The Architect of Change Craig White Unpacks the Power of Low-Code Innovation

Today's guest is from England . He's an ecosystem architect at A&S Group . He was first awarded as MVP in 2024 , so brand new . He's a low-code architect with 15 years experience across VBA , SQL Server , SharePoint , M365 Services and Power Platform . You can find links to his bio and socials in the show notes for this episode . Welcome to the show , Craig .

I went to the job centre and got these little cards . I managed to get an office job . I did that for eight years , nine years . So just putting invoices on systems . With the greatest respect , it's a junior role , it's an entry level role I moved down to . So I was living in London .

For the non-UK listeners , if you imagine where London is and then look at the map of England and go right down to the bottom left , which is where Cornwall is , is where I live , 300 miles away . I moved down here in 15 , 16 years ago I got the same kind of job to put invoices on systems .

We got a new financial director and he decided to have one-to-ones with everyone I went in with . I want to just prove that I can do more than just key invoice numbers and values . Can someone give us a shot ? I haven't got any bits of paper or qualifications , but I'd like to just have a go . I got a role like higher up doing stuff with spreadsheets .

I was in the finance department for a hospital . I spent six years doing that . I realized I didn't want to be an accountant but I loved automation , I loved code . It's pretty cool stuff .

I just kind of then gravitated into different tech from there really Then went from that to access , then that into SQL Server and business intelligence , looking at a lot of integration with SharePoint on-prem and SSRS reporting and its old-school performance point cubes that you should be able to get into SharePoint . They were cool , I liked them .

Then from that into SharePoint designer and info path and into Power Platform . So I've been with the Power Platform since 2016 . So I think that's pretty much John Lauch , I think , and yeah , I've loved it ever since .

So , yeah , a bit of a not necessarily a direct career switcher and not a conscious effort to go and change careers , but I just sort of seem to have yeah gravitated to an area which I actually love . So yeah , I speak professionally food wise . If it's there to eat , I'll probably eat it . To be fair , I'm not fussy .

I like a pizza , I like a curry , I've got a very sweet tooth , as my waistline will attest to that . Especially to get older , it seems to be quite harder to kind of shift off , but I do like a chocolate bar , I do like a beer Pretty standard stuff really . I like my sport , I've got an outside of work , I've got a wife and a daughter .

She's eight years old . So , yeah , just general stuff , I think . Really I don't think I do anything or I'm into anything kind of too out there and mad or like socializing .

I like my family , and I know the listeners won't be able to see this , but now you can see that I've got a massive pile of Lego behind me and people that have been on camera with me or know me quite well know that I really enjoy my big Lego sets and I enjoy building Lego with my daughter in my spare time as well .

So yeah , a huge passion is the Lego .

I mean , I'm three hours from Bristol and I'm not even at the tail end of Cornwall , but it's a really safe place to bring up my daughter . It's lovely .

They don't come down here and those big events or the big clubs and the big bars and we never got a Nando's down here that's how kind of we are .

We just go down there skimstones , climbing rocks , rock pooling , muckabow , and it's just fresh air . The air is so clean around here because it's all coming off the sea , it's all unpolluted and it's just . Yes , it's just a very chilled part of the work , part of the country . I think I'd lived in the rat race . I lived in London for many years .

Some days I missed the hustle and bustle and I come . I go up there every now and then to see family , but then when I come back I'm just like ah yeah , I'm home . That's better , it's nice , it's a lovely part of the country . Thank you .

I've always enjoyed showing other people how to do things , helping them to kind of like upskill based on what I've learned , and I think that concept that Chris and Jason previous guests of yourself on the podcast have brought to where we work about it's not just about building an app and building a flow for someone , certainly not from a local perspective .

It's about enabling a whole workforce to embrace these tools , because that , at the end of the day , is what they're built to be doing . It's almost like we've recreated that bottleneck we used to have with Procode internally , like you had this Procode team that would build stuff and everything went into them and you're done right .

It was like , well , we haven't got enough people and they need to kind of hurry up and build these Procode solutions . So then Lococo comes in . Oh well , this is designed for everyone in the business to go and build stuff . You're admin assistants , you're finance clerks , whatever Go and build your own stuff . And we've created this same problem of now .

We've got a Power Platform team and they deal with all of the internal automations and no one else does . And I just love the whole thought of like actually no , enable your whole ecosystem to go and build this stuff , because everyone deserves the feeling that I've got when I get built .

It's really cool , that does a good job at , you know , improving a process . I get a little buzz out of that . I want you to have that feeling . I want everyone else to have that feeling . They shouldn't have to have developer at the end of the name or architect . So that's my wider thing , is what it means to me .

And then it's all the building blocks that go under that will to enable a whole ecosystem . You've got to think about your governance , which is my stronger area , the technical side of Power Platform governance . That's where I sit . I know change management is a huge factor in that as well , something I'm not so hot on but want to be better at .

There's loads of facets in there that can enable people's ecosystem is to go and be autonomous , and I love that thought . It's wicked and that's why I really enjoy my role with with A&S , because it's not just about building apps for the people . Well , we do that , and I still enjoy my own app .

