Who Are The Real Industry Disruptors with Steven Coyle

Andrea Ciaffi

Hi, Steven. Welcome to the Digital Construction podcast. How are you today?

Steven Coyle

I'm very well, thank you. How are you going?

Andrea Ciaffi

Very, very good. So in this episode, we speak with Steven Coyle,

Steven Coyle

Yeah. Good.

Andrea Ciaffi

who is the national digital lead at Arcadis. We will talk about the realities of digital transformation in engineering. We have many topics to cover from what Steven thinks about IP or intellectual property to who are the people that are actually leading the digital.

Andrea Ciaffi

Transformation. This is a very interesting topic we discussed in preparation of for this episode. I'm very, very excited for this episode, but before we start Steven, I have a quick question for you. What is the best piece of advice you have ever received in your career?

Steven Coyle

Wow, I've received lots of advice, some I've taken, some I haven't. I guess there's probably 2 that sticks out to me that I kind of always consider take advantage of every opportunity that comes to you. But then consider the worst case scenario so you can come back from that.

Steven Coyle

So that's one thing that I've always considered, and it's kind of got me to where I am today. There's been a lot of opportunities I have. Professionally and personally, the other one is, it could probably be a little bit controversial, but be really confident in dealing with situations and don't be scared to back someone in the corner, but be ready when they come out swinging.

Steven Coyle

So basically back yourself, but be ready. For those challenging conversations, all those problems, all those issues that might come out, so arm yourself with what you need, either from a capability or a capacity perspective.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, that's great. And Steven, you are in a really good position at Arcadis to share with us what's going on in the digital transformation. But before we start, I would like to ask you,

Steven Coyle

Hmm.

Andrea Ciaffi

can you give us can you start giving us a bit of a snapshot of your role and there are the digital team that you lead at Arcadis?

Steven Coyle

Sure, not sure. So I basically you can summarise it. I'm accountable for standardisation and automation for design and engineering within our Australian business. That's also starting to.

Steven Coyle

Creep into our other parts like our finance team and our legal team to try and make them a little bit more efficient at the moment, but yeah, look, I work with a variety of internal stakeholders within Arcadis that could be our business leads.

Steven Coyle

It could be operation leads, our service and solution leads. And that's how we have a good, consistent integrated approach either to our projects and or to our pursuits or opportunities. I have a small team that report to me, they are web developers, computational designers, generative designers, software development and.

Steven Coyle

And information management. So they're accountable for all over Australia. And also I have people that indirectly report to me, cuz I think and that's our digital engineering leads and I think why they indirectly report to me because it's important from our business perspective, it's important that they remain inside.

Steven Coyle

Their relative businesses like infrastructure, our buildings, our Urban Development, our MEP etc etc. So that's really important that they've been part of that business. But my job is to help get consistency through our delivery and make sure they remain integrated because these days.

Steven Coyle

A lot of Urban Development guys work on guys and girls, work on infrastructure projects and infrastructure projects. A lot of guys and girls work on places and buildings projects, so it's really important that we have that consistency.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, that's great. It's always very interesting to understand how the team is structured and one of I speak with many digital leaders

Steven Coyle

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

and one of the interesting point is how do they balance the clients facing time that they spend versus the billable activities like what's the right balance from your point of view and how do you balance these two different? Activities to stay relevant as a digital leader.

Steven Coyle

It's that's a really good question. Balance is a balance is a good, is a good word. Look at the at the end of the day, we work on projects, but our clients, our clients pay us money. We deliver those projects. I prioritise client facing work.

Steven Coyle

It's as simple as that. The reason why I prioritise that is it's part of our business strategy global, but also our national business strategy to be doing more technical advisory type work, more client facing work and this relates to. Are the projects that we're delivering, we can actually see opportunities with our clients and our clients invite us in to help with that.

Steven Coyle

So for a number of reasons, I really enjoy solving clients problems. I really enjoy that part of it. And if we can use this as a leverage to get to build a team around that to help. To help that then look, it's just it makes everything easy.

