Architecture, And: Customer Success

A This episode of practice disrupted is supported by Monograph, the cloud based practice operation solution built for architects by architects.

B I'm Evelyn Lee. And I'm Janine Chastain. We're collaborating on curated conversations to explore how the industry is changing. Together, we'll find ways to

A create new solutions to current challenges while elevating the value of architects.

B Welcome to Practice Disrupted.

A Hi, listeners. Hi, Janine. Hi, Evelyn. Hello, disruptors. I think that's the first time you've ever said that. I kinda like that.

B Yeah. I like it too. Actually, Entre Architect gave me that idea over on Twitter.

A Cheers to Mark then. Today we are bringing on Ignessa from Outer Labs to talk about her path to a specifically non UX position in tech. Ader Labs brings a technology driven mindset to real estate development, partnering directly with owners and operators to support digital transformation in their design and delivery processes. They are using data to inform new projects, which is something that I love to do actually in house in Slack, and automation on processes to optimize sites, systems, and plans with optimal efficiency. This helps owners and real estate developers scale faster with more reliability. The company has been super supportive of what we are doing at Practice Disrupted and actually have a preference for hiring individuals with a background in AEC given what they do, which is another reason why I'm kind of excited to be talking to Agnesa today.

B So, Evelyn, I think some of our listeners might be curious based on the title of the episode, what is customer success and why it's important to something that we would be talking about on the show?

A Yeah. Well, I think, you know, one of the primary reasons we brought on Ignessa, and and we'll say this probably during the interview, is the fact that you and I have gotten a lot of inquiries over the last year, from people that are interested in going into tech and they talk about the transition into UX. There's a good transferable skill set there to customer success. So customer success, from what I understand, every single SaaS company or software as a service company out there has a customer success team. I I found that at Slack, the individuals on the customer success team come from a, like, the widest backgrounds possible. Most of them actually do not have a deep tech experience. A lot of them come from some type of consulting or service based industry. And what it is is these individuals are working with customers who have already committed to buying the project to 1, make sure they understand the customer Mars business, and then they make sure that the product is being used in a way that best supports their business.

A So depending on what tier you brought into, you might have a higher level of customer success handholding, but ultimately you're just ensuring customer success on the product. The other interesting thing about that is so these individuals usually know the product inside and out, but they're also working closely with the engineering team saying, this is what we're hearing back from our clients. How do we make changes to make the experience better for them? Or how can we adapt the product to include this new thing that our customers wish the product had that it currently doesn't?

B When I think about tech, like that's not something that I would, you know, intuitively think of as a role that you would go after in your career. So it's interesting to hear a whole new part of the tech business model, especially around product design that is emerging and teaching us new things about how we can think about business.

A Right. Absolutely. I'm sure Agnesa will explore this a little bit further. But, Janine, why don't you read her bio?

B Okay. So Agnesa is an AIA and NCARB licensed architect working as the director of customer success at Outer Labs. Since transitioning to technology, she is focused on using her background in architecture to help software developers and user experience designers tackle common problems faced by AEC professionals. At Outer Labs, she worked shoulder to shoulder with ambitious organizations that need their own technology to design, build, and operate real estate at scale. Prior to joining Outer Labs, she worked as a senior director of product management in the Bay Area where she led the development of AEC tools aimed at digitizing transitional workflows. She earned her master's in architecture from California College of the Arts and bachelor of fine arts in architecture from the University of Memphis.

A Great. Let's cut to the interview. Ignessa, thank you for coming to the show. We're glad to have you here. Can you tell us a little bit about your yourself, your history, and your career path?

C Yeah. I'm I'm so excited to be here. This is such a worthwhile topic and supporting our community, so I'm really excited about the opportunity. And, yes, so I'm actually originally from Eastern Europe, and I was born in Bulgaria, but I grew up in Berlin, Germany. And so, some aspects of that that are interesting that in 4th grade, the Berlin Wall came down. And my family and I, we were living 15 minutes away from checkpoint Charlie, if that, like, rings a bell to folks. So it was a very interesting kind of time of change, you know, especially with with the reunification of the country. So often, I, like, really reflect on that and how that may have shaped, like, my my career path.