Every now and then they get me wrong , I still like getting my hands dirty . But evangelizing about the capability is , and helping others to build stuff like that's really cool , and you don't see a lot of people doing that , which is , I guess , makes what we do a little bit more unique , maybe , yeah , yeah .

That's a I like what you said there about enabling other people , you know , to build solutions rather than just building it for them , and and you're so right about the pro code area , where that became a blocker , for really the backlog gets so long , right when , if you and the same thing is then happening in low code and it's better to enable people so they

can build their own solutions , tell me , tell me about You've recently become an MVP , just this year , and I'm keen to know what was that process for you . Tell me about your journey to MVP .

We were trying to use the SharePoint REST API to what will make the creation of SharePoint sites , because that was a very common request at the time . We're trying to work something out with API . So I did a bit of googling . I found an article from an MVP whose name I can't remember . Back then I think I was a little bit clueless about what an MVP was .

I saw this badge and I saw this status . Oh wow , I want to be one of those . They must know everything . I just put them on pedestals Fast forward in . Now , what ? Eight years down the line , seven years , eight years ? Now I fully understand what an MVP is and what's involved . It wasn't necessarily a gold of mine the last year or two to become an MVP .

It's just happened organically , just for me getting some confidence out of somewhere to go and share what I know to a wider audience . I said earlier that I've always enjoyed training and helping others , but I've always kept that to the people I work with . My team is my immediate people . Maybe that's a comfort thing , I don't know .

Someone said to me last year I was like , well , what are you going to do ? It's just going to do that . But to a wider audience I said oh , yeah , that's a good point . So , yeah , I started my blog last year yeah , may last year , without any intentions of being an MVP . So all those thoughts from 2017 is like , yeah , they're completely gone .

Like , because I wasn't thinking about all the wrong reasons , I was like you know what ? I'm going to start a blog . I've wanted to do a blog for years . I've always enjoyed using other people's blogs to help me do stuff . I've always wanted to do that . So I just started and I'm flattered by the reception it's got . But , wow , like , forget the awards .

The awards are wicked . Right , I'm very flattered and honored and proud to be an MVP , but I prefer all the community stuff that I've got out of it . I've made new friends , new connections , new possibilities .

That wouldn't have been possible had I not have just spent made more out of my own personal time rather than just sitting in front of Netflix , which is still cool , right , but actually doing something a bit more productive in my evenings rather than just vegging and mowning and looking at my phone and actually doing some fun stuff , which I enjoy as well .

I enjoy my blog because with the ecosystem stuff I don't necessarily get to build stuff anymore because I'm helping other people , but in my spare time I can still muck about with code . I haven't got a sprint deadline to kind of worry about or you know , I haven't got any . Yeah , I haven't got any of those kind of pressures .

So it's been a wonderful journey this last year and a half . I went for a bit of a rocky patch a couple of years ago for a few personal things , so I've been kind of down and I've had a couple of people that have sort of lifted me back up to a really good spot and you realize what this community stuff is all about .

It's not just about you know , sharing knowledge , it's about helping each other . And that's not just with the tech , it's with , you know , people to try and achieve , you know , if we feel the potential to try and achieve something greater than what they think they're capable of . So I'm all about paying that forward now as much as the technical stuff .

So it's been a wonderful journey , but it's just kind of the start of it . Really , like I said to you before we came on air , it's like I've already been in MVP a month . It doesn't feel it's not sunk in yet . It feels kind of weird , but I know maybe it will when the trophy is sitting behind me , because I know you get that nice little glass trophy .

Maybe it'll sink in when that comes through the post , but up until that point it just yeah , it just feels a bit surreal , but yeah , it feels amazing , it feels wicked .

I'm lucky enough that I now work with him and I think he started at ANS along with Jason Earnshaw at the right time when I was probably at that lowest point that I've been in the last couple of years from a professional and a personal point of view .

And I think the pair of them again forget necessarily like mentoring me towards MVP , but just mentoring me to be more confident and to just give me the lift that I needed to say hey , no , I am pretty good at what I do and I do know some stuff and go out there and show people , kind of thing .

Those two especially who have been , I'll be forever grateful for those two . But there's a few other people as well Lewis Baber , who I'm sharing . You know he's not long been out of school . The guy is an absolute machine . He's brilliant and I joked with him a while ago . It's like , genuinely , I'm old enough to be his father , which is kind of weird .

And here there's this young man blossoming and he's just empowering these people around him Like people twice his age , like me and I was like what I was chatting to Lewis about blogging in Mark's table last year what can I blog about ? Who's going to listen to what I'm going to say ?

And he just came out with so many cool lines about it's always someone in the room that's going to learn , and I remember that . And I gave Lewis a topic and within like a minute he'd written down like 7 , 8 , 9 blog article ideas . Just like , wow , this is amazing . So to have those three people around me , yeah , I've been very lucky .

