The High Cost of Inaction

A Conversation Between Adam Asch and Brian Haughton at Adaptivity. 

Adam: Hey Brian, Happy New Year! Have you seen the news lately? Lots of layoffs, major systems crashing, and technical debt is written about in the media; this is a pattern we have experienced before. What’s going on here?  

This is a pattern we have experienced before.

Brian: Leadership needs to think differently about how they invest in and use technology, and even more pressing, how do we deal with legacy tech – there are a bunch of ticking time bombs out there – do you remember Y2K?  

Leadership needs to think differently about how they invest in and use technology.

Adam: I see what you’re saying there – I think it’s even bigger than tech; it involves the entire business strategy and how we prioritize decisions on what we need to do about it. 

Brian: Yes, and it probably affects every significant business out there. Some companies are actively rooting out the problem, some are aware but don’t have the time to deal with it, but others may not even know or ignore the issues bubbling under the surface.  

It probably affects every significant business.

Adam: Yes, until they blow up like a volcano! I bet that many companies don’t even think of themselves as tech companies, even though they are entirely reliant on it. The leadership culture is focused on waiting for big problems, not preventing the problem or preventing it from repeating over and over again.  

Many companies don’t even think of themselves as tech companies even though they are totally reliant on it.

Brian: Exactly, it’s like maintaining your car. You need to change the oil and putting it off increases the risk of engine failure – it seems so simple, but people don’t even do the most basic upkeep – now imagine ignoring the maintenance of your tech stack – that’s what we are seeing now – what happens when you keep kicking the can down the road. 

That’s what we are seeing now – what happens when you keep kicking the can down the road.

Adam: Right, so what can we do about it? Just replace our technology like just getting a new car? That seems like a costly way to handle it. 

Brian: Well, we need to start with leadership awareness of the problem with their organization, then being honest about the issue and then learning how to fix things incrementally, and ultimately, we need to change the way we manage our systems over time. 

Start with leadership awareness. Be honest about the issue. Fix things incrementally. Change the way we manage our systems over time.

Adam: Yes, and we need to help them understand what they need vs. what seems like a great idea at the time – I know a few examples of companies spending millions on moving everything to the cloud – while needing only some cloud capability. 

Brian: Technology, including the software they use, or have built, needs to be maintained – we need to do better at budgeting for this over time – instead of a big significant, and expensive breakdown every few years. Plus, the speed of technological advancement is increasing the risk exponentially.  

Adam: So first, we need to help make sure they are aware of the problem. We can help assess what direction they should go – but more importantly, we need to help them build the skills they need to manage this themselves over time as an integral part of how they manage and lead into the future. But even more importantly, they need to take accountability for acting on it. They don’t touch the problem to try to avoid responsibility for it. 

We need to help them build the skills they need to manage this themselves over time as an integral part of how they manage and lead into the future.

Brian: Right, even though we still need to rely on some huge systems (ERPs, SAP, Workday, etc.), let’s keep in mind that they are not the problem. I mean, there are teams at those companies that keep those systems up to date. The systems we need to work on are the in-house solutions that are not as extensible or as modular as we really need them to be, and they’ve not been kept up to date. These brittle systems add risk by being hard to maintain and scale, preventing companies from moving quickly.

Brittle systems add risk by being hard to maintain and scale, preventing companies from moving quickly.

Adam: And the ability to move quickly – without our systems breaking is critical – we have incrementally added fixes and new features – have added to the issue instead of making it better.  

Brian: Plus, they have lost the people and the knowledge even to understand how they work, so they become afraid to touch them, afraid to do anything but interface with them – and hope that nothing breaks. 

Adam: So, this is about long-term adaptability and how the ability to adapt may be more valuable than speed in many cases. 

This is about long-term adaptability.

Brian: Right; leadership needs to strategically prioritize leadership and see their software assets through the lens of long-term adaptability.  

Adam: Sure and our adaptive framework is designed to address these issues; for example, applying our framework would have exposed, and we would have prioritized the critical areas in need of attention, creating an action plan to begin to solve the problem immediately.  

Brian: It’s never too late to begin – it’s always too late if you don’t start at all.

It’s never too late to begin – it’s always too late if you don’t start at all.