Architect Your Dream Career: Cracking the Intrapreneurs’ Code

“Always give 110% in even that smallest line you draw on paper.”
Sharbani Dhar

Sharbani Dhar, 2023 winner of the ISG Digital Titan Award and Founder and CEO of DotInfinity, a product and design consultancy. Sharbani started her career in architecture but her passion for problem-solving led her to design and user experience. She then migrated to Australia, facing the challenge of resetting her career due to a lack of local experience. Through perseverance and a focus on lifelong learning, she overcame these hurdles and built a successful career in design leadership.

Listen and learn how to become a champion intrapreneur, equipped with the tools and mindset to push boundaries and make a positive impact within your organisation!

In this episode you’ll hear about

• Reinventing yourself: Sharbani’s transition from architecture to UX design highlights the importance of embracing change and following your passions.
• Overcoming obstacles: Learn how Sharbani tackled the unique challenges faced by immigrants in the Australian job market.
• Authenticity in design: Discover why staying true to your values is crucial for creating impactful and user-centred solutions.
• The power of feedback: Sharbani shares practical advice for overcoming the fear of sharing work and seeking feedback, emphasising the importance of creating a safe space for teams to collaborate and innovate.
• Reframing failure: Explore the concept of “failure KPIs” and how embracing missteps can actually lead to greater success and innovation.
• Unravelling complexity: Sharbani reveals her strategies for breaking down complex problems and making informed decisions based on educated guesses about business impact and technical feasibility.
• Building alliances: Learn how to create strong relationships within your organisation by understanding the needs and motivations of your colleagues and stakeholders.
• The importance of diversity: Discover how diverse perspectives enrich problem-solving and lead to better outcomes.
• Navigating disagreements: Sharbani shares her approach to dealing with challenging personalities and fostering a collaborative environment.

Key links

Sharbani Dhar LinkedIn
DotInfinity
Australian Post (Auspost)
Monash Health
Design Outlook
Miro
Figma 
Telstra

About our guest

The 2023 winner of the ISG Digital Titan Award, Sharbani is the Founder and CEO of DotInfinity, a product and design consultancy.

She champions design-led product strategies that harmonise customer-centric solutions with overarching business goals.

Her expertise spans multiple sectors, including Government, Telecommunications, Finance, and Technology. An active community member, she volunteers as a Consumer Advisor for Monash Health and as an Advisory Board member for Design Outlook.

Beyond her professional sphere, Sharbani explores her creative pursuits in film production, helping craft short films that illuminate socially relevant themes and mentoring young migrants trying to establish themselves professionally.

Transcript

Chris Hudson: 0:07
Hello once more, and thanks for joining us here on the company road podcast. I’ve actually been reflecting quite a lot recently and honestly can’t believe the warmth and positivity that we’ve been getting in relation to this show. So it’s really heartwarming to know that. Leaders both established and emerging are embracing the content and this show in the way that it was intended. And obviously sometimes we’d listen to these things on the off chance that it might help. Sometimes we tune out, we can always leave the experience knowing more than we did at the start, really, which is how I treat a lot of podcasts I listened to as well. So next guest today is very special, a lifetime learner and intrapreneur, now entrepreneur, 2023 winner. Of the ISG Digital Titan Award and Sharbani Dhar is the founder and CEO of Dot Infinity, uh, which is a product and design consultancy. And previously we were working at Australia Post or Auspost for the locals in a design and accessibility role. And Shabani, thanks so much for coming onto the show.

Sharbani Dhar: 1:00
Thank you so much for having me, Chris. It’s definitely a privilege. I’ve really enjoyed your podcast and so many great nuggets of learning over this. It’s a bit unsettling but exciting to be on the other side this time.

Chris Hudson: 1:11
Shabani, so you, in the way that you’ve done you champion design led product strategies that harmonise customer centric solutions and also align with overarching business goals. And yeah, you’ve worked in a lot of sectors, including government and telco finance tech, and you’re obviously, you’re doing that and you’re an active community member as well. You do some volunteering for Monash Health and you’re on the advisory board of Design Outlook as well, which is exciting. And yeah, beyond that, you enjoy film production. Short films, and yeah, ones that illuminate social themes around mentoring young migrants and trying to establish themselves professionally. There’s a lot of stuff in there I’d love to hear about, and Sharbani, it’d be great to maybe start with your story, and what’s been your journey into the world of work, and also into your experience as a migrant moving to Australia?

Sharbani Dhar: 1:58
It’s been an interesting, and I must say, a very fulfilling journey so far. I started my career actually as an architect a long, long time ago, and I quickly realised that I really enjoyed the problem solving part of things. So that’s when I decided to move completely to pure design and look at UX. And I moved to Australia about 12 years ago, and it was an interesting move. Very unplanned because my partner moved here and he said, Hey, there’s a long term opportunity for me. They want to keep me on for longer. Do you want to join? And my first question I remember till day to him was, will I be allowed to work? And he said, yes. So I said, okay. I’ve always wanted to see Australia. It’s in my bucket list. So let’s go there. And we’ve never turned back since then. It’s such a beautiful country. And it was an interesting journey coming here. And. Almost hitting a reset to my career. And I think that’s one thing which most migrants face over here, because to have your skill sets almost, come back to zero, not because of anything else, but the factor that, you don’t have local experience and. We all face that. I also face that at the start of my journey and that struggle to prove that no, I did have global experience and I did know how to solve problems and the language of problem solving. It’s the same everywhere. That was a bit of a hard sell, but eventually got there and Thanks to a lot of people who helped in that journey. And it’s a journey, which is not just about proving your professional experience, but also your cultural experience. I think for anybody who’s coming from a different geography and a different culture, it’s obviously not just a culture shock, but also a lot of adjustment to do and from both the sides. So we went through that. And I also went through that, had a lot of learning, had a lot of guidance. Lots of lovely people helped me through that, and then eventually slowly settled into the Australian workforce, and since then, it’s been awesome.

