How Fragile is Agile?

I have been reading a lot of articles lately about whether Agile actually works, or whether it’s simply a dream for businesses looking to accelerate business outcomes. Ultimately, the growing view seems to be that Agile doesn’t work – that it is a hype that consulting firms are thriving on, and we’re actually better off going to traditional delivery methods that provide predictability, consistency and the ability to hold someone accountable to get things done.

This debate stems from a need to find the ‘magic answer’ – the silver bullet to take all of our worries away, especially when we are looking to transform. We like Waterfall because we can allocate responsibility to someone else, whereas Agile requires us to get more involved through evolving design, constant prioritisation, showcase presentation, and ultimately owning the outcome (scary stuff). Waterfall means I can document everything I want and then point to someone else to deliver the outcomes. Any delays, errors or increased costs are totally on them, right? (ahem). However, with Waterfall delivery we tend to forget the wonderful concept of change request, where it tends to have a growing number of change requests over time, and then finishes with a resignation of taking what can be delivered with the remaining budget. Now, some might say that if you plan things right you don’t need change requests, but in today’s era of constant change, avoiding it is challenging, to say the least. Historically, in a market where market change was measured in years and for the most part manual (or at best, half yearly) the scale of change was manageable, today however, we are faced with two types of businesses: those that were born digital and those that aspire to become digital. In this dynamic, the extent and scale of change is huge and the challenges this brings to Waterfall delivery means we constantly ask for changes to our delivery plans to evolve with the market.

On the other hand, Agile provides a degree of unpredictability and tends to shift directions based on the priorities set by the business and, more specifically, the product owner themselves. The timing of when a specific capability is completed can be a little vague, as the definition of ‘done’ comes down to when the product owner is actually happy with the capability, and whether they feel it’s fit for purpose. While there can be a desire to go fast with Agile, the concept of minimum viable is always in the eyes of the product owner and thus velocity is determined by the business. For those looking to test in-market quickly, you could achieve a faster launch, but with the knowledge that there might be errors or adjustments to make ongoing. For others who like a capability to be holistic and low risk, it can mean numerous sprints are necessary before it is deemed “done” and as such ready to share with colleagues and / or customers.

I am not going to say that Agile is faster or cheaper – in fact, it can be more ambiguous, frustrating, and lack accountability, which ultimately means there’s no one to point the finger at in pushing toward an outcome. However, this is also why I believe Agile is our future.

Agile represents the cultural change a business needs to go through. We need to be comfortable with a degree of ambiguity and we need to share ownership of the outcome. One aspect that Agile does outperform Waterfall on is the ability to learn faster – and if a business is willing to learn through quick tests and recognises that early failures ensure a program is on the right track overall, then Agile can be a great vehicle to achieve business outcomes. My concern is that Agile has been branded in the tech market as a vehicle to move faster, which means the expectations are wrong from the get-go. Agile will help you learn faster and pivot as the needs of the business evolve or the market drives change, which can create a sense of speed, however it is simply an ingredient in the recipe for broader business agility.

The challenge we keep facing is that our world is not the stable working environment it was before. The predictability of having a three-year outlook that could merely be followed through with minimal disruption is rapidly diminishing, with software that felt more like hardware because it was very much standalone and constant. Today, change doesn’t happen in a two or three-year cycle; it’s happening in months and, if you are really unlucky, in weeks. This is why Waterfall is struggling, as the changes we need to make means we would need to constantly raise change requests and our costs keep going up.

This doesn’t mean I have suddenly prescribed to Agile as being the answer to everything, but it’s about knowing what has the right outcome for your business. If you are doing a migration to the cloud of premise-based applications with fixed scope and deliverables, then Waterfall is likely a better path. On the other hand if you’re developing capability that you know will continue to evolve, then Agile can actually help drive a better outcome.

So, to answer the question in the headline of this article, Agile can appear fragile because it means accepting that we are all accountable for its success. When we struggle to accept ambiguity, the need to change the way we work, or accept joint accountability in partnership of realising outcomes, we make the process fragile.

