Building a locally global digital program in Qatar

What does it take to build a digital program that is both local in its focus and global in its reach? Qatar Museums (QM) oversee several museums and sites that feature local and regional art and artists and encapsulate Qatar's rich cultural heritage. In 2020, a new Digital Experience team was established and tasked with developing a digital strategy and program that put local and regional audiences at its core, while bringing Qatar’s unique perspective to an international audience. This conversation covers the strategy and goals of the team, as well as the implications of building new capabilities and expanded skillsets within the organization — all during a global pandemic. Track:Middle East/Africa

Transcript

Unknown Speaker 00:35
Hi, my name is Allegra Burnette, I am the principal of ABA, which is a Allegra Burnette and Associates. It's a museum consultancy and I'm here today and thrilled to be here in person with Shaikha Al-Thani, who is the Deputy CEO of digital experience and audience engagement at Qatar museums and Matthijs Klinkert, who is the CEO and principal of fabric, which is a agency based in Amsterdam. First of all, this is thrilling to be able to be in person and see your faces without a mask on, so I'm very excited to be here, but I'm hoping I'm wondering if maybe we could start with a little bit of an introduction from you all maybe Matthijs you could start in just a little bit more of your who you are, your background and a little bit more about fabric.

Unknown Speaker 16:08
Well thank you for that graph for this introduction lecture My name is Matthijs Klinkert I'm CEO and principal of fabric. We have been around for like almost 30 years as a designer etc and have been into the digital business for the last 25 years, almost as old as the internet itself. And we are actually very specialized in the digital museums and digital cultural heritage, in general, and well about me, myself, I have a background in Industrial Design Engineering and therefore I'm still pretty much doing what I was trained to do as a design agency, okay, and checker. Sure.

Unknown Speaker 16:54
So I actually started off at Qatar museums in the marketing and branding department, and I have a background in marketing itself so I've been there for about 10 years before I transitioned over to digital. And I really started that transition when I was living in New York I was there for about three years, and I did my masters in on Pratt Institute's Arts and Cultural Management course and I worked at the Whitney and that really opened up my eyes to digital in the museum world. And so when we came back here to guitar, we decided to start up the department.

Unknown Speaker 17:26
Great, wonderful, and I would say that, um, so my group ABA associates. We are, you know, a group that's based sort of around the world and have had the opportunity to work with Qatar museum since we started the conversations at the end of 2018 and since that time there's been really a lot of change and development and I'm wondering, you know, for people who don't know about Qatar museums maybe Shaikha, you could tell us a little bit about the organization and its role.

Unknown Speaker 17:54
Yeah sure, so kitchawan museums actually started in 2005, and it's an arts and cultural organization a government organization that was started, that's led by Shahab Moussa Thani who is our chairperson, and it's really there to oversee a variety of museums, public art 9000 heritage sites including a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as the bada public art, temporary exhibitions are creative hubs as well so am seven are technology and Fashion Incubator tel sweeter photography Festival, and multiple festivals that are also coming on board, and so guitar museums, really exist to provide authentic cultural experiences for the people in Qatar, but also from an inside out perspective showcase everything that we're doing and create Qatar as a destination for arts and culture in a global stage.

Unknown Speaker 18:51
Great. And is there a kind of a real connection or it sounds like there's a whole bunch of different things happening. So what is the connection I think between maybe the different museums and and the different initiatives that you've been talking about.

Unknown Speaker 19:05
I think the interesting thing about guitar museums is that inside out approach so everything that we're creating is original and there is a connection between everything that we do so we started off really with the arts and culture sector, and that's really tied into Qatar's national vision of building a knowledge economy. That really looks at how can we equip the people in the citizens of Qatar to then support the diversification of the economy, and starting off with the foundation of arts and culture has then led us to also look at the creative economy and how we can diversify that, and that's opened up our doors, you know the past 15 years we've now started to look at the creative hub so the Fashion Incubator, the firestation artists and residents and how we can support the notion of the the Nationals here, as well as the locals that live here in building the the economy.

Unknown Speaker 20:00
And when, when we first started working with, with QM one of the first documents we looked at, remember was the national vision 2030 Which, you know, still, even now is still pretty far out and so it my sense is that there's a real thinking about not just what's happening this month this year the next couple of years but really long term thinking. And can you talk a little bit about that.

Unknown Speaker 20:25
Yeah, it's not that far off.