Chris Hudson: 3:59
Yeah, wow, wow, what a journey. There’s so much that you’ve experienced in this time, obviously, in transitioning, and yeah, presumably some things that you, as you were coming into the world of work that you were noticing for the first time. So, this shows a lot to do with intrapreneurs and how people as emerging leaders, more or less kind of trying to navigate the world of work a little bit and how they can create positivity and impact. And, when you were coming into that world of work, what was some of the things that you were noticing to begin with?

Sharbani Dhar: 4:25
Well, do you mean in Australia or generally as a professional?

Chris Hudson: 4:29
Can be either. Yeah, it can be either. Whatever you, yeah, whichever way.

Sharbani Dhar: 4:32
I think the one thing which stayed with me was authenticity in everything that we do. And I think that’s also the whole core aspect of design, right? You’re trying to solve problems and you’re trying to solve authentic problems, which you really hear and see from the user. And I think that was. A value, which kind of stayed with me while I transitioned through different types of, organisations and workplaces. And I really enjoyed working for organisations, which had an authentic value and really wanted to, Make a different impact and a genuine impact for the user. So getting onto that and then just understanding that as in terms of the work that I produced as well, because when you come from a different culture, the way you produce work in a different. Place and a different geography and different cultures. It’s very different from what you do over here. And the way you approach work is also very different. So it was a bit of a learning curve. Let me just say, and I remember my first few attempts over here in producing the work. I wasn’t really that hundred percent. And simply because my expectation out of that pre mid work check in was very different from, What somebody would expect. Otherwise over here. So that was a bit of learning curve. And that’s when I realised that it’s really important to always give you 110 percent in even that smallest line you draw on paper. And it kind of pushed me to really push my learning as well and start to look at new things, how I can build more into whatever I’m producing over the years and over the ages. And also, I’m. Grasp as much learning as I can from people around me, whatever they have to say and whatever they have to teach me and then start, keep building it on, building it on and eventually be there. I am like, even with my new venture right now, the very reason that I have, I’m able to call myself an entrepreneur and find that strength to call myself an entrepreneur is because. Of that constant learning that I could get throughout my career journey and that authentic learning that I could get that authentic advice that I could get from a lot of people and that guidance that I could get that eventually gave me that confidence that no, I think I can do it now. And I’m definitely confident that I can solve different types of problems that are, organisations are experiencing on an everyday basis and really help them grow. And it’s Really help them see a different perspective to the product that they have.

Chris Hudson: 7:05
Hmm. Yeah. Wonderful. I mean, I think there’s a lot in there that people can learn in the way that you, you think about the situation that you’re in within your work a little bit and you can kind of see, often you kind of come at that situation and say, well, what can I bring to that situation? How can I help in some way? What do I know? And obviously you can offer your point of view and you can submit some work. I think. What’s interesting and what you were saying is almost about the identification around where there might be a gap in your own development and actually understanding, where you need to learn and what you can observe from that situation to be able to learn from in some sort of way. I mean, in terms of how you approach learning in terms of where to focus, how to decide on where, where to focus, but also what to learn. Is there anything in that that you can explain about how you go about doing that?

Sharbani Dhar: 7:49
I always took learning as a challenge, to be very honest, whenever a good design, it’s always, there’s never a single problem to solve. Whenever you go to different organisations or within an organisation itself, you’re having so many problems of the customer that you’re solving with your lens. So it was always a challenge to Learn different aspects, learn different perspectives, and then apply it to whatever I was doing. And I think two things which I identified was, obviously, I always wanted to build on my strengths. And my strength was around curiosity and just being empathetic to that end user, but also my weaknesses of really having a very conscious awareness of What I lack and then not letting it be a handicap for me. I know nowadays everybody says that you must build on your strengths. Don’t worry about your weakness. But I felt that I didn’t want to have my weakness as a handicap. Ever. As a kid, whenever I was growing up, I always remember the teacher would always give that feedback to my parents. And I used to dread parent teacher meetings where they would say, Oh, she’s good. She knows everything, but she’s very careless. So, and it was like, Standard, feedback that I would always get. And as I went into my professional, journey and when I started it, I actually saw what my teachers meant. Where I would forget about that tiny detail or I would not. I would ignore that because I was very end outcome oriented. And then I realised that that was becoming my handicap. That was my weakness because I was so always looking at the bigger picture and that end outcome that I would forget about the finer details in the process. So. That was one of my biggest weaknesses and then teaching myself to keep going back and keep, reviewing and keep looking at things and really seeing where we can patch it. And today, I think because of that, that’s almost become a thread because now my mindset is if I’m looking at a problem, I’ll keep not just looking at the macro, but also keep going back and look at looking at, okay, what does that micro tiny thing, which is really, Causing the problem, which if we, just try to unravel that, the entire thing just becomes super clear. And that has been, I think, from being an absolute handicap of a weakness to turning into a strength, it’s been really helpful throughout the phase, throughout the learning journey.

