Navigating Change: Six years of technology consulting insights unveiled (part 2 of 3)
Having dedicated six years to IT and technology business consulting, addressing strategy, architecture, and operating model transformation, I’ve discerned a set of common patterns and guiding principles that have proven invaluable in my roles.
In part one, we explored the complexities of organizational and technology transformation, focusing on two key aspects: complexity and architecture. We discussed how complexity manifests in IT and business, and how architecture serves as a crucial framework for effective change. Through examples like Gall’s Law and Glass’s Complexity Law, we learned the importance of simplicity and adaptability in navigating complex landscapes for sustainable transformation.
In part 2, we will delve into strategy and innovation topics and explore their profound impact on decision-making processes and long-term perspectives. Strategy, as elucidated by thought leaders such as Michael Porter and Clausewitz, emphasizes the importance of prioritization, resilience, and strategic counteractions. We’ll examine concepts like Wardley Mapping, which offers insights into navigating complex business landscapes, and the significance of focusing on capabilities rather than solely on strategy for resilient architecture and efficient resource allocation.
On the innovation front, we’ll delve into insights from visionaries like Steve Jobs and Henry Ford, highlighting the role of creativity, curiosity, and challenging the status quo in fostering groundbreaking innovations. We’ll explore how embracing constraints, learning from failures, and fostering a culture of experimentation, as advocated by Jeff Bezos and Joi Ito, can drive continuous innovation and systemic change within organizations.
By dissecting these strategy and innovation principles, we aim to uncover actionable strategies that not only support informed decision-making but also foster a culture of adaptability and forward-thinking.
III-Strategy
Strategy serves as a compass, guiding organizations through uncertainty to achieve their objectives by making deliberate choices. It provides direction, aligns efforts, and promotes adaptability to changing environments.
Linked with complexity and architecture, strategy navigates the inter-dependencies and uncertainties within organizational contexts. Architecture serves as the structural framework for assessing and planning strategy, facilitating effective decision-making, resilience, alignment, and resource organization to meet strategic objectives.
The reviewed concept encompasses Strategy Deliberation and trade-offs, Execution and Adaptability, alignment and empowerment, visualization, and Capability-focused Architecture as a stable foundation.
“The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do” Michael Porter
Emphasizes the importance of making deliberate choices and trade-offs in strategy. It suggests that strategy involves consciously opting for differentiation from competitors rather than merely imitating them.
Implication:
In large organizations, where numerous demands compete for attention, prioritization is crucial. While prioritization models should integrate various qualitative and quantitative dimensions such as strategic alignment, time horizons, implementation costs, risk levels, and potential revenue generation, we typically aggregate these factors into a visual two-dimensional framework of value (economic, strategic…) versus feasibility (risk, cost…).
“The enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan.” Clausewidtz
“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” Churchill
Both underscore the importance of execution in strategy. Successful strategy execution demands a balance between planning and action, resilience in adversity, and a commitment to continuous improvement.
Implications
- Prioritize strategies that can be easily implemented. Focus on practicality and feasibility rather than perfection.
- Establish a fast-paced feedback loop mechanism to gather insights and adapt strategies based on real-time information.
- Understand and adapt the interconnectedness of strategy, operating model, and governance structures to facilitate successful strategy implementation.
“Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction” Kennedy
Underscore that without a sense of purpose and direction, efforts may be scattered, and courage may be misdirected.
Implication
- Having a clear purpose and direction provides the motivation and focus needed to channel efforts towards meaningful goals.
- Sufficient time and resources should be dedicated to explaining the strategy and making it actionable at every level of the organization. This ensures alignment and empowers individuals to contribute effectively to the organization’s goals.
“The map is not the territory, but if you want to know the territory, a map is a good place to start.” Simon Wardley
This quote encapsulates the essence of Wardley Mapping, emphasizing the importance of using visual maps to gain insights into complex systems and environments. It underscores the value of mapping as a tool for understanding and navigating business landscapes effectively.
Implication
- Visual diagrams facilitate collaboration, problem-solving, and informed decision-making by providing a shared understanding of complex problems.
- Unlike traditional strategic diagrams such as SWOT analysis, Wardley Maps capture the dynamic nature of business strategy, allowing for better adaptation to changing landscapes.
- Maps serve as navigational tools, guiding organizations through the complexities of their environments and helping them identify strategic opportunities and risks.
“Business capabilities are the solid foundation of enterprise architecture, offering stability amidst changing strategies and environments.” Svyatoslav Kotusev
Capabilities provide a stable and enduring basis for enterprise architecture because they represent the fundamental functions and abilities that an organization possesses to execute its business activities independently from the organization.
