Greg Arthur (00:01.327)
Welcome to the Learning Product Design Podcast. So we've got Patrick Malarkey, who has just told me he has an update that's linked in and is now working at a place called Staffbase as a learning and leadership manager. Patrick, your episode is about MVP and testing. That's the thing we landed on. Your LinkedIn bio says,
I create learning strategies and experiences to help leaders and their teams perform to their best. Is that a fair assessment? Is that you? Is that what you do? Isn't it lovely?
Patrick Mullarkey (00:40.883)
It off the tongue, doesn't it? Like any LinkedIn headline. Just my favourite LinkedIn headline I've seen is, best copywriter in the world according to my mum. Yeah, yeah. I just love that one. Is that me? I think it's part of me. I've been working in learning and leadership.
Greg Arthur (00:52.707)
Was that Gary? Yeah.
Patrick Mullarkey (01:07.541)
best part of 12 years or so or thereabouts now, might be a little longer and most recently in tech. And I think I said previously when we spoke, I knew my, to use consulting language, cringing, but stay with me people. My service line was always in developing, designing, creating learning experiences that help people.
especially in the management, the leadership space. But I didn't have like a set sector where I really felt at home. And now I've got that. So if it doesn't describe me, I think it covers most or some of what I do and what I've kind of worked through. But I'm sure there's more to tell. But I'm happy we'll get into it now.
Greg Arthur (01:50.253)
Nice nice and it's like so we're talking about MVP and testing as a as the particular phase in there in the product design process I'm talking about learning products and Just to start us off 60 seconds There or thereabouts. How would you summarize that phase? Why is it important? What does it mean to you?
Patrick Mullarkey (02:13.161)
What it means to me is it's kind of, I suppose, a moment of truth in terms of you move from something that's a concept or an idea to actually testing. Does this help solve some or none of the problems we think we have or we think these users have?
Greg Arthur (02:22.925)
Hmm.
Patrick Mullarkey (02:33.097)
And the value I think it brings is like the idea of taking concepts or theory or something that's hypothetical that could be a benefit and just genuinely testing it and assessing well actually how does this land? That in of itself is valuable, but it's quite high risk. I think it's loaded with risk and that's something that can be a draw to some people. At points in my career it's been a massive draw. The more I say the older I get, the more I have
kind of risk aversion, but kind of risk management feeling towards it. But it's critical. It's critical. And how it feeds into around, I suppose, two things. One is like building a better product beyond just an MVP, a pilot, however you want to frame it to something that's a more formal launched product. But also in terms of starting to build out like your reality and understanding around lagging or leading indicators of success.
Greg Arthur (03:06.56)
Mm.
Patrick Mullarkey (03:33.099)
All these things are shrouded in good intention, but the reality of like an MVP or something like that is actually it can shatter them or start building them, but you need to start with an MVP at some stage.
Greg Arthur (03:44.525)
Nice. I mean, you went way over 60 seconds, but I'm not gonna hold you to account on that. I thought it was a really nice example of what you talking about. There was a few things you said in there. like, think we've talked about this before. I really like the MVP phases. It's one of my favorite bits or probably my favorite bit of the whole process. I'm quite stubborn at times, especially when it comes to this kind of stuff.
Patrick Mullarkey (03:47.609)
Christ
Greg Arthur (04:13.357)
I like to be quite open, but I appreciate I am little bit stubborn at times. But it does challenge my own perception and challenges my views. So if I've made an MVP, this is what I talked about to clients all the time, is that it doesn't matter if there's five or six of us sat around the table or however many, and we've all got similar or different ideas. None of that really matters to a degree because we're not making a product for us. We're making it for an audience.
Patrick Mullarkey (04:23.252)
Mm.
Greg Arthur (04:42.071)
So when you were talking about things failing, things succeeding, knowing which direction you're going to be going in, that's where I find MVPs super useful to be able to say, well, let's all put a tenner on it. One of us is going to make some money. One of us isn't. We all might be horribly wrong. So what are the things that you value about that stage? What are the things that if you said, almost like some real world examples, like what have you...
What have you seen where it goes really well, where it goes really bad?
Patrick Mullarkey (05:16.309)
So I can give you some real world examples. I'll give you like one like ad hoc minimal example, which I think demonstrates the spirit of it. And then I'll give you like a more commercial example. I've just come back from like a workshop where I was a participant. We were working on an activity at one point. The detail of it's not significant, but this little conversation is one of my collaborators in the group I was in, we had like this flip chart and we were kind of.
Greg Arthur (05:23.851)
Hmm. Yeah.
Patrick Mullarkey (05:42.917)
working on like a user interface as part of the activity. And we're just talking, talking, talking. And then my colleague, he was like coming up.
saying, this is what it should look like. And just had to like stop him and say, don't tell us, just draw it. Like do it. Like show us what that visually would look like. What would be the experience of it? Now it's like a simple thing. He literally just kind of sketched it out, but it validated immediately is like one, okay, we all can see the concept. He's not just articulating it, but actually wait, I could see it. I could draw my own conclusions on it. And two, another piece of validation is,
Greg Arthur (06:00.053)
Hmm.