Chris Hudson: 10:11
Yeah, yeah, no, it’s a really cool story. I think there’s there’s a lot in that around, when you start hearing feedback and obviously like we all hear feedback from a very young age from our parents, our friends and people that we spend time with. And then you go into this sort of school period where you’re getting more formalised. Feedback, which is in the form of a report or in a meeting you’re describing. And I can definitely relate to that moment where your parents have gone off to the meet the teachers and you’re thinking, okay, well, what’s going to happen now. And my dad was always pretty structured, he’d write notes and then he’d want to debrief because he came from a corporate background himself. Yeah. I was kind of thinking about how we, as people basically receive feedback or learn to receive feedback because, in that moment, I remember in my teens, I just hated it. I really didn’t. Want the feedback, but then at some point, yeah, later in your career, when you’re starting out, and obviously you’re going into different roles, when you’re starting out further into your career, feedback is a very normal thing. And yeah, I mean, it becomes something that you have to accept and obviously take forward. And from what you’re saying was really great, because I think the sooner that you can actually take it in and act upon it. I mean, that’s a big step. It feels like you can’t just ignore it and put your head in the sand. But if you can apply it to your learning journey and actually take it on board and not take it personally, then that can be incredibly important.

Sharbani Dhar: 11:23
Yeah, I think even as professionals, it’s a space of vulnerability, right? And even till date, I’m terrified. Whenever I have to go and seek feedback, I’m terrified of it. When I was making my website as well for Dot Infinity, I don’t know why I was like, I want to make it myself. My product design director at Aus Post, amazing person. He said, send me a website. I would love to have a look. And I was like, Oh my God, I don’t want to send it to you because I don’t want you to get it from your lens. I don’t know what you’ll come up with and tell me all the things which are not that great. And I realised. that I’m still terrified of feedback, but I obviously sent it to him and just literally this morning he was telling that it’s looking good. And it’s so good to get that constructive feedback or that validation that things are going good, that putting yourself in that space of vulnerability is always worth it, but it’s a constant. training your mind that it’s okay. You will be okay. It’s okay to just go there and, seek it.

Chris Hudson: 12:19
Yeah. And I think, you can start with something. It doesn’t have to be as big as, leaving the company, starting a business and giving the website design to somebody you really respect. You can start with something really small. I mean, is there something small that you would You know, I mean, along the way, I mean, this is obviously the final step, but earlier on, you might’ve started, you just try a few things out that you think,

Sharbani Dhar: 12:37
yeah, yeah, absolutely. I remember this very long time ago when I was a design lead and I was at design crit session. I was working on something, but it wasn’t perfect. And, I kept postponing. Actually presenting my own work at the crit where I would hear the entire team’s work, but I wouldn’t present my own because I was like, no, I need to do a bit more. I need to do a bit more. And then my team member said, Shabani, why haven’t you shown your work? I was like, Oh, there was a bit more that I need to do. And he’s like, no, we want to see what you’re doing. And then I was like, Oh my God, I’m, I’m the lead. I’m going to show it to my team. And what if they don’t like it? So my enemy showed and they did find quite a few things, which I, hadn’t done right. And they pointed it to me. And then I definitely got that opportunity to actually make it way better. And suddenly it solved a lot of things for me. But that moment was so terrifying. And I realised that I don’t ever want to do that again. I don’t want to put myself in a spot. For where I haven’t sought the feedback in the right time. And I realised that I’m still thankful to that guy who raised his voice. I was his manager, but he said, Hey, you’re not doing something right. You’re expecting this out of us, but you’re not. And that changed a lot. And I still thank him in a way till today that gave me that strength to say, it’s okay, you should put yourself in that vulnerable position and ask for feedback because it’s definitely going to make it much better.

Chris Hudson: 13:57
Yeah, this situation is pretty common. I think it’s a two way situation. People are often thinking, okay, it’s on you to basically put yourself forward and to put your work out there and to invite the critique, but it’s actually on the leadership to a little bit and the people facilitating to make that environment feel safe enough for people to come forward with and to expect that critique as well a little bit. So I think, for the managers out there and for the facilitators out there, it’s just an important point around making that a safe space and helping people. Get beyond that first step of fear to a point where they’re happy to share and expect feedback. I think once, once you get past the sharing point, it’s thinking about how do you then handle feedback and how do you break it down and how do you learn from it, the way that you’re describing a little bit as well.

Sharbani Dhar: 14:40
Yeah, absolutely. And I think as leaders, it becomes even more of a responsibility for us. And I think one thing which helps is to get away from that mindset, that just because you’re a leader, everything and you have to get everything. Right. I think as a leader, it’s more about knowing what your strengths are, but building a team. Which is stronger and other things so that they can help you where you are not great. And that involves knowing that you are not going to be perfect. In fact, your team is going to be way better than you in a lot of aspects, but you as a leader, it’s your job to just make sure that they can work harmoniously together and you can tie it all together to build a comprehensive product. Definitely. That’s been a great learning over the years. And I think that is something which as leaders, we all should be conscious of.

Chris Hudson: 15:27
In that sense, getting to know your team, understanding the dynamics and really getting the team to kind of gel from your experience in Auspost or anywhere else, like, how have you gone about doing that yourself in a way that you felt has worked?