Implications
By focusing on capabilities rather than strategy we can create architectures that are more resilient to changes in the business environment.
Planning transformation at capability level (what) rather than application level (how) enable to improve alignment between business strategy and IT, enable identifying synergies across the organizations, improve efficient resource allocation focusing on critical capabilities.
“What is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy strategy” (Sun Tsu)
Assertion that attacking the enemy’s strategy is of utmost importance in war. This is typically figured with the mechanism of counter-units found in strategy games like rock-paper-scissors.
Implication
- Understanding and strategically countering opponents’ moves can be essential for success.
- And the reverse principle is to understand you own strategy to protect it
IV — Innovation
In the realm of digital and IT transformation, complexity, architecture, strategy, and innovation are tightly woven together.
- Complexity highlights the many moving parts, from the ever-evolving technological landscape, coupled with the intricate dynamics of organizational complexity, culture and external environment.
- Architecture provides the foundational framework guiding strategy execution, aligning resources and activities to achieve organizational goals effectively.
- Strategy plays a pivotal role, offering direction amidst uncertainty and fostering adaptability. It involves making deliberate choices and trade-offs to navigate towards the desired future state.
However, strategy alone isn’t sufficient. Innovation serves as the catalyst for change, breaking through barriers, and connecting ideas to drive progress and seize opportunities. Innovation thrives within architecture, leveraging its structures to navigate complexity and drive meaningful change.
Together, complexity, architecture, strategy, and innovation form a unified system where innovation flourishes within strategic frameworks. In this section, we will see how:
- Emphasizing the importance of connecting ideas.
- Challenging the Status Quo.
- Seeking inspiration from diverse industries.
- Viewing failure as crucial for learning and innovation.
- Recognizing innovation as an ongoing process.
- Using failure to guide future strategies.
“Creativity is just connecting things” Steve Jobs
When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while.
Implication
- Innovation is about connecting people and experiences.
- Foster a culture of curiosity, encouraging diverse connections.
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses” Henry Ford
Highlights the concept that innovation often involves thinking beyond the immediate or obvious answers to what people say they want. It’s about anticipating needs that consumers themselves may not even be aware of yet.
Implication
- Challenge the status quo asking, “what if” and “why not” to push the boundaries (ex: iPhone, Tesla…)
- Innovation Is Accelerated by Openness and Sharing. Look for inspiration beyond your industry (ex: Gaming & education with gamification, Nature and technology with Velcro…)
- Benchmarking and experience sharing can easily bring a lot of value
- Go beyond surface-level desires and get to the root of what drives consumer behavior leveraging design thinking approaches.
“The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones” John Maynard Keynes
Point out that the real challenge in innovation isn’t necessarily generating new ideas, but rather the ability to let go of old, entrenched ways of thinking.
Implication
- One of the foremost challenges in change management lies in overcoming cognitive inertia making Humans naturally stick to familiar patterns and ideas and often resulting in a mental block against new concepts.
- Change management also contends with factors such as regulatory environment, organizational culture, historical market expectations, legacy investment in assets…
“Frugality drives innovation, just like other constraints do. One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out.” Jeff Bezos
When resources are limited, it forces creativity and problem-solving to come to the forefront, as conventional methods or solutions may not be feasible.
Implications
Use constraints as a starting point to find new solution (ex: mobile payment services in Africa where people don’t have a bank account, Drip irrigation in Israel where water is scarce…)
“Want to increase innovation? Lower the cost of failure.” Joi ITO
Emphasizes the importance of creating an environment where experimentation is encouraged, and failure is not seen as a catastrophe but as a learning opportunity.
Implications
- Encourages a culture of continuous improvement, where each failure is seen as a valuable lesson.
- Fail fast, fail early by quickly testing assumptions, ideas and concepts to identify potential failures or shortcomings.
“I’ve made billions of dollars of failures at Amazon.com. Literally billions. … Companies that don’t embrace failure and continue to experiment eventually get in the desperate position where the only thing they can do is make a Hail Mary bet at the end of their corporate existence” Jeff Bezos
To foster innovation and survive market disruptions, companies must embrace failure as a crucial component of the learning process. Examples like the Amazon Fire Phone and Google’s discontinued services, including Google+, Google Chat, and Google Glass, underscore this point.
Implications
- Continuous Innovation: Innovation is not a one-time event but a continuous process that involves ongoing experimentation and adaptation.
- Systemic Approach: Successful innovation requires a systemic approach that fosters curiosity, encourages diverse connections, and supports experimentation.
- Learning from Failure: Failure should be viewed as a valuable source of learning, guiding future strategies and innovations.
V- Consulting and Transformation
Digital and technology transformation encompasses reshaping an organization’s infrastructure, processes, governance, and strategies to meet evolving digital needs.
