Kathy addresses a tectonic shift in project planning and business case development that we are seeing with our own clients – designing systems for the long-term or even for the enterprise as a whole may be a losing proposition in an era of rapid change and innovation. Read between the lines and she is making a very strong case for Situational Applications.

Three key points:

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.

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.

Thinking back on this [enterprise-wide] 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.

This is a great little nugget from Brian Prentice.  The message is simple: Form follows function.  Brian’s point that, “For the end user, every additional capability beyond what serves their direct purpose is superfluous ornamentation,” is spot-on; this is why we are seeing a trend towards situational applications and applications built on platforms that enable rapid delivery of functionality without the bells and whistles, such as Force.com.

Three key points:

…as a software solution evolves to meet as many as many users “requirements” as possible, it actually ends up obfuscating value to its constituents rather than increasing it.

…users are clearly seeking ways to rid themselves of this ornamentation. That message is largely lost on those responsible for creating these solutions for them.

When function follows clear purpose, form can follow function.