C Mostly about, like, trying to be very flexible and open and comfortable with, like, not just little change, but big change.

A Do you think any of that spurred your interest in architecture? Or how did you first get interested in architecture?

C Well, so actually, my my mom is an architect.

A Oh, runs in the family.

C My grandfather was a civil engineer, so I I think definitely I something that was part of of just our our life from very early on. And I just I can't really pinpoint it, but I always knew I was going to be an architect.

A Okay. Great. And then what brought you to the US?

C I did an exchange student program in high school and did a year in the US. My mom insisted I come back to Germany and finish my high school diploma that was important to her. But right after that, I decided to go to architecture school back in the US, and so I did a BFA in architecture at the University of Memphis and then followed by, a master's in architecture, which I did here in the Bay Area at the California College of the Arts.

A Tell us a little bit about your path post architecture. Did you actually go and work in a in a traditional firm?

C I did. I did. First, I think and maybe that's a little bit relevant to sort of folks who are just coming from school into the profession. I did spend a lot of time during my CCA experience, and that's why I really credit CCA for having a lot of working professionals teach there. So I had a lot of opportunities during, my college experience to actually have internships and hands on work in the profession, which made that transition really easy. And then, yes, I did, specializing in health care. I joined a traditional architectural practice and worked there for about, yeah, 5 5, 6 years.

A Now you obviously have a very different role. Working within the AEC community just on the tech side. Tell us about that transition.

C Yeah. So I think one of the bigger influences that may have led to that transition was that my first job after architecture school in the traditional firm was actually working on glamorous aspect of you know, you don't go to architecture school and you think about designing buildings and doing those aspects, but it just give me and and I didn't know anything about anything starting on that, but it gave me a very unique perspective, like, starting in that later stage because the day in and day out of, like, observing some of the shortcomings that are introduced in the early design phases, you know, details are drawn wrong.

B That's actually a common complaint that I hear a lot. Details drawn wrong that when you go into the construction field, like, become an issue.

C Yeah. It's a very common theme, and then you end up really designing or changing things in the construction administration phase where you may not have been at all involved in the original design intent of the project. So, yeah, it kinda accumulates that that that phrase of, well, we'll fix it in DDU or fix it in CA, ends up being fixed in record record drawings, so not fixed ever at all. So I think there's just that felt like there's gotta be a better way. And I think that kinda set a foundation to seeking out that path of a better way.

B I am curious just so that our listeners have a point of reference. Like, can you talk about what your role is now and what you're doing so that we can as we tell this progression of how you jump from there to here, that they understand what we're building to.

C Yeah. Sure. So today, I work at OuterLabs, which is a company that's specializing at bringing this digital transformation to the real estate at scale. And so I'm the director of customer success, and what that means for us at our current, company is that it's doing service engagements with large owner operators who are interested in bringing digital tools to the way they design and deliver buildings today. And so we work with them and partner with them to understand what their needs are and then the solution, however, is always technology in some way. And so my role is really both that of a project manager and a leading a group of project managers, but also really bringing that user experience from an architect myself to the table to also develop what are those requirements for those tools.

A Yeah. And one of the reasons, Ignisa, I have to admit that I was really interested in having you on is I think, you know, obviously, there's been a lot of people with the pandemic and layoffs or new grads and not being able to find jobs right now that have turned to to look at the tech field, but they always wanna go into UX. So I think your role in customer success, even though it just happens that Outer Labs is still very tied to the AEC industry, is a role in techno like any technology firm out there that I feel our skills as architects tend to translate over well from a project management perspective.

C Yeah. I completely agree. And and part of what I think I would encourage people to think about is when making that transition, and I I've been recently kinda close to that through the hiring process. We've been hiring and my intuition of how to find the right person was I want someone with AC background and experience because they can bring that to the role. And so through that, what has really crystallized to me that a lot of people are really interested in making that transition. There's a huge group of folks out there looking, but very focused on the the building design part. Right? Making that direct translation in the traditional world. I'm a building designer in some way, and I wanna do that, but in the tech side.

