Your business is solving the wrong problems. The nuclear triad of People, Process and Technology has been foundational to solving business problems for decades. Entire frameworks and methodologies have grown up around the simple concept that getting each of these three areas correct and functioning in concert will ensure smooth business operations and cross-enterprise alignment. Billions of dollars have been spent on people in the management consulting industry who have ‘mastered’ the art of alignment and offered definitive solutions to the biggest, wickedest business challenges out there. And yet… our businesses continue to encounter the same well-known and seemingly well-solved problems, spending massive sums to fix them. How can this be? It is said that modern business is one part innovation and one part marketing. Innovation is often mistakenly equated with technology and marketing with ‘digital’. Success in business therefore becomes a chase for digital capabilities and the latest technology to enable them. And yet… the latest technology continues to give us problems, create headaches and doesn’t always give our businesses the edge they need to compete, despite costing us huge amounts of money. How can this be? The reality, of course, is that businesses are chasing the wrong buzzwords, buying the wrong solutions, solving the wrong problems. The People Problem tackles this topic from the perspective of Enterprise Architecture. For newcomers and open-minded old-timers who practice EA, architecting the enterprise is all about asking the fundamental question ‘what business problem are we trying to solve?’ When practitioners pay close attention, they’ll recognize that business problems are infrequently solved by a new tool. That is, Technology isn’t the answer to the problem. They’ll also notice that the most efficient process in the world, made popular by the flashiest buzzwords in the industry, is insufficient to answer the fundamental question. In other words, Process is not the answer to the problem. Human beings are at the root and core of our businesses. They define the processes and operate the technology. Only by recognizing that solving business problems requires solving problems with (and caused by) people will we get close to the right solutions. The People Problem aims to help new entrants to the field of enterprise architecture (and anyone interested in solving difficult business problems) navigate in an era of particularly rapid business and technological change. Based on over 17 years of experience consulting with companies large and small, Fortune 500 to local startups, The People Problem is a collection of accumulated knowledge presented in easily digestible vignettes.
