Episode 4: Dr. Gail Murphy, Nicole Bryan, Naomi Lurie Episode … · 2020-03-07 · Project to Product: How to Survive and Thrive in the Age of Digital Disruption with the Flow Framework™

Episode 4: Dr. Gail Murphy, Nicole Bryan, Naomi Lurie Episode Transcription

© 2020 Tasktop Technologies Incorporated. 1

Dr. Mik Kersten: Hello and welcome to the Mik + One podcast, where I sit down with industry leaders to discuss the Project to Product movement. I'm Dr. Mik Kersten, founding CEO of Tasktop and bestselling author of Project to Product: How to Survive and Thrive in the Age of Digital Disruption with the Flow Framework™. Today, we have a special episode to honor International Women's Day 2020. I'm joined by three incredible women that I've had the privilege of working with. In keeping with the theme of season one, the work of each of these women was an inspiration for the Project to Product book. Dr. Mik Kersten: Gail Murphy is Professor of Computer Science and Vice President of Research and Innovation at the University of British Columbia. Gail was my PhD supervisor, co-founded Tasktop with me, and her massive impact on me and on the industry is discussed in some of the stories in the book. Nicole Bryan is the Vice President of Product Development at Tasktop. Over the years. Nicole has taught me more about product management than anyone else and continues to do. Much of the Flow Framework™ actually came out of our discussions and conversations over the years. Naomi Lurie is Senior Director of Product Marketing at Tasktop. Naomi's work on analyzing our customer's value streams formed a key part of the book. Dr. Mik Kersten: This episode means a lot to me. Not only do all author proceeds of Project to Product go to supporting women and minorities in technology, I also have two young daughters. I want them to grow up in a world where decisions that determine the future of technology and important topics like AI are made by more diverse teams. At Tasktop, we've been trying to lead by example and I really hope you enjoy hearing some of our lessons learned. Let's get started. Dr. Mik Kersten: Hello, everyone. I'd like to welcome Gail Murphy, Nicole Bryan, and Naomi Lurie to a special International Women's Day episode of the podcast. I should mention that each of our guests is affiliated with Tasktop. Gail was my PhD supervisor, Co-Founder of the company, and is now Vice President of Research and innovation at the University of British Columbia. Nicole runs all of Product Development at Tasktop and is the Vice President on my staff. Naomi Lurie is a very senior individual contributor who's made some amazing contributions to Tasktop and to the Project to Product book as well. Dr. Mik Kersten: Season one has been all about inspirations for the book and each of these women has actually made a pretty profound impact on my work and on my career and I'm very grateful to have them all join the podcast today. As I was reflecting on the book itself and on my own career, I realized that it was actually a woman who inspired me to go into computer science. Gail, you will remember that as Maria Klawe. Dr. Mik Kersten: I realized actually this morning that half of the guests on this season one of the podcast are women. Perhaps that's not a surprise that there's been such a big impact on me from the research and development and career aspirations of the women who I've had the fortune to work with. But as I was touring on preparation for the book and the summary I wrote up in terms of the charitable cause for the book, which is to donate all author proceeds to programs supporting women and minorities in technology, I realized that a lot of other people out there in technology have not been as fortunate as I have.