C And so what I would encourage people to think about is to maybe even broaden your horizon and think of all the peripheral aspects of building design that could offer you opportunities. So I'm thinking about owner operators all looking for digital transformation, all have huge design teams. You know? Something something I know about is things like Kaiser Permanente or Sutter. They all have internal design teams.

B So if we go back to this idea that you're talking about of you you saw in your early career point working in architecture on the construction side, you saw a gap where there was kind of a disconnect in terms of, like, how the drawings were translating to the built environment. And you say it it resulted in change orders that, you know, skewed the way that the project was delivered and paid for by the owner. I'm wondering, like, to me, like, you're recognizing early on there's a market gap. Can you talk about how that influenced your trajectory of of growing towards this new career direction?

C Yeah. And and in all fairness, like, the actual circumstances around me ending up here were also accidental to some aspect of it. So I don't wanna, you know, mislead listeners that there was some very deliberate thing of me seeing a problem and then stepping behind it. It was more about an opportunity occurred, which, one of the principles on my hospital project was part of founding a startup that wanted to address these issues and said, do you wanna be part of that? And I said, yeah. So there was an opportunity, but I think having been part of the pain points helped me recognize that that's a worthwhile opportunity and give me, like, the courage to actually jump on it or recognize it as something I wanted to do.

B That's a fair point, and and I appreciate you saying that. But it is clear that I think when you're working in the industry, you start to see some of these, like, moments that are like, that's weird. You know? Why is it like that? Why are we doing it that way? And then so it's I think it's exciting for me to hear about your career as, like, transitioning into a role where you're actually, like, taking what was frustrating you or maybe, like, something that you observed and doing something about it. That's what's really exciting.

C Yeah. Thank you. And and I think, besides from my perspective that it's obviously exciting, I think the value too is that it makes you a better product manager. It makes you a better, like, contributor on the tech side because you bring that with you, and this is what ultimately maybe the users of the product you're working on or the users of the project that you've been commissioned to do appreciate because you embody them in a way. You know? You you know their pain points. It's not a a theoretical problem to you.

B So were there other things that you found difficult in practice or the way that decisions were made that that prompted you to step away from traditional practice?

C Yeah. I think to me that, even today in the architectural practice, it's very siloed. You know, it's it's very, siloed by specialties. And because of the complexity of building a building, there's this requirement of a lot of a deep specialized expertise with tends to make you go and specialize in something very deeply, at which point it's really difficult for you to to either transition or to to be parts of very different aspects of the design delivery process. So to me, that's something that I was excited about making the tradition transition because you're able to, I think, touch more of something and see something more end to end. You know, a product can be a feature can be developed in 2 months and you were there from it being nothing to somebody using it and tell you, wow, this is really useful or this doesn't work.

A So you kind of left on a on a whim not knowing exactly where you are headed into this consulting world. And I just when you were describing it, I was like, oh, she must have been working at the same company as Ziggy.

C Yes.

A Who I haven't talked to in a while, but I was like, oh, we have a, it's a very small world, the AEC industry. But you ended up being there for for 8 years. Can you tell us a little bit about that experience and maybe even how, like, mentorship and your learning at Aditaz was different than the 5 years of learning that you had, like, in traditional practice.

C Yes. Zig was one of the founders of Adidas who was kind of instrumental to encouraging me to come over in addition to, and I do wanna give a shout out to, one of my kind of personal professional mentors, Felicia Borkov. He was very instrumental in kind of the foundation of everything, both traditional and nontraditional. But, yeah, my transition was very interesting because it came at a time that it had a lot of uncertainty around kind of the economic crisis and there were several layoffs at the traditional firm that I was at. And so then this opportunity pop up and it was, you know, a hard decision to make while you still have a job to actually quit that and then go into something. But quite frankly, at the beginning, I actually was very fuzzy. I had no idea about what is, you know, what is venture capital? What is a startup? What do they do? How they work? Like, 0 zero exposure to your understanding. But then making the leap, I did start in the more traditional sense of project managing, some of the initiatives that they had.

C And at the time, we were working on a, design competition for Kaiser Permanente. So I was able to bring some ex that experience to the table while learning pretty much on the job.