Sharbani Dhar: 15:39
With my team, we never saw each other as, I always put myself as more of a facilitator. for the team. And I love building the team where everybody had a different area of strength because that way they all could compliment each other. They could compliment me as well as, somebody who was putting it all together and we all could literally come together as a cross functional team of SMEs. But also in terms of, just helping them. Do their job and giving them that confidence that, yes, I trust you do whatever you need to do for the problem, and I’ll step in only when you require any help or if you need that further escalation or something, or if you need your roadblocks clear, that’s when I step in. Otherwise, I’m just there. There to be that facilitator and that support for you. That was one. And then secondly, always encouraging them to experiment. I think that was one thing. And that’s why I love my stint at Auspost because we built a team, which was always open to experimentation, whether it was experimenting with new methodologies, new tools. And when we were hiring also, we tried to find the kind of people who enjoy experimentation and are not completely unsettled by it. Yes. There would be times when they would be nervous. But it actually added to the fun of, going through that process. And some of the tangible things that I can account for, our team was one of the first adopters of tools like Miro when it was known as real time board and Figma. And we actually could accelerate the way we worked and collaborated massively, which worked when We had COVID lockdowns and suddenly everybody was remote and we were the kind of team which had never, ever been remote, everybody was on site and everybody was in Melbourne and suddenly everybody’s a hundred percent remote. But we could transition through it so smoothly because the team was used to that sort of culture. They had the right kind of tools. They had adopted them early. They didn’t have to go through that hurdle. And they also had the kind of methodologies because they’re already experimented with that. We had experimented already with remote testing. We had experimented with remote collaborations and all of that. So always having that culture of experimentation and also that culture of feeling safe to propose new ideas and methodologies that always has held us as a collective, as a team to grow and, just get better and better at what we do.

Chris Hudson: 17:56
Yeah. I mean, experimentation is getting, well, I mean, it is important. I mean, a lot of organisations are trying it in one way or another. I wonder whether you’ve got a point of view around whether it should be When we sit with individuals to drive that forward or whether the leadership needs to put the framework in place for that to be possible. Have you got a thought there?

Sharbani Dhar: 18:13
It is a bit of both, but definitely the leadership needs to put the KPIs of failure, as they say, that it’s okay to fail and I’ve got your back. That is so important. The very reason that I could flourish and I could feel confident enough to be a leader in my career was because I had the right kind of leaders. Who told me that, yes, we’ve got your back that way. I feel really privileged to have had that. And I think that’s so important to tell your team that it’s okay to have the wrong solution. Don’t worry about that because if you go wrong, I’ll help you with it. I’ll help you. I’ll give you that space to correct it. And I’ll give you that early feedback also to, nudge you. If I feel that you’re going grossly incorrect, but I’ll also be there to shelter you There is any massive issues arising out of it. I think that’s super important because otherwise, no matter how experimental the individual is, they will always feel frustrated because they can’t really push themselves. Because they don’t have that safe space to do that. So definitely it’s both ways, but leadership needs to have that framework, needs to have that KPI of failure and organisations which have done that, like Google was the first one to introduce failure KPIs within their workforce and that helped it to be the place that it is in. And now most of the technology organisations do that. So we need to build that more into all the traditional brick and mortar organisations as well.

Chris Hudson: 19:33
But yeah, I love that point around failure. KPIs. I’m wondering if you could bring that to life just a little bit and explain what they might be and how they might be used in some way.

Sharbani Dhar: 19:42
A very standard thing is if you look at a process right nowadays, a lot of development processes and especially agile processes talk about an idea and taking it to finish by iterating on it continuously, right? What happens is. Where they fail is it’s always that idea and the processes always define how to refine that idea further and further. There’s no space to actually dump that idea and start fresh if it’s not working. And I think that’s where product and design together can play such a crucial role, where even if you feel at any point that the idea is not working, what else do we have? So one way of having a failure. KPI is not having one single idea, but always having at least four different ideas. And out of that, at least one idea needs to be completely different, completely path breaking, something which really challenges your technology as well as your business. So, and then trying and experimenting with the appetite for all of those ideas. Bit by bit from a business metrics perspective, from a customer metrics perspective, and even from a technological capability perspective. So move forward, but don’t move forward linearly, move forward more exponentially in different directions. And then, have those moments for your team to evaluate, see how it’s going and then be quick to drop and start on something new. Or even when you’re refining, look at ways of refinement, not in a singular way, but how are the different ways that you can refine and what are the different ways that you can push the envelope and then quickly drop whatever is not working. So if we can do that, then I think that and build that culture in our teams. And I know the first time you’ll do that, it’s going to be expensive. It’s going to cost the business money. But as you make it almost like a mindset for every team member and the mindset of the process itself, then it gets easier and way more cost efficient. And in fact, you’ll end up. Saving way more money down the pipeline than you did previously.

Chris Hudson: 21:40
No, I mean, it’s really good. I mean, it’s healthy, but I think it’s hard as well. And a lot of people be thinking, how do I position this story to stakeholders or to the leadership? And now in your experience, how have you, how have you managed to do that? From the point of view of trying something. Being okay with the failure, reporting the KPIs to the failure, and then saying, we’re going to move on. We’ve learned this from it. But how have you found that whole journey in terms of stakeholder management?

