6 Blind men and the Elephant

It was six men of Indostan,

To learning much inclined,

Who went to see the Elephant,

(Though all of them were blind),

That each by observation,

Might satisfy his mind.

So goes an old parable from a few centuries back which has many even older variations across countries with their cultural nuances thrown in. While the object of curiosity does not change, the number of people in the group does and so do their inferences. Conclusions derived too have varied by context of the narrator and the reader or listener though they all end up pointing to one key aspect of human behaviour, i.e. people jumping to conclusions based on their frame of reference and global ignorance.

Corporate world experiences elephants in the room, often leading to embarrassing and hilarious situations for those involved including instances where the elephant was never discovered. My friends have narrated many instances of the sum of parts being larger than the whole; differing frames of reference like the blind men in the fable have frustrated much intent to progress with incessant harping on their version of truth. Then off course there is the wise owl consultant who ends up painting a different animal farm.

The project was critical to the company impacting every function directly or indirectly. There weren’t any alternatives which is why it was a project that everyone agreed to unanimously. The CIO was happy that there was consistent alignment and endorsement of the project with hardly any resource constraints. Mood in the air was exuberant and success was perceived inevitable; everyone involved agreed that it could not have been done better with the transparency in decision making and setting expectations.

Few months into the project the CIO met with his peers to get feedback and inquire if he was missing anything real or perceived. Everyone had a fair view and appreciation for the flawless execution that had followed the project kick-off. Satisfied with the responses he forged ahead full steam; completing one phase and while moving to the next he hit some rough weather. With choppy seas and a pronounced roll, he again went back to the CXOs to check if course correction was required. What he discovered…

First stop Finance, he queried the CFO; everything is fine, it is a great financial accounting tool but… the indirect taxation model is not suitable and we would like to retain the old solution. Head of Supply Chain quipped that Sales & Distribution were good to go but… the planning part was not good enough and he would like to build a custom solution to meet the need. Manufacturing felt that their needs would be met at the basic level however… it did not address the stores and repairs current processes which would require additional solutions.

Marketing was non-committal in their response, master data needs to be fixed by someone before we can comment. Fortunately the Purchase team took to it like fish to water; they loved the solution which they believed will give them wings. Human Resources did not believe that they needed to change whatever they were doing; they were averse to change and closed. Fearing the worst he spoke to the IT team only to realize that the team was toiling away to keep everyone together moving in the same direction.

The disjointed and independent frames of reference portrayed a different view and plane; connecting the dots provided a picture that was far removed from reality. Everyone took a view based on what they saw and how it impacted them; there was no effort to stitch together a bigger or holistic picture. The original dream and expectation appeared a faint memory. Their views reflected a myopic vision in their risk-averse mindset and no one felt like challenging it. I know how to manage my part of the elephant.

The CIO realized the elephantine proportion of the problem where everyone in the functional teams saw a part of the animal they were exposed to and made preparations based on their conclusions. The IT team was left holding the portrait that the solution was expected to be. He contemplated different options and finally decided to leave the incomplete picture as is; he believed that he knew the elephant and how to tame it. After all this was not the first time he was in this situation.

And so these men of Indostan,

Disputed loud and long,

Each in his own opinion,

Exceeding stiff and strong,

Though each was partly in the right,

And all were in the wrong!

Was this the best option for the CIO ? What would you do ? To be continued…

Link to Part 2

The Chicken and the Egg

They traveled the seven seas in a small group looking wide and far for the ultimate solution to beat all solutions and their competitors. Visiting software solution providers and their customers, the team ensured that they explored all the nuances of the solution as used by their hosts. It was a search spread over many months and millions of frequent flyer miles. They came back with voluminous notes which were put together to create the decision matrix. A winner emerged from the chaos; it was the current market leader.

The team was excited with the prospects of implementing the world’s best solution; they presented their conclusions to the management using business case formulated on vendor provided parameters and some internal thinking. Despite the high investment required, management accepted the widely used solution considering that alternatives were not even known by name. The system integrator and implementation partner who had worked through the journey celebrated the decision along with the team.

The team chosen from business, IT and the vendor made preparations and started the project as a cohesive group with broadly defined timelines. It was perceived to be easy with clear use cases and the fact that current manual process was riddled with inefficiency. Lagging competitors by many years, the team and everyone around acknowledged the need and urgency. Well begun is half done, so goes an old English saying; that applied quite appropriately to this marquee project which had all the ingredients that consultants and wise men talk about.

Months passed by in the requirement gathering phases and everything was hunky dory; the rigor of the business team was highly appreciated. Some more months passed by, the team was still in discussion on feature fit to the future state process. Exceptions were highlighted and the system expected to cater to these. The implementation partner was getting restless. Another couple of months later there were no conclusions on the final process; the IT team raised a red flag to the CIO, users reciprocated with an escalation to the functional head.

A senior functional resource was brought in to resolve the bottlenecks; he quickly realized that the users were attempting to force fit their existing processes into the new system. The group had challenges in understanding the basics features of the system despite multiple rounds of demonstrations and step by step explanations. Their lacked the ability to define new optimized processes and with no interest in changing the process they kept shifting the goalpost. Soon it was evident chances of success were like water on Mars.

The SME decided to unearth documents that were the foundation of the product selection. The going in comparison set was not a portrayal of the future state but a broad level definition of the function which obviously met every systems checklist. The selection was based on market positioning and market share in their industry. Almost everyone was using it and thus the decision was kind of obvious. It did not need the process that was adopted to determine the tools. The lack of focus on process from the beginning led to the current situation.

What comes first, process or technology ? Should an organization determine the future state before attempting to select a tool or follow the process that this company did of finding the best tool and then try to figure out how to make it work ? If technology is indeed subservient to business and process, then the journey traversed by the team had a fallacy; even when choices are limited as was the case again, should the process take precedence over technology ? The savior understood the problem and solved it quickly to get the project back on track.

The Knight in shining armor took some difficult decisions and changed some resources while staying involved with the rest focusing on what mattered. He separated the critical and the important while parking the good and nice to have. Exceptions will be addressed when they occur, let’s move on with the 99%. Suddenly everything started moving and though delayed they were back on track. Given the situation I believe that it does not matter which comes first in the poultry farm; it is about where you want to go.

The organization acknowledged the fact, “People are not your best assets, the right people are !” and that’s a story for another time.