Session Information:

Project Portfolio Management in a Growing Company

Competing priorities and constant reorganization puts pressure on any growing business, couple this with the influx of new employees, and you have a recipe for corporate implosion. Growth shines a light on the dark places hidden away by poor processes.

In this session, the top takeaways will be:

• Breaking down silos
• The power of the process
• Making real change
• Managing competing priorities

Session Transcript:

Coming from Evansville, Indiana today to share her expertise with us on on a journey of growth with her organization. So I'd like to welcome Jeanne Rising who is a Process Improvement Manager for metronet, a High Speed Fiber internet company, based in Evansville, Indiana.

I need the ana Native. Jean graduated from the University of Evansville with a Bachelor's of Science and Organizational Leadership.

She currently holds both a six Sigma Black Belt and a Project Management Professional certification, and she is going to take this time with us to share her journey of improvement, innovation and how technology has played a role in in her journey. So, Jean, it's wonderful to have you with us. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your expertise with our global audience today.

Well, thank you. Joseph, I am excited to be here, and we're going to talk about portfolio management in a growing company.

We're trying to make change, stick. That is going to be the thing for today.

Our agenda is going to be focused on breaking down silos, the power of the process, managing competing priorities, and making real change.

So, what is a portfolio?

Well, a portfolio, it ensures that the projects are monitored and measured and to bring about the expected results, It takes both prot projects by themselves and programs combines them together, and aligns them with your business goals.

There is no set number of projects in a portfolio. And it is different from a program, because the program is more theme focused. So it could be that your IT department has several projects, but their projects are more IT themed, where a portfolio usually span the entire business, several departments, and has different objectives that are aligned with the overall business goals for the year.

It solves many different problems within the organization, and makes sure that each of your projects are or have executive support, that your projects have been evaluated, and that you have defined solutions for each of them going forward.

So Alfred North Whitehead said the art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.

In my career, I've spent several years leading teams in a very, in very growth oriented companies.

I've seen the pressure on staff to consistently adjust their processes to adapt, and change over and over again, very rapidly. And it's a real challenge for most businesses.

My current company, Metronet Ham, has grown about 150% in the last two years, which, you know, is is about 50% over expectations, um, and couple that with the pandemic, which forced people to work from home, or have their children, home schools.

It turned our, our internet company from a luxury, to a necessity for most people.

So because of this, we as a company have had to focus on immediate change to scale for this kind of growth.

My current portfolio is consistently larger than I have staff to assign it to. And other departments all have projects that they're working on individually, outside of process improvement. So we're seeing this type of crazy growth all at once, And we're trying to make the best business decisions, and keep our portfolios and our projects aligned with all of the changing business environment.

So, we know that change disrupts work, right?

But in a growth company, change is just part of the culture, and so individuals can feel that there's no order to that change, that, that it's just being thrown upon them over, and over, and over again.

So during our process, you know, managing our portfolios, we must preserve this order, We must implement change in a way that embraces the change culture, but it's orderly and systematic.

So, communication, so, quick growth leads to siloed communication. Instead of unified collaboration, it just breeds communication problems. There's just no way around it.

Things that were once communicated around a coffee pot or during a small group meeting is now lost in that larger group setting.

Your departments, they, they split, uh, tasks are re-assigned. Or move around between departments. People are promoted into new positions, so that closeness that was once just an everyday part of the culture, is replaced with the, the unfamiliar. You've got new faces, new personalities, new ways of working, and that filters into that once close knit company, and a lot of people aren't prepared for it. They don't, they don't even recognize that. The culture is changing until several years down down the line into this, this growth period.

So quite frequently, the the business expands to several corporate offices, or they add field offices.

and so the atmosphere where everyone knows everyone is replaced with the nameless teammates, um, and new physical distance.

In addition, historical company knowledge is lost during this time.

Best practices are forgotten, or they're not sustained with the growth.

Many times, as we bring new people in and we start to train them, we find that there's no written documentation, that, or if there is written documentation, it's just severely outdated.