I'll just never forget this one meeting. I was in a top 15 bank by revenue in the world. It was all of IT leadership and it was all 30 men who looked very similar. Some had more hair than me, some had less hair than me, and there was one woman in the room. These were all the heads of IT for this bank. Dr. Mik Kersten: I was watching this, because I was actually there for 90 minutes, and while there was a lot of brilliance and brainpower in the room, I don't think I've ever seen that level of groupthink. As I was thinking that this bank is not heading in the right direction in terms of its technology practices, its transformation and this really big investment it has in getting better at building software. Dr. Mik Kersten: There was a woman who was, I think, so practiced at interrupting the men who were talking over each other for this entire meeting that she did manage to contribute some and shift the conversation a little bit, but it just made me realize what I think a lot of us have realized is how far behind we still are in terms of making progress to diversity, especially when you get higher and higher in the leadership for these organizations. Dr. Mik Kersten: I've asked my three guests here, Nicole, Naomi, and Gail to start off the podcast with just telling me a bit about what inspired them to a career in technology. Gail, why don't we go ahead and start with you? Gail Murphy: Okay. Thanks, Mik. Thanks for having us all on the podcast and doing a focus on a topic that's really important to at least all of us, but I think important to the future of tech in general. If I think about what inspired me, I think it was really three different things. One was the power that you get in tech to be able to corral information and this whole idea that you could have information about different domains, whether it was finance, or whether it was real estate ,or whether it was different ways of communicating socially. Somehow, when you have the ability to program and deal with that information, you really gain some power. So that was one piece for me. Gail Murphy: A second piece was the creativity that you get to have in tech because you're always building something. That ability to bring control, bring creativity to dealing with all these information spaces and making new things happen, I think, is really quite powerful. Gail Murphy: The third thing was, really, I felt like if I went into tech, I never had to grow up. What I mean by that is the fact that you always get to build different kinds of products and projects. You didn't really have to decide you wanted to be a chemist, or you want it to be a social scientist, or you wanted to study anthropology. You got to have this underlying fundamental capability to keep changing where your focus was based on what you were building. That was really appealing, not having to decide on one track, but feeling that there was a lot of flexibility. Those were really the three things that came for me. Dr. Mik Kersten: Gail, one thing that I noticed, because as I started working with you, is that your approach to technology was different than the other people I was meeting at the time. I had the fortune of being at Xerox Spark and people would go through who are big names in tech and gave great and entertaining and bombastic presentations.



Dr. Mik Kersten: I was looking for where to go in the next step of my career. I was looking at some of those people that we know from the early days of Agile, from the early days of technology. And I noticed that your approach to research and to your academic contributions was quite a bit different than a lot of the people who I was seeing on stage who I had tremendous respect for as well, but that what you were doing at that time, and these were the days of OOPSLA and programming languages, research, at least for us, was very much driven by empirical study and empirical results. Dr. Mik Kersten: You actually had made a name for yourself in that way, that rather than coming up with theories, the theories were determined from a lot of empirical research and study of the data that was actually in the repositories that people were doing real work in, and as much as possible, open-source work, but also industry work as well. Dr. Mik Kersten: Do you think that your career path was in any way affected, or just the way that you and your lab differentiates itself and then inspired me, and many others - how do you think that came to be? Gail Murphy: I think both the way that I've approached problems, but the way that everybody's joined the group approaches problems, has really been about trying to understand how we can make it easier for humans to work with computers. For us, that's been in, really, the domain of software development. If you look at how software developers worked 30 years ago when I started this or how they work today, it hasn't actually changed that much. Gail Murphy: When we do observational studies of how developers work, they flip between lots of different tools, they change activities 47 or so times per hour, they change tasks something like 13 times per day. That leads to a very particular kind of individual that does well and thrives in that environment. It seems like we've developed an environment in which the humans, the software developers, are doing as much work for the tools that they use, as the tools are doing for developers. Gail Murphy: For the last 30 years, we've been really looking at how do we flip that equation and really, have the computers do a lot of the mundane, forward-predictive kind of work that computers can do really well on data, but then they have the humans really focus their cognitive efforts on solving the questions and problems that are really of interest. Gail Murphy: As you said, we did a lot of work with empirical studies, we did a lot of work mining repositories. I usually joke that meant when we submitted papers to conferences, our papers were always in the miscellaneous category of the conference because we didn't really fit into the testing, we didn't fit into different areas, but I think over time, people have started to gain a better understanding of this need to understand the human aspects of software development, not only how people work with computers, but how people work with each other because we really are trying to bring teams of people together to solve and build some of the most complex artifacts that have ever been built. Gail Murphy:



In that way, hopefully, we've changed the dialogue a little bit in the research community and over time, hopefully, with the industrial community and the research community working together, we can start to build environments that are more welcoming for a much more diverse set of individuals to participate in software development. Dr. Mik Kersten: I think that kind of different thinking, this completely different approach, I think, to technology is, for me, it's been a big inspiration, for Gail's other students, some of whom I still get to work with. Dr. Mik Kersten: A quick story, Thomas Fritz, Gail, one of your former students was at Tasktop two weeks ago and is now doing studies in how to keep programmers and other knowledge workers in the flow of their work by measuring their flow states. I think it's just amazing work and I think the really interesting thing is that with this approach, I think it's just become much more effective because it is looking at a much more broader and diverse set of people whose data you can actually start, thankfully, mining from the repositories that we use. Dr. Mik Kersten: At least, Gail, are you actually saying that the data in the repositories that we're seeing is becoming more diverse or is that stretching things too much? Gail Murphy: That's stretching things way too much. Nice try, though. Dr. Mik Kersten: We'll get there at some point. Nicole, can you say a bit about what inspired you to get into technology? Nicole Bryan: Absolutely. I think I'd like to start by saying that I actually chickened out of starting a career in tech. I think it's always really important, especially, to be really honest about how you came to be who you are. I was scared to go into tech because it was really not very cool growing up in Texas in the '80s to be into computers, so I kept it hidden. In fact, even though I wanted to major in computer science, I did not, I majored in political science and economics. Nicole Bryan: Then a year after I graduated, I guess I had matured enough and said, "Wait a second, my heart is in computers. I love them." The reason I love them is because I love solving puzzles. I view all of tech work as puzzle-solving, which is super interesting and fun. I figured out how to get a little bit more confidence in myself and say, "You know what? It may not be cool, but this is what I'm going to do." Nicole Bryan: For me, it's all about the joy. I cannot express how wonderful I used to feel when I had some really difficult algorithm to figure out or programming is trying to get this button to work early, or whatever it was way back in the day, and that feeling of tremendous joy when it worked and you made something. Gail, to your earlier point, created. I created something. It was so cool to see how things you could actually make things work and run and I still get tremendous pleasure out of it in a very different way, since I don't program anymore. I think working in tech is a never-ending source of creative and difficult puzzle-solving. Yeah, that's how I got started.



Dr. Mik Kersten: Naomi, like Nicole and Gail, I spend a ton of time programming. I used to just think tech was just programming until Nicole kept telling me over and over "It takes a village." I very, very slowly realized that other roles and specialties were involved in tech. Now, I realize just how important they are. Can you tell us a bit about your inspirations and your path into technology and what inspired you? Naomi Lurie: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, upfront, I should say I landed in the marketing side of tech, right? I think as a teen, I was really inspired by all those high-powered lawyers and prosecutors on LA Law. They used to walk around the halls of the courtroom in these tailored suits and high heels dominating the world, winning their cases. They were just really inspiring. I knew that, "Oh, that's what I want to be," but I actually also, like Nicole, studied political science because I had some notion of becoming a diplomat. Naomi Lurie: When I graduated from college, it was right around the tech boom. It was two years before the dot-com bust and tech was the place to be. It was like I started to think really practically like, "Hey, I'm a fresh graduate. I can actually get like a high paying job if I found a way to finagle my way into tech." Naomi Lurie: Tech needs communicators, right? I started my career, actually, as a technical writer in the days when nothing was online and you had to create these user manuals and then eventually got into online help, but really, it was the skill of taking these technical products and articulating them to the user in a way that can make them successful with them. That turned out to be my skill, my core competency, in communication. That led me onto a pretty long career that evolved from technical writing into, eventually, product marketing. Dr. Mik Kersten: Are there things that in today's organizations, whether you've experienced or other colleagues have experienced, get in the way, they're impediments in terms of you going after that inspiration and the career that you saw for yourself when you first started, be it more puzzle-solving or communication or leadership roles? Nicole Bryan: I am happy to jump in because I think that if I really look back, I think back to when I was in my 20s. I actually have a pretty tremendous sense of pride at the fortitude that I showed myself that I'm not sure that I knew I had. That was required because it was very difficult, especially because at that time, I was also working in tech on Wall Street. That's quite a combination. Nicole Bryan: I felt like I had to hide who I was and I had to be like the boys. Absolutely, there were times when I thought to myself, "I just don't want to do this." Then you're weighing, "Am I getting enough joy out of the thing that I actually love doing, yet in an environment where I'm constantly not heard, constantly feeling out of place?" I never felt like I was at home when I would go to work. Nicole Bryan: Then I read this book about Katharine Graham, who's my greatest inspiration in no uncertain terms. The book taught me: Don't hide who you are. You can be an emotive person. That's okay. Now, I tell all the young women that I work with, this happens to almost every young woman I see come in, they get put