Greg Arthur (06:12.861)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Patrick Mullarkey (06:20.755)
We can challenge it. He, in that moment...
Greg Arthur (06:22.73)
Yes.
Patrick Mullarkey (06:25.759)
forgive my phrasing, but like what he felt was the right thing for that solution might have been the right thing, there might be a better thing or it have been completely the wrong thing in the context of our brief. But until we got it out there of his version of like an MVP in that moment, we all kind of had like our own different descriptions and definitions of how he was articulating it until we saw it. So that's like, I suppose the ethos kind of culturally of it, like how it plays out in terms of like a more commercial example.
Greg Arthur (06:35.101)
Yeah? Yeah.
Greg Arthur (06:46.901)
Hmm.
Patrick Mullarkey (06:56.298)
When I think of some of both as a consultant,
on the supplier side, but also working with suppliers. The sooner you can get to, from like an abstract response to a brief, to an actual MVP of something, the better, because that will challenge immediately around, we actually, are we aligned on our understanding of the problem, but also how the solution is gonna address it. So at the moment, I'm working with supplier. Really enjoying working with them, but we are spending a lot of time at the moment.
Greg Arthur (07:04.0)
Hmm.
Greg Arthur (07:30.139)
Mm.
Patrick Mullarkey (07:30.791)
around articulating one, like what does even different language and definitions mean in this, in the context of the project, two, how does that then play out for
Greg Arthur (07:37.935)
Mm
Patrick Mullarkey (07:44.465)
output and products. What I meant was about two weeks ago, we had to spend nearly an hour debating the different, not debating, but like clarifying the difference between the word scenario and scripted scenes. Like, now in that concept, like, without like blowing the thing wide open, we're like doing some stuff with actors and we're talking like, I will not waste everyone's time by explaining the difference in how and where we landed, but like was a good hour we were spending like
Greg Arthur (07:45.749)
Yeah.
Greg Arthur (07:56.401)
Mm
Cool.
Patrick Mullarkey (08:14.311)
like, is this what you mean, is that how we mean? And the thing that kind of closed it out was just like.
At the end of it, it's like, what can you ship to me today that is a scenario or a scripted scene? Just like, don't tell me, show me, like, cause we've gone, we're honestly going around and like interacting here. And what we got overnight was might at first sight might look like, someone's looking at it, that's not viable, it's something as a product you can land. But it completely binned the concept of what we describing and brought something to life that actually was tangible, except actually no.
Greg Arthur (08:24.202)
Mm -hmm.
Greg Arthur (08:39.785)
Mm
Patrick Mullarkey (08:49.174)
No, that's not the thing we need. This is, let me build and respond to it. So, go.
Greg Arthur (08:54.771)
Yeah and just so just to interject when you were talking about you spent an hour talking about the the phrasing so when we've when we've been kind of getting into like heavier UX conversations especially in the MVP stages like we've just done the data like collection and validation and analysis so by this point everyone should be fully on the same page even if they disagree with what the outcome will be they should know exactly where the problem is and
how it's positioning itself and these kind of things. You've backed up that with data. When you get to this bit, and it was interesting you said you spent an hour talking about two things that sounded fairly similar. The amount of times where I've sat there with either teams or with clients and they've spent far too long talking about we should call it this. I'm like, right now, who cares what you call it? Like, so I was wondering about like, you?
Patrick Mullarkey (09:50.732)
Hmm.
Greg Arthur (09:54.31)
you fuss over things like features at this point or when do you know to to draw the line at what to stop and what not to stop.
Patrick Mullarkey (10:04.533)
I think in terms of the, I can never say this word, nomenclature of like how you, thank you, how you label stuff. I'm pretty blasé about it, but what I'm blasé about is when, for example, whether it's supplier, whether it's like a peer, whether it's someone on my team, if I'm managing someone.
Greg Arthur (10:11.411)
Nomenclature? There you go.
Patrick Mullarkey (10:28.029)
If there isn't clarity on like, what's the outcome or destination, I can't set you off to work on a brief if that's not clear. What came out of that conversation was we'd done like, I'd say, free email exchanges up to that point as well, just on around broadly this topic area. And it was just clear, was like, the language is so important, like, and people's, connotations that people attach to certain words or terms.
it's really important to drill down around like what does this actually mean to you as an output, as a deliverable, because in this context it had...
Greg Arthur (11:03.209)
Hmm.
Patrick Mullarkey (11:07.293)
a specific knock -on effect around, say for example, the supplier's margin, because how much work they were gonna put in on this one item, it meant something completely different to actually what I was asking for. Then as well, the knock -on from that was around, wait, if you can't get this done in this time, this has a further cascade effect or understanding around our overarching deliverable for the project. And again,
Greg Arthur (11:16.293)
Yeah.
Greg Arthur (11:34.686)
Hmm.
Patrick Mullarkey (11:37.639)
Coming back to what this is about MVPs, the value that they bring is, wait, to get to a minimum thing, we now know how long it takes. Not only do we now have a better understanding or shared understanding of what this product is, we're all working towards, but the resource and time it will take. And then if it's critical, if there's...