I don't think a lot of people necessarily get the opportunity that I've had to be mental and uplifted by three very powerful people . But you know , you've got to make the most of these things when they happen , right .

And I want you to kind of break it down for me from how do you make sure you've always got a big bag of topics to jump onto and then what is your process that you go through ultimately to publishing a post ? Idea wise it might be simple to you , right , but to a lot of people they want those practical steps .

What are the actual steps you go through ?

So I can't see how I've got this big pool of ideas on my phone just random stuff , and I've probably duplicated loads of them . So sometimes I'll just sort of go through that list and go make some sense out of it of like , oh , what ideas might be good and can I chain a series out of them ?

So rather than just looking at one isolated post much like people might just look at a single app look at the wider picture and go , well , I've got this one blog post , but in order to do this blog post , I might need to blog about that first .

In order to blog about that first , I might need to do blog at this first , and then I'll start breaking it down into bite-sized chunks . And then all of a sudden I've got like five , six , seven articles . Cool , well , there's those like my content for the next six weeks .

So like I haven't got to rush around thinking , oh , what am I going to post this week , like I've kind of got an idea of like six to eight weeks , every moving goal , I have an idea of what I'm blogging about , in what order .

So that's the first part getting like looking ahead , not just looking at one , but looking , yeah , three , four , five , six posts in advance . Then depends on the topic it probably be something technical , like it's a bit of code or a new feature . So , oh , I've got my intent .

So I'll go and play around in there , because I don't want to regurgitate the articles of Microsoft , because you can go and look at those , so why wouldn't you ? I want to look at my experiences with that .

So I'm going to go , I'm going to click around and I'm going to blog about the bugs that I find or some little quirks and some other people aware of them , and just my experience is my findings . So that's , I tend to have a lot of time on my own 10 and just playing around with stuff and then trying to get my experience into it .

I think that was the key thing I wanted to do with my blog was just not make it like every other blog , and I don't mean that in a detrimental way to anyone , but a lot of it's very sort of practical business likes . I was like , well , can I put big different spins on things ? So what experiences have I got that are unique ?

I built a solution for my wife last year for her self-employed business . I haven't seen anyone blog about that before . I'm still covering the same topic . So we're still talking about environment , variables , solutions , application , lifecycle management , very common themes . So people out there say , well , you know , people have only blogged about them things .

It's like , yeah , I know , but I'm going to blog about them , but with my experience and my context , which is going to be different to yours and different to analysis . So yeah , the process is just planning , always important to plan . I've got bits and notes of paper like knocking around in my desk in all kinds of weird places .

If my wife moves them get really angry because I know what every bit of paper does and what every bit of paper means . And then I'm very lucky I've got a good balance at home . So I spend like an hour in the evenings like drafting some stuff up during the week Just to kind of get a rough flow with .

What's my structure of my post , what section is going to go first , second and third , what's my beginning , middle and end and my story . And as I kind of work through the week , I just sort of go that doesn't feel quite right change a few bits around , then it gets to Sunday afternoon .

That's when I kind of like sit down , stick some tunes on hyper focus and then kind of like , finish my article and then it's ready to go on Tuesday . I always leave myself a day . I don't want to finish on Sunday and post on a Monday . I like to just decompress , take a day , come back to it on a Monday evening .

So before I came on here this evening , this is a Monday for me . I've reread the post that's going out tomorrow morning with fresh eyes to make sure that there's no spelling mistakes and it still flows well and I don't miss anything .

I always like to give myself a day in between finishing the article and posting it , at least so I can kind of just send it , check it . So that's my process Think of ideas , plan ahead and just take your time . It's worked for me , see , it might not work for others , but it works for me and basically , importantly , I enjoy it .

I look forward to coming online after a little one's in bed and just mucking about with some power effects for an hour and a half Like I'm , like a kid in a sweet shop . It's wicked .

He said if you want to be an MVP , don't try and become an MVP and I've heard that advice given to others a lot , and by that I mean it's all well and good having this status and this badge , but the main goal of being an MVP is sharing your knowledge , sharing what you know , helping other people Do that with passion , with excitement , and all the other

accolades and awards whether it's an MVP or a former super user or whatever that will all come naturally . I think Helping other people that's what it's all about . Helping people in the community to learn these tools , to be better with them , to learn from your mistakes . I'm quite open to mistakes I've made .

I engage regularly with clients saying , yeah , here's my mess ups , so you don't have to do them . Dishelping other people . I think that's If you want to become an MVP , just start there , just try and share what you know and , as Lewis said to me , there's always one person in the room that's going to learn right .

So just keep doing that and keep momentum with it and eventually it's a bit like employing a month , I'd say and I've said this on another podcast recently like if you rock up to work and you do your hours and you work hard and you're consistent , the bonuses and the awards and promotions will come over time .

If you try too hard to get them , you're not going to get them Because people could spot a try hard , too hard , you know . Oh no , he's not doing this , he's not doing that . It's the same thing for the community stuff . If you rock up , show add value , help people , over time all the other good stuff will come . So that would be my advice really .