Sharbani Dhar: 22:04
It’s definitely not been easy. And to be very honest, we haven’t been able to do that all the time, obviously, because, looking at the urgency of something and all of that. But wherever we could do it, we were rewarded for it because one way that we could do it successfully was grabbing data early on, whether it was qual or quant, just being very, very vigilant about whatever data we could get. And there was one point where I essentially built a prioritisation matrix because we realised That while we are doing this, we are not able to prioritise ideas in a very mathematical way, in a very scientific way, if you would put it like that, because whenever we used to prioritise, it would be almost like a finger in the air, guess that this would work versus this would not work. And that’s one of the key problems in a lot of organisations today. They don’t have any way to prioritise the maturity of an idea. And. That finger in the air also needs to be an educated finger in the air, as they say. So that’s when I essentially built this prioritisation metrics where essentially we measure the idea in terms of relative values. From its customer impact lens, from its business impact lens, and even its technological feasibility lens, we might not have the exact data. And that’s a very real problem. And in most Australian organisations today, data capture maturity is not. So how do you really put that educated guess? So you look at, okay, say for example, it’s a login problem. So how do you really look at, okay. From a customer impact, is it impacting all of my customers? What is the severity of the issue? If the customer doesn’t get in, what is the impact to the product? So how severe it is? What is the reach? How many customers is it really impacting? We may not have the data, but we would know that at least, given this is a product and this is the kind of, Australian population that it reaches to say it’s impacting 30 percent of our customers. And then how many times is it impacting it given in a journey? Is it just in coming once or is it coming multiple times? So there are different ways that you can actually give a very educated figure in the air, as they say, to be able to build that data and that metric by which you can essentially get that KPI of failure. Does that make sense? So, and same way you can unpack business, you can unpack tech feasibility also, especially for brick and mortar businesses. You can look at the impact of the problem in terms of whether it’s impacting just that digital business or it’s impacting other aspects of the business and. Based on that scale becomes exponential. So essentially I built base by which we can measure in a relative way and take a more informed guess and build more confidence into those guesses so that we could actually trash a lot of the ideas that we could come up with very quickly instead of, taking it forward.

Chris Hudson: 24:47
So I think that point around the data and the metrics is really important. The fact that you often need to take a leap of faith and find a way to get maybe a little bit more creative with the numbers and, and basically say, okay, I don’t know for sure that it’s going to be 30 percent of the customer base that are going to be affected by this or that will be helped by this. But I think you can make some assumptions and I think, you have to be a little bit more creative in the way that you use the data and then how you tell that story through the presentations that you make, obviously to your stakeholder groups as well. But that part’s hard. I don’t know. How have you found that working and who have you involved in that sort of process to make it work well for you?

Sharbani Dhar: 25:23
So when you say assumptions, it’s about when you don’t have a lot of data and when you’re making assumptions, how do we make them work? Those assumptions as educated as possible. And in order for us to do that, you need to actually involve the entire team. So you need to involve the representatives of product. You need to involve representatives of tech. You need to involve, design everybody, whoever is impacted by that problem solution, you need to involve them because they would help you make that educated assumption. Much better. So somebody coming from product will be able to tell you, yes, I don’t have the exact data. I’m not capturing it, but this is roughly the way I feel these many people would be impacted by this. Percentage of our customer base would be impacted by this. Similarly, somebody from tech would be able to roughly put together the complexity of the problem, whether it’s a solution architect or whether it’s literally a BA, they would be able to tell you what is the complexity and how much of an impact it will be. And that again, becomes more or less a collective conversation. So, driving those conversations within the business. And driving those collaboration sessions where you are forcing the business to think from a data metric perspective becomes really important. And it’s a change. It’s definitely a mindset shift, but it’s not a very hard mindset shift because once you start to unpack things from the lens that they see it, it’s much easier for them to make those educated assumptions that, it would be if you just told them that, Oh, this is going to be a massive customer problem. It’s about helping them unpack the problem from their lens. So that they can put some educated numbers to it.

Chris Hudson: 26:58
I also want to add to that. And maybe it’s a bit of a build, but it’s around the fact that when you’re working with the stakeholder groups, you can almost hear and see the things that they would find most important and the things that they know about, they talk about a lot. So I think you can pick up a lot of clues in that respect in knowing, where they want to focus, what they’ve got available, what they’re talking about, where they want to take things. And so, so yeah, from that point of view, it, how do you then. Channel that sort of observation into a bit of a discussion and facilitate that around, if you’re thinking about impact or value and you’re thinking about effort and how you might evidence that and how you might break it down so you could facilitate the conversation as a, as an entrepreneur or a leader, you could say, okay, what do we mean by value? How are we defining value? Finding it, what are the questions? And you can get everyone to kind of give their point of view around that. And then obviously you can align on what it means because the impact and effort arbitrary kind of scoring that’s done a lot of time with these ideas is like, well, we’ll just do it, but we won’t actually know what’s behind that and what the breakdown of value and its definition actually is. But what you’re describing is really great because it means that you can actually put some real texture and definition around that and be quite specific about what it is you’re aiming at. And with the data to support. So that’s really cool. And is that been for mainly, new products or like, when have you used this sort of thinking and methodology?

Sharbani Dhar: 28:14
This methodology can be helpful at any stage of the product. So there was another methodology that I put together, which is essentially around the technical maturity. So when you want to get to a certain point. point. So once you take those educated guesses around business and the business impact as well as the technical feasibility of things, there’s also that realistic reality check of where you are versus where you want to be. And I think that’s something where I realised that we really need to start to unpack what does maturity mean when it comes to not just technical feasibility, but rather where an organisation stands currently versus where it needs to be. So I’ll give you a very basic example. So there are a lot of metrics like InVision did, uh, one long time ago. And McKinsey also did it a long time ago around finding out the design maturity of any organisation, which measured where a design team is. And then where it needs to be. So similarly, I realised, okay, there is some opportunity over there and we can actually look at what’s the technological maturity, because we all want to accelerate things with AI. We all want to accelerate in terms of deep technology, and we want to go take our product to that next level. It need not be a new product. It can be, an existing product, but first, where are we currently? We need to know that. So having that bit of gauge and that reality check of here I am. And I want to be here, but first I need to go get here and then here, and then eventually there. So I essentially put together a bit of a maturity gauge where once I’m over here, and if I want to be here, what does that roadmap look like? So that’s another way to unpack and understand how successful an outcome will be for my product, given where I’m right now, and given the kind of, educated assumptions that I’ve made, because I’ve understood the priority. Okay. Using my educated assumption, I’ve understood the need for doing the things. But now let me unpack what is the actual effort in getting to where I need to be. Does that make sense?