If you find from that, wait, hang on, we need to pivot. Like we just don't have the time to do this at scale and the detail that we have just spent on this MVP. Fantastic. You're not a sleepwalking to a disaster, which I have done. I've done many a time around like, especially early in my career where it's, and sometimes part of it as well is just, it's such a British thing as well around like not feeling comfortable to be direct or call out. This is going to go so wrong.
Greg Arthur (12:13.991)
Yeah.
Greg Arthur (12:30.342)
Yeah.
Patrick Mullarkey (12:30.55)
do something about this and just address it and call it upfront. Because again, this process allows you to pivot a bit more readily, especially at this stage to then say, say how and where can we make this better?
Greg Arthur (12:42.981)
That's one of reasons I love this phase of the process is that you could come, again going back to this kind of fictitious five or six people in a room talking about this stuff, you could come with a handful of people that are really sure what it should be. They're basing it on data, they've done this similar thing before, they really know their stuff and they go, we should go down this direction. Then you might have a few other people that are varying degrees of agreement, disagreement, not entirely sure what they
want to do yet but it's a great phase where everyone just goes no one's holding anything back you put all of your cards on the table and then to a degree you test out everything because you can just go well I'm back in this horse or these horses for this reason but I don't really care which one wins because we're testing it with an audience and they will tell us which one wins and that's the direction we're going to take but it's that bit beforehand when
Patrick Mullarkey (13:13.171)
Yeah.
Patrick Mullarkey (13:25.544)
Hmm.
Greg Arthur (13:42.126)
It is just the project team and everyone's kind of going well I think this and I think that and it's like great do it like you said don't don't tell me show me like do something with it which brings me on to my next question so how basic does an MVP have to be or could it be?
Patrick Mullarkey (13:59.793)
how basic could it be? So I thinking about how to answer this, because it's one of those things, it's like, I'm not like a UX person, but like, I can tell you when I've experienced bad design, I can't tell you, explain to you how or why it's bad sometimes. So then I was just thinking, well, how do I, like, how good does something have to be to be good enough for an MVP? I was trying to think of like some of the characteristics.
Greg Arthur (14:15.718)
Yeah?
Patrick Mullarkey (14:26.911)
And the first is, for me, is where it moves from being passive tell to active do. Now stay with me for a moment, people. What I mean by that is...
Greg Arthur (14:37.041)
Mm.
Patrick Mullarkey (14:42.493)
You might have like say a learning product that notionally is like some form of presentation or static resource, which is a tell. It provides information that might be stimulating, useful, you don't know. But where an MVP moves forward from that to like what I consider an actual MVP is when someone can interact and experience it. And that might be in terms of testing their assumptions of what you're presenting and then practicing it or experience
Greg Arthur (15:03.686)
Mm
Patrick Mullarkey (15:12.359)
directly whether...
digitally, real life, otherwise, but it allows the end user to test, learn, draw their own interpretations that you then use to iterate. Because before that, it's essentially a closed system. Like you said, the five, six people on the table with their own all relevant useful views. But until it leaves that, until it moves from being a tell to an experience, a do, something to practise, that's the distinction.
Greg Arthur (15:25.5)
Hmm.
Patrick Mullarkey (15:45.511)
how ready you are to ship that kind of varies from like, I suppose project to project. What I would say is some of the instances where I've seen that something hasn't really been an MVP that someone's tried to launch and test is when, for example, someone can just consume it.
Greg Arthur (15:52.581)
Yeah.
Patrick Mullarkey (16:08.937)
without having to do anything with it. So they can read, they can understand, they can reflect on like a document, an item, a presentation, even a video, but there's no like clear now what in terms of immediate change or practise or longer term, you know, adaptation. So you need to have like some space within it, I believe, for the actual person to feel like they're testing and learning from it.
Greg Arthur (16:11.846)
What do you mean?
Greg Arthur (16:17.926)
Mm.
Greg Arthur (16:21.701)
Hmm.
Greg Arthur (16:35.303)
Yeah, 100%. And from what you said before, it sounds like someone's released their version of a finished product, which is not a very good one. If nothing's going to happen at the end of it, kind of feels like why, why did I engage with this thing? Like with an MVP is, at least from my perspective, I'd be keen to see what you think, is I'm giving a best, a half -baked version of something to someone to say,
Patrick Mullarkey (16:51.506)
And yeah.
Greg Arthur (17:04.102)
this isn't finished. Like, don't judge this based on how nice it looks or how many features it has. Like, this looks like I've done it in 10 minutes, which I probably have, but the thinking took a couple of weeks to get to this to go, if you hate it, I've just screwed up 10 minutes work and put it in the bin and that's fine. But I've not screwed up three months and, you know, $5 million worth of work and put that in the bin. Cause yeah, nobody wants to be that guy.
Patrick Mullarkey (17:32.111)
No, no. And it's funny you mentioned like how to describe like branding, concepts, art, all that stuff. Raises kind of the professionalism of how something feels and looks, but it's like such a sunk cost. It's gotta come like before this other stuff has happened. This other stuff has to happen first before that comes later on. But this links into a little bit, I think around the mindset and culture of it of like you said.
