Embed and scale digital accessibility – with Skyscanner and Sainsbury's

By now, many of us understand the tangible benefits of digital accessibility. But how do you approach the task of embedding and scaling accessibility across your processes and product teams?

In this episode we speak to two companies who are tackling this challenge (and opportunity) head on: Skyscanner and Sainsbury's.

Tune into our conversation with accessibility experts Heather Hepburn and Bryn Anderson for tips and practical advice on how to bake accessibility into your existing tools, processes, and ways of working.

Get the transcript

 

Apple Podcasts     Spotify

Embed and scale digital accessibility – with Skyscanner and Sainsbury's

Please note: this audio transcription is auto generated and may contain inaccuracies and omissions. 

Jane [00:00:27] Hi, I'm Jane Minto, and I'm a UX lead here in our Experience Design team at Inviqa. Welcome to today's episode on how to scale accessibility across product teams and processes. In today's podcast episode, we're going to be chatting with Heather Hepburn, accessibility lead at Skyscanner, and Brynn Anderson, senior accessibility specialist at Sainsbury's. We're going to be finding out from them and understanding what it is that they've been doing at their respective organisations to prioritise and scale some of those accessibility processes. So let's introduce our guests! Heather, let’s start with you. If you could tell us just a bit about yourself and tell us a bit about the structure of Skyscanner and how you're set up to deliver digital products. 

Heather [00:01:10] Hi Jane! Yes, sure. Thanks for having me. I'm Heather. I'm the accessibility lead at Skyscanner, an online travel brand for those of you who don't know us. Travellers use us to find flights, hotels, car hire. And we have a lovely, honest ‘traveller first’ value that we really put a lot of effort into making happen. So we want to be available for all our travellers. And yeah, the way we work, we’re set up in a kind of tribes and squads model across eight offices around the world. So we have about 15 different tribes. An example of one would be like a flight booking tribe. So they look after everything to do with booking flights. That's got maybe nine squads in it, and each squad is made up of six to 10 engineers, maybe a designer, a writer if they're lucky, a product owner. And each tribe is kind of aligned to our company goals. So, yeah, that's how we're structured. So we are kind of all over the world in all of these different small autonomous teams, and a real plus point of working at Skyscanner is the autonomy that these teams have. But, as you say, it does present challenges when you're trying to embed new best practice across the board. 

Jane [00:02:37] Yes. And from what you’ve described there, Heather, there's a lot for you to do across those different distributed teams!

Heather [00:02:44] Absolutely! 

Jane [00:02:45] Great. Thank you for introducing yourself. And Bryn, tell us a bit about you and what you're doing at Sainsbury's. 

Bryn [00:02:51] Hi, yeah. Hello Heather, hello Jane. So as you mentioned, I'm a senior accessibility specialist, which like Heather’s is sort of a role of its own. There's no one else doing that role, but there are lots of people across the business that either champion accessibility or disability under the sort of the wider inclusion banner. So we have a huge colleague network at Sainsbury's. We've got about 200,000 employees across the business, and we have some different networks. One of those is one called the Enable Network. So although there's only myself in the role within the digital space, looking at accessibility, there's quite a lot of people within the business that can sort of feed in and support that. In terms of how we deliver products, we have quite recently moved to an end to end PLM, so product lifecycle management, model within Product and Engineering. So you've got Products and Engineering is one department, and in theory, they've got everything they need to deliver product throughout its lifecycle. So that's in the Tech department. And then we have a Digital department and that's where I actually sit, with the Customer Experience, Design, and other business functions. And those people feed into products and tech. 

Jane [00:04:22] Yeah, brilliant. So you’re working as a function across those different product teams?

Bryn [00:04:26] Exactly, yeah. So within Sainsbury's it's got all of its colleague tools that it builds. So for the fulfillment centres, logistics, and things like that. And it also has its customer-facing brands. So Sainsbury's, Habitat, Tu clothing, Nectar, Argos, and Sainsbury's Bank. And so each of those things pretty much has got, you know, a web based application and an Android and iOS based application. And so Tech kind of own those products, and Experience Design feed in research, UI, and end to end kind of visions into that, journey mapping and things like that.  

