ROI Measures One Thing. Success Is Many Things. Ask an organisation how it knows its ERP worked, and the answer usually arrives as a number. Return on investment. It's a fair place to start. But it's only a place to start, and it's worth walking through, one step at a...
The Customer Who Pays Isn't Always the Customer Who Matters Every disaster in service and delivery starts the same way: someone picked the wrong customer. A doctor who prescribes based on what a pharmaceutical company favours, rather than what the patient actually...
Engagement Isn't a Communication Problem. It's an Exchange Problem. Every technology program has the same complaint eventually: business stakeholders won't engage. Steering committees where the sponsor skims their phone. Status meetings attended by a deputy who...
Volume Is the Secret. Sustainable Is the Catch. Watch a musician practising scales for the thousandth time, a surgeon doing their two-hundredth appendectomy, a case worker completing another intake interview that looks exactly like the last one. None of it looks like...
The Scaffolding You Want to Tear Down Early Every building under construction is wrapped in scaffolding nobody will remember. Steel poles, planks, netting — ugly, costly, and in the way. The moment the final panel goes up, the crew starts stripping it down, and within...
Eight Words Every Program Sponsor Should Be Able to Define Most executives sponsoring a technology or transformation program were never taught to distinguish a problem from a solution, or a requirement from the thing meant to satisfy it. There's no reason they would...
Most Regrets Aren't Bad Luck Most regrets aren't about bad luck. They're about one of three things. You didn't think it through before you acted. Or you didn't know what you didn't know — nobody warned you, and you had no way to see it coming. Or, quieter and more...
You're Not Behind on Technology. You're Missing One Question. You're in the room. A vendor says "AI-powered." The dashboard on screen looks clean and modern. Everyone's watching to see if you'll push back or just approve the budget. Most executives approve the budget....