All of this is simply leading to one key reason - We are the reason why Agile is fragile. We don’t like change, we don’t like being responsible for things which in a traditional IT world was always the ownership of others. In fact, I remember my first project with Agile ways of working, I was constantly asking the delivery partner if this is going to work. My big realisation was when one of the team leads from the delivery partner turned to me and asked me back, “I don’t know, you tell me.” After my heart skipped a couple of beats, I realised this was the difference, and what I didn’t like was that there wasn’t the same clarity that I felt I had before. On the other hand, following our initial delivery, I realised it was that constant ability to keep improving, evolving our tools and external facing systems that was giving us the ability to continue to evolve.

I look at Agile as being a reminder that the business needs to take accountability for the delivery of projects. The time of simply pushing the problem to someone else is over. The introduction of Agile has added another tool to our bag to support our business in become increasingly digital. In doing this, we can enable the business to be less fragile and more adaptable, innovative, disruptive, and, well, agile.

Climbing the transformation mountain

Two years have passed since someone suggested to me to work with them on transforming Telstra’s B2B business.  In those two years we have been on an amazing journey of understanding what it means to perform a heart and lung transplant on a patient running a marathon while also leading the pack.

 

In two years, we have not only established a set of end-to-end integrated systems, from product definition to customer billing, we have also launched what is one of Telstra’s most holistic offers to market as a true paperless proposition –it has been awesome to see the positive impacts to our customers and partners.

To many of the team, delivering all of these aspects in our transformation program has felt like we have climbed a mountain. That said, we have a long way still to go to realise the scale of change that will ensure a sustainable change for the business.

 

There have been many examples of change that our transformation program is bringing, including the automatic flow of information between systems without any human intervention. This might seem obvious, but any business or IT person involved in managing system handoffs, will appreciate that it’s these integrations that are the hardest. Hearing from one of the team how data is now populating automatically between systems without any need to request it is music to my ears.

 

One of our key realisations is that while a digital transformation is enabled by software, it is very much a business transformation and not just a technology transformation.  Digital transformation needs to guide a business to actually change the way it works - the support of all of these new capabilities will be the real validation of a sustainable change.

 

This was reiterated by Telstra’s recent Disruptive Decision-Making report, which found across the globe businesses are too focused on the role of technology in digital transformation programs. 

                                                                
Transformation does not mean only internal business change, but also change in the way a business engages with its customers. It is interesting to see the way we embrace digital interactions for our personal needs, but when it comes to businesses, we are more comfortable in using traditional channels of calling or emailing someone from a service desk. It has been inspiring to see what teams have achieved in the past two years in building our first native business app, co-developed with customers to realise a new digital-first strategy to serve their customers.

Why on earth am I talking about these achievements, though?

Simply put, for us, these achievements were more of a realisation that we tend to be so focused on what is next that we don’t pause to learn from what we have achieved, struggled with, or missed delivering.

It is very easy to forget about accomplishments to date as we reflect on how far we still have to go. Recognising these outcomes both within our program and in the broader organisation are important - it highlights that progress is being made toward the top of the mountain, and acknowledging and reviewing progress, ensures continual learning and improvement as we move closer to the summit.

As we start with the next phase of our climb, there are three key challenges that now arise: scale, customer migrations, and data.

 

Scale in the form of ensuring the majority of the business’s transactions to support B2B customers are enabled on a new digital stack. Without this volume of transactions, the efficiencies targeted to be realised through this new capability won’t materialise. The work to date has demonstrated the scale of change that is possible, but our business won’t feel it until volumes are reached that result in true business change. 

 

Customer migration might sound obvious, but when a business engages with its customers in a certain way for a long period of time, introducing a new way of working can be disruptive - collaborating on that journey with customers to understand the value of the change for their businesses is critical. 

Data is the most critical element of any transformation program. I always find it interesting when people talk about data scientists or big data, but for me personally, I would just be happy with a single source of data that ensures our teams are not having to double or even triple check that data between systems is consistent. As we learned with our first orders, without accurate data we create unnecessary work for ourselves and we lose the value from the integrated systems we have established.