B I think it's also important to to so our listeners understand because they might not know the history of ADITAS and what Zig does, but the they were really instrumental in pushing alternative delivery methods in California and, like, setting a whole new direction for how projects were delivered. And it, I think, frankly, influenced the the industry, especially in California.

C Yeah. Absolutely. Also had a lot of influence because of the size on, like, things like supply chain being able to say, well, we would like to use this kind of structural system in our building, so we might need to go and and influence regulatory agencies and so on to embrace that. So, they were always very open to that, which kind of circling back to my initial comment about look for opportunities everywhere, you may not think that your transition will happen at a company like Kaiser Permanente, but, you know, actually, there is. There's a lot of innovation going on there. And, yeah, just just keep looking in places that are not obvious on on the surface.

A Since you really wanted to circle back on this idea of mentorship, that you wanted to go a little bit deeper into in terms of the mentorship that you received at Editas?

C Yeah. I think the mentorship I received was really incredible, and it it really goes beyond to just kinda the day to day and someone telling you how to do tasks. It's about working with individuals who just put in a lot of trust and were just very open to just say yes, you know, to just to just kind of give you a little bit of a gentle push and and and, be there for you if in case it goes wrong. And so that's a little bit of kind of the cultural difference that I see between maybe, the traditional fields where oftentimes my experience at Adidas was there's something that somebody needs to do. And it doesn't matter what your experience or background is if you raise your hand and you take the initiative, you're given that opportunity. And I think that takes a lot of strength and the leaders to have that kind of trust in the people you hire and to want to help them. So I think that's something to to learn from if you're in a manager position, but also to seek out if you are in a position where you're looking for mentorship.

A I think the the word you mentioned most often in in that last little section was trust. And I think that, you know, as individuals are coming back to firms and now you're it's not always gonna be butts in seats because people might be working from home, like, that level of trust has to, like has to be instilled. Yeah. Not only employers being able to entrust that, like managers being able to entrust that their team is doing what they want, but also knowing that if I if I make a mistake, it's okay. Like, they're there to catch me, and we can move forward rather than being so afraid of doing anything, then it looks like I'm just unproductive.

C To be honest with you, that's really hard. It's hard, like, now moving shifting more into the managerial and kinda leadership roles all the time and having responsibilities over helping mentor others, it's hard to let go, especially since when you move from an individual contributor role where you do a lot of the doing to then trust others to do. So that's hard and takes coaching and and and mental, like, work and a lot of restraint and discipline on your own end to learn. But also on the mentoree side, I think it's, it's also hard to not be afraid to raise your hand. So my my trick is I just raise my hand and say yes before I had enough time to think about it and talk myself out of it. And then, you know, and then you just put your energy behind it, and it usually works out.

A Let's take a break from this conversation to talk about our sponsor of this episode, Monograph. We're proud to partner with Monograph because they are helping to transform form the practice of architecture, one design studio at a time.

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A Be proactive with Monograph. Have you sought out any training, like manager training? Does does your current job provide for that? I feel like, especially in the architecture realm, Janine and I talk about the lack of training that happens at, like, the mid level manager and above and how that makes even firm secession really difficult. So how have you gotten that in your life?

C Yeah. That's a really good question. I, I felt pretty fortunate that both at Aditas and Autolabs, the leadership recognized that that's important, so there was always, like, either some kind of statement or budget provided that at your discretion, you could go and seek out, you know, mentorship or training. So I've I've I've done both, you know, initially at studying at Aditas. I I didn't know what is agile project development. So taking some leveling training courses on on establishing some of the principles and then putting it into practice and then learning on the job. And now at Ottolab's also taking some managerial classes just because there's so much information out there that's so valuable. Some of the courses are just really, really interesting, talking about simple things that you actually thought you knew about.

C I recently took a course that taught us about eye contact during 1 on 1 meetings on Zoom. It has a huge impact or even body language, but you don't really necessarily think about that in your day to day work. So it's good to step back and take advantage of the courses out there.

