AI-Driven Application Development with Planview’s Louise Allen

This is Techron tv. Hey guys, thanks for the throw. We're here with Louise Allen as Chief Product Officer for C Planview.

And we're talking about how after a series of acquisitions and product announcements in 2024, how it all comes together because, well, I think we're kind of looking at some, almost a primordial soup of new technologies that have been added, but it needs a catalyst, I think. Louise, welcome to Chef. Yeah, thank you Mike.

Appreciate it. Yes, it's been a very, uh, 2024 is a very good year for us, and I like how you put that. I think things starting to come together and, and the platform is, uh, gaining a lot of momentum.

So happy to be here. In my mind, at least, these things have always been connected, but somebody had to go out and actually connect them. There was project management and then we talked to software delivery, and then there's some effort for value stream management around the top of that, and that all gets connected back to our DevOps systems.

Is this all becoming more integrated as we go forward? 'cause some things are starting to feel more like features than platforms, but how do you see this kind of evolving? Yes.

You know, it is been interesting over the past couple years to your point. And we, we, we actually went into about, I'd say three years ago, thinking portfolio management. Project management was very separate from the software side and, and, you know, value stream management and agile and all of that.

It's just all come together that we've seen. It's just a hybrid of different ways of working, right? But at the same time, you need to pull everything together to be able to do strategic planning and financial planning and be able to plan at that, that higher level.

So, and you have to have that software lens, um, in there as well. So it is all blending together that, that we see. And, you know, you need a platform that, that pulls it all together.

And, and yeah, we're certainly seeing, you know, customers starting to talk to us a lot more about, I need to think more in a product mindset than a project mindset, for example. And, and where the product managers, the cool kids now, which I love. And, uh, but yeah, so it's certainly a trend that we're seeing that everything is coming together and I think, um, that's the way the world's going.

You hear a lot about the phrase platform engineering these days. Is that kind of tied into your thinking around all these things? And is the way that we build software fundamentally changing?

I can tell you from our lens, it certainly is. And, and the way you know, it, it is just vastly different that we think of building things as a service now and not just thinking, you know, kind of one capability here and there. How does it benefit the entire platform?

And let's build it once and not, not build it multiple times. So especially as you said with acquisitions, um, that becomes very tricky. Um, but I completely agree that that's, that's what the way we think about it.

And it's, it's, it's, um, a very, very different mindset in engineering and quite frankly, product management and just how we think about it overall. And the decisions are different. Dependencies are very complex in that world as well.

But, uh, yes, I think we all need to start thinking about that differently. And let's not build things multiple times. We don't have to, You cannot walk down the street these days without somebody leaping out to tell you about their great new AI thing.

But people are, I look at that, it seems like it is kind of forces us down a path where we have to get to something that feels like a single source of reliable truth for the data. They're exposed to an AI model. So is that part of the thinking here is everybody's kind of excited about ai, but they're starting to realize that it requires some work?

Yes, it's interesting. Yes. It's certainly, uh, not, not an easy undertaking and, and it's not a checkbox for sure.

Yeah, you, I think you nailed it. I mean, we, we've done a lot of talking about if you do not have kind of one centralized place where all your data is to be able to take advantage of that, um, and not locate in all, all different ways, it's very difficult to take advantage of the power of AI and, uh, as as much work as it is on, on top of that, whether it's, you know, you have a copilot or you have AI for efficiency reasons, et cetera. Um, we, we just see that as, as just imperative.

And, you know, it ta it, like you said, is a lot of work to get there, but I think the rewards and as you do more acquisitions and you, you, you know, you can get more and more data and it becomes, that becomes your biggest asset. Uh, and it, you know, lots of articles these days about, um, the, the way the world's going. And we certainly are big advocates that, you know, billing a senior, a a single place where everything, all the data is, is, is the way to go.

So you're exactly right. Well, we get to the point there for you, and you've seen some folks talking about this, where essentially I can build the application in off of the sex described in the project management application, assuming that the project management application is accurate. Yeah, I think you, you can certainly get, um, a good chunk of the way there.

Um, I, I, again, I don't think it's a hundred percent, you still, you still need some thinking there, but the way we think about that is if we can get you a good, you know, historically look at data and be able to say, this is the best result you've had, or these are the type of people you need to, to bring, you know, those projects to life or the resources and timing, et cetera. If we could get you a good chunk of the way there and then apply some reasoning and creativity to it, I think, and then that, that's the way we look. I can't imagine it's ever gonna get a hundred percent cookie cutter where you, you don't have human intervention there because it's always, there's nuances involved.