Business consulting guides this transformation, aiding large IT and digital departments in enhancing performance, efficiency and overall success.
Business consulting activities are intricately linked with the concepts of complexity, architecture, strategy, and innovation, serving as the practical implementation arm for these strategic frameworks. Consultants navigate the complexities identified, design architectural solutions, execute strategic plans, and foster innovation within organizations, ensuring alignment with overarching goals and objectives. Thus, business consulting bridges the gap between theoretical concepts and real-world application, driving tangible results in the midst of dynamic and complex business environments.
In this section we will explore how:
- Recognizing complexity as inherent in business and technology challenges.
- Emphasizing agility, customer focus, and continuous evolution.
- Prioritizing objective assessment and rejecting unsatisfactory solutions.
- Utilizing a structured approach focusing on analysis, collaboration, and expertise.
- Integrating time as a dynamic force to facilitate change and adaptation.
- Leveraging insights from similar endeavors to enhance decision-making.
- Harnessing visual aids to simplify complex information and facilitate understanding.
“All start with complexity” principle
Acknowledges that complexity is an inherent part of challenges and projects, particularly in business and technology.
It suggests that complexity can shift but not vanished: it’s mainly a matter of transformation, not reduction.
Implications:
- Emphasizes the critical role of analysis and strategic thinking in breaking down complex problems into more manageable parts, allowing for clearer understanding and more effective problem-solving.
- Suggests that professionals should develop skills in systems thinking and pattern recognition to identify how different elements of a complex system interact and can be optimally reconfigured.
- Highlights the importance of adaptability and creative problem-solving in dealing with complexity, suggesting that finding the right “axes of cutting” to dissect and reassemble components is key to transforming complexity into actionable strategies.
“P.U.R.S.U.E. in the Dark” Principle
Outlines a proactive, dynamic approach to navigating uncertainty and fostering innovation by emphasizing agility, customer focus, and continuous evolution.
This principle is particularly relevant in complex environments characterized by high levels of ambiguity, rapid change and where traditional, linear approaches to planning and development may fall short.
Implications:
- Prioritize Value: Maintaining a clear focus on delivering value to customers and the organization to ensure efforts and decisions are aligned with key objectives.
- Understand Needs: Leveraging deep customer insight and responsive approach that adapts to changing customer expectations.
- Remain Flexible: Maintaining operational flexibility to quickly respond to new information, challenges, and opportunities, to navigate uncertainty with resilience and agility.
- Shift Unhesitatingly: Adjusting or abandoning strategies that are not yielding expected results.
- Evolve Continuously: continuous Learning and growth, leveraging experiences to refine processes, strategies, and solutions over time.
“N.O. F.E.A.R.” Principle:
Emphasizes the importance of critical thinking in consultancy, empowering consultants to navigate options, objectively assess situations, and fearlessly reject unsatisfactory solutions to create maximum value for their clients. F.E.A.R being about
Navigating Options: Assess the landscape, consider multiple perspectives, and navigate through the available choices with a clear understanding of the implications before arriving at a decision. .
Objectively Assessing: Objectively assessing situations, data, and information without bias or preconceived notions.
FEARlessly Rejecting: Don’t hesitate to say no to options not align with the objectives, values, or standards of excellence.
Implications
- Empowerment: Consultants navigate uncertainty confidently, making bold decisions.
- Value Creation: Rejecting low-quality options ensures focus on high-value solutions, enhancing project outcomes.
- Professional Growth: Embracing “NO FEAR” fosters continuous refinement of critical thinking skills, enhancing effectiveness and reputation.
C.A.P.T.U.R.E. consulting strength to maximize value for our customers
By embodying the C.A.P.T.U.R.E. approach, consulting services can deliver significant, tangible benefits to clients.
Implications
- Comparative Analysis: Enables clients to understand their position in the market relative to competitors and industry standards, highlighting areas for improvement and growth.
- Methodological Approach: Ensures that client transformations are guided by proven, structured methodologies, increasing the likelihood of successful outcomes.
- Team Collaboration: Enhances the effectiveness of projects by promoting teamwork, both within client organizations and between the client and consultancy, leveraging diverse skills and perspectives.
- Urging Change: Acts as a catalyst for necessary organizational changes, driving innovation and ensuring clients are prepared for future challenges and opportunities.
- Resource Augmentation: Offers clients additional resources to manage increased workloads and complex projects, supporting seamless transformation processes.
- Expertise: Provides specialized knowledge and insights, reducing risks associated with new initiatives and helping to unlock potential value more effectively.
“Use the force of the 4th dimension.”
Highlight the strategic use of time as a resource in managing challenging change within organizations.