And that adds another layer of overlooked history.

If we can't look at past practices and learn our jobs the way they are today, or the way the person before us perform them, it's hard to move forward and make sure that we retain that historical knowledge.

Then in top on top of that, you know, your management, and your, your leadership assumes the knowledge transfer is taking place, and most, don't even realize that it hasn't transferred.

And how can it, in just a mere two weeks of transition, so that adds just a whole layer of complexity, on top of an already overwhelmed staff.

So what is the key to breaking down silos?

It's collaboration.

What I find, is it easy, it's easy, sometimes is getting all the right people in the same room, So you're creating that culture that is kind of went from that close knit. We're going to share things around the coffee pot to this, to, where we're all completely spread out and we're not having that collaboration anymore. So if you, if you start re reeling back in those people bringing them into the same room having these discussions again, you'll, you will find that lost history.

It's just as important to have these work relationships cultivated. And this information shared as it is in your personal life.

You know, if, in your personal life, if you stop meeting with Friends starts, stop seeing family you, that the world just kind of goes on and you lose that, closeness that you once had, will the same thing can happen in your work relationships. And it's important that we we cultivate those so that it helps people feel more comfortable in sharing that information. And when they think of it, maybe outside the original meeting, they'll come to you and say, Oh, I remember this, or, I wanted to add that, or this came up the other day, and I forgot we've dealt with this before. So you want to build that collaboration, and you want your stakeholders, and your, you know, that the people in the company to feel that you're unbiased with that collaboration. So, you're just facilitating the conversation.

They have to your stakeholders, they have to feel unthreatened, you're not taking sides, and you must consistently be mindful of who's not in the room.

Who do you need that isn't there as you, as you talk and you relay this company knowledge, who, who should you have in the room? Do you have the correct players? Do you need to add, or do you need to remove?

So, when a growing company, roles continually change, so, you may have to remove people from an original project and add others.

So, your portfolios are constantly, your, your projects, and your portfolio is constantly growing and evolving, and changing, along with the business, as it grows, evolves, and changes.

So, you may have to dig, dig, really find out who has the historical knowledge and who is going to actually perform the process or perform the function as you rollout change.

So, processes, that's what this, this entire conference has been about, is process mining. So, let's talk about processes. We know that they are your road to success.

You know, there are certain steps that have to be followed. You know, if you've lost that historical knowledge, you have to go back.

You've got to map the current processes, and during that time, you're gonna identify, you know, waste and you're gonna isolate communication barriers and categorize the duplicates or rework, and you're going to document all the steps and tasks perform to achieve that expected result.

And it's the only way to really understand how to complete your project.

You have to know where you're coming from to understand where you're going to and I, and I feel like this is also important in some IT based solutions. You know, I've seen many times where an IT project is scoped, all the software expectations are outlined, what you get into user testing or even deployment. And there's change. It after changes after changes. And that's because we didn't actually map the manual steps before trying to automate them. We don't know where the, the information goes. Who else uses the software? So, it's important that we engage all the stakeholders, and they were doing processes, that we facilitate those cross departmental conversations. So that we know who else might be affected by this change, You know, where are silent stakeholders are, versus are engaged stakeholders our users, versus those that are just going to be on on the sidelines and benefit?

And then once we decide what our current processes, and we go forward, with trying to implement that future state. You, again, have to engage all the stakeholders and make sure that they understand what kind of changes are coming down the line, what you're trying to accomplish, and ensure that you haven't forgotten a specific group or department or a task out of that future state solution.

So, once you have mapped your processes, you're well into trying to figure out what you're going to implementing change.

You still have to manage competing priorities and in a growing company, it's extremely hard to do.

Um, So my suggestions are to hold regular stakeholder communication to keep the projects in the forefront. keep them moving forward. Let them know where you are.

You know, talk about anything that might be a stumbling block in.