Jane [00:05:13] So let's talk a bit about, you know, what are the main sort of challenges that you're finding when it comes to embedding accessibility across those different teams? 

Bryn [00:05:23] So, yeah, I'd say the biggest challenge, it's not unique to a large organisation as such, but it is fundamental to achieving accessible outcomes, is really the kind of the education if you like. Or people understanding what it is, because we just don't learn about it in society. I mean, I've gone through, you know, higher education and I am visually impaired and I didn't learn about accessibility till later in my career. So, you know, it's a bit of an odd one, really. So then there's this expectation that a big company has an accessibility agenda, maybe. But do its workforce – and the bigger the company, the harder that gets – do they really understand what that means in terms of technically achieving it? So I think the first place is like understanding accessibility. What do we mean by accessibility? Do we mean a technical outcome, you know, measured against a standard like Web Content Accessibility Guidelines? Or are we talking about like a disability and inclusion agenda? We want to have an accessible workplace and things like that. So I think, first things first, what are we, what are we talking about, you know, and then defining that.

Jane [00:06:42] Yeah. Heather, how does that resonate with your experiences? 

Heather [00:06:45] Yeah, education is such a key thing. The way I look at it actually, totally agree Bryn, it’s amazing that it's still not discussed in design courses, and even engineers don't learn how to code in an accessible way. I really hope that is about to change. But even when we try and educate our staff, I find that everyone ends up with such varied levels of knowledge. So like we've done training across all of the teams. I spent quite a lot of time training our squads and everyone would be so into it, you know, during the training session and be like, yes, yes, we're going to go and do this now! And some of the teams did and really embraced it, and others kind of forgot about it and got on with the other priorities that they have. And I do find that quite challenging, and particularly because at the moment, our accessibility training is not mandated. So that is something that I'm really keen to try and resolve. So whether that would be part of the onboarding process ideally, or whether it would be down the track or in engineering bootcamps that we do, that kind of thing, I would love it to be mandated. But prioritisation is another challenge because there's so many things that these teams are asked to do. And I think that's when, if we start looking at responsibilities of where accessibility lies, which is a whole topic in itself, that's where the product owners and product managers can really make a difference here. Because when it comes to prioritisation I feel that they hold the key, and they can expect, they should be expecting that accessible design coming in, and they should be expecting that accessible build coming out. And I really feel that those guys are in such key position to make a real difference. But then they're also the ones that have all that pressure coming in from all the other areas of the business…speedy delivery, everything! So, and I guess that brings me on to my other challenge, of how to actually, the fact that it's not embedded into processes. If it was embedded into everyone's standard daily working life, which it really should be, then it wouldn't need to be prioritised. Because it wouldn't be an extra thing, it would be in-built to absolutely everything. But that really needs to be done across the whole board, you know, starting from design. 

Jane [00:09:24] Yeah. And I mean, it's a harder question maybe to answer, but what does that process look like where we have got accessibility prioritised and it is part of our ways of working. What would that process look like, in the ideal? 

Heather [00:09:40] Well, in the ideal! One of my main goals for this year is to solve this problem. I should have said I've been running the programme for two years. When we kicked things off it was really about raising awareness, so I feel that we're in a good place with that. But the next part is building it into the process. And so for me, looking at the very beginning of a project, that requirement stage, you know, when you're starting to create those tickets, building it into those requirements, whether that be, that may be a design brief as well, depending on how different companies work, just considering how people with disabilities use technology and their needs, so starting from that. I want it built into their design briefs. I want the designers to be considering it all along the way, using tools while they're designing to test things like colour contrast and is this going to work through a colour-blind lens? And that kind of thing is really quite straightforward, but it just needs to be part of their design process. And then I want them to hand over the accessibility details to the developers in a way, and we actually progressed quite well with that. But I guess that's the design element and then onto the engineering side. We want them to be building in an accessible way from the start, which is very easy NOT to do…using a design system that is fully accessible would be brilliant. Bryn can talk a lot more about that! And then testing, obviously testing, you know, doing those automated and manual tests. Is it going to work for someone using a screen reader? Actually turn your phone on or turn your voiceover on your computer and listen to it before you think about putting it live. So, yeah, it's right across the board and it really is everybody's responsibility. And I think that's the only time it will genuinely work is when people accept that and actually start doing the embedding. 

