Pragmatism in Business & Technology Strategy

Wiktionary defines pragmatic as:

pragmatic – Practical, concerned with making decisions and actions that are useful in practice, not just theory.

As a technology consulting organization we frequently get asked to assist people in defining or refining their business and technology strategy, or to explain why we’re an organization that people should work with.

My normal response when giving advice or answering this question is pretty simple: we focus on results – achieving a positive outcome for the business (in our case our customer’s business). I then go on to explain a little more of my thinking…

It’s rare to find a problem that has only a single possible solution – in most cases there are are a number, with some being better or worse, easier or harder, cheaper or more costly etc. How do we weigh up the options and help people pick the right approach? One word comes to mind: pragmatic.

Here are some ideas that we consider when helping our customers make pragmatic strategy choices.

Look Back as well as Forward!

Reality dictates that unless your business is a startup any strategy must co-exist with products, processes, systems and technology that are already in place. While we shouldn’t be bound by the past and present if there’s a good reason to move in a different direction, we should at least consider the implications for a business in moving to a new strategy.

Of course, this is also a good way to avoid making the mistakes of the past all over again.

Plan for Change

I’ve often heard people say that change is the only constant! Organizations grow, shrink, get acquired or dramatically change course all the time. Making strategic choices that recognize this and are at least partly proof to the winds of change may not be obvious to everyone at the time, but just about everyone can see them after the fact.

The first question from many of you will be “How do I know what will change, and when?”. The answer (of course) is that many times you won’t know precisely what will change, but you can often predict what is more likely to change. An example might be taxation rules or rates – if these factor into your decisions you had better assess the impact of them changing because you can be certain that over time they will!

Technology is a Tool, Not a Goal

I’m sure many of us know someone who just has to have the latest gadget or toy, and can find some “reason” why it’s valuable. We see the same thing in business surprisingly often – with the same lack of real results.

Weeding this out of your strategy can sometimes be a bit tougher than we think since simply not keeping pace with technology trends can mean death to some businesses. But even when we undertake pure technology modernization projects we should always consider whether we’re satisfying a true business need, and getting “value for money” compared to not doing it at all. If not, maybe we’re too focused on the technology, and not enough on the real goal.

No One Answer

Sometimes a single right answer may be unrealistic. A solution in one environment may simply add complexity or cause pain when applied to another. Don’t be afraid to choose two options if one is not enough. Or after reviewing all the options, the one where you do nothing at all may be the best!

Avoid Short Term Syndrome

How many “short-term” solutions become long term problems? It’s important to overcome resistance to looking forward, and to consider the same fundamentals – including future flexibility.

Agile Strategy

Finally, you might be wondering how the above fits alongside our stated preference for using an Agile approach to implementing technology solutions? My answer is that ultimately we believe the outcome is what is important, not the approach to getting there. Our current thinking (and we’re obviously not alone!) just happens to be that Agile approaches help organizations get there faster and more effectively than the alternatives right now.

To back this up from a slightly different perspective, Elisabeth Hendrickson recently discussed why she defines Agile in terms of results:

Where people define Agile in terms of practices, I see more instances of Cargo Cult adoption (”We’re Agile because we stand up every morning!”) and religious dogmatism (”You don’t TDD?!? You can’t possibly be Agile!”).

Where people define Agile in terms of values, I see more instances of Agile-as-an-excuse (”Documentation? No. We don’t document anything. We’re Agile!”).

But where people define Agile in terms of results, I see greater focus on the ultimate goal: value to the business.

I really couldn’t put it much better: attention to results keeps everyone focused on what’s ultimately important.

Are you tired of working with consulting companies who give you what you ask for, but not what you need? If you want to partner with us to extend your IT capabilities and produce real results, contact us