In addition to that, you need to hold executive and champion meetings regularly to garner continuous support and communicate those wins and losses that you're having. Let them know how far you are into the project and because you may be at a point of no return and they may not know it. You want to make sure that those conversations that they're having outside of your project conversation or your portfolios, they understand where you are in the steps. And then, you also need to communicate those future needs that you have, so that we can plan ahead.

Um, we need to ensure there's clarity of expectations for each project, and also the savings, and make sure that those savings are classified correctly, you know, do we have ours fav do have overall cost savings, You know, is is it, is it just a risk mitigation?

And, understand that risk mitigation can be one of the harder savings to quantify, and, it might be one of the harder, harder projects to get pushed through, if it's something that hasn't happened. And, we're just, we're just mitigating that risk before it happens. And that can be a little bit of a harder sell. And you have to be prepared for that.

As a, I is a project manager, and also as a Portfolio Manager.

So I think the most important, though, is to make sure that all your projects are tied to a business case.

Do you mean, do you know what the company is trying to accomplish for the year? And are you focused on those items? Are you tying all your projects back to what's most important for that C suite?

Understand that it's quite common for projects to get pushback, or tabled in a growing company. The fiscal year is long. The goals that were set fourth quarter of the previous year may have changed drastically with the changing business client.

We, the, we've identified new threats or we've had new opportunities, and they may take priority over your earlier projects.

So, that conversation that you've had up to that point about with your stakeholders, with, with your executives, and champions, are going to be that much more important in a growing company so that you can make sure that you always have the temperature. You understand where we are, where we're going and what they are going to need from you going forward.

Um, and just remember that if you're faced with the opposition, you know, ask for reconsideration later, maybe in the following quarter or, or maybe you need to go back and restate the business case. And make it stronger for the new priorities. And then ask for a steering committee. Representation. Once you can finalize that.

There are times, though, that you are going to have to go back to the drawing board.

There are, there are tons of different changes that come through, and a growing company.

There, there is additional changes to a scope, methodology, and personnel that might happen, because there are times when, um, know, you think you've scopes something, you believe you're on the right path, you start to prod, you start to map out the process, and you realize the scope.

And you're going to have to go back to the drawing board and you're going to have to restate that. You may at that time have to restate the business case. You may have to go back in front of the executives and garner some more support, You may not have had enough in the budget, you may have been focused on the wrong KPI.

Methodology. Sometimes, you'll find, during the measurement stage, or even the defined stage, that, you know, you were going to do this as a lean project, and six Sigma effect better, or you thought, Well, I'll do waterfall on this, but you find Agile is really the way that you need to go. And you need to release that in smaller iteration.

It isn't always obvious at the beginning of a project.

So, you're going to be mindful of the fact that you may have to change the way you're approaching the project.

And then personnel, in a growing company, there is a high likelihood of something happening. You will lose resources to other projects and priorities because of the sheer magnitude of work that needs to be accomplished.

Or, as stated earlier, roles will change, There's movement on and off your team, on and off your stakeholders list, and you can even have movement yet at the Executive and Steering Committee level.

So, you need to find ways to profit from the change. I know that sounds crazy, but there you've got to turn this to your advantage. Turn the negative into a positive, encourage your team to look at as the challenges as opportunities. Do something even greater than what you previously imagined with that project.

And just just don't give up.

So change.

We've managed all the priorities. We've worked into the, we're starting on the implementation stage, and we're passing this over to the new stakeholders. We're giving them what we believe they want, and we have to have to move them to accept the change. So a lot of you have probably already seen this model in some form or another. However, I feel like it's really relevant in today's time.

We've got covered, People working from home. Virtual, every thing. Even our home lives have been in a consistent kithneb state of change for over a year now.

We've been inundated with Change Everywhere. We can't buy groceries the same way. We can't go out to eat. We're not, we weren't going to the movies. Every thing changed all at once, world, why?

So, you couple that with a company that's growing at the rate of speed that ours is growing. and you have a recipe for an implosion.

