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Businessman:
While the infantry soldier might look to a rifle as his primary weapon
of war, in business our “weapons” could be considered the tools we
use to conduct all the imperatives of running a successful business.
Our key processes are automated or augmented with software, that
is the plethora of applications we use to develop a strategy and chart
the course for our enterprise, manage our human resources, capital,
and supply chain, design and produce our products/services, sell
and deliver goods to our customers, administer warranty claims,
expand our market share, pay our bills, continuously improve our
processes and systems, and much, much more. Virtually everything
we use from the tools in our factories to our timekeeping and payroll
systems requires software of one type or another. There challenge is
that there’s not only an overabundance of applications, but also that
the marketplace of tools is continuously growing, evolving, and
changing.
For example, business intelligence can be defined as the process of
boosting our company’s performance by arming key decision-makers
with the insight they need to make good choices. Analytical software
used for this purpose ranges from simple spreadsheets (such as
Microsoft Excel) to statistical software packages (such as StatSoft
Statistica) to sophisticated business intelligence software suites
(such as those provided by IBM, Oracle, or SAP). The goal is faster
and more informed decisions, yet each choice in how to accomplish
that aim has strengths and weaknesses which must be balanced
against the cost of purchase, the learning curve for use, and the
ongoing expenditures needed for support and maintenance. In some
respects this is an advantage that small businesses have over larger
ones; they cannot afford to let their software grow out of control so
an overabundance of tools is rarely an issue. In major corporations,
government agencies, and educational institutions, however, this can
become a significant challenge, one that is not easily resolved…
We may have a compelling desire to follow Musashi’s admonishment
and not collect or employ tools beyond what is useful, but unless we
have a centralized command and control structure it is very difficult
standardize on singular solutions that can satisfy all the competing
demands that can and often will crop up across the enterprise. This
means that in order to be successful we must develop and ruthlessly
enforce enterprise-wide standards and robust change control
measures to control the chaos. Anything new must “buy its way in” to
the system, meaning that the business case must be compelling
even after we consider the holistic impact of multiple tools to learn,
integrate, support, and maintain. Without this centralization we sub-
optimize as most major corporations have done today, making
certain departments or functions happy while damaging the
efficiency and effectiveness of the company as a whole.
For those who have never worked for a Fortune® 100-sized
enterprise, hence have not experienced tool bloat, it’s likely
unfathomable to think that this sort of predicament exists, but believe
you me it is far too commonplace to ignore. Look to your phone’s
app store for a more familiar example. Even basic applications such
as those that let us use our phones as flashlights have dozens if not
hundreds of competing choices. Now, imagine that you downloaded
the top six apps for everything, including audio, games, family,
books, business, comics, communication, education, entertainment,
finance, fitness, health, libraries, lifestyle, live wallpaper, media,
medical, music, news, personalization, photography, productivity,
reference, shopping, social media, sports, tools, transportation,
travel, video, weather, widgets, and so on. You’d have a lot more
stuff, clearly, but would your phone be easier or harder to use?
Would you want or need all that functionality? It’s a safe bet that if
your phone came with all that bloat the first thing you’d do would be
to spend a few hours uninstalling all the stuff you didn’t want, need,
or ever intend to use right? That’s what I’d do…
To facilitate the solution to tool bloat there needs to be a single point
of accountability, a sort of tool Tsar if you will, to own and control the
process. In order to be successful this must be someone who is
highly respected and senior enough pull together all the right
stakeholders, evaluate their needs and desires, and create a
consensus on how to proceed. This person typically leads a group of
architects, technologists, and businesspeople who act as a change
board to balance competing interests and force everyone along the
right path. In this fashion we do not collect or practice with weapons
beyond what is useful for optimally running our organization.
All this bureaucracy would likely make Musashi’s head explode, but
businesspeople should follow his precept nonetheless. Even the
most complex corporations can embrace continuous improvement.
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