Interview: Jon Grainger, CTO, DWF

Providing technology as a service

Grainger completed a strategic review when he joined DWF in late 2022. Since being with the organisation, he’s enacted a new technology strategy broadly based on cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) products and open application programming interfaces (APIs).

“The design principle is high cohesion and loose coupling,” he says. “We’re moving technology from focusing on things that maybe aren’t the best thing to be famous for, like running your datacentre or developing in-house systems, and ensuring the business is better off by providing those things as a service.”

Grainger’s team has spent time selecting and procuring SaaS platforms. He recognises the potential to make mistakes during this process. His team has focused on the fine details to ensure they have a strong set of partners. This move to external provision has been accompanied by a shift to a flatter IT organisation internally.

“We’ve got some great technologists,” he says. “And when I say great, I mean fantastic capabilities, a terrific attitude and some good leaders. They’ve communicated our strategic approach and generated excitement within the business about IT.”

One of the team’s key achievements has been to deliver a cloud-based HR system across the business globally in eight months. As well as being an important project, Grainger says that the successful completion of the initiative proved the benefits of a fresh approach to IT.

“People started believing that something different was happening,” he says. “There’s always the hard day-to-day stuff you do as an IT team. Success is about getting the right mix. It’s about delivering early victories and feeding those achievements back into the business to show that you’re moving forward. And then you get a sense of belief.”

Keeping IT staff in a flow state

However, Grainger recognises that pursuing successful digital transformation is a far from straightforward process. He says companies taking advantage of SaaS products, for example, must contend with a huge amount of change from their supplier partners.

To overcome some of the challenges associated with cloud-based implementations, Grainger turned to technology firm SnapLogic. The supplier’s platform automates application, data and cloud integration.

Grainger says this form of low-code working doesn’t mean his IT team is passing off development work to line-of-business professionals. You still need an engineering expert to ensure the integrations work effectively. However, his talented IT professionals now spend less of their working days dealing with the fine details of coding.

“We want to develop a situation where anyone can say anything from an engineering perspective”

Jon Grainger, DWF

“It allows our staff to stay in flow state. When they have to crack open the code and do repetitive .Net activities, that’s not something they enjoy. Now, with SnapLogic, our folks have more satisfaction in their jobs, they’re getting through the boring stuff quicker and going faster. By allowing your engineers to stay in flow, you get better quality work,” he says.

“If you’re running digital transformation, it will have a daily cost. If you’ve got a group of people waiting for a service integration, and they can’t proceed, the cost isn’t implementing SnapLogic, it’s the total cost of delay to the project. With SnapLogic, you can do more complicated things at a higher volume.”

Grainger also points to the benefits of using the generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) elements within SnapLogic. He says IT professionals can ask questions in plain English and get great responses. He gives the example of using a prompt to ask the technology about a data pipeline built in SnapLogic to receive all the documentation the team needs automatically.

“It’s like a network effect – you suddenly get this whirlwind of speed that picks up,” he says. “AI is becoming ubiquitous. And that’s the part where, as a CTO, you sit down and sometimes you get smoke coming out of your ears. Not from anger, just from the sheer possibilities. AI is part of the challenge of the digital leadership role because change is occurring so quickly.”

Exploiting emerging technology

Grainger also touches on the impact of AI on legal firms. Experts believe emerging technology will have a significant effect on roles and responsibilities. For now, he says the keyword for understanding that impact in legal firms is “augmentation”.

Just as using SnapLogic helps boost the IT profession, Grainger suggests generative AI will allow lawyers to remain in flow. “We’re not taking generative AI as a one-dimensional business automation,” he says. “We’re adding it to our existing way of working. We aim to use the technology to do some of the heavy lifting for the lawyers.”

Microsoft Copilot is available to every employee at DWF. The roll-out process starts with Teams and proceeds to Office once checks are complete. Grainger gives an example of how the technology can help transcribe meetings: “If you’re able to do that work very quickly, that’s the sort of thing that keeps you in flow.”

Grainger says legal CIOs and their peers in other sectors must recognise GenAI’s impact will increase going forward.

“If we use the network effect, that’s where we’re headed,” he says. “Four or five years from now, everyone in your supply chain and your clients will use generative AI. So, you must ensure you’re prepared for that shift.”

He says DWF is preparing for that situation by focusing on guardrails. While there are differences between the performance of the current generation of large language models (LLMs), Grainger believes the big disparities are around enterprise guardrails. It’s these models he’s keen for his firm to explore.

“I’m looking for things we can do to help,” he says. “That process is not just about encouraging people to use AI, but monitoring and enforcing the right behaviours. We need to be able to detect unethical prompts and ensure that, within the fabric of any prompt, certain things cannot be done.”

Delivering great customer experiences

Grainger likes to create IT organisations with in-built psychological safety, where people recognise it’s reasonable to speak up and disagree.

“When you have pace, positivity and a can-do team, you’ve got to be careful about the tone you set,” he says.

“The number one thing you need in engineering teams is psychological safety. Establishing that safety is easier said than done and it requires confidence. You can set that approach up with your direct reports, but some of their team leaders might not be confident enough. We want to develop a situation where anyone can say anything from an engineering perspective.”

Grainger also wants to create an exciting career journey for his engineers. People will sometimes leave for bigger opportunities at bigger firms – and he says that’s OK. Managers should be proud of the people who move on to new opportunities. They should use these pioneers to showcase the benefits of working for the IT organisation.

“I’d much rather have folks who are proud of what they’ve achieved,” he says. “I’m very lucky. I’ve got an alumnus of people I’ve worked with over the years that I can end up collaborating with again and again.”

In terms of the IT team’s interactions with the wider business, while Grainger doesn’t want technology to play lead guitar, he’s keen for the department to make its mark on the long-term dynamic of DWF. “I don’t want technology to become the bass player,” he says. “Everyone wants to get noticed and acknowledged.”

Grainger says the benefits of his data-led approach have already been noticed internally and across the legal sector. “People remark on how fast we’ve been able to move,” he says.

“We’re able to create the kinds of experiences that are difficult to do without having that fundamental data strategy and SaaS platforms. When you get it right, you start to have an unlimited number of digital combinations you can use to create great experiences.”