 

On the flipside, where we know data is accurate, teams can quickly focus on high-value tasks with customers. Workflows can become highly automated from opportunity through to in-life service management, driving efficiency to levels previously not seen.

Of course this is in the future - to achieve these next wave of outcomes we need to climb this mountain, bring all of our people, partners and customers into this new world of integrated and digitised capabilities.

 

Sometimes that new world can seem challenging given how high we need to climb, but it is the diversity and strengths of a team that can achieve the outcomes a business is looking for - just like those climbing the highest mountains. With the right team in place, any peak is possible.  

Surviving a Digital Transformation

So let’s cover off the first question; “Why would I say surviving?” Let me put it as simply as this. Anyone that has experienced a digital transformation, or started to build digital capability within a business, will know that realising transformation through a digital lens is like operating on a patient to replace their heart and lungs while they run a marathon at the same time. (There is a building a plane while flying it too but I prefer the marathon analogy!).

Now, anyone in their right mind is going to say “Why on earth would you want to do that?” Again, simply put, it is out of necessity. No one transforms their business simply because they woke up in the morning and thought it was a good idea. It is born from an urgent need to evolve their business either from cost, competition or changing market dynamics.

Likewise, I am intrigued by the fact that many leaders feel going digital is as easy as building a new app or making a website interactive. However, when their shift to digital commences, they quickly realise it is a lot more than this, and actually that shift to digital is more about their own business’ way of working, instead of the technology they decide to deploy.

This is why a digital transformation makes sense. The move to a digital way of working, combined with the need to transform, makes for a common foundation because to realise either goal requires a business to actually change. However, if a business is not willing to change and make the proverbial “leap” into the new world, then the change that a business is embarking on will simply fail. It is irrelevant how much a CEO or business head is eager to change or evolve their business as it will always be the weakest link which will ultimately determine the degree of success. The weakest link could be a business leader who doesn’t support the change, a legacy supplier seeking to latch on worried they will lose their business, or it could also be the business setting guide rails so tight that it gives the program no chance to fail.

Yes that’s right – fail. In my experience, if you don’t fail you won’t learn what works for your business. It doesn’t matter how well you have planned your strategy for digital transformation, part of the excitement is trying new ways of working and new ways of serving customers. Some will work and others won’t, but this is all about designing your business for the future. At this point, there will be many senior executives who are reading this and say “Ah yes Nathan, learning is fine but my business can’t afford to fail. We need to grow and, as such, we will seek to leverage the expertise of consultants and System Integrator’s as they will already have gone through these learnings with other businesses and then my business will simply leverage from those … right”?

Naturally, there are many organisations out there offering to help businesses realise this digital change, with amazing stories on how they can realise the change and all of the places where they have seen it or, for the lucky ones, realised it for another business. Hence, it is an option for you to have someone transform your business and receive the end product, but as any digital native business will tell you, it will come down to your ability to not only go through one transformation, but to actually realise a greater degree of business agility and hence an ability to evolve your organisation to adapt to the true constant in our business world today, change.

It is very hard for any organisation to simply say we will do this on our own, change our way of working, retrain teams, create a new structure and introduce a whole new suite of technology and platforms. Hence, it is reasonable to be asking partners, integrator's and even software partners for support in realising the digital transformation outcome. The important word here is “support”, because the challenging aspect in this transformation is back to the business change that it is targeted to realise.

So what am I saying? Basically when you are embarking on your digital transformation, a) make sure you have identified the leaders in your business who are going to own this change, b) identify partners who can help you make that transition with a clear goal of having the ability to continue on with your transformation, independent of any partner as you establish a greater degree of maturity in the business. The objectives of a transformation will take time to realise. Putting a specific timeline on the deliverable can result in assuming a business has changed, but with a trail of destruction behind and a long tail of capability still in the old world. It’s like having had the heart and lung transplant and thinking everything is fine, but then realising you are bleeding internally which can lead to a slow painful demise.