Unknown Speaker 20:28
I can't get it we hear that, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 20:32
Yeah, so the whole idea of Qatar museums, is to support that. And so, when, when we think about everything that we're investing in. It's really to look at how we can support the people, and how we can build the infrastructure to do that so there's actually a lot of proof points. Now, which did not exist 10 years ago, if we look at Qatar, there are galleries that that aren't led by Qatar museums and that never existed. We've supported a lot of artists that now have international recognition that that has never happened. A lot of our collection has also traveled abroad. And we have a lot of international artists coming here as well and supporting us. And the idea of the Creative Economy all the universities that you see so UCL which has Museum Studies VCU that looks at fashion. And we also have HBK au the university that looks like digital humanities. A lot of these things did not exist in the past and now they've existed. And so there's still a lot for us to, to reach but you can slowly start seeing the proof points, and 2030 is not the end point, it's really just the foundation that Qatar is setting, but then there is going to be another phase of how to grow that country. So Qatar museums plays a really important role in cultural tourism as well, and all of that.

Unknown Speaker 22:00
And and I think that ties nicely into this conversation around digital because, you know, digital, is, is, you know, both been around for a while but also emerging at the same time, and, you know, when you think about the digital experience department which you are heading up. It's been around since oh all of what a year and a half now. And, and, you know only actually had more than, you know, you and your cell do and one other person for about a year so, but obviously you know digital is a big, big support role and all of that. So I guess I'm curious to think about you know why a digital experience department and why now.

Unknown Speaker 22:41
Yeah, I mean I think Qatar museums went through the same, you know, the same story that a lot of organizations went through our audiences are online now. And what do you do when our audiences are online, we have to start moving our content we have to start moving our promotion online as well and our connection with our audiences. I think for Qatar museums we really saw the online space as a blank slate, which we could then bring our collections to life and bring our stories to life, not just for an international global audience but also a local audience, all of our museums are a treasure trove of content, and at the moment unless you actually are here and visiting our museums. There's no other place to experience that content. And so we really wanted to make sure that we, we built a space for that, and that's where the digital the idea of a digital department came through. And I think you know, if we look at the history of QM and I'm sure a lot of organizations have gone through this digital existed, but in silos and it existed. It was the responsibility of marketing and IT, and the curators, and as we know that usually doesn't work. And so we really needed to bring it all together into one department and you know that's that's what we did and in doing so we're able to have more of an oversight over our strategy where we want to be our content creation, and our engagement with our audiences, and I like what you were there in the very beginning when we started thinking about digital so be interesting to hear about your take on this.

Unknown Speaker 24:13
Well yeah, no thank you, it was it was great because there was a lot of conversations that I think digital was happening in little pockets and, and part of the, the work that we were doing was, was forming that and helping QM form that into an overarching digital strategy and. And out of that was very much this need to move toward move along a path of digital maturity and one of the stops along the way and that path is really the sort of bringing those skill sets and that expertise together in a more centralized way so that you can start to do knowledge sharing, you can start to build up processes and workflows, you can you can sort of get your arms around the whole thing before you can actually then start to really embed it or, or do you know go into more about kind of hub and spoke model and where you've got, you know pocket, go back to those pockets of digital happening around so you know when we worked to develop the strategy and the digital experience team was really a big component of that in order to make that come to fruition. You know you don't want to do a strategy and then have it go sitting in a desk drawer forever and sometimes that happens and I think what's been great for us to see and be a part of is, is the fact that that strategy within two to three months, you know the team, you were you were sort of brought into it, to lead the team are, and then started immediately thinking about recruitment, and we immediately started thinking about you know the projects that was the mission. And oh by the way, you know, somewhere in there this thing called a pandemic happened. So you know all of this really has happened since, since early last year. So before you know I bring Matthijs into the conversation, it would be great to hear a little bit about your thoughts about that approach toward recruitment and staffing the team. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 26:00
so we really spent a lot of time thinking about how do we structure a digital team. I think there's a lot of models across different museums but also across different for profit organizations. What we landed on is five main sections. And they're separated out of sections right now in our org chart but they're really cross functional teams within the larger departments. And so we have an innovations team, we have a digital products team, a digital content team, a digital production team, and digital research and analytics team.

