<pre><code> &lt;p&gt;People in large organizations avoid improving for improving&amp;#39;s sake. They&amp;#39;re very rarely proactive in transforming. Instead, it seems that management in most large organizations only act, and change, when they fear competition and failure. &amp;quot;Everyone&amp;quot; knows this is a bad strategy, and yet &amp;quot;everyone&amp;quot; does it. Perhaps we should embrace that behavior, or at least be empathetic, and figure out how to work with it.&lt;/p&gt; </code></pre> <p>We discuss this problem and things to do in this episode.</p> <p>Also, we find out why Coté always has bad breath.</p> <p>Mood board:</p> <ul> <li>(6:30) - The daily, normal fears are going to drive what a business does more than large, one-off crises.</li> <li>If your inventory is on an AS/400, then you&#39;re in trouble.</li> <li>A chaos monkey for business, or, training for the unexpected.</li> <li>&quot;When there&#39;s not a crisis, every penny is squeezed out of technology.&quot;</li> <li>Outsourcing, but the harmful type.</li> <li>Hold your customers close, know your evolving storefront.</li> <li>Now, software is the primary storefront.</li> <li>To improve, you must have an enemy.</li> <li>(20:51) &quot;If you&#39;re trying to modernize, do this &#39;digital transformation,&#39; it has to come from a place of an existential problem.&quot;</li> <li>(21:26) To prepare for a major disruption, you have to prepare for a bunch of minor, incremental disruptions. You have to sell [the return] on paying for change.</li> <li>(25:51) If you want to justify paying for continuous delivery, you have to find a problem to solve.</li> <li>(27:41) They&#39;re bean counters, so just count the beans for them - just give them some beans and they&#39;re happy.</li> <li>(28:58) As technologist, our views on revenue are not considered important or valid.</li> <li>(29:21) Fear and loss are often easier to quantify, e.g., &quot;if the database goes down, the business halts, and we loose millions a minute.&quot; Growth potential is harder to quantify and pitch, so we often ask for money based on fear and loss.</li> <li>(29:36) &quot;Even though I <em>think</em> about revenue streams, I&#39;ve never been taken as seriously when I talk about them, as when I talk about fear.&quot;</li> <li>Finding people outside of IT that care about software, like, in &quot;the business.&quot;</li> <li>(32:55) The only reason for technical agility, is business agility.</li> <li>(33:44) If you do live through a crisis, try to internalize your failure to prepare so you only learn once from crisis, not again and again.</li> <li>(35:33) The Business needs the fear, and then needs to ask IT to help with some optimistic technology action...cause no one&#39;s gonna believe IT.</li> </ul>

Software Defined Interviews

Software Defined Talk

Episode 3: Improvement requires fear, or, digital transformation by crisis and fear

JUL 6, 202038 MIN
Software Defined Interviews

Episode 3: Improvement requires fear, or, digital transformation by crisis and fear

JUL 6, 202038 MIN

Description

    <p>People in large organizations avoid improving for improving&#39;s sake. They&#39;re very rarely proactive in transforming. Instead, it seems that management in most large organizations only act, and change, when they fear competition and failure. &quot;Everyone&quot; knows this is a bad strategy, and yet &quot;everyone&quot; does it. Perhaps we should embrace that behavior, or at least be empathetic, and figure out how to work with it.</p>

We discuss this problem and things to do in this episode.

Also, we find out why Coté always has bad breath.

Mood board:

  • (6:30) - The daily, normal fears are going to drive what a business does more than large, one-off crises.
  • If your inventory is on an AS/400, then you're in trouble.
  • A chaos monkey for business, or, training for the unexpected.
  • "When there's not a crisis, every penny is squeezed out of technology."
  • Outsourcing, but the harmful type.
  • Hold your customers close, know your evolving storefront.
  • Now, software is the primary storefront.
  • To improve, you must have an enemy.
  • (20:51) "If you're trying to modernize, do this 'digital transformation,' it has to come from a place of an existential problem."
  • (21:26) To prepare for a major disruption, you have to prepare for a bunch of minor, incremental disruptions. You have to sell [the return] on paying for change.
  • (25:51) If you want to justify paying for continuous delivery, you have to find a problem to solve.
  • (27:41) They're bean counters, so just count the beans for them - just give them some beans and they're happy.
  • (28:58) As technologist, our views on revenue are not considered important or valid.
  • (29:21) Fear and loss are often easier to quantify, e.g., "if the database goes down, the business halts, and we loose millions a minute." Growth potential is harder to quantify and pitch, so we often ask for money based on fear and loss.
  • (29:36) "Even though I think about revenue streams, I've never been taken as seriously when I talk about them, as when I talk about fear."
  • Finding people outside of IT that care about software, like, in "the business."
  • (32:55) The only reason for technical agility, is business agility.
  • (33:44) If you do live through a crisis, try to internalize your failure to prepare so you only learn once from crisis, not again and again.
  • (35:33) The Business needs the fear, and then needs to ask IT to help with some optimistic technology action...cause no one's gonna believe IT.