Steven Coyle

Also, you use the word relative. I need to stay relative within our business and within the industry as well. The only way I can do that is to stay connected to our clients and to our projects. So I will prioritise. The the more client side work.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, definitely. And another interesting aspect of working for a company like Arcalis is that is that arcalis is a company that operates globally. So you have, you have offices all around the world.

Steven Coyle

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

And I wonder like, how do you manage and align digital tools and standard and all the innovation across all of the different regions and different teams?

Steven Coyle

Yeah. OK. So yeah, we're 36, 000 people globally, but in terms of that standardisation alignment, I put it down to one word and that's accountability. So we have people accountable for platforms solutions we've got.

Steven Coyle

For each of the platforms that we put platforms or solutions that are developed and Arcadis developed, the platform that anyone in Arcadis can go into to have a look at those particular products that we've developed. And those products are developed through acquisitions or other things that we have developed ourselves and Australia have developed two of those tools, but anyone like I just can sit there and go.

Steven Coyle

I've got this problem on. It could be a transport planning problem. Yeah, let's have a look at some of the solutions around this that's being developed and you can see who the product owner is, a bit more information around client testimonials. How can we scale this and who's accountable within it?

Steven Coyle

There could be someone accountable within our region that we can just go and talk to or if there's. The information that's being included within a tender or used on a project we can actually go and get that, but it comes back to that one word, accountability.

Steven Coyle

So this it's really important now because now more than ever we can see there's a bit of there's. There's not a lot of work in Australia at the moment, so we have a number of Australians working on projects in the US and Canada and This is why it's important to have that consistency globally, because we're all starting to work on these international projects.

Steven Coyle

And how can we scale blueprints or initiatives that we've worked with either with our vendors and or with other people that we can then bring into those other other countries? So yeah, it's that, it's that accountability, mate. It's just that we need to make sure that we've got someone driving that.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, you certainly need to have a complex structure to maintain that at the global level.

Steven Coyle

Look, I think it is, but again to make it easier around, we're just trying to make it easier. Who who are the right people to talk to if that's the hard if that's if that's too hard to work out,

Andrea Ciaffi

Hmm.

Steven Coyle

then we don't have the right structure in place. And we need to work out rather than one thing I don't like is what we call magic time that people developing solutions or tools in their own time. It needs to be recognised, it needs to be.

Steven Coyle

Yeah, we need to measure it, etc. So it's really important that we have. That we can join people together easily. That's a key thing. And I guess that's part of my role in Australia as well, that if people see something globally, I can then help direct other people in our business to be I don't wanna be a blocker.

Steven Coyle

I think I'm more of a. A philtre. If you'll like. I'll try and connect the right people to other people globally. If I see an opportunity where they're something's been developed really well somewhere, or I'll connect those people to the Australian business.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, that's great. And one of the topics I know you have a very strong opinion about is IP intellectual property.

Steven Coyle

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

And I also know that many teams really stress a lot about it because to be fair,

Steven Coyle

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

it's it's very valuable. But what what's your potential position about IP? What do you think? What do you think about it?

Steven Coyle

It's I could talk all day to this, but being involved in, you know, being involved in major infrastructure projects all around, all around Australia, I've been with IK. That's for almost 10 years. And it's been giving me opportunities to have almost like auditing roles, information management roles to help projects.

Steven Coyle

And one thing that I can say is that people go well. I've developed this awesome solution, but you can't have it. But then you look back on it a year later and I was like, well, what happened to that awesome solution? So I guess what I think IP dies very, very easily, I think, yeah.

Steven Coyle

What's cool today is old tomorrow. And I think that's part of the, I guess the digital technologies or landscape is that and this is probably our own fault, but we don't often look back and go, let's well, how good was that? We should celebrate that.

Steven Coyle

How did that help us increase efficiency, reduce risk, et cetera, et cetera? So I guess, I guess we need to, I think we need to be a little bit more relaxed when it comes to JV. I know at Arcadis we.