Unknown Speaker 26:33
And are they all, you know, local Qatar's are hot, what's the you know what was the sort of recruitment approach in that regard,

Unknown Speaker 26:41
A little bit of both. So, like you said like Greg, you know, digital is something very new. It's super new and guitar. And so, the local talent pool hasn't necessarily caught up. So our strategy for that has always been for the senior positions up top let's recruit experts internationally, that can help then train the local the local recruits into that taking over these senior positions, and so really wanted to take on a hand, a hands on approach if we couldn't find them in the universities, let's hire them if they have an interest in digital let's train them and then build them up to what they could be

Unknown Speaker 27:18
true. And I think this is where you know working with outside partners and agencies like fabric really comes into play too because so Metatag you know you've been working with international museum clients for a long time. Perhaps one of the most famous smaller ones Rights Museum and really sort of, that was a kind of watershed moment for digital museums, but working with a lot of and that one one while International to us was in your backyard, but thinking about you know working with clients around the world. You know what, what are you seeing and how, you know what has been surprising or or of note as you've started to work with Qatar, especially given that this is your first time actually getting here in person.

Unknown Speaker 28:05
Visiting New Museum we've been working for for what is it now, almost two years. Well, that's a, that's a great question. I think there's three things that sprung to mind about working with the Qatari, and especially for Qatar museums. And I'm going to touch about on a few things. Shaikha already mentioned, it's first and foremost, ambition, thrilled, always, as, as design agency leader by ambition at clients, and if I have to measure up, ambition in Qatar when it comes to the cultural sector. It's, it's almost fearless. You know what, where, European museums are happy to instigate a New Museum one. There's a New Museum every year here, and on a, on a scale and a level that is what appears. So, I'm really struck by that and, and, therefore, really a great pleasure to work with all these people that are equally ambitious. So, the second, second thing that Shaikha mentioned and I think that is also where we come from strategy to actually doing thing so as a digital design agency I'm more often than not, on the tactical level. We are asked as designers to kind of translate strategy into tactical things to do. So when it comes to, you know, acting local with the international outreach, this is exactly what we have been doing and what is so fundamental, in our experience with the Qatar team and the Qatar Museum's team. I don't think there's, in this region, another country, that is focusing so much on the wall in this region. To start with, and I was so that's that's a great inspiration, and at the same time we really try to bring that to the international world through the digital channel, so that's really where the strategy becomes tactical and becomes real. And that's the beauty of our business, of course, we, we get to make things real.

Unknown Speaker 30:22
Yeah, you know, just to piggyback on that too. I think what's interesting when you start to work on these digital projects is, you know first and foremost it's like who is the audience who is this for, and I think it's it's been very clear from the organ organizationally and also you know in some of the brand work that was happening at the same time it was very consistent as a sort of locally global audience you know first and foremost local but but with that global outreach and all of that. And I think that's that clarity for me has been really helpful and really important so it's and just to have that sort of distillation, always in your mind has been, has been really a nice guiding guiding principle I think we both found in that.

Unknown Speaker 31:03
Yeah, so, but what's the second thing that really struck me in working here in Qatar. The third thing I would have to say maybe it would have even had to be the first thing that I would mention are the people that we work with. So, we touched upon the, the emergence of the digital experience team. It is. It's been really great to be part of the process of hiring these people and getting into this design process we are more than ever, building the plane as we fly together with all these new people getting on board, and yeah, it's a great joy to to work with them and maybe touching upon what Sager just said about the D team. I think here at Qatar museums, you actually have a, you know you're ahead because in MANY of the places where I work, and that may even be corporate organization, a digital team is not the standard is the exception to the rule, because digital crosses lines, no matter what people want, and therefore it's so nice to have this digital experience team working from that notion. And I, I'm really happy to be working with that team.

Unknown Speaker 32:18
I mean, you mentioned, you know, building the plane as, as we're flying and so, you know, maybe we could talk a little bit about, you know the work over the last year, year and a half during, you know, during the pandemic and all, you know, first and foremost I think has been the a new version of the Qatar museums website, which really is forming a foundation or a base for building all of these online platforms. I don't know Chico, do you want to touch on that a little better or,

Unknown Speaker 32:48
yeah, yeah, sure. So, I mean like you said it was the foundation, we needed to build that website we needed to build that digital platform, because that was really the first manifestation of our digital strategy was to build that. So once we're able to build the Qatar museums website and decentralized platform we're able to create the content that we want to create tell the stories, and also bring together all the different museums and all of our different collections all together in one place and I think that was really important for us to do. And so, you know, we've worked with you, like Ron we've worked with fabric to to bring this together and you know we're really proud that we launched the website and the spring in the summer. In the summer of this year it was this year. The summer has no meaning. And so we're very we're really proud of that and you know, we do have an ambitious ambitious plan and by the spring of 2022, all of our entities operational entities are going to have new websites.