Bryn [00:11:46] Yeah, I mean you're absolutely spot on. And I think that there's a huge onus, I think, on senior leadership really to drive the agenda in the first place to allow product teams to prioritise it and for, you know, the various educating teams or the individual departments to spend budget on training that is necessary as well. So I think there is some responsibility there, but I think again, it's about understanding who is responsible for what. And you know, you talked about, like, you can have a designer design something, you know, they're imagining how this whole thing comes together and they provide, they've got hover and focus states, and they've got arrows that say: then this happens, this transition, boom, boom, boom. But if the engineer who's putting that together doesn't understand the significance of coding it in a specific way, then all of those good intentions are lost. And vice versa an engineer can't magically engineer something accessible. I know that you can have an accessible drag and drop kind of thing, but, contentiously! But it's like, what have you given me to work with, you know? And we're just talking about internal teams here. So what about all the agencies? We work with loads and loads of agencies, you know, feeding in and building us microsites and things like that. So what, you suddenly expect them to know your acronyms and your language and your processes. It's extremely challenging. So everyone's got to understand what they're responsible for, if you like, and you've somehow got to kind of document that. And then you can..where I think, especially in engineering, I think they're quite good at that, at building those things into the process. I mean, like introducing accessibility testing within the development pipeline build, for example, to stop, you know, issues even making it out to customers or colleagues, in those tools. That's a really strategic way to stop accessibility issues making it into production, right? And it's a technical solution. So it's like you're speaking their language and they're like: oh, yeah, we can do that because we do that for other QA things as well. It makes total sense. It's efficient. It's scalable. So what is the equivalent for product and what is the equivalent for design? And so it's that whole meeting people in the tools and in the ways that they work, you know? 

Jane [00:14:41] Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say, Bryn. And I think without stereotyping, maybe it's not quite the right word, developers are used to working with documentation and having that as part of their process and reviewing documentation and making sure that things are to a certain spec so that it's, you know, it’s passed, its definition of done, whatever it might be. But I think as designers, as a designer myself, I put my hands up that I hate documentation. I don't want to do it! I don't want to read it. And if I do have to do it, then it needs to be, as you say, Bryn, rpart of the tools that I am already using. I don't want to be jumping between Figma, Confluence, whatever other tools are out there. I want everything in one place so that I can just stay in my flow state for as long as possible and not have to go out of my way to think about it. And I'm sure there are other designers who would put their hand up and say the same.

Heather [00:15:26] That's exactly exactly right, Jane, because we were looking at how to get designers more engaged with this. And yeah, I've written so much documentation. We've got a designer guide. We've got a writer guide, but they're not ready. So we looked at, OK, you guys use Figma. Let's build something in Figma so that it's easy for you to use. So we, first of all, looked at what kind of Figma plugins you could get to do all those checks that designers can do quite quite easily. And then we built a little toolkit of annotations in Figma, just three different ones to mark-up headings, accessibility text, and focus order, keeping it really quite simple to start with. But it's something that they can just go to that left hand bar and just pull out the annotation, drop it onto their design. And even that, even if they don't get it right, even just having a few of them on there, starts that conversation with developers then, of: alright, so we're looking at it from this view as well. What does that look like? And even just to spark those chats, I think, is hugely important. 