Chris Hudson: 30:14
Yeah, it makes total sense. I think following that through, it’s interesting to think about, what happens next because, you’ve got to think then about the delivery a little bit. And, when you start to unravel, the idea and its potential, and, you’re basically road mapping it as you described, you find out that there are all these different dependencies and risks associated with that. So how do you navigate some of that stuff? Because that, that can be really hard.

Sharbani Dhar: 30:38
Yeah, it’s not easy. And I think the first point of navigation is having a clear picture of what it is that you’re looking at. And when you look at that picture, it’s not just about the technical capability or the architectural capability that you have for your solution, but it’s also about what is the cultural capability? What’s the cultural framework that you have in your team? Would it be successful in setting you up for success or not? What is the team structure that you have? And then how does the team work? What is the process that they use in terms of execution? So the first step would be literally to lay it all out and say, okay, this is where you are in order to get there. These are the different aspects of the problem you need to tackle and then work collaboratively with the team on what does that solution look like? What are certain opportunities where you can fast track certain things? What are certain opportunities where you are like, okay, fine, this is. Definitely something which I need to tackle, but first I need to look at a couple of other things in order to reach the maturity to tackle that other thing. I’m just thinking of a good example for you. So for example, the HR will come to you and say, Hey, we want to build a workforce for tomorrow. There’s so much of technological innovation coming in. There’s that constant fear that AI will replace it. So what does our workforce for tomorrow look like? How do we better support the workforce, which we will need to hire three or four years down the line. So in order to do that, you’re not just looking at your hiring structure. You’re not just looking at your current people structure and your current organisation structure, but you’re also looking at what are the kind of tools that the team is using? What is the kind of culture? Is there a culture of innovation to support the workforce for tomorrow? Is there a culture of learning? In order to support the workforce for tomorrow, is there the kind of right kind of process framework, which is there to support whatever the new cultural innovations or new technical innovations that you are hoping to propose to support the workforce for tomorrow. So you need to look at all of that. You need to look at where the organisation currently stands and then look at, okay. With each of these different aspects, what’s the maturity level and how we can help push that to the next level?

Chris Hudson: 32:42
I mean, I think from a visibility point of view, that’s always going to help. The part I’m also interested in is probably around, what I want to call the great unraveling, which is where you want to fix something within the organisation, but realise that it’s tied to 10 other business units and teams and other work and legacy techs that you’ve got to figure out, like when it gets more and more complicated, how do you figure out some of that sort of stuff?

Sharbani Dhar: 33:04
That’s never easy, but it’s a slow process and there’s no templatised solution for that. I think it differs with every organisation of understanding. Okay. What are the dependencies? What are the different aspects of this dependencies that we need to consider and how mature are the different business units that are tied to it? Because one thing which I realised in my experience being part of some really large organisations in Australia was that different business units have different maturity. And when I say maturity, it means maturity in production or maturity of coming up with a product solution. So based on that, I’ve had to essentially Tackle it differently, whether it’s Australia Post or Telstra, looking at different whenever we have had to produce a product, looking at different teams and then where they are right now, how do they work? How do they talk to product and design? How do they even introduce the problem in the first place? And how do we improve the conversations within the team? How do we improve their processes within that for each? And then finally, how do we. Kind of make all these different business units come together for that eventual problem solution. First step was obviously visibility. Second step is assessing the maturity. And then third step is collaborating and working out, how do we really unpack and solve for those gaps eventually? And I would say then towards that solution, another step would be really making those gaps visible and giving them. Tangible data and tangible steps on how do you essentially fill those gaps?

Chris Hudson: 34:36
That’s a really helpful breakdown. I think for a lot of people that are trying to navigate that space and yeah, it can be really confusing when you don’t know what the logical next step is, because you’re in the situation. You still want to reach the outcome, but without a framework and without a leader saying this is where it should go, you’re trying to get allies and you’re trying to get clues for what should be done next. It can be really hard. So yeah, that’s really helpful.

Sharbani Dhar: 34:56
And with allies as well, I think one of the crucial steps to forming allies in the business is understanding where they are coming from and what’s in it for them. And what is it that will make them look good as well? Because at the end of the day, you want everybody to come together and walk in a unified manner towards the problem. But realistically speaking, that’s a utopian scenario. So everybody has their own agendas, not in a negative way, but rather in a professional way, everybody has their own KPIs to meet. So how can you help them meet their KPIs so that you can meet your own KPI? If you are helping them meet their KPIs, that’s when they will become your allies, because then they feel that, there’s a benefit for them as well. And that’s how human beings work at the end of the day. Everybody wants their KPIs. bit of benefit. Unless somebody is in a position of benefit, they will not be able to, be in a position to give as well. We need to understand that you can’t go to somebody who does not have any money and beg for 5. They will need to have at least 10 to be able to lend you five. Does that make sense? So it’s, it’s the same way in, in terms of a corporate organisation, unless they are able to meet the KPIs, they would not be able to help you and they will not see a shared purpose.