You have to balance that change. Your has an ad that other layer of challenges to in a normal individual.

The cycle in a growing business is continuous. The changes are more rapidly rolled out and deployed, you know, more so, than in a just a normal or declining business environment. And it feels like it's change after change, after change, after change.

So, how do you make that change stick?

How do you?

You've got, you've got to give, your, give good tools to your teams.

You have to make sure that, when it's time to, to change over to the department that's going to take they, the end result of your project, and, and continue to implement it, that they have good documentation for reference, that they have the tools that they need to be successful in this implementation.

And you also have to follow through, to strengthen that case for transition.

Um, and think about it this way. If you start presenting good documentation at the end of your project. When you're doing that changeover, when you're at and when you're putting that control plan into place and you say, You know, Here's your training documents. Here's how this new software, or this new app is supposed to act, and so on.

That gives them something that they can build off of, That the next iteration, the next change, they were, they said, Oh, it was so easy to train on this one, We need to make sure we have training documents for the next one, or we need to make sure we map the process ourselves.

So you kind of, you want to be the leader when it comes to that follow through documentation.

You want to make sure you have a good control plan that defines standards and quantitative measurements of the project.

You want to make sure that assigns process owners for all the different processes contained in that project. And it gives the parties instructions on corrective actions to take when the standards are not met.

This important piece of project, the project free that the new team up to act when needed, those process owners have the power to make the real change. And I think that's important, that they feel empowered. They don't feel like that change is thrust upon them, that that change is actually something positive, something they can control, something they can own and be successful app.

Finally, to make the change deke, I think you really need to have good, follow up.

I really can't stress this enough, All of the work can be lost in the next growth spurt, without follow up.

And you need to review the standards. Make sure that any KPIs that you said or any measurements are still where you want them, a month down the line, two months down the line, you know, the next quarter. And make sure that the documentation that she gave them was, was thorough, that they don't need to have changes to it. That they don't feel like the process is broken. Or the app didn't get user tested enough. And there are other problems that have that have crept up that you weren't made aware. And again, that goes back to that, you know, collaboration and communication. We talked about earlier building those relationships with your stakeholders at the very beginning.

So that if you do roll out a change and it's not what they expected or something that they can't handle or if it's got some quirks that need to be taken care of. And we know that happens sometimes that they have an open line of communication too.

And that can also be outlined clearly in the control plan, which is extremely helpful also.

So, next thing you're going to want to do, is, you're going to want to celebrate those successes.

As projects are completed. Take the time to celebrate, no matter the size or the scope, Thanking your team and stakeholders for a job well done, helps to ease the pressure of the change itself.

Change in a growing company has to be the norm.

It just, it's just the nature of Grubbs growth, It's change.

So you have to build those relationships, encourage others to bring their ideas forward, create this atmosphere where your associates are rewarded for initiating change or thinking strategically. Put change in such a positive light that they're excited to bring things to.

They want to sell, they want to celebrate the ideas, not just the successes, And it goes a long way to make sure that the change sticks in the company.

That the whole company embraces change, but you do not get that change, apathy that they understand that we're all working towards one goal and that we want to be successful. And that, yes, there's a lot of change, and, there's a lot of different, competing priorities in the company.

But we're all in this together and celebrating those successes helps to reinforce just that, that we're all in this together, that we can do this together.

So, for the takeaways today, we've talked about, you know, breaking down silos, the power of the process, managing you know the competing priorities, and making real change.

No growth pushes accompany.

As as, Joseph said earlier, it shines a light on all the hidden, dark places that are broken by poor processes and siloed communication.

It puts pressure on any weakness and can cause the company to just virtually implode.

Frustrated employees will quit, change will continue but not be permanent. And burnout will result in apathy.

And you'll see this across the company, You'll see, you know, people coming instead of being promoted. They're leaving there, You have processes, and new improvements being rolled out, but people aren't, aren't following them anymore. You'll go to do your, your quarterly follow up, and no one's using your, your new, your new app.