However, by ensuring you build the capability within your business, the pace of that change can be constant, holistic and ensure no-one and no capability is left behind. Most importantly, that new internal capability will bring you a greater degree of agility as your business and/or the market continue to evolve. Hence, while you go through that heart and lung transplant, it won’t matter if that marathon evolves into a steeple chase or a cross country ski race, you and your business will have the confidence to front into that change, knowing the team has evolved to a new skill set. When I say skill, I am not referring to a digital skill, but an agility skill. To the point at which you may cause other businesses to look at their own heart and lung transplant as you go from being disrupted and merely surviving a transformation, to becoming the disruptor and ultimately start leading the marathon!

Disruption Starts at Home

The word “Disruption” has become a powerful concept of many executives across all industries today as they seek to lead their businesses to growth in what is an increasingly competitive and ever-changing market for us all. However, what is interesting is that for many businesses it tends to be about the outward facing disruption – to disrupt key competitors with innovative services or commercial models, introducing new technologies particularly with a focus on digital.

As such, many businesses can be left frustrated because in their attempt to disrupt the market they can actually have hit the “destruct button” on themselves. Let me explain why….Disruption just sounds exciting right? Think about your next meeting and starting with, “Okay team, we need to disrupt the market to drive our next phase of growth!” I sincerely doubt there will be one person who will tell you that it sounds like a bad idea. Compare this with the concept of an alternative start to a conversation – “Okay team, we need to run some efficiency programs to cut costs and drive our next phase of growth!” Now if you are managing that team you may have people worried about being the target of that efficiency and, as such, you may end up with only a few murmurs of support.

Being disruptive relies on our employees

So why not turn that disruption initiative to be internally focused to drive employee satisfaction, business efficiency, margin improvements and who knows perhaps even customer growth? We tend to forget sometimes that it is the people of our organizations that actually makes it a business, who determine the culture of the way we work and most importantly, represent the business to our customers. If they cannot be positive about their place of work and products or services they offer, then what chance does your business have in seeing sustainable growth?

We are in an era of rapid innovation, where many aspects of our business can be digital in the way we work whether that is for collaboration, building products or solving customer problems. Many people look at their path to digitisation as simply being the next step of the evolution of their business, build an application, put more documents online, provide collaboration tools to staff and customers. However, these elements are more like the partial ingredients of a cake, and if the ingredients are not complete nor added with the right measures, the resulting changes can actually prove to be of detriment to the business.

A shift in how we operate

The path to digitisation within a business therefore needs to be looked at from a business disruption perspective, what will be the impact on people, processes and existing systems? A disruption in fact is where the digitisation can be the agent of change, but actually represents a fundamental shift in how the business operates. A disruption agenda in the market seeks to drive competitors to figure out how they will adapt to catch up with this change and the same can be said for an internal disruption – however positive it may be. Leaders will need to consider the broader impacts of this change on the way a business operates today and how digitisation will require a change in the way teams work as well.

This is where I believe it will be smaller businesses that will succeed at internal disruption faster as part of their path towards digitisation. The reason being is that smaller businesses can’t afford to customise, request developers to change their software or build something from scratch that fits their needs. Smaller businesses need to leverage available functionality and if that means a change in a process or the way a business operates then so be it. Smaller businesses are like speed boats. They may not have the scale to impact an industry as much as large businesses can, but it is a lot easier to change speed, direction and possibly even the shape of their business.

A large business on the other hand is more like an oil tanker as any decision taken will have an impact on the waters around that vessel and the wake it leaves can result in faraway beaches being impacted by unexpected waves. However the time it takes for decisions to actually have an impact can be a lot longer and therefore much like an oil tanker the route needs to be planned, impacts understood and the action plan to realise that outcome.

Digitisation of a business is no different and like an oil tanker many large businesses will believe they can simply use their weight to push for outcomes they are looking for so that the digital components they select work within their existing business model. This is much like asking a ship engine provider to simply strap the new engine into place where the old one used to be. We already know it wouldn’t work as the new engine will probably have different controls, interfaces, locking mechanisms and so on. Asking an engine provider to change all of these elements to simply fit in with the needs of the ship will most likely result in the engine not delivering the same output as was originally hoped and could actually mean the ship is worse off. You will therefore have simply paid for an expensive piece of hardware with no benefit to the business. Digitisation is very much the same, there are some exciting capabilities out there, but the more a business forces changes of the tools it uses the lesser the benefit that it will bring.

