“I’ll Have To Think About It:” Beware The Turnkey Solution, Part II

 

I left off last week’s blog by pointing out that a very common strategy for standing up a new Management Information System (MIS), one that entails problem or information deficiency analysis, selection of the solution, purchase, installation, training, and then…failure. Well, usually not complete and dramatic, like the HAL 9000 killing every astronaut on board the Discovery except for Dave in 2001, A Space Odyssey. Such failures usually have a closer resemblance to Deep Thought, the supercomputer developed by the Magratheans to solve the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. (WARNING: Spoiler Alert!) 

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In the aforementioned Hitchhiker’s Guide, the Magratheans are highly desirous to learn the answer to the “ultimate question,” the meaning of “life, the universe, and everything.” To obtain this answer they spend 7.5 million years constructing a supercomputer they name “Deep Thought.” Upon finally completing Deep Thought and posing the question, Deep Thought replies with the first six words in this blog’s title. It ultimately delivers “the answer,” but it’s not one that the Magratheans can understand – it’s the number forty-two. When quizzed on how forty-two could possibly be the answer, Deep Thought responds by chiding the Magratheans for putting so vaguely-worded a question to it in the first place. When the Magratheans ask how the question should have been articulated originally, Deep Thought reveals that it can’t deliver that answer, but can help design the next-generation computer than can, but it will take around 10 million years.

So, what can we learn from the inestimable Douglas Adams?

I think Deep Thought’s story is strongly analogous to those organizations seeking a turnkey solution to their Management Information System problems. Is Chapter 28 of The Hitchhiker’s Guide an over-the-top exaggeration? Sure. Does it present the Magratheans as having a comically narrow obsession with obtaining their desired result? No doubt. But even with these distortions of scale, consider how closely this story aligns with the pursuit of large-scale turnkey “solutions.”

• Senior members of the organization are highly desirous of obtaining some information stream, one that will make most (if not all) of their management problems go away.
• A clearly-articulatable and precise scoping of the end-product is almost never available.
• Indeed, to the extent that specifics of the desired system are submitted for evaluation, they’re almost guaranteed to generate more conflict and confusion. There’s even disagreement among the Magratheans about whether or not the excessive time needed to deliver the answer is a good thing or a bad thing.
• While an acknowledgement of the vast amount of data needed to produce an answer is generally ceded, the precise methodology for converting that data into usable information remains hidden.
• When the solution is delivered, it’s not what those who posed the question had in mind. It is, for all practical purposes, either extremely disappointing, or out-and-out useless.

Then we come to the nominal implementation strategy for a turnkey solution. Unless we’re looking at a brand-new organization, or an established one with an absolutely barren MIS environment, the desired turnkey solution will displace an existing system (or systems) considered inadequate for the present demand. Problem is, not everyone who is counting on the continued functioning of these supposed inadequate systems believes they ought to be replaced. Even when the existing system is widely recognized as needing replacement, since the current operations staff is rarely consulted for its replacement, they will invariably resist the change. I could go on (and often do), but you see my point. One does not have to be a Magrathean to place high hopes (and massive budget amounts) in the establishment of a supposed turnkey solution only to have those hopes dashed (and budget wasted) on the ultimate result.

The solution? Don’t pursue an all-at-once answer. Consider how much easier it is to name specific added capabilities to existing systems to make them incrementally more robust as opposed to having one system generate an ill-conceived final resolution. Collect the obtainable, easily-captured features that can be added to existing systems, or derived from pulling and normalizing several extant programs. Triage these incremental upgrades, but, unintuitively, don’t give precedence to the most important ones. Prioritize the ones that are clearly articulatable, and relatively easy to add, meaning the least amount of hands-on-keyboards effort to collect the needed data. Ideally, the data could be pulled from existing systems, or accessible via a current system that’s not using an available feature.

The Magratheans executives who had their hearts set on a turnkey solution won’t be happy, at least not at first, so it will be important to document the successes of the incremental enhancements as they come on-line. Recall Hatfield’s Incontrovertible Rule of Management (whatever), from last blog, that the 80^th percentile best managers with access to just 20% of the information they need to obviate a given decision will be consistently outperformed by the 20^th percentile who have access to the information so needed. We’re not trying to jump straight from 20% to 80%, which is likely impossible anyway. Just take a couple of points at a time, and before you know it your executives will be making superior, and then optimal decisions.

All without you having to tell them “I’ll have to think about it.”