Bryn [00:16:41] Yeah. I just want to add to that. So formerly I worked for a company called Site Improve and they sell a suite of products. One of them is an accessibility testing tool and as part of the like, oh, this is the tool, this is what it does, we used to kind of try and visualise this, you know, maturity scale for where a business is: where are you on your accessibility journey? Everyone's on a journey these days, right? So there's an accessibility journey as well. And it's like, how far along are you? You know, if you've never heard of the thing before, then introducing it into development pipeline builds is probably not really where you're at. So what I hear you saying, Heather, is: instead of trying to eat the whole accessibility cake in one go, you know, you take off bits and that's the way that you achieve that, you get places, is a bit at a time, as opposed to the whole thing. 

Heather [00:17:43] That’s a really good way to put it, Bryn. And that reminds me of something that Ted Drake said to me as well when I was interviewing him recently for something. And I said: top tips, Ted? And he's like: just don't try and boil the ocean. And I’m like: you're so right, I'm trying to do that!

Bryn [00:18:00] Yeah, totally! But the thing is, because it's so misunderstood, and to be fair, there are a lot of companies going around there selling compliance solutions and things like that. There's all this misinformation. It's double-edged, because, on one hand, if you say: that's going to cost you a million quid and 10 years of your time, people are going to go: right, well, no thank you! But on the other hand, if you undersell it, then you'll never get anywhere because people won't understand what it is you're trying to achieve. So going back to what I was saying in the beginning, it's so important to really establish a baseline of what it is that we're trying to do within accessibility. Because if you want things to be accessible, you need to acknowledge that you're actually trying to solve a part of society, you know, that doesn't want to look at itself. It's a huge task, so being specific is really, really important 

Heather [00:19:02] also getting people onboard with it, genuinely. So it just shouldn't just be a box checking exercise, it's a: I really want to do that. And I think that empathy building side of things is super important at the beginning as well. So it doesn't feel like a task, an additional task on top of everything else. It's actually: I can make a bit of a difference here and I want to make a difference because I can feel, you know, how that is going to improve someone's life or someone's experience of my product. And that's a challenge in itself: how to build the empathy. 

Bryn [00:19:39] Yeah, I must admit, I don't know if I should be ashamed of this or not, but I do sort of pimp myself out with my disability at work! You know, to drive that, you know, because whether you agree with it or not, it's a very effective thing, if I'm in a room with a stakeholder, and they’re saying: well, who's this all for? And I say: well, you know! And I’m demonstrating how I zoom into things, or how things don't align when I've got magnification settings on and things like. That is super powerful. I think there's charities as well, you know, like the RNIB, who we do some work with. And while we don't have a kind of I suppose, the intention has always been that we would want their beneficiaries to come in and demo stuff to us. And there has been some of that in the past sporadically, but creating some sort of structure where you've got people from the community coming in, especially for businesses like ours, Heather, you know, demonstrating what it is like. That's really important. 

Heather [00:20:48] And testing with people with disabilities is so useful as well. And to tie that in with what you're saying, just, you know, getting that lived experience and being able to watch someone even struggling with your product, it’s so powerful then to be able to share that around the company. 

Bryn [00:21:08] Yeah, and it will go a long way. And you know, it’s easy for someone to demonstrate what it's like to use a screen reader, but that has nothing on someone who uses a screen reader demonstrating what it's like to use a screen reader. And you’ll get years out of that, you know, if you get a good session! You could use that over and over and over again. I mean, that could be your single most important resource, so it definitely shouldn't be underestimated. 

Heather [00:21:33] Yeah, I think that is such an important part of the empathy building as well as, it's the more shocking side of it, though, isn't it, of seeing people really not able to do what you expect everyone is able to do? 

Bryn [00:21:44] Yeah, it's like where something was hypothetical now becomes actual reality, right? And I think that you could say that, you know, GDPR or something like that, or security, you know, until you have that security breach, you're like: why are we investing all this money, you know? And it's sort of that whole light bulb moment. It's really important for people to be able to visualise something in reality and not just sort of theoretically.