Steven Coyle

We've put a lot of tools that we bring into our projects and we do a lot of joint venturing on our major infrastructure projects and we'll sit there with our JV partners and our contracts and say, look, we've got these, we've got these tools that are associated with BIM authoring tools or information management tools and we've just developed a new tool around data validation.

Steven Coyle

And we've got disclaimers on those that we basically you can use these, they're Arcadis property, but you can use them and go for your life. So we feel that we're quite open in terms of other organisations to be able to use these. And I think we need to be like that, right?

Steven Coyle

We can't. We can't have a closed mind to IP. I I guess the other part of this is as well as. I like I have regular conversations with people in similar roles at our competitors, right? I think that's really, really important that we stay aligned and we know what's going on, right.

Steven Coyle

And I think it's by having these conversations just discussing what's happening in the industry. What you know are we aligned what our vendors are doing are we aligned where technology is going because this also provides an opportunity to to develop solutions together. There's industry bodies, there's you know, other other organisations that we should be working with.

Steven Coyle

So I guess I guess, I think what I'm trying to say is that we need to be working together with the industry that they're to be developing these solutions, but. I don't think we need to be sharing it for us to move forward.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, definitely, yeah.

Steven Coyle

If we don't, if, yeah, if we don't share, then we're not going to move forward. We can't measure. We we can't measure how how those solutions have helped us save time, reduce risk, provide a better design solution, etcetera, etcetera. So we need to be more open.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah. You touch a good point on JB's because probably the projects where is more, but innovation is more valuable because they tend to be larger projects.

Steven Coyle

Yeah, correct. Correct. Yeah, I think that's. And I guess probably better opportunity as well you know, so but the hard part about that is they're big, they're big, big, big projects, right? And so there's lots of senior stakeholders and then you deal with steering committees, etc. Etc. So I think there's an opportunity there that I've seen some steering committees where there's been some sort of digital leadership.

Steven Coyle

I think we need to consider having that just to someone that can look a little bit outside the square in terms of some of these problems that could be occurring or issues that could be occurring on projects where it could be a different.

Steven Coyle

Pop a solution.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah. Just to play devil's advocate. Like, you know, the other side of the coin is that people may think that you're sharing knowledge. You're giving up your, your tools. So how do you, how do you balance this? Like, good intent is sharing knowledge with also maintaining a competitive edge in the industry.

Steven Coyle

Yeah, look, I think yeah, remaining competitive is tough and I think first and foremost in terms of where we are at arkadis, all the solutions that we develop are associated solving. Yeah. Number one is solving a client's problem or providing a really good solution.

Steven Coyle

To an opportunity or pursuit for an upcoming project, the second thing doesn't align with our strategy is what we're doing aligning with our national probably our national strategy. It doesn't align with that then. OK, that's cool. I mean, I can see some of our competitors developing solutions and.

Steven Coyle

Investing in other other things that yeah, that Qaeda so not and that's cool, but that's just not part of our strategy. That's not part where we want to go. We we have three-year strategy cycles, we're almost coming up to the end of our current strategy cycles, everything that we're doing now remains.

Steven Coyle

Aligned to that, our next what does our next one look like? I'm not sure. Do we always have a look and see what our competitors are doing? Absolutely we do. And going back to what I said in my previous point, I stay connected to our competitors to make sure to see what.

Steven Coyle

Yeah, what they're doing while they're aligning, like I see aicom heavily invested in a new AI organisation in Scandinavia. You know, that's that's something that's been part of their strategy for six months. You know, they've been looking that for a while. So that's that's where they're going.

Steven Coyle

We've also got a strategy around AI as well, but it's a little bit different to that so you can see, yeah, I think. We we remain competitive by entrusting that the leadership around our global and national strategy basically.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, definitely. And another interesting point is the term. It's around the term of digital advisory and the debate around this world and what does that really mean and what's the difference between digital advisory and generally solvent clients problem? What do you think about that?