B That's a really good point. Yeah. It's you know, sometimes I think we get caught up in our work and our point of view. To your point about mentorship, I feel like oftentimes the root of mentorship is really just understanding how to shift your point of view away from yourself into someone else's point of view. But, also, in in your example about continuing education, like, we're in our point of view. We're in our in our funnel of, like, what the way that we're doing things. And stepping back and doing continuing education or taking extra classes sometimes just points out things to you that you're completely blind to.

C That is so so valid. Like, you don't know what you don't know. I think the other aspect of especially product or project management, nobody goes to architecture school to become a project manager in that way. Right? You you emerge or get promoted into the management role because there's certain qualities about your skill set that that, you know, seem to be valuable in that direction. So you're kinda progressing on that path, but you never had sort of a formal way of knowing, well, what's a good project manager unless you went to business school, in which case it's a completely different different approach. You may not know anything about architecture. So yeah.

B I think what we see people in practice that have the title project manager but might not have great project management skills. And so sometimes what happens in our industry is that becomes the model for other people of what they think there's their project management skills are supposed to look like or their leadership skills.

C Mhmm.

B And I've seen some, frankly, very flawed leaders in our field that have have exhibited some terrible behavior. And whether they get called out for it or not, it is modeled, and people learn from it. And so that, I think, is one of the unfortunate things about our field is when we aren't being trained on things like project management, you you miss some really basic, you know, skills that are important.

C I so agree with you. It's really, valuable, especially in this time to acknowledge that project management is not just a hard skill. Right? And I think a lot of, professional professionals set the highest sort of leadership positions. And architecture, maybe this is controversial, but I think there's a very ego driven aspect to being an architect. Right? It it has a lot to do with your personality and sort of your ownership over something. And those skills don't necessarily always map with being a good manager where, like, empathy and allowing everybody to to be their very, very best and be very collaborative. It's to me, not always overlaps, but those people who are driving large teams may not have ever been managed or taught or trained in what it's like to be a good manager.

A Yeah. I'd like to go a little bit deeper into kind of all these differences that we're seeing between traditional practice and where you are now. Can you talk to us a little bit about, like, what you what you love about working at Outer Labs and and and things that you you don't miss from working in architecture, if that makes sense.

C Yeah. I think maybe the segue into that is is kind of that siloed and a little bit more hierarchical structure in architectural firms that which I don't I don't miss. You know? It's always a bit more of a chain of command and you kinda work up the ranks in a certain progression and there's certain expectations of of how you progress through your career, which I think is very refreshing coming from now the experience of having gone through that in the tech world. We touched about a little bit earlier that you just there's opportunity for no matter who you are or how much experience you have to step up and and and contribute. So I think that's part of what I don't miss necessarily about about the traditional architecture practice. I think being really directly involved with architecture thing is something that's helping me personally. I I don't think I would have ever made the jump from architecture to tech in the realm of finance or something that I just don't know anything about or that I don't have the passion for. And so there's no, like, scenario in my mind where I could now just say, I now have great product skills.

C I'm going to go out and, you know, work in in cybersecurity or or ecommerce or something like that. So I think there's many, many aspects of architecture that are so important to me, the profession in general, that that I think, yeah, I just wanna retain that and and be part of it.

A Yeah. So I wanna circle back to a question that we asked you before we hit record that you said nobody's ever really asked you before. So here you are working in a tech firm, but you still maintain your AIA and your NCARB certificate. So tell me a little bit about why you continue to do that.

C Yeah. I think that I always knew I wanted to be an architect, and it's something I'm actually very, very proud of. Right? It was an achievement that was important to me. Like, I I felt like I wanted the degree. I wanted the experience. I wanted the licensure here in California. And so it's to me, it just kind of to the outside world shows that that's something I have I have and that I wanted to continue to to leverage. And because in my tech experience now, I am very much so deeply rooted working on projects that are for and with architects.

C It also does give a little bit of a, a credential. Right? It is that I not only can speak about what architects do, but, that I am a little bit part of that. And, yeah, I think that's partially why I just wanna stay continue to stay connected to both the, you know, the the industry and the knowledge, but also acknowledge kind of the work that it takes for an architect to get that credential.