And that is a result of, of, a change, apathy, that feeling, that I'm tired, I've changed. So in a growing company, you've got to be very, very mindful of that. and if you want to have success with your portfolio, you have to find ways to ensure that all of your stakeholders are engaged and that they're excited about the change as much as you are. They're excited about finishing the projects and making work easier, and, and mapping the processes, and having something to go forward. something that they can pass off as they roll up the ladder and their successor then gets that process and they feel like they can transfer that knowledge.

So, managing a portfolio, um, to implement quick, effective, and sustainable change is the only way for a growing company to truly survive. It's up to you to balance the needs of the stakeholders that competing business priorities, and manage the change appropriately to ensure success of your portfolio.

I want to thank everyone for participating today. I look forward to your questions, and I will pass this over to Joseph. Thank you.

Jeanne, thank you very much for, for the great coverage and journey of, of a change of the inevitable change, that we deal with organizations, especially if you have a growing organization.

one of the things that I like to use is that there are only two states on everything in life or in the organizations that you're either growing or you're dying, and and both of those stages are actual periods of change, and there's no such thing as a plateau. If you're ever thinking you're on a portal, you're actually just dying, and you don't know yet.

So I'm going to ask you. I don't see your camera right now Jean ...

and bring your camera back up and I'm going to ask the first question related to just the stages of change that you're going in your own organization. So for those of us Who don't know as much about metronet and what the journey has been like for you What does it look like for the last 2 to 3 years? What, what does it, what what has happened in the marketplace?

Um, well, we are, we're a company that provides direct fiber to the home so we, we provide a service where you can actually received one gigabyte up and one gigabyte down of Wi-Fi.

So, you can imagine in our post, covert state, how important it is to have a fast internet. We already had a strong business plan. Our executives are, we're already felt really growth focused Beforehand. In the past five years, it's just been exponential but we have outgrown a building, we have moved, we've got two large corporate buildings where remodeling consistently. I've been in, I believe five different offices. In the two years I've been with the company just because we in, in two different buildings just because we have been growing.

So rapidly are where we're outgrowing our, our software tools, We're, we're outgrowing our processes, it's, it's been very, very interesting.

In fact, the department that that I'm in, has, has went from two people to seven, just in the last year.

Wow, that, that that is a lot of change, You know. Well I wasn't infrastructure nearly a decade ago as a leader. and then the infrastructure company and the very familiar with kind of the business that you have because you know where they are competing with the the Google fibers of the world back then and the AT&T diggers. And the and everything. And all this regional organizations, Right, who are delivering, providing this type of services that you're talking about. It's incredibly fast. It's incredibly competitive customer requirements and demands. You know, shift and The technologist change.

It's, it's, it's, uh, it's a, it's a bit chaotic, right? And I can, I can imagine, that, provides a great context. I think, for, for the experience you have shared with us.

So, so, so, you know, you're, you're really, why, in this aircraft, and you're trying to redesign it at the same time, right? So that you'll find, you have a smooth landing somewhere, I don't know where.

And, you know, someone, one of the project leaders I worked with before, in that industry, felt that, it was more, like, a locomotive going 100 miles per hour, and the cash was flying out. Because you couldn't catch it because there's plenty of opportunity. But it's like the mistakes are so basic, you know?

And the process improvement people are kind of you know sent to the sidelines because you know, I'm too busy executing here to listen about your process improvement or way of getting things better. So, it's very hard to break out of that cycle, right, because you sell, sell, sell, build, build build.

How do you fit in process improvement, How do you make people's load down and, say, this is worth slowing down for?

How would you do that in your organization, Curious about any tips that you have for other people on, on how to do that?

Well, for one, we have a very supportive Executive Steering Committee.

Um, they are interested in our projects. We present every month.

