I was reading about how the Washington Post has changed since it’s purchase by Jeff Bezos. One of the quotes in the article struck a chord with me:
“not to fix broken things, like IT will do at a company, but build the future”.
Jeff Bezos brought in Jarrod Dicker to run technology development at the Post – a division that is called R.E.D. (Research, Experimentation and Development) and told him that he was “not to fix broken things, like IT will do at a company, but build the future”. (Read more at The Drum)
Leadership should take this as a mantra – work on what is important for the future of the enterprise, not what is broken in today’s version of the enterprise. Accenture had a similar mantra when I was working as a consultant back in the 1990’s “Don’t pave the cow path”.
We were told that the worst IT implementation is one that just automates the processes of pre-computer work. The best is to design the processes and technology for what the customers really want to achieve with their interactions with the company.
