If we could use one word to describe Tana Rucker, the Senior Director of Spectrum Mobile Product Delivery at Charter Communications, we would say passionate. She delights in solving complex business problems and is devoted to executing her work with purpose, energy, and positivity. In the six years she has been at Charter, Rucker has grown the team at Spectrum from three employees to thousands.
Since we are a similarly passionate community of geeks and productivity nerds, we knew we had to sit down with Rucker at the 2022 Smartsheet ENGAGE conference to get the kind of expert insights and knowledge-based takeaways we crave. Our very own Matt Lorch from GeekWire Studios interviewed Rucker to find out how she gets things done efficiently and the secret to getting teams to adopt new processes. Here are some excerpts:
Matt Lorch: Talk to me about yourself and your role at Charter Communications.
Tana Rucker: At Charter, I’m responsible for the delivery of our fourth line of business, Spectrum Mobile. I manage the strategic roadmap and lead all of the project management activity. In 2018, we launched Spectrum Mobile, and we used Smartsheet in order to do that.
Matt Lorch: I’m curious about how you were introduced to Smartsheet and how that has changed how you work in your workplace.
Tana Rucker: I found Smartsheet back in probably 2014 at my prior company, and it wasn’t the right fit for me. Then I moved on to something else, and we kept delivering. When I got to Charter, I was tasked with launching this new line of business, I knew we needed something with a low barrier of entry, low cost, easy adoption, ease of use, and Smartsheet just checked all the boxes. It was scalable and did all the things. So I brought Smartsheet back in 2016, and we’ve been using it ever since. Through Spectrum Mobile, it’s gotten visibility across every facet of our organization.
ML: Let’s talk about that. I heard it was so successful within Charter that you are now adopting it [Smartsheet] throughout a larger group within the company. How important has Smarsheet been for you to scale and grow?
Rucker: Originally, there was so much interest around Smartsheet and what you could actually do within the tool. Because there were really no limits, anytime anybody was looking over your shoulder wondering what you were up to, you brought those folks in and you got them a license and got them setup. So in the early days, it was all me from an adoption standpoint. By 2019, I had moved on and created a ‘community of practice’ internally at Charter and found the folks who are true evangelists of the tool (advanced users that really wanted to get other teams going) and started to enable the workforce across the board. Now that’s what we do. We use a ‘community of practice’ to showcase new features and how people internally are using the tool.
ML: Smartsheet’s mission is to drive meaningful change. How has Smartsheet had an impact on you personally and on your team at Charter?
Rucker: Every company has opportunities to do things differently and better. We’re connecting many different development organizations together. For so long, these teams were uncomfortable discussing dates and committing to things. Now, we’re doing that in Smartsheet across multiple development organizations in software development. And we’re only doing that because of Smartsheet. It starts the dialogue and it gets people discussing things that otherwise would be buried in decks and presentations and documentation for another team. It [Smartsheet] really surfaces the data gets us collaborating and driving meaningful change. We can change all of our processes, our underlying ways of working. We can do that because Smartsheet’s so flexible and enables us to do that. My team’s mission is truly meeting my cross-functional teams where they work. Whether it’s with a tool or a process, so development methodology is agnostic. And I can surface that data up to our executives in a way that they don’t have to know the minutia behind that.
ML: I can feel your passion. Do you have any advice for others trying to promote change or a different way of working within their large organization?
Rucker: There can be some level of apprehension. “You’re trying to change my DNA,” “you’re trying to get me out of my tool”, “I use Excel”, “I use PowerPoint”, ”I use whatever”. It just takes a little while for them to see. My advice for those folks in that situation is to build relevant solutions for those teams they have to use. So they’re a customer of your data and build a relevant solution for that team where they need to come to Smartsheet to get their data. You’re not “changing their DNA”, you’re not making them put their data in, they’re coming to Smartsheet for your data. And it’s only a matter of time at some point that they’re going to say, Gosh, I wish all the teams were in Smartsheet. And then they start to make their own pivot.
ML: Talk to me about your involvement with Smartsheet.
Rucker: Obviously, I’m a user and an evangelist of the tool across my team and the company, but I also have served as the system administrator for Smartsheet for the last six years at Charter. I was fortunate to be selected for the Smartsheet Overachiever program, and I am now serving on the product advisory council. I have participated in a number of product betas and other opportunities to provide my feedback or help shape a product for Smartsheet.
ML: What’s the benefit of being in that Overachiever program?
Rucker: The Overachiever program is fantastic. I get the ability to see and hear about new products before they’re launched and before they’re even talked about with the broader community. I also get a chance to shape those products in a way where my voice is truly heard before it even becomes a new launch. I love the insights, collaboration, camaraderie, and all the things.