Digital disruption requires organisational change

Digital disruption can be a powerful tool for a business, as long as it is considered simply as that - a tool –  the broader change within the business needs people to engage in changing the processes, ways of working and evolving the culture of an organisation.

If your vision is delivering customer excellence that of course doesn’t change, but your goals as to how that is achieved may need to evolve. There are many partners that a business can work with in driving its own digital disruption, but I would recommend you consider for a moment that the functionality they are developing is based on understanding the needs of many businesses across our increasingly connected world. As such, if there is a feature or functionality that you are looking for that doesn’t exist, consider first if it is the  way you are running your business that needs to change BEFORE trying to customise the software thousands of other companies have been able to work with as is.

Now of course if we follow this journey on its natural course many will say “well, that’s all fine and good Nathan, but actually you have just found another name for business efficiency”. Efficiency which will still result in roles being lost or teams being made redundant. Of course this can always happen, but I believe this can actually be reduced, by digitising the workforce.

A shift to digital

A shift to digital doesn’t mean roles simply disappear, it means different types of roles are required, I am sure there will always be some roles that are made redundant, but that isn’t about becoming digital those are more to do with efficiencies within a business that most likely already needed to be changed. We live in a world where we have three unique working generations; those for whom email and mobile was the biggest development of their time, those for whom social media was a significant change and our youngest workforce where the perceived challenges are more about reverse integration into a business that doesn’t seem as technology driven as their personal lives.

Collaborating with different generations

I view these different generations as an exciting time because it will require all three groups to make any digital disruption possible, for the moment one of these groups doesn’t embrace the change then the disruption is doomed to fail. We need to ensure that we have diverse groups helping to define and evolve the digital capabilities of a business so as they are usable by all, for both internal and external customers. We need these groups to aid in the coaching and guiding of others in how to make the change from a user’s perspective and lastly we need to ensure we have the cross-functional engagement that no one is left behind. For this reason I view that more roles will be created and with training and encouragement it becomes more a change of role than an outright “your job has been replaced by a computer!”

Disruption remains an exciting concept and I believe when brought into the business and adopted as part of a change vehicle on the path to digitisation, it can drive significant business value. We tend to associate disruption with something that can have a market impact, which it definitely can, however having a business that can disrupt itself into driving change, that will lead to sustainable growth will ultimately establish a business that is then set to disrupt the market with a business able to support. This will be executed through creating a culture of collaboration, understanding and most importantly employee pride, because an organization that sees the value in the disruption it brings to itself will quickly become your biggest sales and marketing engine when it comes to disrupting beyond your businesses home.

Leopards need to change their spots too

We associate Leopards with being fast, agile, and adaptive – something many businesses would love to aspire to or believe they have already achieved. However, think about that Leopard for a moment lacking the ability to maintain a sustainable pace, using up all of its energy in a very short period of time and spending a lot of its time resting to conserve energy.  Now doesn’t that sound more like many organisations you know of, expending large amounts of energy but finding that sustainable pace in a market of change?

In our work environment we increasingly find organisations that need to adapt to the changing market around them. But, I would propose that it is the constant adaption, customisation and “tinkering” of applications and systems that really restrict a business’s ability to do just that.

Consider for a moment how many changes you requested from your supplier to ensure your application or system would operate effectively based on your current ways of working. And now consider how frustrated you were at the supplier’s lack of understanding of your business needs. 

Next, consider what your company did when looking to adapt to market changes or a shift in strategy.  I am guessing – as tends to be the case – you invited in your suppliers and told them there would be a number of change requests required as updates to your applications and systems were needed to ensure they evolved with the needs of your business. What happens next is the response you receive from your suppliers is an extensive program of system changes, which are significantly more expensive than what you had expected. At this point the inevitable happens and we introduce that word that every strategy leader hates … compromise. You are then entering a phase of your business change where you need to balance the necessity of change with the market need to change against the cost. The end result is that the costs continue to increase, you don’t receive the changes you were hoping for and you ultimately end up setting up the business to fail, not fast mind you, just a slow and painful death.