But yes, if we can get a lot of the way there, I think, um, then, then that's the, the real value of ai, honestly, and, and, um, the value of our data, quite frankly. So does the future look something like this in your mind? Because I can imagine that I have AI agents for project management and DevOps workflows and even another set of AI agents for value stream management, and they're all communicating with each other and the humans that are part of that workflow.

And we're all gonna have to kind of figure out a way to orchestrate that. And, um, how long would it take us to get to that nirvana kind of thing? Yeah, I think I'll go even a step further.

I mean, how about if, you know, it proactively tells you everything you should be doing and we're just kind of checking there and you know, it, it's not even we're having to build anything to your point, right? I I think we're multiple years away from that, but it's, it's not too far in the future. Honestly, if I had to guess, you know, two or three years could see that, um, uh, coming to life.

'cause we see glimpses of that right now. I think the, the interesting part is when the people come into play about who should be working on what and, 'cause that's hard. There's a lot of, I think there's a lot of, um, human intervention needed in, in that piece, but if you can suggest the right roles and mean skill sets, those type of things, and I think that's where, um, humans can come in and, and help make those decisions, but get us 70, 80% there.

I, I think, um, then we're onto something. I also feel, and maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong, but the divide between the software development teams and the rest of the business is still fairly significant. And there's still a lot of folks who are, um, complaining about, say, you know, they get a, a set of specifications from the business side, and by the time they build that, the business side has changed mind entirely.

And, um, and then they gotta start from scratch all over again. And then the business side will complain about, well, I mean, we talk about DevOps speeding things up, but relative to the rest of the needs of the business, it still feels pretty slow. How do we kind of bridge this whole divide that's been kind of nagging at us for more years than any of us care to admit?

Yeah. I laugh, I'm laughing because I hear this. Oh, it, and the business and software development in the business need to, to, to talk, get closer together.

We've been talking about this for years and years. Yeah, I, I completely agree with you. Uh, and I think it does come down to where we see companies doing this better is what I've mentioned kind of at the beginning to get out of this project mentality, more of a product mentality and outcome mentality where they just can't be separate.

You have to be able to make prioritization decisions together, funding decisions together, so you're all on the same page and it can't be done in silos. And we still see a lot of our, the companies we work with do it in silos as we try to recommend and best practices. But the magic happens when you see those teams starting to work together, plan together, and the funding gets allocated, you know, prioritization, all of that happens together, demand, um, and, you know, you're on the same page and, and it just, it, it works so much better.

But it's a hard, it's a hard cultural change, I think. And, uh, we see the most progressive companies that, that we work with doing that. But it's, it's a shift and a big change for folks for sure.

Of course, we hear the buzzword phrase digital business transformation all the time. A lot of times we're just papering over something else that we're not really addressing. Have you seen organizations that are successful at digital business transformation, tying that more deeply into software development delivery and, um, that's part of that whole thinking as a product kind of mindset?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, again, I think we're, there's not a large percentage, but you know, whether they're moving to a product operating model, whatever you product mindset, as you said it does, there's a lot of changes and, and, you know, laughing about product managers, you know, we have people call us and say, Hey, I just changed the title of all our project managers, product managers, what does that mean? And how, how do we do that?

Right? It's not as simple as that. So it is a business model change and, and our mind and, and how, how you do that and, and the, the mentality of the organization and just how you're structured and how you think.

So it, it, I definitely see some people there. I think it's gonna, we will see more and more over time. We're seeing co it's not even just kind of traditional, um, you know, big financial companies or that have a lot of technology in it.

We're seeing very traditional companies, paint companies, you, you name it, that maybe not even have a, a large software component that're thinking the same way, right? That we need to think get outta this project mentality and what's the outcome we're trying to get to. So it's coming, there's no doubt about it.

I think it's, um, we're crawling before we can walk and run right now. But, um, certainly a lot of conversations around that, that, uh, that's a very interesting, uh, topical topic right now. For sure.

How automated can all this get? And I'm asking the question 'cause project managers are not always the most popular people that in an organization. Very true.

And so what happens is, um, they're constantly peppering people for updates to how, what's going on with this, that, and the other. And, um, some folks may not wanna share that, 'cause it, it has implications that they don't really wanna get into. But on the other side of it is they often just look at us.

I don't have the time to go answer your project management query. So can we get to the point where, uh, as one way, once said, you know, the data's already in the tool, just go get it yourself. How do we kinda extract the data in a way that doesn't require so much manual intervention?