Jane [00:22:11] That’s exactly it, Bryn. I think it's making it real. Like, as you said, you've talked about, you can have compliance, GDPR, all these things that feel kind of abstract. And yes, we need to do them for legal reasons, but from a motivation point of view, and for really pulling at hearts and minds, it's not going to get everyone. Those people who are responsible for these legal things. Yes, they know it needs to happen. But as soon as you make it real and people can see this is a real problem that people are facing and you bring it to the people's attention, I think that's where you really hit home with people. We've talked about a lot here. So we started talking about challenges and I think we've already nicely moved into the next bit I wanted to cover, which was around, you know, what strategies do you have to try and influence or overcome them? And you know, you've talked about educating and making sure that everyone's on the same, that same level of understanding of what do we mean by accessibility? We talked about, Heather, you gave us examples of building it into processes, having been relevant handover documentation, how do we bring it into the tools people are already using, and empathy building. There's tons of stuff we’ve talked about here, but before we move on. Is there anything else you would mention from a way to overcome some of these challenges that you think we haven't even talked about? 

Bryn [00:23:19] I think, yes, there is actually. And I think it's something someone in my department said to me when I said: oh, I'm doing this podcast and they said: oh, well definitely mention the fact that, from her perspective, me making accessibility something totally, bringing into the mainstream in the sense that it is just people trying to do things, that's all it is. It doesn't need to be disabled people and and like taboos and like lawsuits and all of that stuff! It is just people trying to do things. And when you know, when you work for retail and one of those brands is a supermarket, it's like people are just trying to buy their shopping, you know? And I think that that can help break down the ‘us and them’ complex that I think people do struggle with a little bit around disability. Apple and Android provide accessibility features as part of all of their phones. Every single one, so they know precisely how many people are using those features. So going on that sort of train of thought it would be logical to think that those are valuable features that people need in order to use and engage with digital products. So think about it in those terms. So why has my phone got large font setting? Well, because people need that to look at digital products, so maybe you should support large font settings. It removes the whole disability thing, and you're just supporting features that people use as part of their everyday. 

Jane [00:24:56] Yeah, there’s data out there that exists to inform us and tell us what percentage of our customer base are using these features and therefore, why are we ignoring that, basically? That’s a super powerful argument to bring to anyone really. Heather, is there anything that you would add in terms of any other sort of strategies that people can be considering to overcome some of these challenges?

Heather [00:25:19] Yeah. So thinking about that just in practical terms, you know, building empathy. We managed to run a few empathy labs in our Glasgow, London, and Edinburgh offices, and they were probably the most powerful thing that we've done. We had different stations set up around the room where we simulated different disabilities. And I always have to say when I mentioned this, there is nothing better than talking to a person with  real lived experience of disability. This was more a way of allowing people, everyone in the office to come in at any point in the day, sit down in front of a laptop or with a mobile phone, and we were giving them tasks to do on our products. So book a flight from here to here at this time of night while using like a pair of glasses that simulate cataracts, for example, and see the problems that that was, or even holding holding a toy baby in their hands and trying to navigate just by using the keyboard with one hand without having a trackpad. So things like that. It was such a powerful, powerful thing and everyone was like, oh, I had no idea. So it really brought that knowledge instantly that, you know, people were just amazed at the struggle that some people actually would be feeling. So that was a really positive way of doing it. And I think the other thing I would say is just in terms of speaking to real people, we've just built in, we have a new product testing framework where we're going to kind of do this product testing on a rolling kind of cycle. So, every three weeks we'll be talking to five or six travellers. And it's a simple thing we're screening for people and we're just going to screen for people with disabilities so that we make sure that one in every five or six people that we're testing with has a different disability. And it's just going to reflect society, it’s going to be more real, and we will learn so much. I know that we will. 