I share this with you because, given the world we live and work in, there is a need for a fresh approach to business.  An approach which actually requires an organisation to change, a change in the way it works and not necessarily by overhauling existing systems and tools. As strange as it may sound it is increasingly crucial for businesses to avoid customisation as much as possible so they can adapt to the market quickly and avoid expensive system overhauls. Of course people will say “well hang on Nathan we need to customise those systems if the market is changing.” Well, I would challenge that there are two approaches businesses need to be taking to ensure sustainable growth in today’s market.

The first is by moving to standard components and interfaces.  With this, you are then able to consider vendor replacements. By forcing the use of API’s, or application interfaces, you can replace components much more easily without the need of a potential full rip and replace of all systems supporting a process.  This equally ensures your business can regularly validate the latest capability from CRM systems to Billing systems and even, dare I say, communication systems. How often have you found yourself frustrated just after launching a new platform, application or system that a capability had just been added that would have benefited your organisation?  Need I say more?

The second key approach is to look in the mirror more often.  Instead of the levers you seek to adjust being limited to third party components, look into your business at the people, processes and ultimately ways of working that you have established and ask yourself, how often have these actually changed over the years?  I am not talking about rearranging the deck chairs, I am referring to real changes in ways of working to ensure 1. that a business can maximise the opportunities that change can bring; 2. to ensure that sustainable growth is understood as the journey.

The first approach is strengthened by the introduction of cloud based architectures, which means you can consume what you need, and equally adjust to new market developments quickly. I appreciate some elements are more difficult to change than others but, by starting with a view that everything can be changed, this will ultimately create the right environment for success. Cloud capabilities have created new avenues for businesses to feel more in control of the risks their business chooses to take and equally the opportunity to leverage the latest technology at each step of the way.

The second approach is a lot more difficult because no one likes change.  Change can cause a stall in business performance and ultimately comes with its own risks. However, people will accept and equally embrace change, as long as you can articulate the benefit to the business. Whatever those change may be, understanding the business need first is the most important element.

Speed and agility are crucial business elements, but without simplifying the tools and ensuring the business adapts to the market change, all that an organisation will achieve is declining profitability and increasingly demoralised employee engagement. I am always intrigued by business leaders who share how confident they are about their business, but it is those businesses who recognise that being as agile as a leopard is not enough. Sometimes you need to change yourself in order to succeed and the tools round you may enable part of that change, but unless you are willing to change your own spots you may find that the speed you have is only enough to spin your wheels  and not to deliver the continued momentum.

I Believe I Can Fly!

Seriously, I really do believe I can fly and one day I am sure we will figure out how. Me losing some weight would probably be a good start, that and lots and lots of technology! I am often asked about my open mindset approach when going into meetings to work out challenges and how I achieve this. Well, like the title, if you believe you can fly and you have a desire to achieve the outcome, it will happen in one way or another!


I have been watching, with great interest, at how two very different types of businesses attempt to adopt innovative approaches to new technologies. The first is the “start-up mentality” and the second is what I would call the “large business mindset” group. The “start-up mentality” companies are the ones who give the appearance of not facing the challenges of large businesses –but I can tell you those challenges exist! The “large business mindset” group have a tendency to look at business change or confronting challenges as “baggage that must be addressed” whilst managing the day to day aspects of a business operation.

In today’s market, businesses face many challenges and it is interesting to watch how the “people factor” of problem solving always gets in the way of solving the actual problem – I know weird, right? For many people, problem solving is a clinical discussion. “We can do it” or “we can’t”, simple as that. Yet, when “we can’t do it” is the only solution or answer, who wants to inform the organization, who owns the problem, that they cannot be helped? Consider that for a moment. Recognize yourself there already, sighing as you go into your next workshop, anticipating a hard slog or another round table debate? It is, for this reason, why many large businesses tend to look at start-ups with a great degree of jealousy. They see start-ups appearing to act nimble and addressing solutions, while they claim that they cannot move as quickly due to their size, scale and complexity. Well, I am here to tell you that a large part of that claim is simply crap. I have seen and worked in my share of complex IT systems or business processes. If you really want to achieve something you can, it may not look or work the way you thought it would, but the goal is always achievable.