Unknown Speaker 33:48
So I mean it's it's it's really interesting because it's a lot of things happening almost simultaneously. We actually just had a little bit of a meeting, but how do we keep all these things going in track. But I think what's interesting too is once you have that foundation, there's, there's the ability to both, you know, it's both the sum of the parts and also the individual organ, you know, pieces of the organization so you know there's an individual museum site, but the calendar that's on that museum site will be part of an overall QM site, which sort of is an aggregator of all that activity because I think that's one of the things that we I think we all recognized was, you know, there's so much happening all around, but how do you find out about it all at once, how do you get insight to the relationship the connections, the activities and to be able to do that with this umbrella site so it's not just a, it's not sort of just a corporate site it's actually sort of this aggregator hub of all of this stuff that's happening all around, all around the country and all around the organization. I don't think I had a question in there but it's more of just, just an observation but. So now that we have, or now that we will have I guess this sort of foundation. What next, I mean next year is quite a year coming

Unknown Speaker 35:05
up. Yeah. So next year is a big year for Qatar museums but also figure for Qatar because we're hosting the World Cup. So like I said, By the spring of 2022 We're gonna have all these new websites launch. So once these websites are launched our role is Digital's changes, we're no longer building new things we're now, enhancing where we're growing. And so, there's, there's going to be a big shift with the team and the way that they currently work, but there's also going to be a big shift in terms of our output and what we deliver. And so a big focus area for us for next year will be the content, the storytelling, we're going to have about the last number I heard was like 2.7 million tourists coming to Qatar next year. And so there's a huge opportunity there for us to showcase our stories. Bring, bring forth our collections and our heritage sites. But also, you know partner up with, you know the Qatar, National Tourism Council or the FIFA and the supreme committee have to deliver the World Cup. Our partner network and making sure that our experiences the cultural experiences in Qatar, make it to the visitors that are coming so that's going to be a huge focus is how do we bring all of our programming to these people, but also how do we bring our stories out in the open,

Unknown Speaker 36:31
and how do we provide that sort of technical support and flexibility in order to be able to meet all those needs right now lies the challenge so well and I guess, you know, in thinking about sort of the work that has been done to date and through this ambition for the future. You know, maybe we could just, and given that it was all during a pandemic and remote, you know, are there any, any, you know, things that you are particular things that you've learned from that or things that you wish you would know now that we sort of learned painfully along the way or any any sort of observations about that, maybe more. So, yeah, sure.

Unknown Speaker 37:12
Well, one thing that I've really learned, or maybe found out again during the pandemic and in such a big project that we had to really reinvent ourselves on the spot. From one day to the other everything went off the table and we had to, you know our flights went away and we wouldn't be going to, they'll have it we weren't going to make this great project. Instead, in the end, it's the people in the museums that that make for what it actually is this museum so what I've learned is interviewing and talking to people, a lot, an event, investing a lot of time in India stocks, and even online. That gives you a pretty good idea of what you are going to make and whom you are doing it for. Because in the end you're not building digital experiences for stones, although there are beautiful stumps beautifully crafted out of the ordinary, but we are making stuff around an idea of a collection and several ideas in several collections, and I learned again that, that the people really get into you and you make this connection and then you're going to make great things. So,

Unknown Speaker 38:26
that's possible to do, wherever they are, wherever they are right yeah so whatever timezone whatever our

Unknown Speaker 38:35
meeting in five different time zones, regularly. So that's the challenge

Unknown Speaker 38:40
in that whole project from A to Zed was done virtually, and this is our first time meeting the first time yeah

Unknown Speaker 38:47
so well, we put up some fun worse opportunities, exactly.

Unknown Speaker 38:52
But yeah any any sort of observations or thoughts about.

Unknown Speaker 38:56
Yeah, yeah, I think it was really interesting for us because not only did we start a large project virtually but we also recruited, virtually, and we have to start the team in that way as well. So I think what was what was really helpful for us is to figure out what that structure was so what how do we communicate. You know what are the tools that we're using. I think that was really, really important for us to figure out early on and we tested a lot of things at the beginning until we actually landed on what worked for us. But once we figured it out it was smooth sailing from there.