Greg Arthur (17:43.386)
Hmm.
Greg Arthur (17:52.836)
Yeah.
Patrick Mullarkey (18:00.533)
two weeks thinking 10 minutes work to then release and get feedback versus well actually culturally we're encouraged to like put your best foot forward, make it look the best it can do. And sometimes the look and feel was brilliant but like frankly again if it's not giving someone space and time to practise and use it, it's wasted energy around how you package something up. It's like getting a piece of new tech and
The packaging, the box, everything, the experience of it in terms of purchase was fabulous. But once you've opened it up, there's no batteries inside. It just doesn't work. And you're like, what is, not that they should have, you know, you know what I mean, but like kind of, how does this thing actually make a difference to, very pretty, but not practical.
Greg Arthur (18:38.65)
Yeah.
Greg Arthur (18:42.853)
I know you may.
Yeah.
Absolutely. And then so when you're doing an MVP, you've given it to some people in your audience, you want them to tell you all the good and bad. What are the, and I'm kind of generalizing here, I do appreciate it's specific product to product, but in general, if you could generalize, what are the one or two things that without doing an MVP phase, you feel like you'd struggle with moving forward?
Patrick Mullarkey (19:15.667)
It all comes to light. was thinking about again how to answer this and I think it all comes under the one big theme of validation. So validation, this is helping the end users or audience, the personas we have in mind, whatever your term or word is for that. Validation is producing something relevant to them because you're getting their feedback and their experience of it. And then as well, the other thing it provides is a sense of like scale.
Greg Arthur (19:21.091)
Mm
Greg Arthur (19:44.654)
Hmm.
Patrick Mullarkey (19:45.395)
constantly like especially, I mean in most organisations, especially in tech, like the rebuttal can often be like, how does this scale? This is a great idea, but how does this scale quickly and the size of it?
And that's something like an MVP can provide in terms of, like I was saying earlier, not just in terms of your design, your build, like to get to the quality of a solution, but also start thinking ahead of like, actually, if this lands well, the appetite for it should be good. It should be across an organisation, across territories, across functions. But how would you service that? So I'm working on a programme at the moment where we're really excited about it with the stuff we're going to do with it.
Greg Arthur (20:19.986)
Mm
Patrick Mullarkey (20:31.631)
This is the one I was mentioning about the hour long conversation around terms. But we're conscious like how does this scale is the thing we're wrestling with around.
How are we gonna make sure this could roll out? If we wanted to do this, say, like every quarter or have people experience it, how do we make sure it's the most effective and relevant experience to just iterate around their needs, each end user's need, actually do it globally at scale or way it's cost effective and at pace? We don't necessarily have an answer for that, but that's why we're doing the MVP is to see, okay, so for Bob in Minnesota.
Greg Arthur (20:47.854)
Mm.
Greg Arthur (21:00.792)
Mm.
Greg Arthur (21:06.225)
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah
Greg Arthur (21:13.25)
Yeah.
Patrick Mullarkey (21:13.668)
working in the marketing function. There is people in Minnesota, I don't know if there's Bob there, versus say, Johan in Hamburg in the sales team. Like how and where is this relevant and useful to them? Because, and again, this is where you get like, it gets a bit in the weeds around actually different personas, different groups.
Is there like a minimum threshold or like assumption around certain groups needs that you're willing to take a punt on as well? Because you can't be all things to all people.
Greg Arthur (21:45.218)
No, you can't, no. And I agree with that. So you talked today about if you were thinking about scaling and the cadence of whether it's quarterly, how you do it globally, is it all about reach? Are you currently under the assumption that this is the product? It's just how you, the mechanics of it work around, like you say, scale, geography.
user needs, what happens when people come back from your MVP and you get an almost unanimous or a high enough response from people going, I hate it.
Patrick Mullarkey (22:26.783)
You have to be humble enough. And I've had this happen by the way, I'll tell a quick story. And this is where kind of the mindset and humility comes in a bit. You have to be humble enough and willing enough to kind of hold your hands up and say, with the best intent, we've built something that.
Greg Arthur (22:30.733)
same.
Patrick Mullarkey (22:47.943)
is not solving for any problems or is of not enough high quality to solve the problems we've identified. I've had that when just testing and piloting content and experience of the programme literally knew in a matter of hours, it's like, yeah, this is so canned in my own like, and part of that's good, cause that's one to your point earlier.
Greg Arthur (22:49.577)
Mm
Greg Arthur (23:13.057)
Yeah.
Patrick Mullarkey (23:16.951)
you've kept a lower ceiling on wasted time, energy, effort, and at the user's end, it's better that way as well, rather than the whole population or segment of management experience that you might have kept it to a smaller group or smaller team. I've done it as well when working with third parties where it's like,
Greg Arthur (23:21.953)
Hmm.