Steven Coyle

Yeah, look, I think, yeah, that's another good topic advisory, I think over the past few years, I've had the opportunity to to go into many client offices and often I'm. Kind of a little bit disturbed by seeing solutions and I can see almost like rinse and repeat solutions that have been offered by other other organisations.

Steven Coyle

And I think it kind of the unfortunate thing I see it kind of paints digital as a bit of a. A bit of a negative cost, more money. It's gonna take longer to implement etc etc. And so it's almost like a bit of a dirty word.

Steven Coyle

So I think and more if we're not these organisations do talk to each other and unfortunately some of these organisations do get. Found out I guess. I guess we're all developing. We're all developing as humans to be increasing our digital capabilities and that increases every day.

Steven Coyle

Mine increases every day by talking to clients talking internal stake. Folders and then working with my team. I believe that you know the only way you innovate is to collaborate. That's that's the big thing that that I you know that that's a big one of my mantras that I that I firmly believe and and that Co development could be with.

Steven Coyle

A client, so I think so the I try not to use the term digital advisory, I try to break down the client's issues and I've got a I'm working with a client at the moment. Then I found out that they've. We've called it a digital advisory, worked out, which is an information management problem.

Steven Coyle

So we're working on an information management process based upon certain investments they've made in technology and help with how we can help, how we can help increase efficiencies. Make sure people within the organisation have better access to data et cetera. So I think yeah, it's generally got to be it's going to be generally solving a client's problem.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, definitely. And what advice would you give to teams to our teams when they we we encourage them to stay focused on real outcomes, right, not just the digital rhetoric. So how do we, what advice would you give them to help them stay focused?

Steven Coyle

I guess and and this this is the hard, this is the hard part to just just to stay focused is to really you know really make sure that we're asking the, the, the right questions of our organisation of these organisations, you know or these or these people there's. Do we really understand the underlying issues and that takes time it takes?

Steven Coyle

Yeah. Making sure that we are connected to the right type of people that are accountable for certain things within organisation who's accountable for investments in technology, who's accountable? For processes who's accountable for key decision making, once you've got those people in the room, then you can sit there and go well, how do you do that?

Steven Coyle

How do you do that? And then do that? So a lot of our clients always considering I need to fix this at the end here. This is what we need to. Fix, but we find it's always. It's always a start, so you've always got a reverse engineer item.

Steven Coyle

So I guess in summary, it's just making sure that you stay connected with the right people with the right people that are accountable. They're making key decisions.

Andrea Ciaffi

And at the beginning of this episode, I mentioned that we'll talk about what are the people that are actually leading this digital transformation. And you have also strong opinion about this one that what is people are truly

Steven Coyle

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

causing the disruption in the digital construction right now.

Steven Coyle

Oh. It's it's. Yeah, that's interesting. I I'd say there's a few, a few different types of people. That or skills that are part of that disruption, one of the things that we've invested in here within Arcadis is. People with computer scientists background and these people are actually becoming enablers, so they're actually working with their engineering teams.

Steven Coyle

They're building generative design platforms with their engineering teams to allow our engineers to be providing better solutions, more efficient solutions, more design iterations than they ever have before. So I think that's been something that we've seen being very successful right to the point where we had a computer science background who had no engineering experience whatsoever.

Steven Coyle

So we threw him into the business and got him to work on a bridge. On some developing a general design calculation tool for bridge girders, he didn't know what a bearing was. He didn't know what a girder was, so he now, so that was now three years ago.

Steven Coyle

So. Learnt a hell of a lot working with our very experienced bridge and I'll say our senior technical director level at our business and they they they enjoy working with him because they just makes their job easier. So I think that's a that's a very good.

Steven Coyle

I think that's a very good. Way of getting more, just increasing the pool of resources within our engineering industry and I guess the 2nd is design automation so hard coders. Developers, software developers. These are the guys that are the guys are the girls that are connecting the data that are reducing the amount of manual labour by making things more efficient and that then is connected to our.

Steven Coyle

The data Analytics team and how they're using and the skill sets within their data analytics and working more closely with their design and automation team. So I think it's they're the people that have been the big disruptor at the moment to the engineering industry.