They talk process improvement, they have incorporated process improvement goals in our corporate business plans, that they roll out company wide each year. So, it pushes us, as a company, to think more process improvement minded, and it kind of breaks down those barriers When you have, you know, the president, or your CFO talking about process improvement, then you're going to remember process improvement. And then, I think it's also that conversation we talked about, you know, in in, in the presentation.

You know, breaking down those silos, starting to bring people together, gaining their trust, understand that, you know, Process improvement is here to help You, And I understand you can't, it feels like you can't slow down, but if you don't give me a chance to help you, then you'll never get there.

There's such great inside and really, you should say, You know, I'm so blasts for having an executive team that actually has this vision because that that is, that is. That is a gift really, A lot of leaders don't have a background in process improvement and the, and the and some look at it as kind of a bureaucratic work and that is not really the work that we need to do. So you're, you're, you're fortunate to be in an organization that has the value system and understanding probably through their own previous experiences. And the way you act you really accelerate innovation is you scale it with excellence. Which is site, which seems to be the way that you're doing it. Which is fantastic. It's really great to hear. Now, in this environment, despite the fact that you have the support that you have, the, I would say, the mindsets of process improvement.

It is still tricky to decide winches load down things so that we can make them better, right?

Because the pressures of execution are tremendous and the expectations of customers and timelines are never a long enough to get things done.

So tell us a little bit about the overall process as you think about portfolio management.

What is the overall process that you follow to identify Farah thighs and prioritize really, what needs to be executed, that will create the most value for the organization? How does that process work for you?

I think I first go through and look at, you know, how can I align our, our projects with, with the company goals that that's first. And then, I also rely on my team a lot in play to their, their skillset. So. Each person on my team is just, a, has just a little bit of a different view, and skillset. And. So in order for us to be able to determine which projects might, might be able to be rolled out quickly, and which ones need to be slowed down, I kind of go back to my staff, and I say, OK, your, your skill set is data analytics. I have this project going to be working with reporting. They need dashboards.

We're going to do this. I've got, I've got your, your background is engineering, so work.

You're going to have you work with the fiber engineering team, and so on and so then I break those down into those priorities. And then once we start getting into the process mapping, we have a better idea of those departmental goals that feed into those projects. So, we may, in fact, this morning, something, you know, something changed, we had, we need a certain server to give us data. And we found that that's been, that's been pushed off just a little bit. So then, that is, again, a changing company, company goal.

It has to do with that team that builds the server, or that bringing the data into the server to build. It has been pulled off for, for another unexpected priority.

So we're constantly evolving. And I said, OK. That's fine. Let's slow this one down. But since we're slowing this one down, let's go ahead, in this one that we were, we're just kind of working on in the slide.

Let's move it to the forefront and push it, because it'll still meet some of our business goals for the year. So it's not, there's not a one size fits all answer. Unfortunately, it's, it kind of depends on what you have in your portfolio, who you have on your team, and what changes in the business environment during that time.

And we are constantly moving things around and constantly re-evaluating, and getting back with the teams and making sure that we have that communication if we do have to slow down, where we do have to adjust very well. Very, well, thank you for that. Now, you have very different types and complex types of processes and an organization like that you're talking about, fiber, engineering, design, and reveals, and then you'll have installation layouts and plenty. And all those things have to kind of work and ..., which provides several challenges. You have processes there, feel like a manufacturing process, and other processes, there are much more like in the transactional nature.

So, I'm curious about technology and the role that technology and, know, maybe some technologies like RPA or process mining, or, or, our artificial intelligence, or natural language processing any of the, the technologists, the digital technologies that we have been talking about. I'm curious if you have experimented with any of those, if you're doing trials or if you're deploying some of those, what role does technology play in your business?

Well, I think within the last couple of years, we've, as a company, come to the conclusion that the tools that we used, you know, 5, 6 years ago, are not adequate now.

So we are moving towards a lot of, a lot of, of AI, we're, we're bringing in a few platforms to start allowing more citizen development.

We're working with our subject matter experts to determine what, what their needs might be going forward. I know that we're gonna, we're going to be deploying some, some new softwares that have better rest API than we had before. And we are kind of breaking, breaking the mold.