Patrick Mullarkey (23:37.759)
hey, you're great, but this wasn't. So we need to pivot and change. Some of that might be radical in terms of complete redesign. Some of it might even just literally pause. I'd rather have the conversation.
two weeks, a week or two post that, we'll call it that extinction level event or whatever it would be, where it's gone wrong. I don't have the conversation to say I wasted, I didn't waste, I lost X amount of time on this day, but I'm grateful because it saved you this time and exponentially the money at later date. But the.
Greg Arthur (23:58.806)
Yeah.
Greg Arthur (24:14.094)
100 % like I always find sorry after you go, sorry
Patrick Mullarkey (24:17.789)
I was just gonna say, the one thing that people forget though, I would suggest, and this is just kind of my personal thing, and I've seen it with some of the best people I've worked with is, in that moment...
that's important to say, but you've also got to give them assurance around what the next step or next solution is. So I haven't wasted your money. I haven't wasted your time. I have a better idea or alternative. What do you think? And again, this comes back to validation and say, well, I think this is a better course of action because we have this validation and insight from the MVP. Here's why I'm taking it. How you react in those moments. And I say to anyone listening, wherever you are in your career, the sense of assurance
Greg Arthur (24:35.82)
Mm
Patrick Mullarkey (25:00.348)
you give to your stakeholders in those moments is the point of difference between good, great, average and exceptional. Giving people assurance around you know how to respond and be resilient in those moments. Be humble, but take action as a result.
Greg Arthur (25:18.818)
Yeah, yeah, 100%. And I think, I'm glad you pulled yourself back from saying wasted the time. Because I 100 % agree with your reiteration on that. I don't think it's wasted. I think it's imperative, unless you are one of those people, and I don't think these people exist, but if they do, please come tell me how you do it. Where you get it right first time every single time and just go, I've had an idea.
Patrick Mullarkey (25:27.262)
Hmm.
Greg Arthur (25:45.929)
it's this thing. by the way that thing is universally loved and works and you go great and only cost a pound great brilliant like if that's the case show me how to do it because I don't think that exists so the people that don't do this phase or don't really give it much justice I have no idea what it is how they're moving forward I don't know I have no idea how they're deciding what they've done is the right course of action
So, like you were about being humble, getting your audience feedback. I've had it before, similar to you, I made something, an MVP, was super, I was very confident with it as well. Took it to a few different locations, universally panned. Didn't really enjoy that experience in the moment. But then afterwards, kind of thought about it and sort of read through the comments, was like, there were literally like five or six, a handful of whatever it was.
like really small changes I can make that will completely transform and appease almost everyone. Like it's not that hard to fix this thing. But if I hadn't done that, I would have just blown three months worth of production and then release something globally that would have just been panned on bigger scale.
Patrick Mullarkey (26:54.996)
Hmm.
Patrick Mullarkey (27:07.28)
And what is it, I love how you describe that, and what does it all kind of come back to? It's kind of like, what have you done? You've asked questions.
and you're deciding to do something with the answers you're getting back. The ignorant thing would be, I've asked the question, but actually it was a fait accompli. I'm just doing it for ceremony. I'm not actually interested in what you got to say. And the other thing is as well, how do you build trust? Like people take trust from your level of expertise. An expert would be willing to react to new data points and insights when they're provided, if they helped inform their position. And that's what an MVP helps you do.
you end up with a more insightful validated position to then either proceed, pivot, iterate, however you, wherever you want to take it. And to your point earlier about who this person, this archetype, who's slam dunking it every time. I used to have like a saying like towards the start of my career and learning development is like,
Greg Arthur (27:55.101)
Yeah.
Patrick Mullarkey (28:08.404)
every pilot you create for like a new experience or whatever it is, it should be like a six out of 10 success. It shouldn't be any higher than that. But however, whatever you translate that to in terms of your own thinking or feeling around this, that was my thing is like, cause you've not taken enough risk with the content. You've not taken enough risk with actually aspects of the interaction or jeopardy in the experience, the emotional response, if it's higher than that. Every time where I've had like,
Greg Arthur (28:36.426)
Mm.
Patrick Mullarkey (28:38.311)
an exceptional pilot, again, these are quite arbitrary measures, like the eight, the nine out of 10 experience. I've ended up sleepwalking into something that did not go as well once it launched. And more often than not, it's come back to not understanding the user, having a set of users who take part in the MVP or the test or whatever testing we're doing and realising after the event.
Greg Arthur (28:45.012)
Mm -mm.
Greg Arthur (28:57.13)
Mm
Patrick Mullarkey (29:04.52)
for various reasons, they're actually not the end user consumer of this thing. And we didn't get to them in the first place. And now we've launched, we are, and they're telling us what they really think about this thing that they're experiencing. Very common in organisations who are like, even stuff around like, yeah, this is the group stakeholders. Wait, how you refer to them in this region or this function is different to this group over here? I was like, they're the same thing. No, they're really not. Now we find that hard way.
Greg Arthur (29:33.066)
Yeah, that's the thing. And you mentioned it when we've been talking before, you mentioned a lot about leadership programs and leadership development. So if you're thinking, sorry, if you're designing, this is you as in the Royal U, anyone listening, you and I as well, you're designing like an interface. You're talking about this before your colleague doing the drawing stuff. I always find that is so much easier to MVP or to run an MVP because if you are just testing journeys or people's attention span or if they
make sense of what's going on or there's like kind of universal standards to things like you know like a three lines is a burger menu like it's pretty straightforward like people know these kind of things. When you're doing something that involves real people and like you say if someone prior to you or or someone just hasn't helped you get the right sort of base of people to test this stuff with and you're trying to think them about skills and behaviors and especially in leadership when there are so many different schools of work
I like there are two, if you take the two polar opposite schools of thought, leadership training is fantastic and every company should have it. And then leadership training is pointless and why do we do it? Are we either good at it or not? Both have interesting arguments. How do you approach something that is very like hands -on as a job, but also not something that you can just kind of click and get it right overnight. How do you even approach that as an MVP or with an MVP kind of mindset?
Patrick Mullarkey (31:04.837)
in the context of like leadership and like the theme, I think there's something to be said for having an emotional response, like a genuine emotional response. And I like to say like, I talk a lot around creating a sense of jeopardy in an experience. you can...
Greg Arthur (31:06.769)
Yeah.
Greg Arthur (31:22.846)
Mm
Patrick Mullarkey (31:28.371)
People are smart. Let's start with that as our baseline. The people are smart. So they can read, they can understand concepts where they perhaps lack time and space to do is practise or apply those concepts in a safe space. So try and create.
Greg Arthur (31:31.09)
Yeah.
Greg Arthur (31:34.642)
Yeah.
Greg Arthur (31:52.218)
Hmm.
Patrick Mullarkey (31:55.368)
I'll use the word scenarios. It's a bit of a catch -all, but just for our conversation. Some form of scenario where someone can apply concepts in a way that moves it from being abstract to actually real life rooted in any experience with another human being or moment in time has two effects. One is...
on a practical level, it will aid recall because it's built around the memory with like an emotional distinction and in the moment that they'll have an emotional response to it will help with them actually trying to think through what they did, how they could do it better and so on. But secondly, how they feel towards it will affect their confidence enjoyment around the interaction and the theme and then will inform what they do differently as a result afterwards. Now that might mean that they do very little differently. They actually, you know, they've understood the concept
the framework or tool, whatever it might be, they've been able to apply it in what they viewed as a scenario that's had an element of jeopardy, i .e. it wasn't easy to do, they didn't just sail through it. And then they can adapt afterwards however they wish. Now that can be quite involved. I'm caught on describing this at a high level, but it's important to say that can be quite involved in terms of design, resource. That's also why it's so important.
as it's leading to behaviour change for individuals in organisations. so that's why it's worthwhile. I always say, if you want someone to, like, this all comes back to kind of like a little bit to like checklist manifesto type stuff as well. Like if you need someone to understand the process, just give them a resource of static.
Greg Arthur (33:31.518)
Hmm.
Patrick Mullarkey (33:38.547)
piece that they can just access a point of need like check do check confirm. If you need them to behave differently you might have to tap into something that's more entrenched or where they've been conditioned to operate a certain way you might need to challenge that.
And some of that, as I like to say, is an inside job. So the person's got to be motivated and brought in from their own experience of either seeing their lack of competence when they've applied this in a moment, or they are motivated by actually seeing how far or how well they are, how good they are at it as well. And the best and final thing I'll just end on is...
Greg Arthur (34:11.816)
Yeah.
Patrick Mullarkey (34:17.264)
The organisations where I've enjoyed my time the most is where they've had people curious to pull these things apart with the right intent. So again, this is the value of bringing in your users because they'll help you pull apart and rebuild something that's even better and even more effective than what you had in place. And these things are never static as well. Like things change, people change, organisational needs change. They evolve over time as well.
Greg Arthur (34:24.768)
Mm
Greg Arthur (34:36.455)
No.
Greg Arthur (34:42.939)
Yeah and whenever I spoke to anyone about behavior change stuff
kind of always have in the back of my mind, you know those kind of scenarios where someone says I'm gonna tell you something but you've got a promise you can't get mad but you haven't told them what you're gonna tell them so then most of time someone will say well unless you tell me what it I think it's in Pulp Fiction where she says like I can can I can promise but I'm not gonna hold that promise or something along those lines because I don't know what you're gonna tell me my natural reaction might just be to blow up and go nuts so but that's like a
To a degree it's a behaviour, it's more of a reaction, can't plan for things that you don't know that's going to happen. So if we go back to leadership, there's probably half of it you can plan for. Like these things will happen, you will have mid -year reviews, you will set objectives, will do all the usual kind of app inside of a leadership role. But then there's also certain things when someone comes along and says, I really don't like this, or I don't like you, or I don't get it, or whatever it is they're going to say.
Patrick Mullarkey (35:29.374)
Hmm.
Patrick Mullarkey (35:41.236)
Hmm.
Greg Arthur (35:51.632)
Like, how do you bring things like that or do you bring things like that into an MVP or is it more holistic? Like I'm thinking about how detailed do you take something as complex, which I guess some people might disagree with, but it is complex in my mind, leadership development or leadership behaviours, how do you even think about bringing those or do you even think about bringing those kind of things into an MVP or is that too heavy to bring in?