Andrea Ciaffi

And do you think that the traditional engineers are adapting fast enough to this new landscape?

Steven Coyle

Yeah, that's that's an interesting. That's an interesting question because you know I mentioned the senior technical directors, yeah, the senior technical directors have been an archaic for a long time. Who, yeah. This is a big step for them, right? This is a real big step for them to see this new and different way of working.

Steven Coyle

So we need to empathise with these people and make sure that we truly can show how this is going to help them on a day-to-day basis. So those people. Yeah, it just requires a lot more. Integrated approach showing a lot more around the metrics.

Steven Coyle

I think that's one thing that we, the tools that we develop, we make sure that we measure how successful they are. So it's not just the stuff that we do. We actually do this because hey, we know we know that Steve clicked this and he's used this and he developed this.

Steven Coyle

We know that using a traditional type of a process would have taken this long. It's not taking this long. We don't have much time. That's saved. We've got that on all of our tools. If we can showcase that to our senior technical directors who are accountable for quality and our technical quality in QA.

Steven Coyle

It becomes an easier argument, but we're seeing a lot of the younger the new generation that grads and post grads just, yeah, they're they're loving this new way of working. They're the ones challenging us. Look at this tool, look at this and this is what we want.

Steven Coyle

We want to be challenged with by those by those people. We want to sit there and go well. Yeah. OK. That's a really good tool, but this is the tool that we're investing in. Maybe we can work on this together. So yeah, this is the thing we we want.

Steven Coyle

We want to be challenged with this new generation.

Andrea Ciaffi

And you just touched on metrics as a as a way to communicate value, but one of the also challenging thing points is how do you actually define value when it comes to digital tool and processes?

Steven Coyle

That's yeah, defining value. Yeah. So value. Yeah, we that's. So the number of people that report to me have a lower level of billability because it's really important that, yeah. So I've got to prove the value of what, how they of what they're doing into the business.

Steven Coyle

So the way that we. Showcase that value to our leadership team is, yeah, it's those metrics, right. So it's so we look at executions of tools, we can easily visualise that. That's also helping our team. Maintain the tools and then actually you say, well, why aren't people using the commands in these particular tools, but they're using these.

Steven Coyle

So we would go into the users and say, hang on, why aren't you using these particular tools but using these? Well, we would prefer to do our workflow is more conducive to that than that. So we can, yeah.

Steven Coyle

So we can then put metrics on how much so how much time did that used to take, how much time it used to take, how much time does it take. Now we put a nominal. Value to that in terms of a cost rate of a standard Arcadian.

Steven Coyle

And then we show that as a metric now that is live data we've got that basically in the background consistently. So we can go into all these. All the solutions that we've provided and be able to get live data when people have executed those tools, then we can show that value and how that has helped us either save time or provide efficiency.

Steven Coyle

I think the value is how will we use that time. So if we've saved time, how have we used that time has allowed us to do a better design solution than we had previously? Have we been able to articulate that back to the client?

Steven Coyle

Have we been able to do anything else? I think where I've seen this being really successful is a particular. Tool that we created in terms of the QA process of deliverables within project wise and having automated emails and to proof checking and. To proof checking and to external verification where automatically generated emails, sent packages etc etc. A quality manager at the time had five days a week.

Steven Coyle

This was on. I think this is on the we started working this in the cost of a bypass project so.

Steven Coyle

Five days a week developing this new tool got him down to one day a week, so it was like, what did he do the other four days a week now, based off his skills and capabilities, he went on to help the geotech team who was struggling at the time just with capacity.

Steven Coyle

So he went on to help with them. So it led that. Them to to go and help that team. So that's to me that's value. Yeah, that's extraordinary value that we've had able to reutilize resources onto other parts of the projects.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, that's a good example. And one step before you actually produce a new digital tool. I think it comes probably down to prioritisation, but what's the process for identifying

Steven Coyle

Hmm.

