Click on the link below to check out ALC Training 25 year journey....in the realm of training and coaching.....

I'm not a big fan of the word trainer.  For me personally, it has connotations of someone standing up at the front of a large classroom....fully of people.  And that person talks for 7 hours, asks a few questions, and goes home.  That's probably because I have some bad memories of old skool trainers when I started my career around 20 odd years ago....and so I vowed never to be one of those.  I just feel the word trainer....get's a bad rap. 

So....what is a digital coach?

​For the record, I have never seen anyone else use this to describe what I do....and I hope that many people in the future, become inspiried by my work and improve on the digital coach role I have aspired to create.  For me it's about a few simple things:

• Helping people be the best they can be, by sharing my experience, my knowledge....but also allowing my engaged audience to draw their own conclusions and devise their own solutions.  I'm don't want to be the solutions man....I'm the person that inspires others towards solutions....and I help guide them on their journeys.

Click on the image below to check out an incredible video on leadership.  The speaker used to be a submarine captain....so I think he knows a few things about leadership.  You DO NOT want to always be the solutions man.....

• Being in the moment, engaging my audience and above all. making sure every person in my presence is having fun.  That's both in the classroom, with friends and in social circles.  This is what has led me to start doing standup comedy....and I realise now...was the reason I started off as a professional film composer and piano entertainer.

Click on the image below to check out my very first standup comedy.  My goal was to perform and ensure the audience had a great time.  Making them laugh was a bonus.....

• Being the best I can be....by leading by example....and inspiring others.  This is why I became a leader in cloud architecture at DXC Technology.  This is why I became a trainer for ALC.  This is why I decided to be the Top 250 online influencer in the world.  That's why I became a Batchelor of Music and Fellow of the London College of Music.  That's why on every course I teach...I have done the exam...put 200% into the exam....200% into learning the material and 200% into delivering the course with vigour, enthuasm and passion.

Click on the image below to see the cloud computing course brochure.  This includes all the courses I run at ALC Training....

If you're interested in understand more about digital transformation....and how to do it really well.....check out my blog at ALC Training here:

Understanding your value stream is the key to delighting customers.  A value stream is the abstraction of a business process, from customer attraction through to customer delivery.  It applies to products and services and usually comprises of between 6 and 9 steps.

​Here is an example of an online purchase value stream.

This value stream example is fairly simple and most people can relate to this.  Because most of us have partaken in on-line shopping with eBay, Amazon, Paypal or all 3 three.

Let me give you a very complex example.  A Hospital Emergency Admission Value Stream:

I picked this one, because most people have been in a hopsital, and can understand what is involved.  As you can see, the business processes that would underpin say, intensive care, would have many 1000's of pathways.  Each pathway would depend on the condition of the patient, any pre-existing conditions, such as allergies, the type of trauma or disease, and how the patient maybe responding to treatment. 

It would also vary depending on whether it was a metropolitan hospital based in Brisbane, with top-notch medical equipment.  As opposed to a regional hospital, say based in Alice Springs, that may be limited by the level of available skills and also the reduced set of medical equipment available.  By the way all staff working in hospitals, do an incredible job!  Just saying....

From the hospital emergency admission value stream, we can decompose into people and systems.  The following diagram is taken from the Scaled Agile Framework, known as SAFe and shows how we might do this:

You'll notice that this value stream example is another example of a hospital admission.  You can clearly see that different words are used and the process is slightly different.  This one relates to a US hospital admission.  Value streams will reflect the culture of an organisation, through the selection of language, and will also vary depending on the industry and geography.  This is normal and is a reflection of the complexity we're trying to represent.

Once we understand all the core systems that underpin a value stream, we can then focus on development value streams, which are also known as a CI/CD pipeline, that we discuss in a DevOps culture:

• CI = Continous Integration - committing code at least once per day, fully integrated and tested.
• CD = Continous Delivery - ensuring code is always in a releaseable state.  Decoupling code readiness from releases.

You can then continue upwards to understand the people that run the operational value stream.  In this example, doctors and nurses.  And then also do the same at the Define, Build, Test, Release level.  This helps identify all your resources, which can then be grouped into Agile teams and placed into what is known as an agile release train.

Here is a quick definition from the Scaled Agile Framework:

Once all our people are grouped into one or more Agile Release Trains, we are on a great path for successful digital transformation.  Since we have now aligned our people, processes and technology towards delighting our customers.

Interested in learning more.  Simply click my picture below and reach out via LinkedIn: