Switched On with Paul Modderman and James Wood

Em D'Arcy on Meeting Demand Through Governance

Episode Summary

James and I talked to Em D'Arcy for the second episode in our second season: "Meeting Demand Through Governance". This was a refreshing talk for me - I have issues to work through with the word "governance", and Em is helping me walk the walk and do the work to get there. It's great material along the course of our second season theme of "Simplifying the Multi-Vendor Mess", as part of simplification can be distributing power to those who need it.

Episode Notes

Podcast Episode! S2 E2: Em D’Arcy

James and I talked to Em D’Arcy for the second episode in our second season: “Meeting Demand Through Governance”. This was a refreshing talk for me — I have issues to work through with the word “governance”, and Em is helping me walk the walk and do the work to get there. It’s great material along the course of our second season theme of “Simplifying the Multi-Vendor Mess”, as part of simplification can be distributing power to those who need it. 

Note that since we recorded this episode, Em has updated their personal pronouns to “she/they”. During the recording James and I spoke in terms of a previous preferred name and “she/her” — this blog post will retcon our usage to “Em” and “they”.

Highlights

• Sr. Solutions Architect and MVP in the MS Power Platform space
• Originally from Ireland, now tooling around Philly
• Skydiving accident survivor! (Let’s not explore their PTSD)
• I think Em nicely turns around the “governance” idea to a positive spin — not an easy task for my pre-existing notions!

Em just casually crushing it

• 3 different types of apps on Power Platform:
• 1) one-person utility kind of thing, just does a thing for ME — a test app or simple calculator
• 2) department apps, 10–50 people, not mission-critical. Monitored by department, not IT
• 3) mission-critical, taking/using data from ERP systems, IT involved and governing
• Note the COE Starter Kit: “a collection of components and tools that are designed to help you get started with developing a strategy for adopting and supporting Microsoft Power Platform”

Money Quotes

Em

The whole point of the Power Platform is to give back time, money, and resources to the company.

Governance is about making a safe space for makers to create.

[Give] people their own dedicated space…and encouragement to go out and run things.

James

What we’re wresting with is: what is the best way to curate data and provide an on-rails experience? 

Paul

It’s not the thing, it’s how people feel about the thing. That’s the actual battle.