Unknown Speaker 39:30
And I think I think testing that out makes reminds me that, you know, this was also about learning and doing things within an agile iterative way, which is new for the organization right and so and so not only are we building a new team, but But working in a way that, you know, that people across the organization, aren't familiar with and I think, you know, It's been, it's been great to see the the openness and I think receptivity to that new way of working, but you know it's also it, you know at all takes a little bit of getting used to right I

Unknown Speaker 40:05
know situation is the same sorry if you are learning it remotely, together with a new team of people in five different time zones that means something different than when you're in one place sitting on the desk with one physical board.

Unknown Speaker 40:18
Yeah. Well, and, you know, it's sort of having to be agile about agile. So now I think that kind of brings us to a little bit of a conclusion for our conversation but any any last thoughts that, you know, you'd like to share. Yeah, go for it so, so Matthijs has, has just arrived off the plane we're sitting here in the National Museum of Qatar which he is only seen the outside of and and we'll see in person tomorrow but yeah and and virtually, but it's, you know, so we're sort of at this capturing you at this very interesting moment of of your experience with the

Unknown Speaker 41:00
why I let me conclude by saying, I think there's still a lot to be done, and, and great things to achieve and I have. I'm very much looking forward to working in particularly particular on the collections of all the museums, and Qatar museums as a whole, because that's where there's still a lot of magic to be done, and digital experience to be had, and to be thought of

Unknown Speaker 41:29
connections across collect connections across

Unknown Speaker 41:31
collections, because that's truly a great opportunity to work for

Unknown Speaker 41:36
me. Yeah, I think for me, What strikes me the most when I think about the digital experience department is, I think no one really tells you that it's a change management role. It's a very challenging change management role, and there's a lot of boundaries that you're, you're pushing and you're breaking and no one really prepares you for that. And so, you know, doing it in a large and complex organization takes a lot of time, but I think what was really interesting is you know, last week I saw people putting up post it notes on the wall and I got really excited because I was like oh my gosh look at us we influence something, and people are starting to use our project management systems and the way that we're working. So there is, it's a slow influence that happens but once the more we start working with people, the more we started collaborating, the more we break down these barriers and the more people started adapting to working agile and also working for the audience first rather than the product first.

Unknown Speaker 42:36
When and sometimes it feels slow but then, you know, when we stop and reflect sort of all of the things that have happened over the last year, year and a half. It's actually quite fast yeah for digital time and especially digital museums, you know for me it's really been gratifying to see, you know, not only what's been done but but be able to start to see where we're going with it, you know, we're now that there's a, there's a sort of tangible there there we can start to do analytics and learn from it, do user testing understand how people are reacting to things and start to iterate. So I think it's a, it's a very exciting time to be working with the organization. It's a very exciting time for the country, and looking forward to what comes next. So with that I think will conclude. Thank you both very much for joining the conversation. And thank you all for listening.

Unknown Speaker 43:36
Hi. So, we are live now. Thank you for watching the recording and staying with us. Unfortunately, the reason we did the pre recording is that Shaikha Al-Thani couldn't be with us this evening it's evening here. But, Matthijs and I are here live. We are actually in the same city we're just not in the same actual location at the moment, sometimes it's easier to do that with Zoom. But we'd love to answer any questions that you may have. So either feel free to put them in the chat, or if maybe you can you can certainly activate your, your video and we can make it a little bit more casual, but I guess while we're waiting to see if anything comes in. Matthijs So you finally had a chance today to go actually into the galleries and see the National Museum of guitar. So how was that experience and, you know, after seeing it only digitally and working on it only digitally, Up to this point.

Unknown Speaker 44:42
I think it's hard to put words on that, I thought about this, they actually. And you kind of create a vision of something that you work for, and you think you know what it is, and then you're actually there and then it's, in some way, exactly how you imagined it would be. And then, and then it's totally not the same. So, it's much bigger and much more impressive, especially the National Museum of Qatar has a lot of interactive setups and things to do, to watch with big visual that's something you will never get, you know, if you go to an art museum, you know what that collection is their works of art they have. So the National Museum of Qatar was really was really quite impressive to visit. In MANY ways, and I still have to kind of digest it.