Patrick Mullarkey (36:20.507)
No, there's two things that spring to mind. The first is this is just me in my soap box moving away from the theme but to your scenario. The moment I hear something like that, I'm like, I'm out. I'm sorry, I don't have permission to choose how I think or react to what you're about to tell me.
Greg Arthur (36:24.71)
Sure.
Greg Arthur (36:32.636)
You
Greg Arthur (36:39.398)
Mm
Patrick Mullarkey (36:40.381)
It's like, can you imagine saying to someone, I'm just about to tell you your dog's died, but you can't react in any way, shape or form. It's like, what? That's crazy. That's insane. That's just me as a principle of mine. Because it's very control and command. But to build it into what you're saying, I would use your practical humdrum everyday, biannual, annual, quarterly processes.
as a springboard for the deep conversations that can go anywhere. So for example, if you have something that's, I had it with a group a few months ago actually where I working with them and in theory the overarching, it was like this activity we doing around not feedback one -to -one but like kind of organisational feedback.
Greg Arthur (37:13.573)
Mm
Patrick Mullarkey (37:33.84)
The overarching theme or context was around mid -geoparasites from a people's perspective. But what came out of it was actually the disillusion, frustration with just an aspect of kind of role and feeling empowered to lean into certain things.
Like how do you, in the context of leadership development, like, I think you have to accept that like it's a dialogue.
that you have an intention around, this is the resource and support we think is relevant to your role and the solutions you're providing. But when you have that dialogue, that opportunity, that's insight. That's like, it's the same type of thing you do formally as part of your discovery. That's in the moment, that's gold. But except you can't solve for it all.
Greg Arthur (38:11.792)
Mm -hmm.
Greg Arthur (38:30.181)
No.
Patrick Mullarkey (38:31.004)
And again, coming back to the point where we saying about scaling, like all of the challenges or issues that are being surfaced in that type of conversation are relevant and important to that person, but they might not be owned necessarily by the stakeholders having the conversation. They might not be within the bandwidth of themselves. But to like, specifically answer your question, I say like, use those kind of...
Greg Arthur (38:50.81)
Yeah.
Patrick Mullarkey (38:57.96)
the everyday format of conversations that are expected then surface the stuff that's broader, deeper. And that's the joy of the role as well. That's why I enjoy this, because like, you have to accept that that stuff's gonna come up anyway. And if it does come up with you, one, you don't have to solve for it.
Greg Arthur (39:10.704)
Yeah.
Patrick Mullarkey (39:15.929)
You might have a solution, you might have an idea, but you don't have to solve for it. It's not necessarily on you. It might be, but it's not necessarily on you. Two, we talked about trust earlier. There's no bigger compliment or indicator of trust when someone's willing to be vulnerable and kind of share with you stuff like that, whether it's a one -to -one group setting. That's when I know I've built not just rapport, but trust with an individual group when they're starting to surface that stuff.
Greg Arthur (39:21.892)
Hmm.
Greg Arthur (39:33.474)
Mm.
Greg Arthur (39:39.493)
Yeah.
Patrick Mullarkey (39:43.357)
where, and then no one's asking you, hey, I've got someone I want to share, but you don't have permission about how you want to react. Yeah.
Greg Arthur (39:50.179)
Yes, yeah that drives me nuts when people say because I know it's usually going to be bad
Patrick Mullarkey (39:54.45)
Yeah, and it's like, well, it's why I always feel like, why don't you just post this anonymously on a Reddit thread? It's gonna have the same effect. I can't, think about, let's just think about like, if you just do that transactional analysis around like parent, adult, child, what's the dynamic the person is pushing that conversations like thinking like, I have a message or piece of information, but I would prefer if you reacted in the boundaries of what I'm about to say or set for you.
Greg Arthur (40:01.571)
Yeah.
Greg Arthur (40:16.196)
Hmm.
Greg Arthur (40:21.998)
Yeah. But there's also, and this is probably a whole other episode, but it's also like the way people react depends on the person and their relationship to that information. So if you bring it back to an MVP, iPhone or whatever the newest Samsung phone, I'm an Android person, but I'm an iPhone kind of guy. But like they just make things and they just seem to work really well.
Patrick Mullarkey (40:42.675)
Hmm.
Greg Arthur (40:50.146)
and lots and lots of people buy into them. But again, I would struggle to find one person that says they use every single feature that either phone does and they love every feature and that's why they use every single thing. There's even certain things where like, I just updated my phone software the other day, it's moved a few things around and most of it I'm like, yeah, it's great. But then there's every little now I'm like, sorry, every now and then there's a little thing where I'm like, that was better where it was originally. Why have you moved it?
I know where it is now, still don't like it, I wanted it back where it was and I can't move it back and that's annoying. So like, what I'm trying to say is like there is different reactions to tiny little things like how do I find my photo albums versus your dog's died versus whatever it is, whatever snort you're giving somebody. You can't appease everyone.