What makes these start ups more successful in addressing business issues? Their attitude! They are walking into a room, not to attend a meeting, but to solve a problem. That mindset is what is driving the first aspect of their success. The second has to do with people – ever had the feeling, during a meeting that people are simply brought in to make sure everyone is represented? It happens often. People are fearful of what decisions might get made, on their behalf, that could impact how they work or what they need to do. In a start-up environment, yes of course everyone wants to chip in and be involved, but there is too much going on to have everyone involved, hence, more often than not, you will hear of meetings with only 2 or3 people looking to solve a problem, informing others of the recommendation to validate if there are any “serious” impacts or risks in moving forward. Plain and simple. So, if you ever sat in one of those meetings asking yourself – “what am I doing here?” well, more often than not, with all of those people, more actions are created and more delays become the outcome and ultimately the problem is not solved. It is then merely a case of how we plan to progress forward. Again, within a start up environment, time is literally money, hence a meeting to agree to have another meeting is not an outcome, and it means delaying a decision which ultimately could mean failure of the business. (This too should and could be applied to large business, but you already know that.)

Here in resides the ultimate challenge of large businesses, “how do you drive a sense of urgency?” – not to have everyone work harder – but an understanding that we simply must walk out of this room with an agreed view on what will be done and by whom and by when to resolve the problem or challenge. Can you imagine having the confidence in your colleagues knowing that as a team you had not only solved the problem but that you and your colleagues are about to go out of that room and make that outcome happen? Imagine achieving that same result four, five or even six times? At what point does it become business practice when staff start walking into a meeting with: a. fewer people and b. the confidence knowing they have been chosen to solve a problem? This would surely start to drive a sense of ownership in solving a problem and ultimately contributing to the success of a business.

I surely hope those of you reading this are not thinking “Well of course Nathan, it is merely a case of throwing money at it!” because that is absolutely not my point at all. If it was, then in most businesses this would result in just one aspect of the decision… where some parts would require reallocating funds. What then happens when the actions require reengaging the customer or supplier, or managing a process differently, or finding work arounds? What then? Can you just throw money at it? I think not. Having worked in both start up businesses and more mature organizations, the challenges remain the same - it is the mindset and approach we take and the people we choose to engage with which ultimately drives the right types of outcomes.

For these reasons I always encourage an organization to have a mix of people who have worked in start up businesses and understand the risks of failure, combined with people who have worked within large corporate for some time and know where the proverbial “skeleton’s” are hidden. It is very rarely the case when business challenges or problems cannot be solved. We simply need the right people around the table, combined with the right mindset, and the focus on business outcome and success. I appreciate the “easier said than done” factor, however, look at who you have sitting around your table. Do they truly believe in what you are trying to achieve? Do you have the right balance of passion and insights? A balance of managing risk vs. ability to execute? And most importantly, can you see one common agenda and view on how your business / team / or idea will succeed – if not, you are in for one hell of a journey or a path to continuous frustration.

The most important attribute of all though, don’t give up! I have met some phenomenal problem solvers out there which I can break into two groups:
• Those that can solve the problem but feel they face a wave of nay sayers or blockers making the outcome all but inevitable;
• and, those that can solve the problem and in the face of setbacks, identify a different path to get to the outcome that is right for the business.

Now, obviously I am not saying those in the 2nd category always succeed, but if you can look inside yourself and honestly say you have tried different approaches and are still not getting anywhere, then you are trying to solve the problem in the wrong place and we are back to the initial challenge of having the right people involved to begin with. No business is perfect, they all have their ups and downs but it is the businesses that have the ability to rally to a cause, empower their teams to lead where their expertise lies and drive business outcomes that ultimately succeed.