A Tell me about what you love about Outer Labs that you know you can't get out of traditional practice. So a lot of people that go into tech, and I you mentioned it here in your notes, just talk about, like, the time frame it takes to get a building done, for instance, and how Mhmm. Unsatisfying that might be for some individuals, Especially doing large hospitals and healthcare, you know, to see something to come, like like, I I think I only saw one one or maybe 2 projects working 5 years at a firm from start to finish. So so are there anything is there anything else like that that you're really excited about in your role at Adder Labs that you just know you can't get at an architecture firm?

C I think the time frame thing makes a big difference. I believe having the opportunity to work with all of the specialists that are involved into delivering a software product. It's really important. It's almost like I keep joking about it, but it's kind of like a really amplified design build team. Right? You're working with the implementers. You're working with the design designers. You're working with everyone, but you're doing it in a very condensed time frame, and you're able to influence all parts of that. In my traditional experience, especially health care projects in California, from the time there's we're gonna build a hospital to the time you move into the hospital can take 8 or 10 years.

C No one it's very, very rare that as an individual, you're part of the entire process so that you have the ability to influence any larger part of the process. I think that's something that is much more satisfying in the in the technical world.

A Yeah. That that is true. Like, I see it I mean, so we at Slack, there's engineers that work on the sales team side, you know, just to help make tweaks to the product or or say, like, this is what the product is capable when we're trying to sell the product. Like I said, works hand in hand with our sales team and the design team on on just executing the sale. But then over at customer success, I feel like so much of, you know, so much of our our engineers partner with them because they're taking the feedback that you guys or that our customer success managers are hearing directly from from their role in supporting the client and saying, like, this is this is where we need to develop the product road map. So you're very much a part of building out the products while working with customers.

C Taking that thought you just shared even further, what's exceptionally unique about Outer Labs, which I think is not always even true for every technology company, is that we've recognized because we're specializing on products in a very specific domain such as AC, that we are not approaching even customer success from that very traditional way, but that we are really thinking about doing project management and product management almost as this hybrid role. So it's the person who really owns the entire thing, both delivering, making the changes, understanding the product, all kind of embodied within one professional, which which helps us, I think, at the end bring much more value to the customer and shorten the iteration cycles between the different what and some traditional technology companies may be different departments or different kind of pieces of the organization. So it's it's it was an interesting experience when trying to hire because in a way, I felt like we're hiring for this new hybrid role, but architects are incredibly uniquely qualified to fill that role because of kind of their their training.

A Can you go a little bit deeper on that? So what specific skills do you think architects have that are transferable to the work that you're doing? And again, I just wanna emphasize for our listeners that there's more than UX design out in the world of tech. So so what other skills are you looking and Outer Labs happens to be a tech company very closely ingrained with the AEC industry, so they actually seek out architects.

C Yeah. We we do, and in fact, we we really seek out that expertise and prioritize that expertise over maybe some more, technical, you know, agile methodology or other technical expertise. But, sure, I think that for myself, me as an architect, I consider myself like a generalist. And so I'm been trained to take something really fuzzy and complicated and complex and then corral a group of people who are very good at their specialties to somehow take that instruction and turn it into something tangible in an architectural world at the end of the day that's a building. And so that skill of having to coordinate across so many different disciplines and you have to, like, oftentimes have that soft skill of satisfying conflicting requirements, you know, ensuring that at the end of the day, all the stake holders have been brought on board and have been along for their journey, and you have to stay on time. And you also have this thing called a budget, so it's it's it's really, really complex. And so I think those kind of skills that architects in the traditional practice do do get exposed to a lot in the area of project management. But even just as an architect itself, you have to work with so many people.

C I think that is what's, to me, directly transferable into a product manager role. And so even though maybe some of the tactical details of the processes in the 2 different worlds can can differ, I think the skill set, these hard and soft skills are are very relevant.

B Are there things that you miss about practice that you reflect fondly on?

C Yeah. That's a great question. I I I think there's something really highly satisfying of having been involved in a building project. And one day, that is constructed and then you step into it and you have that experience of all those memories coming back. It's and, you know, having been in CA, for me, it's like, oh, that handrail detail, I worked on that. You know? I remember we were, you know, having discussions about how it's working. So so I think having that connection to something physical, yeah, it's it's a little bit nostalgic

A for me. What advice would you give kinda more mid career professionals who are who are struggling with all of the time that they've spent in the industry and asking the question, can I really step away from this? Do you have any advice for for that group?