Jane [00:27:21] Yeah, definitely. And it comes back to what we're saying earlier in the conversation around, you know, if our processes are set up to make sure that we're considering accessibility from the beginning, including in our testing, including in a discovery or upfront research that we're doing to feed into a product strategy, then you know, we're making sure that we're not missing, that we're going to have these gaps because we're doing it. We're doing it in the right way by making sure that we're including everybody in those conversations. So I think that's a really great start and a powerful thing that you can be moving towards, building that into the ways of working across the organisation. So the other thing that we've been talking about, I know we've spoken about this before, and we could probably talk about it forever is this idea of responsibility. I think that's a word I keep hearing from both of you. But I guess what would be your take on how is it that you get others to buy into it and take ownership of accessibility? We have you done to try and encourage or build that? 

Heather [00:28:22] Yeah, that's a tricky one! Bryn, do you want to go first? 

Jane [00:28:24] Yeah, who wants to go first!

Bryn [00:28:27] Mm-Hmm. I mean, something comes to mind, so I'll just quickly share that. So when a new customer experience designer comes into the business, I set up a call with them to say hello and talk about accessibility and what we kind of do, and I try to set out an expectation that you are a customer experience designer, you own the experience of whatever it is that you're working on, and that includes everyone. So when that experience doesn't work for someone for whatever reason, that's on you. If you've given something to an engineer and explained it to them and then what they've built doesn't work, that's OK. That's for them to sort out. But if you don't know why your product doesn't work for someone for whatever reason, then it's your problem to solve, you know? And it might be quite an abstract concept for people at the beginning until you've actually got something to work with as an example. But I think it is important, you know, to set some expectations. So in the same way that engineering managers own, you know, the the quality of the code of all of their engineers. And if there are bugs and issues, that’s on them, and accessibility is no different.  

Heather [00:30:03] I agree with that and actually something that we've done very recently to try and tackle that specific thing about engineering is we we've got a new tool where we can do audits of different parts of our website and mobile website. And we've actually set up about 90 different tests that cover most of the main pages and main flows. And we now report on that. So we run an automated audit and we track it once a week and those results now go out to the entire business. So the entire business can see, it actually goes down to squad level, so we can see that that sqaud over there, the work that they're producing, is sitting at 85 percent accessible because the tool we're using pumps out a score. And it's just a really effective way. I'm hoping, as we've just started it, so I can maybe come back to you in six months time and let you know, but I it's going to be really effective, because everyone can see engineers do love a bit of kind of: oh, there's a bit of a leaderboard 

Bryn [00:31:04] gamification, isn't it? 

Heather [00:31:05] Yeah. Trying to get further up in the leaderboards. You know, being able to see who's doing this really well will help others actually go out to them and get some help. The tool actually also produces a lovely report with all the details in there, and it helps them understand the problems and understand how to fix those problems. So that's a big thing that we've just launched.  

Bryn [00:31:28] So similarly, we did this sort of dashboard thing with some open source tooling and that was initially like sort of like, Oh, who's doing well has allowed us to have more and more conversations internally with stakeholders. And that's now led to us having a mandatory technical standard that we've introduced, which requires all product teams to have an accessibility testing strategy, which they have to evidence. So I think, you know, having something that monitors the performance of things is really valuable. It's essentially it's saying, look, there's an issue that's have a discussion. And so it doesn't it's not necessarily, you know, the be all and end all, but it's a super powerful thing to be able to measure progression over time. 

Jane [00:32:19] Oh, yeah, yeah, that's that measurement and also making it visible. So having a dashboard like you describe is that visibility of it and everyone having access to to see that data.

Heather [00:32:28] From a broader perspective as well, something that's really helped us as well, is having our accessibility champions network. So we're looking at ways to formalise ours at the moment, actually, because we have a wonderful group of, I think, 20 to 30 active champions from all across the business, so there’s engineers and there’s designers, writers, office managers and lawyers, people from our social media teams marketing everywhere, really. And that's a brilliant thing to have because they are the voice of our disabled travellers in all of those areas to, you know, get other people on board and do whatever they can in their areas. So what we're really keen to do now is make more of that. So make it an official framework that's part of our business with an onboarding process where people can be allowed to spend time on accessibility through this network, which I think will really help, and the bigger, the more we can grow it, the more awareness there is across the business, the more adoption of best practices. I really think it’s the way to go. Particularly when there's not an accessibility team, there’s only me and, Bryn, there’s kind of only you as well, isn’t there?

