There are TBMAs all over the world, who just like you, are driving data into business decisions. To give you some insight into how other TBMAs work, we try to highlight a few of the stars. You may remember reading about Community Member: Jenny Franklin or Community Member: Richard Coronado. 

This week Apptio Certified Elite TBMA @Julie Batty agreed to step into the hot seat. She fielded my rapid fire questions with ease. Have a look...

Do you work in a TBMO? How is it organized? Where do you sit?

At Cancer Research UK we don’t technically have a TBMO in the standard TBM sense as currently its my manager @Beau Alexander and myself. I sit within the Planning & Performance Team in the Technology & Change Department (T&C) and Beau heads up the team and is responsible for myself and a MI Reporting Specialist. Alongside us three sits the T&C Finance Manager who has helped with increasing data accuracy and getting the much needed input from Finance - building bridges between T&C and Finance. Of course working within the T&C department comes with added benefits and I’m currently vying for the award for the most number of screens on one desk :-)

Note how I’m not boasting about my Elite TBMA award and Apptio branded items (currently have 2 notepads, various stickers, the TBM hero and an Apptio branded water bottle – not sure my colleagues know that I work with Apptio )

Ha! I feel good about your chances for that "most screens" award. We need to figure out how to make the ETBMA plaques double as a projection surface ;-) So is it all TBM all the time in this workspace or do you split your time with other responsibilities?

My role is entirely Apptio focused, as the only person trained and working directly with the tool I spend most of my time on a vast array of Apptio related tasks from developing the model, validating data sets and reports, updating monthly mapping files, completing the month end process and general bugs/issues encountered with the model/data; basically all the responsibilities of a TBMA.

That's awesome, a dedicated TBMA is a known hallmark of success. So you might be one of the few TBMAs who has a title close to what you actually do :-)

Yes, my job title is the Technology Business Management Analyst (TBMA) and is very much TBM related. We have tried to keep my role as close to that stated within the TBM roles for a TBMO moving from being heavily dev work to now more front line.

Do you use Apptio to support any reoccurring reviews or processes? If so which one(s)

We have only recently started to roll Apptio out to our stakeholders, currently just the Cost Centre Owner personas have access and these users are specifically looking at the financial layer and validated the numbers and variances between actuals and budget.

OH yes! I remember you posting about the roll out to Cost Centre owners. We were cheering you on. Any examples of how you and Beau are using information from Apptio to help Cancer Research UK yet?

We are currently rolling Apptio out to Application, Infrastructure and Vendor personas and are already seeing some great feedback from these meetings.

Within the Application space we are highlighting areas where we can repurpose servers which are no longer needed for certain large applications. Although these are not instant cash savings we are able to avoid spending money on infrastructure that is not necessarily required as they are currently within the estates.

It's so cool to be able to map things that you do, directly to organizational improvements. It's a TBMA privilege :-) Still, today, no one really goes to college to specifically be a TBMA.  What brought you to your current role?

I was very fortunate to have been recommended for the role by our previous head of department. I didn’t have any experience of Apptio prior to getting this role but had worked on purchasing systems as the administrator and as various guises of a Database Manager.

Before getting this role I had enrolled on to a Business Management degree and when the opportunity came up to align my personal studies with this new role I couldn’t turn it down – so technically I’m currently going to university to gain the BM part of TBMA 

That's perfect. So, what was the first job you ever had?

My very first job was when I was 13 and worked in a purchasing office for a local NHS trust helping my dad during the summer holidays. I was raising purchases orders, posting out orders to suppliers, taking in deliveries and general admin duties.

Impressive! I'm pretty sure I spent the summer I turned 13 meticulously trying to extract staple free posters from Teen Beat magazine.  Your experience was significantly more legit.  Fast forwarding to today, when someone says, “Julie, what do you do for a living?” What do you say?

I normally take a very deep breath and say “I’m a Technology Business Management Analyst for Cancer Research UK” and then wait for the look of confusion to spread across their face before they say “ohh Cancer Research UK, must be great working for them”.

I have been very lucky to have been in many roles of varying descriptions but all with very confusing job titles. This role is probably the easiest one to explain, so tend to say that I manage a system which helps to establish the true cost of IT and normally leave it at that J

You’re really active on Community. What do you like most about the community we’re creating together? 

As the only one within Cancer Research UK that works directly with Apptio I find it hard to ask for help within the team so having a friendly place to go and ask even the silliest of questions has been a massive help to me. Although the courses I’ve completed as part of the Recognized and Elite TBMA training have helped greatly, training can’t always cover the general day-to-day issues that can come up and having a large community with such a fountain of knowledge is a great bonus. Also helps that you get points for participating which plays to my (very) competitive nature – sorry Rhonda for taking your second place

Ha! For a few weeks, I was sure I'd catch you but now you're so far ahead, I don't think it's going to happen. Plus I really like that the top two spots are currently held by real-world TBMAs as opposed to Apptio employees. It speaks to what community is all about. Another of my favorite things about Community is getting to know smart people all across the globe. I remember from some random discussion we were having on a post that you’re a HOG member! What does that entail? Any pictures for us?    

So for those not sure what a HOG is it’s basically a membership group for owners of Harley Davidson motorbikes (Harley Owners Group) which I was one until quite recently – although technically I was a HOG and a LOH (Ladies of Harley).

I have always been a fan of motorbikes from when I can remember and passed my motorbike test at 17 – I was the youngest person to pass at the bike school until a younger (by a couple of months) rider by the name of Thomas Brodie-Sangster (of the film Love Actually fame) took my crown – not bitter at all. After a few fabulous years of zooming around the streets of London scaring people, I had to give it up for the more sensible option of a car (booo!!) and now I terrorize the locals in my rather dashing smart car – one day I will get another Harley (hopefully won’t have to wait too long :-)

(Picture from google images but mine was identical to this one)

There are so many cool things in that answer!!! I won't even attempt a transition here, let's all just pause to appreciate that awesomeness and then next topic ...

OK, we have Apptio product designers and engineers on Community. What’s at the top of your wish list (today anyway ;-) in terms of product enhancements?  

Ooh this is a tricky one as a lot of the enhancements we need in v11 are now in v12 such as the way data is loaded in, the look and feel of the reporting surface and an integrated platform. For me, there are two enhancements relating to the in-app promotions; one being a log of how long each promotion has taken and the second would be to have some form of indicator which notifies the user when the calculation time has taken longer than a pre-determined time or KPI/metric. This is something I monitor manually using the publish confirmation emails and when I think it’s getting too long would raise a call – luckily not happened so far but can see them gradually increasing

Julie, thank you! We really appreciate your contributions to the Apptio Community. Thanks for your time and for giving us a peek into how you work with Apptio.

It has been my pleasure answering these questions and want to thank the Apptio University Team who have been fantastic in helping me gain as much knowledge as possible, those within the TBM Community who helped give fabulous and full responses to even the most random of questions I’ve put to them and the overall support provided by Apptio in general. Just a note to anyone who does see this and are worried/anxious about contributing to the Community, just bite the bullet and do it, was one of the best things I’ve done as a TBMA -  there is a fountain of knowledge just waiting to be found