Andrea Ciaffi

which problems are worth solving? Solving digitally? Because I understand you have a limited amount of people in your team and

Steven Coyle

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

probably a very large number of problems. So how do you pick the ones?

Steven Coyle

Yeah. Look, again, very good question and it's something that we because everyone's problems a priority that everyone's problems a priority. Now we put it down to. So the way that we manage ideas and problems is that we have what we call. Automation portal through those automation portal, you can submit an idea, and that idea could be a problem, or it could be an opportunity.

Steven Coyle

Our teams have got principles automation principles, so they would do a bit of a discovery. And then look at and then from the initial discovery with the person that looking for that solution and or opportunity, will they work out OK? How much time is this gonna take and do is it the team here or should it go to?

Steven Coyle

One of our vendors or should it go to one of someone in our office in India or Romania or or or Manila so? Umm. So yeah, we break down the problem first in terms of how long is it gonna take and then if it is a big problem like one of the big problems we had was around consistency in that data validation.

Steven Coyle

Now that's not an easy solution. We've been developing a tool now after six months on and off. But we plan around that. So that's a programme of work that we have design sprints, but the number one priority is we need if there's a problem on a project that's number one, that's a number one priority.

Steven Coyle

#2 opportunity for a pursuit. Or a tender that's number two and then #3 is. Yeah. Just the yeah. If there's a short only a short time taken to provide a solution for that, then that would be #3. But it needs to go through that.

Steven Coyle

We need to go through that process where we have backlog. We look at that backlog every month and. If people come kicking and screaming, then that's a good business case for me to look at increasing, increasing the team then always looking forward as well.

Steven Coyle

But at the moment I think we've got a good balance in terms of prioritising. Those solutions with our, with our, with our key projects, #1.

Andrea Ciaffi

And sometimes if you want to solve a problem, you can also consider partnerships and what's your take on that like partnership

Steven Coyle

Correct.

Andrea Ciaffi

with startup software vendors. So potentially other consultants, what do you think about these partnerships?

Steven Coyle

Look, we, we've, we've developed, we've Co developed some solutions with with Autodesk and Bentley. So we've been through that process. We have, we started well. I don't think we've actually went down the. The startups here, we've had a chat to a few different types of startups.

Steven Coyle

We arcadis. There was a company called Neriksen. So globally we invested. We got exclusivity for one or two years of a startup who are a drone, a dynamic testing drone. Own company based in Canada. So that was a way to help initiate a digital approach to asset management.

Steven Coyle

So that was something that we Co developed. So definitely open to that. And I think I would add to that as well. There's a lot of industry bodies that I think we should be doing more work with. That is kind of a little bit.

Steven Coyle

Destroyed a lot of people like consult Australia engineers Australia. I think there's a lot of work that we could be doing there as well around. I know engineers Australia has some very good educational sessions.

Steven Coyle

On a regular basis, which is really good on being part of those, but I think there's opportunities there, especially to consult Australia, to be doing something meaningful that's gonna help provide a solution to the broader digital landscape with our projects. So yeah, I I think it's. I think it's important to Co develop with with with yeah, with with the people, with the right capabilities.

Andrea Ciaffi

Another aspect of digital engineering is data, right? So and how fragmented it is like we have different software vendors,

Steven Coyle

None.

Andrea Ciaffi

different disciplines, they all produce different types of data sets. And I think one of the challenges how do you connect? The data between deliverables and what does it look like in practise?

Steven Coyle

Yeah, that's that's something that's we're on our journey on that now that's that. That's that's a good question. That's a really good comment. There's a lot of data that's produced that is not reused, and it's wasted. And that's one thing that we've started to we've got a programme at the moment within Arcade, it's called the shortened data LED where we, our rail team, have been.

Steven Coyle

I've been doing this for a while, incorporating model based systems engineering. What we're trying to what we have adopted and we're trying to now scale this into other bigger projects, is being able to measure and visualise.