One day I am sure I will find the right group of people to solve my challenge, “I believe I can fly!” I just need some bright people to help me figure out how and then I will need to decide whether the benefits outweigh the risks? Believe in yourself and believe in the fact that there is always an answer. Your answer simply depends on your understanding of the outcomes and ensuring you have the right mindset and ownership around the table – now, if you will excuse me whilst I prepare for my first flight!

Are We Ready for Cloud?

I can appreciate that anyone reading this title will ask – what do you mean are we ready for Cloud, it’s in the market already, the market has been speaking about it for years, even in your own blog Nathan you have been talking about this? No I haven’t had memory loss – yet -  but this blog will look at a broader context of Cloud Computing.

Many businesses are already experimenting with Cloud solutions either for testing, extending data storage or generally preparing for cloud migration. However are we really ready for this change and what are the impacts it will have on our way of working? I hear many businesses talking about preparing to move their ICT into the cloud, but what does this truly mean? That their IT department has validated the systems they are choosing to use in a virtual environment or does it mean that an organization has understood that moving ICT into the cloud is as serious and potentially disruptive as any business transformation?

There seems to be a growing view that Cloud Computing will deliver cost savings to a business’s ICT spend and based on many industry reviews this seems to be accurate, at least at first. From a starting position when migrating to cloud computing businesses will most likely see an improvement in their IT and Communications spend through increased scalability; however the challenges occur when businesses are seeking to leverage the benefits of virtualization across their supply chain and their internal processes which tend to take longer to materialize in any type of transformation project.

Anyone who has undergone an internal transformation will know there are three key aspects to any business change, these are – People, Process and Systems. It is interesting to note that when considering a shift to cloud computing, businesses seem increasingly comfortable and aware of the “Systems” implications. However during a cloud migration businesses are not paying the same level of attention to People and Process, these two areas are of particular importance in an era of globalization and connected business environments. Through globalization many businesses today have staff/resources distributed around the world, either through driving efficiencies, optimizing costs or to ensure close engagement with the end customer. The People aspect of change brought about by Cloud computing needs to capture not only the impact of latency tolerance for people to access systems, but also ease of use, language, local vs. central support and managing legal and regulatory changes where people are located. Equally, a business’s processes increasingly tend to include other organizations as they no longer tend to manage from design to implementation to in life support without input from other partner’s, suppliers or even customers. These developments require greater governance and adaptability to change, something which businesses may not have had to consider in a static ICT environment where changing a vendor or system had a more limited impact to the business.

This is not meant to be a warning against the benefits of virtualisation - aka Cloud Computing, but to make sure that as a business community we look at the transition to Cloud Computing as being as broad and potentially impactful as any business transformation we have undergone or are considering. Whilst many are looking at the short term gains that cloud computing can offer, it is actually the longer term benefits of cloud computing which are more exciting as these can lead to greater business agility, a shift in aligning business performance with supplier cost and creating a working environment for business led innovation.

I am sure many out there who will read this and think I am over complicating something which is simply a managed service, yet the goal for any business must be how to drive sustainable growth, in a market where the only constant is change. It is therefore important to ensure any project is providing a path to sustainable growth, there must be a longer term set of measures for success, such as identifying efficiency benefits through unit utilization (staff or resources), or being able to demonstrate increased alignment between the pull of business requirement and the push of ICT costs, resulting in reduced bench cost and greater business agility.

Are we ready for Cloud Computing, the answer remains yes - surprised right? -, although it might sound odd with what I have just outlined, but as businesses we do have the means with which to ensure a successful migration to cloud based working environments, we need only make sure we treat this as a business change not only a technology shift. All businesses have been through some form of transformation in their business, whether that is to adapt to the market, seek out new opportunities or drive business optimization we need to refresh our learning’s from these projects to ensure a path to the outcome we are looking for in the longer term with Cloud Computing. As with any Transformation we must keep in mind the three factors of people, process and system whilst maintaining a forward looking view on the benefits to a sustainable growth outlook all the while keeping in mind the age old saying – Preparation Prevents Poor Performance!