into an environment and something happens and they get really upset in a group. Then you watch them sitting there desperately trying to not cry. Nicole Bryan: It kills me when I see that. As Naomi knows, Mik, you know, I cry at work. I'm not going to hide that. I don't think anyone should hide who they are or how they're feeling because it actually means that you care and that you're passionate about the work you do, but it took me a while to feel comfortable doing that, to feel comfortable, to be who I really was, to feel comfortable to, say, talk about my kids, that I need to go help them do something. Nicole Bryan: I think that we need to have more of that in the tech world, in the world in general, but in the tech world. It's actually the reason why Naomi inspires me is because she's able to get emotion out of our users, which is amazing to me. I think that if we had more honesty about who people are, it would be better for the tech world. Naomi Lurie: I love that Nicole raised the point about crying at work. I think that that's probably something that's worth saying, that crying for a woman isn't a weakness, right? Nicole Bryan: Nope. Naomi Lurie: It's an emotional release. That's what also men need to understand. I think women, like Nicole is saying, we want them to know that we have different ways of expressing our frustration, our emotion, our anxiety. Sometimes, it comes out in a few tears and that's okay. It doesn't make you weak. Nicole Bryan: You're not weak. Naomi Lurie: It's okay. Just collect yourself and move on. Don't be ashamed. Nicole Bryan: If you work in a place where it's not okay, then you need to get a different job. Because Mik, you've watched me cry multiple times at Tasktop. Dr. Mik Kersten: Many times. Nicole Bryan: Yep. Every time- Dr. Mik Kersten: I apologize for every time when I was the source of the tears. Nicole Bryan: But, I'm very proud to work at a place that is accepting of everyone's style and approach.



Gail Murphy: I think another thing that can be an impediment for a lot of especially young women is sometimes the culture within a tech environment can be all about the latest algorithm or the latest tool or the latest this or the latest that, and so much of the discussion can end up being dominated by some of those technical aspects that coworkers don't get to know each other in the ways that Nicole has been talking about. Gail Murphy: Or sometimes, those people who are not as interested in absolutely the latest 0.1% improvement in some algorithm can be left out of a conversation. They still have incredible depth technically to provide to an organization, but you can start to feel like you're not smart enough or you don't really belong because you're not interested as much in maybe some of those detailed, really nuanced technical advances. Gail Murphy: I think it can be really hard sometimes for not only women, but people who might not be as interested in those, to feel like they have a place. It's really when we have a diversity of viewpoints coming together in a work environment that we can start to create products that people actually want to use, that have that emotion that Naomi and Nicole were referring to. If we only focus on what the code is actually doing, we're not going to actually build things that people want to use. Trying to create that environment where lots of individuals can thrive can be a real challenge for our company. Nicole Bryan: I just want to go back to what, Mik, you mentioned about it takes a village because Gail, I find that the best software absolutely does require some people that 100% want to focus on that algorithm and that technical nuance. You absolutely need that seat at the table. Equally, you need the seat at the table of the person who is really thinking from the user perspective, and honest to goodness, does not care how that thing gets built whatsoever. I think there's tremendous opportunity for more diversity of thought given those different roles. Nicole Bryan: I talk about this all the time, I almost prefer to hire product people that do not have a computer science background because they bring a completely different lens to the table. Now, you need also people that do have computer science backgrounds. It takes a village, you need that mix. I think that's the most important thing. Nicole Bryan: I know when I talk to high schoolers and young people, they think that the only way to be in tech is to be a programmer and that is absolutely not the case in any way, shape, or form. We will all be better for it if we have more people going into tech that are not programmers. Dr. Mik Kersten: Building on both those things, I've seen this over and over and Gail, let me know if this sounds, or actually, anyone, if this sounds familiar or not, but you will end up with these, let's say it's a group discussion, some important decision that needs to get made or some plan that needs to get made or something created, bigger than having to do with a product release or something of that sort, and then you'll end up with this intellectual, I'll just call them, often male, or usually or always, I don't know, bully, who's now basically going into some depths of some new frameworks and new technology that no one, basic people barely understand.



