Kathy Harris

In my career, I’ve generally looked at any project or investment for the long term. I worked in organizations whose point of view was that investments in innovation or technology or services should be leveraged as broadly as possible. So, in many projects, we looked not just at current needs but also at future needs and we scoped initiatives with the assumption that if it was good for one part of the company, it probably will be good for others. We believed that at their heart, most solutions should be enterprise-wide.  And, by the way, most processes or products or technologies were integrated with any and all touch points. 

Thinking back on this approach, I believe we wound up with bigger projects, more risk, more complexity, more people, more requirements, and often, a far bigger solution than was really needed – we should have lightened up just for simplicity. I also believe that in 2009, it is doubly important to lighten up.  With many emerging techniques and technologies, the pace and nature of innovation is accelerating; thus, the time horizon in which we can take advantage of the opportunity is decreasing. For example, many products have multiple generations in the market and the next generation in development; so users can’t be slow to adopt and expect to gain any advantage.  And, more and more often, a short term solution aimed at specific users is exactly what is needed. This shorter term view requires organizations to move quickly, apply innovations narrowly, invest smaller amounts and aim for a short life span but high business value. Some short term solutions may even be a stop-gap to get you into a new business while a more-comprehensive replacement is being designed.   

In today’s world, I believe the long view business case is not always needed, appropriate or even relevant. In a time of rapid innovation, if we always invest for the long term, then we miss many short term improvements that can make a significant difference in productivity, cost and even the happiness of the people whose problems you solve. Imagine that — happy users! 

Consider defining a small portfolio of business case templates and scenarios that enable you to optimize short term impact.  After all, if you don’t perform exceptionally well in the short term, you may never get to the long term!