Use time dimension not just as a passage between ‘before’ and ‘after’, but as a dynamic force that can be actively managed to facilitate change processes. By thoughtfully integrating time into change strategies, organizations can mitigate negative impacts on people, jobs, and assets, while providing ample opportunity for adaptation and alignment with new goals.
Implications:
- Mitigate Impact: By strategically planning the timing and pace of change initiatives, organizations can lessen the immediate disruptions to operations, employees, and stakeholders, making the transition more manageable.
- Gain Support: Use time effectively to gain support for other stakeholders making the impact acceptable for them while preserving future benefits
- Facilitate Adaptation: Provide adequate time for the workforce to understand, accept, and adjust to changes, ensuring smoother transitions.
- Strategic Timing: Choose the optimal moment for change to align with internal readiness and external opportunities.
- Incremental Change: Implement change in manageable stages to sustain momentum and enable ongoing refinement.
“Learning from others’ experiences will save you a hundred times the effort.”
Emphasizes the efficiency and effectiveness of leveraging the insights and lessons learned from others who have embarked on similar endeavors. This approach can significantly mitigate risks, streamline processes, and enhance decision-making, greatly reducing the time and resources required to achieve project goals.
Implications:
- Adopt proactive research and networking to gather insights and advice to avoid common pitfalls and identify improvement opportunities
- Develop knowledge-sharing culture facilitating learning from both successes and failures is valued.
“One good diagram speaks a thousand words.”
Highlights the power of visual communication in conveying complex information efficiently and effectively. A well-crafted diagram can simplify intricate concepts, relationships, and processes, making them instantly understandable and accessible to a wide audience.
Implications:
- Stresses the importance of incorporating visual elements into presentations, reports, and educational materials to enhance comprehension and retention.
- Encourages the development of skills in visual design and data visualization among professionals, to improve their ability to communicate complex data and ideas clearly.
- Suggests that organizations should prioritize clarity and simplicity in their communication strategies, using diagrams and other visual tools to facilitate understanding and decision-making.
“The noob optimism bias: the less you know the later you will be”
It reflects the tendency of individuals with less experience to be overly optimistic about the amount of work they can handle or the time it will take to complete tasks. This optimism often stems from a lack of familiarity with the potential complexities and unforeseen challenges that can arise in a project.
Implications:
- Highlights the need for mentorship and guidance for less experienced team members, helping them to set realistic expectations and develop effective planning and time management skills.
- We tend to overestimate our time available for production on a daily basis
- We tend to underestimate the time needed to execute our tasks
- We tend to under evaluate the time for to address unknown unknowns
- Based on your level of experience start by multiplying by 2 or 4
“Equal Energy Principle: Devote as much effort to creating your product as you do to marketing it.”
This principle emphasizes the importance of balancing the investment of resources and effort between product development and marketing efforts. It suggests that the success of a product in the market is as much a result of effective marketing and outreach as it is of the product’s inherent quality and value proposition.
Implications:
- Highlights the necessity of integrating product development and marketing strategies from the early stages of a project, ensuring that market needs and communication strategies influence the product design and features.
- Stresses the importance of building a strong brand and customer awareness alongside product innovation, as a superior product cannot succeed without visibility and market penetration.
- Encourages organizations to allocate resources, talent, and attention equally between the development of their offerings and the execution of marketing strategies, recognizing that both are critical to achieving commercial success.
“Architects differs from consultants because using arrows on their diagrams.”
Architects address complexity by depicting system partitioning, interactions, dependencies, and dynamic aspects. In contrast, consultants tend to focus on simpler, static models.
Connections are critical in diagrams for understanding system behavior and structure. Connection evaluating issues or transformation impacts.
Incorporating arrows in diagrams enhances understanding, impact analysis, decision-making, problem identification and risk mitigation.
Implications
- Tackle complexity like an architect, think about the connections!
Part 2 closing
In the previous parts, we’ve explored the intricate interplay between complexity, architecture, strategy, innovation, and business consulting. We’ve delved into how these elements shape organizational dynamics, drive decision-making processes, and foster adaptability in ever-evolving landscapes.
In Part 3, we will delve into the realms of digital transformation, management, and leadership.
Building upon our understanding of complexity and strategy, we’ll navigate the digital landscape, unraveling its complexities and exploring how organizations leverage technology to innovate, strategize, and transform.
Through insights into management and leadership principles, we’ll uncover strategies for navigating change, fostering innovation, and driving organizational success in the digital age.
As we close our journey, we’ll reflect on the whimsical wisdom of Shadok’s laws, offering unconventional perspectives on problem-solving and simplicity.
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Credits
Thanks to my 🤖Egyptian art type assistant for the illustrations.