Chris Hudson: 36:11
I mean, do you think it is that, I’m going to put my parachute on before somebody else’s or life jacket or people got to take care of their own KPIs before they can help you to that’s the case, or do you reckon you can do it all together?

Sharbani Dhar: 36:22
We can do it all together. I think it’s about making their KPIs a shared KPI, having those shared goals and having that shared vision. It’s about essentially giving them that lens so that they can see that your vision is also their vision. It’s not about helping them achieve their KPIs and then forgetting about your own, but rather, okay, how can we build a shared vision together? How can we work towards it collectively in a way that it benefits all the business units involved? And people also find a lot more purpose in doing that because no business unit wants duplication of work. They don’t want another business unit to do exactly what they have been doing. And this is a very real case in one of the organisations that I’ve worked previously. There was a business unit that was building a solution and there’s considerable amount of effort building that solution only to realise when they socialise together. That solution that another business unit in the organisation actually had built that solution for another, product offering already. And it was so much of time and so much of money wasted over something which was not required. But this is a reality with most big organisations right now. So how do we avoid that redundancy? How do we avoid that duplication of effort and actually have one shared vision, which everybody’s aware of? Everybody has the visibility of, and so. So that, everybody’s working towards one goal without really duplicating and doubling up at all.

Chris Hudson: 37:47
Well, it’s a number of organisations where the KPIs have been more secret in a way, held at an individual level and agreed with your manager and other organisations where they’ve been much more public. If you work at Salesforce or Oracle, and some of the places I’ve been, Fortunate enough to work. It just feels like there’s an open way to do it and you can see exactly how it’s laddering up to the whole direction of the business in a way. Have you had experience with that as well?

Sharbani Dhar: 38:10
Yeah. And I think some of the best examples that I’ve seen where some of the most successful Open KPIs, and everything is visible. Everything is shared and everybody’s aware of what other business unit is doing and what they’re responsible for. So having secretive KPIs doesn’t help. And it just promotes that culture of secrecy and culture of non collaboration, if that’s a word, but it always promotes that. And there’s no benefit in that. I think more and more organisations now, and some of the most advanced tech organisations in the world. Are going towards more visible KPIs, so open KPIs. Yes, some of the individuals development is worth keeping personal to that individual and private to that individual and between them and their manager because that is a very personal thing. The outcome of the development, which is essentially the KPI should be a shared outcome. It’s only then that as an organisation you can move forward because everybody’s not going in different directions. Everybody has got a unified direction.

Chris Hudson: 39:13
Sometimes we have to accept that we can only do so much ourselves and we can put ourselves into all these situations and have the KPIs and deliver them. But if they’re not actually benefiting, the broader team or the business in some way, then it’s basically just you, isn’t it?

Sharbani Dhar: 39:26
Yeah, Comes down again to the structure of teams as well. The very reason why we need to have different types of skill sets contributing to the team and, becoming that, as I had mentioned, that cross functional team of experts is because they are sharing a KPI and yet what they bring to the table is very different from the other. And that way there is never conflict in an ideal world. There’s no conflict of interest. Everybody’s contributing in the way they can contribute the best and there’s no overlap. And, still everybody’s contributing towards that shared goal.

Chris Hudson: 40:00
The more open it is, the more you understand where your space is, personal spaces in relation to everybody else as well, because. Otherwise you could clash with something else that you were describing. There’s duplication of effort or you’re doing it a slightly different way. So I think you have to self publicise some of that a little bit so that people know what you’re doing.

Sharbani Dhar: 40:16
Yes. And we’ve had to do that in the past quite a bit in my couple of my previous organisations, especially when it comes to research and design, it’s been a bit of challenge because not everybody understands what design can bring to the table or what product strategy can bring to the table or for the fact that Design can actually contribute to the product strategy. And we had had to go and self publicise ourselves. We had to tell, Hey, we don’t just, make screens. We don’t just do campaigns because that was a perception. Instead, we can actually help you way earlier in the funnel and we can help you with a strategy. We can help you craft it. We can help you provide metrics where you may not have any. It’s definitely a lot of. Self publicity or rather, even literally the agent sales agents within, as I often say that if you have to be a designer, you can always complain about not getting a seat at the table before you offer a chair at your own table.

Chris Hudson: 41:09
Yeah, true. Oh, I love that. I love that. Yeah. The table that they always talk about.

Sharbani Dhar: 41:12
Yeah.

Chris Hudson: 41:16
Get your seats, bring your own and bring it over. There’s the other thing that I want to just stretch on from this point, because there’s the other situation where you’ll put your own vision and your own inputs out there and somebody disagrees. And I think what we need to realise is that’s okay in some way, getting through that and understanding difference and accepting diverse perspectives is always going to be really important. And how has that helped? Because, we were talking before we recorded the show about how that’s led to some of the stronger relationships that you’ve had in work. Would you like to talk about that a little bit?