C Yeah. I think if there's something, like, nagging at you that maybe you're just not in the right place or there's something better out there or you're interested in it, I would I would pursue it and I would not. You know, I'd step away from this kinda need to have a 5 year plan or a 10 year plan. I'm gonna make this decision and I'm gonna make this change, and then I have to succeed in tech or I have to continue to be in tech. I think that freeing yourself up from having to follow some form of prescribed plan and just go out there and and and explore. And I think, like, Evelyn, I met heard you mention a couple of times, don't just think you wax. Yeah, broaden your horizon. You know, there's so many areas where you could just go and explore and come back.

C My one caveat is I think there is a time component to this. What I experienced in my career was that they came like a 5 year mark at which I was removed from the traditional practice where I thought if I was to ever go back, I think this is the opportunity now because after now, I think being that far removed from it, you may then have a different, you know, challenge of still being able to be hired and still knowing the day to day kind of more technical aspects of doing the job. But you don't have to worry about that day 1. I would just encourage people to to explore.

A You know, having worked at so many different places over the course of my career, like, you don't understand how truly good a good manager is until you have a bad manager. You also don't understand how truly bad a bad manager is until you have a good manager. So it does help to kind of have those different types of experiences to weigh.

C Yeah. And wherever you end up, seek mentorship. You know, if if that's not offered to you out of the box, I think just just seek it out, ask questions. You know, this architecty community, like, that was not around when I was making the transition and just being there and kind of shadowing some of the conversations and the support that people offer to each other. That's just really invaluable. So, yeah, seek it out if it's not given to you.

A Janine, I would be interested in hearing your takeaway from the view of customer success. But if anyone listening takes away anything out of this, I hope it's that, you know, that one, the tech world is much bigger than UX design when it comes to transferable skills. There's a lot of different places where architects can play, and there's a lot of different areas where we can transfer our skills if we're willing to think more broadly.

B I think a key point that I heard in the discussion was back to this idea around having a voice in our industry. So when when you're working inside an architecture firm, I think a lot of younger designers get really frustrated because they feel so far removed from what's happening with the client. Not in all projects. I mean, sometimes mentors are really great about, like, bringing people along, but I I've definitely worked on projects where I was, like, at the back of the line in terms of, like, who got invited to meetings. And and I had no idea what was going on week to week with the actual project or the client or what was important. And so I was just sitting and drawing and drafting and modeling, and it it doesn't feel good when you're in that role for some people. For some people, they're fine with it. But I think, for me, I didn't like it.

B And so I think when I'm when I'm hearing this idea about partnering with your customer, and what Agnesa said was that she likes working in Outer Labs because she has the opportunity to really partner with the users and customers, which allows her to think about their specific problems and pain points and using her skills specifically to design solutions to those problems. And I think that's for anybody who's working in a creative field as a designer. That's what you want. Like, being removed from that process feels strange because the whole time you're going through school, you're being taught these skills about working directly with a customer or client or somebody to solve the problem directly. So, I mean, I know there's a lot to unpack in that, but, basically, I've heard it come up so many times in the stories that we've heard on these architecture and conversations of just, like, people really want that direct connection. They wanna feel like they have a voice.

A Also interesting to me is how closely they work with engineers to create outcomes that are then integrated into a product that all that affects all of the customer. Could you imagine an architecture firm, like, getting business and operations advice from their from their clients about their client experience and saying, like, oh, we could do that better for our clients. Let's do that across all of our projects. Like, how often does that actually happen in an architecture firm?

B Yeah. And I I've known some architects and project managers that are really good at this skill of, like they understand that this relationship that they're trying to manage with the client is paramount and that they are they're trying to nurture a long term relationship so they can get repeat work. They can ensure that the the client's happy with the final building outcome. But then I've seen architects who, like, totally miss that point, and then they think that it's just about the design of the project and doing great design. And they miss this, like, relationship experience that's important. And we don't use the term customer when we talk about our clients in architecture. But, really, at the heart of it, like, your customer, your client is who you should be really using as a a guide to understand your own business model, like, if they align with your business, if they're a good fit for your business, if they are helping you continue the type of work that you wanna do.