And I know that going forward, we're looking at some, some different process mapping tools, something a little bit more interactive, that we can pass to the teams and, and put those teams in charge of it. So it's not all on process improvement anymore.

And I think that we have used a lot of our own development in the past, and we're probably getting to the point where we're going to start using some additional tools that are out there in the marketplace. Interesting.

Lee, enough, though, you know, this is a, this is a niche, there's not, you know, a wide variety of, Out of the box solutions for, for what we do. And we're a pioneer somewhat with the fiber to the home. So, So, we're having to think a little differently, but we are finding some, some interesting solutions. And we've been using a lot of analytical software, and I expect that just to increase over the next year.

That's terrific, Jane.

So, last question is that, for those who may be feeling overwhelmed right now, by the changes in the world than this, specifically, the changes in their workplace and organizations.

That feel that everything's happening so fast, and they are losing control of everything, and that the, you know, the future is uncertain and rapidly changing.

What would be, like 1 or 2 pieces of advice you have, or them as leaders, to start getting, getting control back to a certain extent of the direction of this growth?

Um, you need to rethink change, and facilitate it from the perspective of the whole organization.

Make sure that you're bringing people together, that you're communicating what the end result is, where you're trying to go. Because a lot of times, change feels like it's just for change sake, but if they understand what your end is, if you start with the end in mind. I know. we've heard of that heard that before. But, if you do, if you start with the end in mind, and you communicate that, it helps.

It helps your associates know why you're asking, or why you're changing things, or, you know, why can't say It's good enough. I can do it. You know, the way it is now, but it's not good enough, and you can't.

Fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, and the end story of growth and the continuous success, I hope for the company. We really appreciate your sharing your expertise of our global audience today.

All right. Thank you for having me.

Thank you, Ladies and Gentlemen. That was Jean rises from Metro Metro Net with us and the real, real interesting zeal at the end.

Adapting to change in this very fast moving environment that we all have been, And especially in the company and in the market that she's serving right now. That, that is changing at the pace of exponential technology. Now, this is our last session, last session for today. So, I wanna thank everybody for participating today, lots of great questions engaging heavily throughout this, for this, for presentations, and, and, remind you that you can continue to pose questions. If I, if we didn't get a chance to answer your questions, you can post the questions on the LinkedIn posts that we have for for the conference. You can certainly, you know, connect with the speakers. You can communicate, you know, with them as well through through that LinkedIn posting. We're going to be back tomorrow for our final day, so I'm going to give you a quick preview here of what's waiting for us tomorrow.

We're going to kick off with the vice-president of operational excellence for global containers, terminals in Canada, and he's going to be talking about reliability, central maintenance, and asset connectivity. So we're gonna be talking about IOT here. We're gonna be talking about technology is related to have the asset management and reliability. So I really interesting unique perspective on that heavy acid industry. We're gonna follow that up with a session from China with Chuck guy, who's the head of ..., Digitalization, and Smart Manufacturing, and the Greater China Region. And Chuck has presented with us before and has incredible insights about what's going on in the world of Chemistry at BASF facilities and how they're using exponential technologies on the processing industry.

A nice follow up to the previous discussion on have acids.

Then we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna move on to do a presentation from Omar Mirage from the SEC group systems and the, and we're going to finish the day with Marching ..., who is the Head of Process Excellence for .... And he's going to talk about process mining in the Digital Twin factory in the business. So, four, liters of improvement, innovation, and technology acceleration. And in four distinct industries. Tomorrow, Maybe the first two related to have assets, one, a little bit more on transportation, the second one on chemicals, but again, cross industry perspectives and varieties of English of leaders who are implementing technology to accelerate excellence and innovation in their organizations. So, thank you again for being with us today.

I look forward to seeing you all again tomorrow at the same channel, and, and go over this presentations together, wherever you are in the world. Have a good rest of your day.