Bryn [00:33:42] Yeah, yeah. And I think you're touching on something really nice, you know, which is that you don't, the first thing you do doesn't need to be, you know, getting the chequebook out and going to an agency. You can start at home with your with your workforce and your colleague base. There will be people in who work for you who have a disability or an impairment or condition or a carer. You know, that's just a fact. So it's kind of, you know, not saying going around, demanding people say what's wrong with them! But at the same time, you can start there and start to build up a network, and we have one which we're looking to now build like a colleague of, sorry, a panel of sort of colleague experts for it to be like, you know, consultants for product. So they would there would be drivers and work within marketing or whatever. But the plan is that we just start to use our own workforce. It's a bit more to create that empathy and understanding, you know? 

Heather [00:34:51] And that even comes from allies as well. So our network that there are people in there with hidden disabilities, for sure, but many, many of our champions are allies of the network and people who are really passionate about doing something good. So yeah, it can be anybody who’s interested. 

Jane [00:35:13] Yeah, I think it's a really good point of starting with your workforce, who is it that we can include and bring on that journey to start taking a bit of ownership? So I'll have to start to wrap us up! Even though I know we could for ages about so many things. And we could go so deep, on so many things. But to sort of wrap us up and to conclude, what would be your top advice, do you think, for companies who are trying to approach looking at accessibility in a future looking way and a scalable way? 

Heather [00:35:42] Well, I would say, well there’s so many things! But I think the biggest thing that’s the most effective thing is to bake it into your processes. And by that I mean all of your product development processes. So that is your user testing, your design, your content writing, your build, your testing. Everywhere it should just become part of normal day to day work and part of what you do. So I think that's the kind of end goal, and it's very, very difficult to get there. But I think that having that, built in, would be my top aim for scalability, certainly. 

Jane [00:36:31] Yeah, yeah. What about yourself, Bryn? What would you say? 

Bryn [00:36:34] Oh, it's really tough. I’d say you can do a top down or you can come from the roots up, the bottom up. You can approach people on their level like I've been talking about. You can talk to engineers about problem-solving and probably get quite far with a product or a squad or a team who just like the challenge. Find a team that are keen to do it because they like the challenge of doing it. And then they would become the kind of the poster child or whatever for the rest of the business. Alternatively, you go and you do some empathy building with senior leadership team to say: look, this is what we know. The one in five people, here’s all the data, here’s the Purple Pound. You know, you want to go after this, and kind of approach it that way. Either with the goal of having some sort of policy that drives what Heather is talking about: process and change, and all of that. Or the other approach like I was saying is you try and get something done and then present it back. But both of those sound really difficult, to be honest, talking about them right now, so. 

Heather [00:37:58] And if you're more, if you're more accessible tomorrow than you are today then you're on the right track. 

Jane [00:38:03] You know what, the thing that I think has stuck to me from what you've both said, and you had your metaphor Bryn around chunks of the cake you're eating, and Heather what you heard recently about don’t try and boil the ocean. I feel like, as you say, this is massive. It's such a huge topic. There are so many challenges. But yeah, I think the key takeaway almost is: don't try and boil the ocean, understand where you are at your current point in the journey at your organisation, start from there, and, you know, chip away. 

Bryn [00:38:35] Yeah, definitely. And understand what it is you're asking of people. You know, I think, if you give people the wrong impression about what they're embarking on, if you’re not clear about what this is, what you're asking of a business, I think that can be really damaging to your long term effort. So really understand what it is that you're asking. I think it's also important, you know? 

Jane [00:39:01] Yeah. Well, that is all we have time to talk about today, unfortunately, because again, you know, there's so much we could all talk about! Thank you both so much for your time in this episode. The insights have been invaluable. And we'll definitely have to chat about this again at some point. 

Heather [00:39:17] Thank you for having us. 

Bryn [00:39:18] Thank you very much.