Unknown Speaker 45:42
Well and Christoph will say, I see is on the, on the call as well so who knows all of those installations, very intimately having, having coordinated all of those disparate productions and things like that so it's great to see all that worker stuff though,

Unknown Speaker 46:00
exciting to have you in town, and I'm going to give you a tour of the Sports Museum tomorrow so it's will be very interested to have your feedback about the National Museum, that I was working before that. And I truly agree with your, your statements about the ambition of Qatar because I don't know if you've noticed on the side of the road, where it says like the motto of Public Works authority is Qatar deserves the best, and in a way you you see itself and everywhere on the project. Well, go ahead, Matthijs, definitely true. Go ahead.

Unknown Speaker 46:47
And, You know it's interesting to be here right now because there's, there's a huge amount of roadwork and construction going on so it's, it's definitely a time of change and things like that. But we, it does look like we have a question here about project management systems used in such a massive collection of projects that is a great question, and I have to say. So part of, part of my group ABA. We have a project manager, who, product manager who and program manager, sort of organizing all of it, who is, who was on the ground in Doha and I have to say that's been, from my perspective, that's been a really key piece of being able to connect the strategy with the execution for the work that we've been doing. And and she's really been that kind of point person between the QM teams and fabric and all that sort of the glue between all of those so very organized very busy project manager and we did actually go through sort of iterations of how best to manage this, and, and the the product actually that we ended up with fairly early on, you know, we looked at Trello, a lot of us have used Trello particularly. Some people had used Asana in the past, but we ended up using a product called clickup. And part of the reason why I particularly liked clickup Is it, it sort of brings all those things together and it allows you to look at different views of projects, and there are phases and and different ways to filter it so you can look at one particular project, you can look at all the projects together you can look at Canvas boards you can do it by Gantt charts you can do it by only things that are assigned to you and you know they're there, all sorts of different filters and so for us, I think it's become really this kind of core tool that we've been using even, you know the content team is using it to, To track the flow of, you know, drafting, writing, editing proofing and then getting something translated into Arabic and then publishing it online. So, you know, so it's been, I think really helpful for all different kinds of pieces, but also in terms of being able to give a more executive summary as well so that's to me always the challenge about project management systems is like, you need the nitty gritty of like what am I need to, what do I need to do today, you need the kind of, you know, the, the week in the month view and you also need that kind of executive view. In order to be able to help the stakeholders understand what the progress is and so and so that I you know I think for us has been been really a key, a key project and a lot of mural boards, I mean we've been using our today, we were using it. A lot of us were actually in person. But, but doing a lot, you know, replacing those on the wall posts with mirror boards, and, and really Maxi yen or euro boards

Unknown Speaker 49:56
is definitely, I don't know, maybe, maybe, maybe I can add to that a little bit because, you know, as for MANY of you, it's probably true. There was something you learned during the pandemic is that there's a big focus on on these project management online tools like Miro and clickup is, is a great actually a pretty great tool like JIRA for managing projects, but you also and you, you only learn that after a couple of months, you lose the personal discussions, quickly like the physicality of putting things on a wall, and no matter how great I think Miro works and has done a tremendous, great job, I wouldn't know how to have done workshops, online without it. Still, nothing beats a good old wall with both sets and drawings on the wall and standing around it and talking about it, it's just different. And so, yeah, but I think sparked a whole lot of a whole generation of new tools that work really well