Dr. Mik Kersten: Then this interesting thing happens, which is people who would have ideas to contribute, unless they're this loud type A personality willing to stand up to this person, they don't, and some of the best ideas simply just aren't voiced, don't come out because this one person who's up to speed on the latest and greatest in any detail, they ended up dominating the discussion. Dr. Mik Kersten: I feel like that story I relayed at the start of the interview, that's exactly what was going on. Then if you've got multiple of those people in the room, it's just a complete disaster in terms of if you were actually an anthropologist and tried to record what creative process happened in that discussion, it was nothing. It was people basically bulldozing over each other on their latest and greatest thing that they just watched on YouTube or read in some manuals or webpage. Dr. Mik Kersten: Do you have any advice, then, given what's going on out there, on how you break this in organizations? Well, Nicole, you gave an example, right? If you make a space for people to communicate their passion, be it with tears or with laughter and other ways, it helps, right? I know it helps us at Tasktop to have a forum where others can speak and someone's not going to win an argument based on some extra testosterone or a little tidbit of knowledge they picked up yesterday. Dr. Mik Kersten: Any other thoughts on how we get better at this, given I think it is happening? I just see it, given the number of customers I meet with, I just feel like it's as bad or worse than anyone imagines within, especially the larger enterprise organizations who badly need that diverse perspective, different opinions, people from basically different backgrounds where it's not just always the strongest technologists who dominates the discussion. Thoughts? Nicole Bryan: I'll let Gail go first and then I'll give some thoughts as well. Gail Murphy: Sure. Dr. Mik Kersten: Do you agree? Gail Murphy: No, I agree. I think you can look at it from at least an organizational perspective and a personal perspective. I think on the organizational side, there's so many meeting techniques that can be used for the people who are in leadership positions to really make sure that they're hearing from everybody at the meeting, that they don't just let the people that are more domineering take over a meeting, but they really create the space. I think it's incumbent upon the people that are running those meetings to try to ensure that that diversity that they've brought into the room can really be heard. Gail Murphy: Then on a personal perspective, I remember several times early in my career, especially, where I had some great mentors and being in a meeting that's like what you described, Mik, and having one of my



male colleagues lean over and say, "They didn't hear you the first time you said it, say it again," and then you'd say it again, try it a different way. Then they'd go, "Okay, they didn't quite get it yet. Can you try once more?" Gail Murphy: If they hadn't been that little actual voice, not just in my head, but literally in my ear, I wouldn't have said it three times. Having those allies and those people that can really help you remember that it's okay to say something multiple times. If it's said once and it's not heard, you can try again. I mean, at some point, you should stop, but you can try a couple of times. Nicole Bryan: Gail, your first point about the onus is absolutely on the leadership of meetings, whoever's leading the meetings to make sure that everyone's voice is heard. Sadly, I see way too many meetings where the managers involved or whoever has called the meeting is not facilitating the meeting in any way where all the voices are going to be heard, including, by the way, I find one of the most effective ways to make sure everyone's voice is heard, there are some people that are just never going to want to speak up in a meeting. It's not who they are. They do not want to do it. It makes them uncomfortable. Nicole Bryan: In that case, talk to them afterwards. Go talk to them and get their ideas and then help them. You become the voice for them and they're happy. Obviously, you don't take credit for their contributions but help in that manner. I think that would go a long way, especially in these tech meetings where there does tend to be sometimes a fairly large group of people where the emotional intelligence is maybe not off the charts, shall I say? Nicole Bryan: Naomi, as an amazing communicator, what would you have us do? Naomi Lurie: Yeah, I think that you do have to overcompensate and over-correct for what you know is a problem, right? I agree with everything that you said. I think men can do some self-education on the challenges that women face in those environments. Naomi Lurie: Now, with the presidential debates, right, there's all these statistics about how many times the male candidates interrupt the women candidates, right, and how imbalanced it is. It's just like, there are certain things that if you know that they're a problem, you can watch out and you can self-regulate. A little education, I think, could go a long way. Naomi Lurie: There's this other thing that I always buck against is when women are relegated to traditional roles, right? It's probably already a cliche to say women are the note-takers, but especially coming from the marketing side, I see it so much because you go to a conference, right, and there's the booth. All the women work in the booth. If you've ever worked for a really big company, right, at Tasktop, we use our own staff, but at a really big company, right, they hire hostesses to work the booth and scan the badges. Naomi Lurie:



That just rubs me the wrong way. I want to see more diversity in those typical roles that are relegated to women. I think that could be a positive shift. So the woman isn't always seen as kind of the hostess and the charmer. The line gets so blurry. Nicole Bryan: I want to tell a story. This actually happened at Tasktop where I attended a meeting and all of a sudden, I saw that of all the people on the meeting, it was two women that were taking the notes and doing the scheduling. What I realized is that if you don't bring attention to it, it just happens. One of the things that I've learned over the last, say, five years or so is pick up the phone, or do you pick up phones anymore? Okay, now everybody knows how old I am. FaceTime, Zoom the person and just bring it to their attention, because I can tell you when I brought it to the attention of this person, he was mortified and was like, "Oh, my god. We're changing it immediately." Nicole Bryan: It just takes bringing the attention. You have to bring attention to it. Same as with HR, with hiring, you have to bring attention. I'm sure everyone at Tasktop is sick of me saying, "Well, how are we doing on hiring for that role? How many candidates did we get that were not white male?" If you don't ask the question, attention is never going to get brought to it, simply asking a question because I do believe most people are good and want better for everyone and want diversity, they just need attention brought to it. Dr. Mik Kersten: It'd be great, actually, at the end of this podcast, Naomi, you mentioned the self-education sources, let's make sure to list those for our listeners. I think you've got a wealth of knowledge here and I think a lot of people will want to check some of that work out. Gail, also the meeting techniques. I know I need more help there, right? It's just so easy for us to get into the usual patterns. Nicole, you know how to overcompensate for all of us, anyway, which is fine, but let's- Nicole Bryan: I know. I need self-education to stop interrupting people. Dr. Mik Kersten: ... Gail, if we could also, the meeting techniques, I can imagine that's going to be particularly relevant as well, I think. Either I know I need more education on and others, I'm sure, need some more saw-sharpening on as well. I will make sure to put those in the materials at the end. Dr. Mik Kersten: So, towards the end of the episode, can you just share some thoughts about anything else in terms of how we can inspire more women, both at an individual level, at an organization level and, really, at an industry level? Nicole, why don't you start? Nicole Bryan: Sure. This is obviously a very near and dear topic to my heart. I spent some time crafting some concrete ideas of how we could inspire more women to both come into tech and stay in tech. I call it "role model ladders." I've actually written a couple of blogs about it. Gail, you're in my talk. The concept is really very simple and that is that you have to have every rung of the ladder filled so that you can look up and see a path. If there's missing rungs, which tends to happen, especially the more senior you get, then you don't feel like there's a path for you. Nicole Bryan:



I tell the story that is my most favorite story that my daughter, who was like 10 at the time, was unbelievably inspired by Mara, who was 19 at the time and an intern at Tasktop. Mara, I hope, was inspired a little bit by me. I was trying to mentor her and help her. Then I look to Gail, who has been just a tremendous mentor to me. Nicole Bryan: Those ladders and seeing that chain, Bailey cannot see, my daughter cannot see Gail and see a path. It's way too far in-between. She can see Mara and see, "Oh, Mara is doing cool stuff." Mara can then see me. I can see Gail. That's how, if we can create more of these role model ladders, I really think it can change dramatically organizations. That's what I recommend. Dr. Mik Kersten: Naomi? Naomi Lurie: I think my advice would be to women, I mean, there are surely plenty of women who are starting in tech, I think don't be shy. I'm shy, especially was when I started my career. I was shy about asking about salary and options and bonuses and being happy with what I was given, and never realizing that I was probably treading water while more aggressive, other people were taking initiative, but there was nobody to tell me "This is how it is and if you don't start asking for things, you're not going to get them." Naomi Lurie: I guess it's two-fold. On the one hand, for the women, I'd like to say "Don't be as shy and meek and don't be worried about that you're not pleasing. You have to look out for number one, right, for yourself, but at the same time, if you're a woman in an organization who knows some stuff, take the younger one under your wing and inform her and educate her and bring her up to speed so she isn't a victim of these huge pay gaps and stuff that, unfortunately, I do believe still exist." Dr. Mik Kersten: Gail? Gail Murphy: Well, it's hard to follow two such excellent pieces of advice. I guess building on them, for young women, follow your passion. If I go back to Nicole's comments about not following tech when maybe she was at the very start of her career, but finding it later. If you're passionate about it, give it a try. There's lots of different opportunities in tech these days. Follow your passion and do it. Gail Murphy: I think for women that are in tech, like Naomi and Nicole and I, I love Nicole's role model ladders. It's been really hard for me, but you have to figure out how to put yourself out there a little bit, and to tell your story, whether it's the emotion parts of it or the feeling like you don't belong parts of it, so that other people realize that that's just natural and normal and it's part of being part of any culture, but especially for women in tech, we tend to feel it a bit more strongly. Gail Murphy: Then the value of having folks like you, Mik, and actually joining and discussing the topics in making a welcoming environment for people of all different capabilities and diversity to come into tech, that's when we're really going to change the equation and be able to develop the kind of products and have the kind of culture that we really need to have for all of these kinds of organizations to thrive.



