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.