Unknown Speaker 50:56
yeah well and and our you know our project managers. We had the opportunity to see her at home office the other day and it had it had all the posts on the wall so even though she was working entirely digital he had her own posted to the wall so yes I agree with you. But I think that also brings up one thing too, and thinking about multiple projects is, you know, really thinking through kind of swimlanes of projects, and, and the cadence of them and because you know you'll have things that are you know things that need immediate fixing or need to be addressed immediately versus, versus sort of these longer term initiatives or, you know, Sprint, sprint level things or or something that is maybe a long, a long burn project and so I think I think when you're dealing with as MANY projects as we are right now, it's really important to kind of develop those sort of swimlanes and also understand the velocity and the cadence and the you know the the timeframes in which you're working with all those especially when in some cases you have people who are kind of jumping from swim lane to swim lane and so, you know, really understanding where those points intersect and I think that's a, that's a conversation we're having currently and we'll continue to have as we keep, you know, doing refining and iterating on our agile process as we talked about in the film so thank you Andrew for your comment. Nice just to hear from somebody who grew up and in Doha and feels like we're helping make some progress as the, you know, the people who are not from here but we're really happy to be able to come and help support you know the local community and, you know, really shine a light on all the things that are that are happening here. I know we just have a few more minutes. Are there any other questions that we could answer. Okay. Oh, how are you able to gain adoption of tools and our methods across the team. Well, I mean it would, it would be. it was sort of easy for gaining adoption on the digital experience team because the team was starting as the tools were starting. So that was a little bit of a, you know, they both came on into being at the same time, you know, we are certainly how you deal with, you know, work with stakeholders. We are using obviously with with like fabric and the people who are more intimately involved with the projects we are you know they have access to the tools where we're certainly on, you know, doing Slack conversations on a daily basis as, as MANY people are around the world but, you know, so I think that that those tools have really been used by the team and I think now that we're starting to roll out the projects as well. And some of the different stakeholders are actually going to be more actively involved in developing and adding content, there are websites and things like that. We are, we need to, quite honestly think about that a little bit more about how, you know, those, those teams, how we share those processes we have done some work with the social media team and help them get something, you know, get things like Hootsuite onboard. So things that help with workflow and publishing. There is a CMS that that is part of the work that that fabric has been doing and that has workflows in it, and permission so we can start to roll that out and help train the different parts of the organization who will be contributing. So so yeah I think that's that's a good question and an ongoing ongoing one as as the projects really come on stream so I think we're, we're still at this sort of early days of things going live so a lot of it is more with the, with the development team and the hands on team at the moment,

Unknown Speaker 54:55
maybe to answer Kristof's question in the chat about if we would use the same tools when working with a Dutch or an American machine. I think one of the interesting side effects of the pandemic is the the quick and worldwide adoption everywhere, of all the same tools. So, I would have maybe given a different answer. Two years ago, because then, shall we do also some work for companies in essence, Greece. They had an entirely different set of tools before the pandemic, and actually, two months in a pandemic, everything changed everything has teams, everyone has Miro, everyone has Google meet or whatever and knows where to find it. And I think that's one of the positive side effects of the pandemic that people don't say oh well I can't because I haven't, I don't have a webcam or I don't have a this or that. It's not announcer, that's acceptable anymore so I think that actually helps us to. So when we get back to the real life, which we are currently in the process of. Now the real life, work and the online tools are kind of in a in a moment of convergence to how are we actually going to blend those two worlds and that's an interesting moment, to me, so. But there's a globalization of tools, I believe, as a side effect.

Unknown Speaker 56:18
And we just have a couple more minutes but and this is a big question so I'm not sure how much we'll get answered in three minutes, but is there anything you would do differently the next time, I think, you know, there's all, there are always things that you would like to do differently. I think that, yeah that's a good question. We're still in the midst of it so I'm not sure if you know yet. But I think the things that have worked really is, is taking an iterative approach I think it's about making sure that we stop and have, I guess maybe this is an answer to that building in sort of more moments of reflection, I think it's been hard for us and we were just talking about this and our time together this week is actually very much about this so we are trying to do this differently now. But we've been everything has been so go, that it's been hard to sort of stop and look and think, and, you know, and really reflect and, and I think that's what we're really trying to build in time to be able to do that so you know we just did some first user testing with it, with the Qatar museums website that launched in, in July and so starting to have conversations about, okay, well what does that mean even that even as we continue to build what we had planned to build, while we're getting this feedback, you know what are we adjusting and how do we how do we meet those, those comments, but I think making sure that as you go at speed and a pace that you do sort of carve out that protect that time for reflection I think we're adjusting and starting to do that now, but I think, you know, it would have been nice if we had done up maybe done a little bit more of that along the way, but better late than ever, right, in the last couple of weeks.

Unknown Speaker 58:06
I agree fully it's, it's always in hindsight, but of course very relevant question, because now you have learnings that mistakes that you may not make the next time. But if anything it's make some time for reflection, because you will speed up after that, I think that's a good conclusion. And it's hard to live by that process I think when you are seven. Yeah, and everybody wants everything to be delivered and done together with the whole team. Yesterday, but still, it's a good idea to even in a pandemic take some time off and have some moments to think,

Unknown Speaker 58:47
Yeah, even if it's walking around the block. I think I think with that we are pretty much at time, I want to thank you all very much for joining us. And I worked I believe in, I think it's in 15 minutes Eric will be doing a wrap up of the of this whole sort of regional section. So, we will hopefully be joining it's getting a little late here but I think we'll try and join for a while. But thank you all very much. And, you know, look forward to continuing the conversation in other contexts. Thank you.