Patrick Mullarkey (41:37.556)
Hmm.
Greg Arthur (41:47.383)
So our final question, just to wrap this up while we're talking about is, if someone is struggling with MVPs, if somebody's struggling to get by in order to create or to realise that they're doing this, I guess quote unquote in the right way, because I guess there isn't, there's probably guidance, but there's not a standard right way, depends on what you're up to. What kind of tools or activities or any advice, anything you would suggest to someone?
Patrick Mullarkey (42:09.289)
Yep.
Greg Arthur (42:15.853)
that we could all adopt or we could all do more of.
Patrick Mullarkey (42:20.405)
I was thinking again about how to answer this. Some of this, I think is linked into like a little bit around identity and temperament. Because you can talk about the notion of like rapid feedback and ideation and all the principles or frameworks and tools. Any tool framework is only as good as about how much effort and time you put into using it. What I would say is two things. One is like, when...
Greg Arthur (42:29.422)
Mm.
Patrick Mullarkey (42:50.344)
When you're in your moments of biggest doubt, that's actually a good thing. It doesn't feel comfortable. It's different between discomfort and displeasure. Like discomfort is when like you've got ambiguity, a sense of doubt. That's okay. That's actually a sign you've had a piece of data challenge what you assumed was a known truth. You're just revising what is the truth in the commerce of your world or your project. That's fine.
Greg Arthur (42:54.605)
Hmm.
Greg Arthur (43:14.209)
Mm.
Patrick Mullarkey (43:18.462)
To avoid spiralling, my second thing would be think process, not product. So by that I mean is you're following stages in the process. The product in some ways is, what's the agnostic of that? Because it's gonna change.
Greg Arthur (43:35.084)
Yeah? Yeah?
Patrick Mullarkey (43:37.716)
Otherwise, if it's not gonna change, why'd you bother doing the process in the first place? Just be that person who's the eight, nine out of 10 slam dunk and no one tells them to their face that this is crap, what they've built. Now, it's very easy for me to say as a concept, like an idea, like think of the process, not the product, but it's liberating in two ways, like.
Greg Arthur (43:40.514)
You
Yeah, yeah.
Greg Arthur (43:47.703)
Yeah, yeah.
Patrick Mullarkey (43:58.163)
Going back to what I was saying earlier, giving people assurance of a sense of progress and for stakeholders buying and so on is like, you can identify, look, this is the stage we're at in the process and these are the improvements I expect or have already got from this insight. The next stage is this. So you've got a sense of momentum and structure you could build around it. But secondly as well, it means you're not wedded or invested to one product or solution.
And that means, going back to what we were earlier about scaling, about being efficient, you're able to make sure you get the best idea at the end of it that's gonna deliver for that. And finally, like this is a bit off topic or off the reservation, so to speak. I think it's a little bit about...
test of, sometimes a test of self -esteem, frankly. Just being adult and human enough. And we shared our little horror stories towards the start of this of like, and we're meant to be doing this for a living. Like, what went wrong? So, point being, yeah, but point being is, you know, everyone's got a positive intent to do well. No one sets out to do something that doesn't meet their own expectations.
Greg Arthur (44:59.957)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Happens to everyone.
Greg Arthur (45:12.378)
Mm
Patrick Mullarkey (45:12.958)
but that's part of the process. Building a better product, that's what it's all linked to. They're easy to say, and I think you have to kind of go through the fire a little bit. So I'm picturing someone who might be listening to this, say, who might be the first couple of roles involved in these type of tasks or activities.
It gets, I wouldn't say it gets easier, but it doesn't get easy, but it does get easier to navigate this sense of ambiguity. But that's where the gold's at.
Greg Arthur (45:44.427)
Nice. Cool. Well, thank you so much, Patrick. I really, really enjoyed our chat. Yeah, it's a lot to mull over. Did anything stick out to you?
Patrick Mullarkey (45:48.286)
No worries.
Patrick Mullarkey (45:58.046)
can't tell if I've, I was going to say, I can't tell if I've left your head spinning or your head blown off, but anyone who's listened to this.
Greg Arthur (46:05.321)
It's spinning whilst it's blowing off. Like it's, there's a lot to take in. And this is, this is why I'm really excited about these other episodes coming up is that we should have multiple opinions and perceptions of the same parts of the process. Cause I don't think it's going to be a one size fits all. But cool. Thank you so much. And where can people find you? Where have you got anything to plug? That's the bit we should do at the end. I should have wrote this down.
Patrick Mullarkey (46:19.446)
cool cool.
Hmm.
Patrick Mullarkey (46:32.732)
Have I got anything to plug? Not immediately. I'm still working on my MVPs for a couple of things, but no sincerely, there's a sub stack and podcasts and other things coming. But I try and narrow down where to find me. So the best platform or social media to find me on is LinkedIn. So anyone who wants to connect or find me, I'm on there.
Greg Arthur (46:37.398)
Ha ha ha!
Greg Arthur (46:51.755)
Nice.
Cool. Nice one. Thanks Patrick. We'll see you soon. Thank you again.
Patrick Mullarkey (46:59.356)
It's great.