably something that most leaders are not... 29:57 You know, it's not as, uh, as comforting or as easy to do as past generations of tech, right? Um, and, and then the second thing was, um, this sounds like a lot of work, right? 30:07 In the sense where, like, I'm going, oh, like, but these are all really, really good points that I 100% agree with, right? But I, I always go back to, like, 30:15 you know, you hear about these 18-month transformations and the 90, 80 to 90% failure rates on digital transformation pre-AI, and I think the trap is still there, right? 30:28 To trying to do too much and not doing it well enough and, and making sure that you have ground game, to use your example, making sure that you're covering all your, your stakeholders, making sure that you're Making time to listen and address people's concerns genuinely and authentically because I think that's the, that's the shortcut, right? 30:45 Like you, you and your team at the COE and digitally-minded people might have like, you know, you see the shortcut so clearly to get it to agentic AI, but if you don't take the time to widen the scope and bring everybody with you using something like the, the Alice methodology, you're just, you're just never gonna get there, right? 31:03 Yeah. And that's why the people get stuck in the pilot mode. [laughs] What a beau- That we talked about earlier... a beautiful wrap up, Amanda. Oh my God. Yes. Yeah. [laughs] I know. 31:13 You should, I should, uh, have you guest host this podcast. [laughs] Um, so that was, yeah, that was great. And just selfishly, before we wrap up here, I always ask the questions, some personal questions, um, right? 31:26 What, what are you most excited about, uh, outside procurement and ProcureTech these days? Oh, you know what? Um, it's my family. 31:35 I have a 16-year-old and a 14-year-old, and they are exploring and growing and becoming young adults and, um, it's exciting to see what they get into and the questions that they ask and the trouble that they might make [laughs] along the way. 31:50 But I, um, my oldest daughter found out she loves sales the other day, which, um- Okay. Cool... it was just, like, near and dear to my heart, and I was like, "Oh, that is awesome." 31:58 So I'm excited to see them, uh, grow over the next several years. And have they forced you to develop, uh, habits or interests that you didn't think you would ever have? Oh, yeah. 32:09 Like, I'm a dance mom and I'm a theater mom and I was a volleyball player growing up, so, like, I was totally into sports, and now I've had to learn all kinds of new things. [laughs] Very cool. And, uh- Yeah... 32:21 and so, you know, as we wrap up here, maybe one, one thing if people are, are, um, stuck in pilot jail, what's the first thing they can do in the next couple weeks, in January after the break, to kinda get themselves out of that hole? 32:34 What would be the one thing, I think, you would give as advice? Hmm. Take a step back and understand the broader mission and measurement. Oh, interesting. Like, it's not just a tech pilot. Yeah. Yeah. A- yeah. 32:46 And that makes me think about, like, try during a pilot to, um, test the actual operating model that you're looking to deploy at the same time, right? Yeah. If you can. Yeah. In a small sliver- Yeah... 32:56 of the organization or with one team. Um- Yeah... but that's a great- 100%... great takeaway. And where can people find you? Where can people get the, the book, uh, if, uh, it resonated with them? Okay. 33:08 Look up Leading Change, or Alice: Leading Change in the AI Era on Amazon. They can get it there. You can also find me on LinkedIn, super active out there, um, or wonderservices.net. 33:21 Or at any one of the, uh, thousands of conferences that you seem to attend every year. [laughs] Yes. [laughs] Very good. Well, thanks so much, Amanda, for, for coming on. 33:30 I really appreciate your time, uh, especially in this, in this, uh, planning offsite week that you have with your team. 33:35 So thank you very much for, uh, making some time for me and the podcast and our listeners here, and we'll talk to you again soon, I hope. Thanks for having me. 33:43 [upbeat music] That's a wrap on this episode of ProcureTech Unpacked. 33:47 If you enjoyed this one, give us a follow on your podcast app or YouTube and sign up for the Pure Procurement Newsletter to get procurement technology insights delivered straight to your inbox. 33:57 Otherwise, what's the single best way to tell us you're enjoying the show? Leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, like the video on YouTube, or drop us a comment. 34:07 Whatever platform you're listening on, your feedback means absolutely everything to a niche show like this. All the links, reports, and resources we mention in the episodes are in the show notes. 34:19 And as always, a big thank you to our production team over at Resonate Recordings for making us look and sound good. I'm Joel Conne de Mas. We'll see you next week. [upbeat music] Resonate.