A Right. Another interesting thread in our conversation with Ignessa was her perspective on how traditional practices have this spoken or sometimes very open hierarchy and how in the tech world, and I've spoken a little bit about this, that that's it's a lot more flat. Right? Like everybody, no matter where you enter in, has the ability to contribute and make our product better. In fact, it's like, please contribute. Because collectively, if our product is better, then our business is gonna be better. So that was also interesting for me to hear as kind of a common theme that I wish I would see more of in practice.

B Well, let's talk about that because I think that's an important thought of, like, if you're moving from a very hierarchical model or something that's been modeled as hierarchical in the past, but we're talking about disrupting that. From your experience, Evelyn, as a manager, as a leader, how do you help your team make that transition so that it's less hierarchical, but yet you're still managing?

A Yeah. I mean, I I think to some degree, you have you have to model it. At a very basic level, you have to be willing to accept input from your team and not only just like listen to people, but like take a really hard look at it and say, you know, I've never thought about it that way. Let's try it. Or that's really interesting, but we don't have time to implement that now. Why don't you keep reminding me about this so we can see if we can implement it later or just say, I don't think it's gonna work, but here's why I don't think it's going to work. There's definitely opportunities for teaching moments in those. But at the very minimum, you have to be open to accepting suggestions listening on the other end, then when people are gonna stop making those suggestions? I feel like in organizations where that is the structure, change only happens if the person is in charge, is willing to change their mind.

A And if they're only willing to change their mind because of what their boss says, then I don't know. We're gonna get into this cycle of really bad leadership.

B Exactly. I mean and I think it comes back to respect. I mean, for me, I don't know. The the leaders that I've always been most drawn to when I've worked for people are the ones that we can have a two way discussion about things. I know not everybody always has time for that, but when when I see a leader who's willing to take that time to have a two way discussion, I really have respect for them. Because I've certainly been in situations where I've had leaders, you know, dismiss me or things that I've brought forward or, you know, even I I feel like I've I've I've had moments where I was reprimanded, and and it it didn't feel good.

A It's very disengaging, isn't it? Like, the one thing you wanted to ever do again is, like, speak up and engage and be a part of the company, I feel like. You know, architects talk all the time about like retention, especially when it's good. Right? And then here they are beating up their younger employees, and every one of those instances, like, creates greater employee disengagement.

B Exactly. And I think the skill for architects to work on is, you know, we talk a lot about people first and, like, taking time to grow in your people management skills and, like, learning how to funnel really ambitious, excited, young designers coming into our field who have a lot of ideas. And, yeah, sure, maybe they don't know everything, but, like, the skill is to learn how to funnel that energy towards something productive and not beat it down out of them, which I don't know. I've seen a lot of different models on it, and so it can go in a lot of directions.

A Yeah. Circling back to the topic, though, I just wanted to say thank you to Ignisa for bringing her voice. I hope our audience feels that they can begin to think bigger about how what we do translates to other fields. And if you are an architect that is looking to make a transition to tech, please check out Ader Labs. They tend to like to take people with an architecture background and train them in tech rather than taking people in tech and trying to get them to understand And on that note, thanks for listening, and tune in for our season 2 finale next week. Thank you again to our podcast partner, Monograph.

B Learn how Monograph can help you take control of your firm's financial health.

A Follow the link in our show notes or visit practice of architecture.com backslash monograph so that Monograph knows that you heard about them from us. Thanks for joining us on Practice Disrupted, a podcast by Practice of Architecture. Visit us at practice of architecture.com to find out more about future episodes and the changing nature of practice.

B We have several ways you can get involved with our growing community. Find us on social media at practice of ARC. You can also become a member of the POA lab or join us on Patreon.

A And if you wanna take your career or practice to the next level, Janine and I also consult, provide workshops, and speak regularly on this research, and we would love an opportunity to collaborate with you.

B This show is part of Gable Media. You can learn more about other podcasts and video channels in our community by visiting gabl media.com. We are

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