The always astute Martin Glassborow has an article on his blog titled “This Changes Everything … Honest!” In it, Martin bemoans vendors who push technologies as miraculous solutions – the notion that if you’ve got a problem, all you need to do is buy a widget and bingo! the problem is gone. The meat of Martin’s argument is as follows:
Actually if you try to do this without a huge technology change; you may reap more benefits. The problem with large technology changes is that you often fail to do anything with the legacy tail; you simply deploy new stuff onto the new technology. The legacy just sits and moulders, costing money to maintain and manage. Of course you could simply just decide not to maintain the legacy, which will save you money in the short-term but when it breaks, you could find yourself spend even more money trying to fix a system which no-one really understands. If you try to change the process before rolling in the new technology, you will probably stand a greater chance of dealing with the legacy tail.
So don’t expect miracles from a change in technology!
Without process change, technology changes are probably just cost!
People Trump Processes Trump Technology
It’s the final sentence that I find most important in this – “People Trump Processes Trump Technology”; i.e., people trump processes, and processes trump technology.
It’s like rock, paper, scissors, but with a trump card.
In my book, I spend an entire chapter talking about the human and technical layers within a backup solution, and so Martin’s argument struck very true with me: it doesn’t matter how excellent the purchased technology is – if you don’t have people and processes established to integrate with the technology in a synergistic function, you won’t get anywhere.
Or to put it another way, there is no silver bullet. There’s no one piece of technology that you can deploy which will magically solve your issues if you can’t integrate it properly within your operating processes. In fact, I’d suggest that technology at most only ever forms 40% of the total solution – and that’s an absolute maximum percentage. The rest comes from people, and processes.
This is why so many large scale technology purchases fail to actually achieve anything within organisations. Companies that pursue an aggressive technology change strategy without addressing core issues – personnel and processes – repeatedly fail to achieve anything, and lurch from one silver bullet to the next, cursing each failed solution. This isn’t always their fault – it’s easy to believe a slick salesperson who suggests that their technology will resolve all your issues when you’re reluctant to face those core concerns.
If you want to take some honest advice from someone who has worked in the systems integration space for a decade, consider this: there are no silver bullets. You can’t solve a problem just by buying a specific piece of technology, and anyone trying to tell you this is either lying or misguided. Instead, if someone is pitching a piece of technology, or a suite of technologies, as able to solve your problems, and they don’t understand your business, they can’t be believed.
The important question is: do you understand your business? You need to – you have to, in order to understand what part people and processes need to play in solving any issue you’re currently having. Remember: they’re 60% of the solution. The technology is certainly the easy part of the solution, but it’s not a silver bullet.