Steven Coyle

Just constant progress on our projects that could be earned value that could be resource management, that could be how much time that Steve's billing to a project whilst working on this particular why is he spending so much time working on that for that.

Steven Coyle

So having a connected data approach. So all of their deliverables can be measured and maintained and being able to give access to our project managers, our design managers, our operations managers, I think that's a way that we can utilise the data better. We've, we've, we've well, I think we've, I think we're beyond dipping our big toe in.

Steven Coyle

I think we're probably up to our knees, but I think there's we've got a rubic opportunity at the moment on a project where we are, it's a client side role where we are having that connected environment, a very simple.

Steven Coyle

Secure web-based environment and to anyone that can click and be able to see how we're tracking at any given point on a project tying back to where the suitability code revision on our deliverables, on our drawings or models or reports then is linked back to a. Programme and then easily can visualise that.

Steven Coyle

So that's making the most out of all the data that's been created on our project. It's the 1st that I've seen it and it's a really exciting journey that I'm really keen to be part of. Within Arcadis, that was it's been that was originally adopted on high speed rail over in the over HS2 over in the UK.

Steven Coyle

So we we're learning from that and incorporating those learnings into into, into, into projects here.

Andrea Ciaffi

I'm aware of this data connectivity issue is a big problem for the industry and I

Steven Coyle

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

just wonder from your point of view, what are the biggest barriers that are stopping us from achieving this similar data connectivity across all projects and disciplines?

Steven Coyle

Look, I think, yeah, there's a number of factors here. I think the biggest thing is education. Like I think starting you've got to take time to invest early, right. And the only way you can take time to invest early is to show what good can look like.

Steven Coyle

That's the real hard bit. Just to really convince the project directors, the project stakeholders that look, just let us show what we can do here. But this is the benefit you're gonna get here. One of the examples that I can provide. Relating to that comment is our commercial team using Oracle.

Steven Coyle

All that commercial information here in Arcade is to produce the reports that require for a particular client was taking four days to produce this particular report and the format that the client wanted to see it.

Steven Coyle

We invested in a tool called Unify, which is a timesheet tool, so unfortunately we now have to fill out two timesheets, which is a bit annoying if we work on projects, but that now saved that commercial manager he's now spending. An hour through development of integrating tools, working really closely with the vendor, we're able to connect the right type of data there, but again.

Steven Coyle

That we had to have an early conversation with with the projector and say we just need time to invest here with with the vendor to be able to do this. But we're gonna save you so much time down here. So I think that's the if we we can have if we can.

Steven Coyle

Paint the picture clearly of the benefits by investing early. I think that's that. That'll go a long way to, you know, show how we can make connected data. Just benefit all the stakeholders and and I guess it goes back to showing, hey, what what problems are you having having?

Steven Coyle

You know, what problems are you having? Hey, we can do this. This will help you. They've been just been able to empathise with people's problems and. And provide that type of solution.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, that's good. Then you previously touched on the problem is sometimes people try to develop a tool in their own time to a very specific project. But one of the challenges we have is how do you decide which tools are? The right fit which tools should be scaled and which tools should just stay

Steven Coyle

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

project specific? How do you make that decision?

Steven Coyle

Yeah, that's good. I think it's look, it is a challenge to us that we still have what we have 1200 people within Australia. So I would imagine that there is tools being developed now, right that we probably already have solutions for.

Steven Coyle

All right, but project pressures and everything else that happens, then we will have discussions with them later and say, look, that's a really good solution, but is this a scalable approach? So all the tools that we develop, we try to have a scalable approach.

Steven Coyle

It's not just. It's not just solving that problem here. It's well, we'll build it in a way that could be scalable for other problems. So yeah, that particular script to do noise wall calculations. Hey, let's not do it for noise walls that could be used for diaphragm walls, retaining walls.

Steven Coyle

Etc. So it's not just solving one problem on post and peer, it could be solving a problem on different type of piling etc etc. So I think that's I think having a true scalable approach. Is important and being able to that goes back to the comment I made earlier.

