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March 18, 2008
The End of Irrational Execution
Faisal Hoque, Chairman of BTM, appeared in Baseline Magazine with a brief discussion on the three elements needed for "Transformation: Inertia to Agility" (BTM innovates new business models and enhances financial performance by converging business and technology.)
As usual, Faisal offers a wonderful summation of what levers to throw and why to throw them. Here, he observes innovation, efficiency and abandonment.
Sound familiar? Perhaps the most interesting aspect of his article's proof point -- Amazon -- is that it shows how far we have recovered from the dot com era assumptions, particularly when it comes to understanding that in a business we actually have to get paid for making people happy. What Hoque really pins down, though, like a refreshed road marker, is that the "making" part is not the business, but is instead the competency.
Amongst the problems in the mix, the inertia that Faisal details is arguably the description of how business frustrates competency (“We have to meet this quarter’s numbers or we’re toast.” ), while on the other side of the coin Hoque highlights how competency, through enterprise architecture, can drive a business ("the first step is to get a clear picture of the entire enterprise...").
Meanwhile, that flashback we easily have on older preached wisdom like "Fail Faster!" and "Destroy Creatively!" still seems to apply, but the difference is that we have actual history on that now. The history begs the question, "why are only the exceptions successful?" Hoque's answer looks to be a turnaround on the old saying "If you don't know where you're going, it doesn't matter how you get there..." The turnaround is, "If you don't know how to get there, it doesn't matter where you're going." But we can't make the mistake of joining the casual crowd exuberance for "execution": the point is that enterprise architecture is the competency enabler that then delivers execution for the business.
Posted by Malcolm Ryder at March 18, 2008 9:01 AM
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