Sharbani Dhar: 41:47
I think diversity of perspectives is something which you should always have in an organisation that starts with building a diverse team. And that is one thing which is very, very close to my heart and something which I’ve tried to do a lot within all the previous workplaces that I have been in, especially when I’ve been in a hiring position and being able to have a say in who we hire and how we hire. I’ve tried to make sure that we have diversity, not just in terms of the cultural diversity of the team, but also the skillset diversity. And then when we have formed collaborative teams to solve a problem as well, I’ve tried to have that diverse voice across that team structure in terms of the different types of skills we are bringing in. So when we are even doing a design exercise, sometimes people are saying, Oh, we are doing the service design, a problem which we need to look at from a service design. Then the first question I’ve asked, okay, apart from service designers. Who else have you brought in? Have you brought in a BA who will help you with a lot of data? Have you brought in a product owner? Have you brought in a content designer? Because a content designer is not there to just fill up the blanks. They are also there to actually build the narrative of the solution. How have you, brought in different diverse Thoughts, diverse mindsets to actually unpack the problem. Very recently, we were looking at a problem at my previous workplace, and we actually got the AI team and the behavioural science team also involved to get their perspective on things. And that. Really opened up our minds on the possibilities that we could have. I’ve never seen diversity backfire in any way. I think it will never as long as we invite more and more different perspectives. The problem can only get richer. The solution can only get better.

Chris Hudson: 43:30
That’s very important. Thank you. And then I think the other one is, is kind of looking out for those people or the challenges or the disruptors, because you can usually find that quite a lot. If you go towards them and actually understand where they’re coming from. And if you can set all your differences in some way or another, then that can be incredibly positive as well. Amazing.

Sharbani Dhar: 43:47
Yeah, absolutely. And I think in a mature workplace, differences will be there, but as long as there’s clarity of what we are trying to achieve, as long as we have that outcome based thinking, people eventually align. Never seen a place. If the outcome is clear that people have lived with their differences or they have held on to very hard opinions, they’ve always been willing to nudge each other and been willing to accommodate each other when they have seen how the other’s opinion contributes to the end outcome or how their Appreciate it. Opinion might be detrimental to the end outcome. They’ve always been willing and to have that open conversation. But for that, the outcome has to be super clear. And one way to do that is get that outcome on paper right from day one. And this is something with even our team back at Australia post used to follow quite strongly. And that was a great learning for me. I saw that as a very successful example where. Right in the beginning, we would have an experience brief, almost like a lean canvas experience brief, where we would capture what is the desired outcome. And we would have all the stakeholders in that meeting when we would be capturing that. And that would literally go through the entire problem solution process so that whenever we had a difference of opinion, whenever we felt that, there’s a conflict arising, we would come back to that paper and say, okay, this is the shared outcome. How is it, impacting that it helps build that maturity.

Chris Hudson: 45:13
Yeah. So finding a way to capture the agreement or the difference. And then the agreement is also key, isn’t it? In the document.

Sharbani Dhar: 45:20
Yeah, exactly. And like, it’s literally a one pager, like what are the key outcomes? What are certain key metrics that we are trying to tackle? What’s definitely out of scope? What is it that we agreed not to look at all? What are certain experiences that we want to achieve? All of this, if we capture just those initial thoughts, you’ll be surprised right in the beginning, how many people have different. Ideas of the end outcome and how it completely clarifies once you put it on paper, a shared sheet of paper for everybody to see.

Chris Hudson: 45:51
Yeah, really, really good. And yeah, I’m, I’m curious to know behind all of this. I mean, you’ve given some great advice today. Thanks Shabani. But, but what energises you and what keeps you going through all of the hard conversations that you’ve had to have?

Sharbani Dhar: 46:05
I think it’s that moment of Being able to make a difference, even if it’s that one tiny difference in a day, it just keeps me going and waking up every day with feeling good about the rest of the day. And the day that I stopped feeling good, I know that, okay, this is the time to move on. But thankfully so far, it’s been really a great journey where waking up every day, knowing, okay, Today, this is the problem that we are looking at, and this little bit is what I’ll do about it today. That really helps keep me going. Because there have been days when things have appeared at a stalemate, and things have felt that they are not moving, or they’re not moving forward, or we’ve arrived at a deadlock. Those are the times when I choose that one tiny little bit that I will try to Solve today and this is going to be my mission for today. Almost really helps.

Chris Hudson: 46:53
Yeah. Nice. So it’s drawing focused to the thing that you can make the difference on the most of the quickest, really in those moments,

Sharbani Dhar: 46:59
the smallest wins possible taking those baby steps, but getting those small bins definitely helps keep that energy on.

Chris Hudson: 47:05
And then presumably like you’re thinking about it afterwards. And you’ll give yourself Pat on the back ’cause you’ve done it, some gratitude practice.

Sharbani Dhar: 47:12
Yeah. More than Pat on the back. I think it’s that one peaceful night of sleep. Yes. I could do this, this, this today. So I can sleep well. very good. I literally have like checklist, like every in the morning. I literally, and it’s not a type checklist, it’s, it’s a handwritten checklist that I have with hand drawn boxes. Okay. Do this, do this. It just helps me when I take those off towards the end of the day. I’m like, yes.

Chris Hudson: 47:40
Yeah. Wonderful. Every day there’s progress. That’s good. That’s good. All right. Well, Shivani, thanks so much for coming on to the show. I’ve really enjoyed the chat and you’ve been very open and giving, some of the stories and some of the frameworks that you’ve used and the things that have helped you and obviously the things that motivate you as well. And you’ve been on. An incredible journey yourself. And yeah, we can’t wait to see what happens next with your new consulting venture. Just massive. Thank you for coming back onto the show.

Sharbani Dhar: 48:02
Thank you so much, Chris. I really enjoyed this. Thanks a lot.

Chris Hudson: 48:06
Yeah, good. Thank you.

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