I think they're about as popular as making, uh, people do time sheets and Right. So, um, no, you're, uh, we're, we're starting to see some, some of that already, like reading sentiment analysis, being able to read comments and automatically putting statuses on, on things, right? Without, uh, having people update.

I, I think you're gonna see more and more automation in that because it is, it's hard to do looking at schedules. Do we just take information from schedules and, and automatically populate, um, you know, either project status or, or Tom cards. So you're gonna see more and more of that going forward and it, yeah, I think we're just touching the iceberg around that because any sort of manual task like that is just ripe for AI to, to come in and help that.

So, and then, and so have project managers be able to do what they're good at and not all the, the manual stuff, right? So we Talked about dependencies and can we get better at managing all of that? Because so many issues get tied back to a simple thing where some team that was supposed to deliver something on time is late and nobody really understood the cascading implications of all that.

So now I got 12 other projects that are behind schedule before the evening would started. Yeah, you're hitting my, uh, hot button topic. 'cause uh, I, I'll tell you, every senior exec that I talk to, although it's not the sexiest of topics, right, dependency management, it is so important.

And I honestly, I think it starts with visualization. It is very hard if you're a large enterprise to have strings and, you know, look at all that madness. So we're actually looking at some AI across the platform to be able to, to visualize dependencies in a much better way.

And then to be able to take actions on the, it's, you know, what are the bottlenecks? How do you get rid of these dependencies or help with the dependencies? But the first step is how do you visualize that?

And it's a hard problem. So I think this is a ripe example of, of where AI can certainly help, but it is a, it is a real problem. I, you know, even if you're half a billion, it doesn't matter the size, you're still having dependencies that you need to be able to manage and, and account for.

So I, I think you're, you're gonna see, I think there's gonna be more and more interesting things coming forward with dependencies. 'cause it is it, like you said, it is a real problem and it will stop everything in its tracks if you don't do it the right way. Who you see being at the forefront of the customer organizations that are kinda driving these types of conversations.

Because, and just as we were here talking, I'm like, well, there's DevOps engineers, project managers, application developers, business leaders throwing a couple of business analysts, um, and they all go out and get their own tools and platforms. So who kind of stands up one morning and says, we all need to do this together. Yeah.

It, it is really interesting. 'cause I think that's a, a lot of different organizations that we're seeing just in the past couple weeks, I've seen COOs get a lot more involved in, in this whole process too, right? And, and making that kind of standardization decision and we're, we're gonna do it this way, but, you know, CTOs do it.

Um, we're seeing chief strategy officers and, and that e PMOs, um, more and more we're, we're seeing that people are getting out of the silos and, and thinking about, you know, who's gonna own this piece? So it's not a singular title for sure. And it's not coming from, from one particular, um, uh, you know, department I would say.

But yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's getting driven from the C-suite now a lot of what we're seeing because the standardization, like I was saying, the funding and all that, that really matters and to have the visibility and what everybody's working on and making sure that that delivery is tracking to an OKR that, you know, that the company cares about. So that's a lot of what we're seeing, again, across the board and not one particular, um, title Among the organizations that are doing it well. And I'm afraid they may be in the minority, um mm-hmm.

Because something about them that's unique that they're doing differently from others that you've seen that you kind of wish everybody else would kind of just maybe copy the playbook. You know, it's, it's interesting. Um, I I say a lot that, you know, governance is not a bad word anymore.

Um, we, we kind of really, you know, especially during co and let everybody do everything, and it was all about growth, right? I think it's kind of going back to where you see executives that are willing to make a, a, you know, a a, you know, a dictate that says We're gonna do it this way again because of these reasons, and here's the value you're gonna see. That's where we see when, when businesses really make that change, is you're having an executive that's coming in and making hard decisions and going and mandate that you do it this way.

Get rid of other, you know, all the tools, like you said, the disparate tools everywhere, and make that decision and that mandate. That's when we really see, uh, a lot the visibility happened and then the actions. And you could see from strategy to delivery, but it's hard to do.

There's a lot of work to do to even just centralized demand or prioritization, all of that. So it takes an executive, you know, a forward thinking executive that has a good plan, um, to be able to, you know, just to dictate that that has to happen. 'cause they've left of their own devices that each, everybody's gonna keep doing what they're doing right?

And they're assuming the funding's gonna be there and, and making them earn the funding and put the business cases forward and prioritize that against all the work out there is, is, you know, I think is the, is the future for sure, Ryan, folks share heard in here, even in the age ai, Benjamin Franklin still has it, right? Right. Hundred percent Plan is planning to fail.

Hey Luis, thanks for being on the show. Thank you very much, Mike. Appreciate it.

All right. And back to you guys in the studio.