Steven Coyle

I've made it a few times is the accountability is that if we see people that want to be developers, we want to help them, right? We wanna help them develop in the right way. So there's a lot of low code, no code development which we.

Steven Coyle

Which we call citizen development here and here within I Cos. But I think if people want to learn hard coding, they want to become developers, they want to develop software, then we've got a framework and we want to help build that community as well.

Steven Coyle

So we will help people build tools. But they then make that more visible to other people within Arcata, so then they can use it.

Andrea Ciaffi

And I'd like to change gear and think about the future of the role of the

Steven Coyle

Yep.

Andrea Ciaffi

digital leader. And you in your role are at the intersection between the business and the software developers and the engineers.

Steven Coyle

Hmm.

Andrea Ciaffi

You're just this point that joins all the dots together, and you probably find yourself. Self translating digital development into business language, what does that mean on the day-to-day activity?

Steven Coyle

Yeah, it's it's important, I think. As I mentioned earlier that I work for a lot of different, a lot of stakeholders within Arcadis and they've all get their, they've all got their particular the requirements for their roles. So our Operations Director has got a different requirement to a business leader.

Steven Coyle

A business leader has got a different. Requirement to sales and solutions. So to me it's important to understand how can I make their job easier. How can I make it easier for them to win that project to deliver that project, to make it easier for reporting so.

Steven Coyle

Yeah, that's a big part of my job is to make sure that I clearly understand what these problems that people are having, in particular to people's roles in the business. So I guess I change gears a lot. During my day, and I think that's one of the things I do enjoy about my job is the fact that I could be talk to a client.

Steven Coyle

Then I could be talking to someone from global. Then I could be operations director or I could be talking to a Managing Director or I could be talking to. Our people advisor, but then I'm trying to understand these particular problems or solutions and then being able to join dots as well bring these people closer together.

Steven Coyle

So I think. I think a big part of this is. I guess in a word empathising, you know, really understanding acting to make their do their job even more easier at Arcadis.

Andrea Ciaffi

And we are close to the end where I just have one more question,

Steven Coyle

Yep, Yep.

Andrea Ciaffi

which is if you think about the the new generations and what advice would you give to future digital leader that are trying to get to drive the change inside a large organisation?

Steven Coyle

None. Ask this thing when I talk to all the grads is ask lots of questions and take advantage of of what organisations have. I think that's one thing that I don't think we do this well as an organisation. We don't. We don't show everyone at Arcadis what?

Steven Coyle

Exactly what we have access to in terms of our technology, our vendors globally, people, our experience on projects, we don't seem to beat our chest a lot about what we actually have. So I guess we want the younger generation to be coming in saying I wanna do that.

Steven Coyle

I wanna do that. I wanna be part of that. How can you help me do this? I I don't think. I don't think that's the right way to do that, Steve. I was like, cool. OK, let's go. Let's, let's get together and have a chat about that.

Steven Coyle

So be inquisitive. Challenging. And just taking advantage of all the investments that organisations have made and yeah, and be that annoying person. Say I wanna go to that client meeting with you and that's I had an undergrad that started and who's still at Arcadis now is a very good engineer who does a lot of stuff in the digital.

Steven Coyle

Space. And remember, he was always constantly knocking on the door to come to Arcadis and he came as an undergrad and he came to a client meeting on City Metro and that first client meeting on his first day blew him away. Absolutely blew him away.

Steven Coyle

And he's like, I wanna be a digital engineer. I wanna be solving these problems. So yeah, we need more people like that.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, that's great. And if people want to reach out to you, where can they find you?

Steven Coyle

Cool. So yeah. Look, I'm. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm more than happy if people want to contact on my work e-mail, which is steven.coyle@arcadis.com.

Andrea Ciaffi

And thank you. We are at the end of the episode and

Steven Coyle

Awesome.

Andrea Ciaffi

Steven, your take on digital transformation is refreshingly honest, has been really great. Hearing on hearing about how your teams are cutting is refining what digital leadership means. Thanks for joining us on the Digital construction podcast.