Dr. Mik Kersten: Wow. That's amazing. Thank you all. I want to ask you just one more thing. I'm a huge fan of what Nicole is doing with the role model ladders, how we can support. I think it's for those people who haven't seen her GOTO talk, Nicole, what was that 2018 or 2019? It's on YouTube, but look for Nicole Bryan G-O-T-O. You'll find it. Dr. Mik Kersten: Gail, a lot of, I think, the people listening will not have that next rung potentially in the ladder. Do you have any particular device? Because I think the amazing trajectory of your career, I think, is an inspiration to many. How do you do it when you've got some pretty big rungs missing? Gail Murphy: I'd love to hear what Naomi and Nicole say about this, but I think it's a little bit when Naomi said. You have to put yourself out there a little bit and go ask people. Most people are quite willing to engage and they might be male or they might be female. They just have to be the right individuals to help you. I still have people that I look to as well to help me think about doing things that I might not otherwise consider taking on. Having that understanding that the next step is really not as big a leap often as you think, it's just really about finding those people that you can have a connection with and talk to and just asking, often for a little bit of help. Naomi Lurie: Yeah, I would just add that if you're competent, you are deserving and you are deserving of your next step in your career. If you trust that you're competent, then don't be shy and ask to take that next step. There's always room for competent people to move up. Nicole Bryan: I also encourage young women that even though there are missing rungs, most senior women are way more than happy. I talk to our SE1s. They're one year out of college. There's a number of rungs in between them and what I do, but don't think you can't go talk directly to me and say, "How did you do this? How do I get through this?" Don't underestimate that senior women really want to help. They desperately wanted to help others. Asking men as well, how did they get to that rung? Just ask. People want to help others, I believe. Dr. Mik Kersten: For the women in senior positions listening, Nicole, why don't you just share what you started last week at Tasktop? Because I think that is a potentially useful tool for others. Nicole Bryan: What I started is I'm a big advocate of just having conversations and bringing attention to things. We started a women in tech discussion time, open discussion time once a week for an hour for anyone at Tasktop to come and talk. Nicole Bryan: The most interesting thing was that the first two people that signed up were two of my male colleagues, which made me very, very, very happy. We had a terrific conversation. There's no goal, there's no "This is the outcome of every conversation," but it's just starting the conversations. That in and of itself is helpful. We've just started it. Hopefully, other people will find it useful as well. I was super encouraged that two men signed up for the first one. Made me happy.



Dr. Mik Kersten: That is great and I think if you could share your sources, some of these materials that we mentioned, we'll put them at the end of the podcast, but thank you so much Nicole and Naomi and Gail for sharing your wisdom here. I think you've got a lot of people who are going to learn a lot from this. I know I'm going to listen to it again because there's just so much amazing that you shared here. Thanks so much for joining. Dr. Mik Kersten: Thanks again for all your contributions to this Project to Product movement and reviewing the book and all your ideas that are in there and with that, we'll wrap up the podcast and the materials will follow. Nicole Bryan: Thank you, Mik. Naomi Lurie: All right, thank you. Gail Murphy: Thanks, Mik. Dr. Mik Kersten: An enormous thank you to Gail and Nicole and Naomi for their incredibly inspirational and thought-provoking conversation and one that I will go back and listen to for years to come. A full list of resources that were mentioned throughout the episode can be found at projecttoproduct.org/podcast. If you have any questions or require for the resources, please reach out to myself on Twitter, mik_kersten, or through Gail's Twitter at gail_murphy, Nicole's, which is @nicolebryan, or Naomi, which is @naomilurie. You can also follow the #mik+one for the latest podcast updates. Dr. Mik Kersten: Don't forget, I have a new episode every two weeks. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss out. You can also search for Project to Product to get the book. Remember that all author proceeds go to supporting women and minorities in technology. Thanks. See you next time.

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Episode 4: Dr. Gail Murphy, Nicole Bryan, Naomi Lurie Episode … · 2020-03-07 · Project to Product: How to Survive and Thrive in the Age of Digital Disruption with the Flow Framework™