Necessary But Not Sufficient

Post date: Mar 2, 2015 2:21:59 PM

I've just finished reading another business novel of Goldratt these days (with the same title as the subject of this post) and was delighted about the impressions and thoughts that this masterpiece triggered in my mind. As always, his novels are entertaining and also have a more broad dimension that brings the big picture back to our attention.

Although business challenges presented are in the 90s in the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) arena of software systems, the essence of the principles presented are applicable today in the complex world of global scale, cloud based software, in my opinion.

To each endeavor there is a necessary part that is the intrinsic part of its core implementation and then there is an extrinsic part, that makes it complete operational - a.k.a. sufficient.

As described in the novel an ERP system is deployed and results are seen on short term basis with clear metrics such as increased productivity, decreased inventories and wonderful sales figures. However, at organizational level, the success has to be translated as bottom line value and this is not that easy or straightforward to perform. But the organizational level mindset view drives the real magnitude of an implementation, throwing light on an aspect that is not sufficient, not yet complete: the operational rules, the context in which the system operates to its full potential or not.

How might this be so important today? I could not read these pages without thinking to the agile movement and the fact that maximum levels of applying it are not encountered everywhere despite its large scale adoption. A lot of companies adopt agile for some departments only and at different levels, most of the time neglecting the highest level - the organizational level. What about the rules in which the agile implementation operates? Some are changed at least at mid level (projects and teams) but lots of them such as organizational culture and structure that are driven at the top level get forgotten and then the maximum potential of agility is not realized. And this is without any doubt, the most difficult part to change: agile transformation is necessary but is it sufficient in the way it is applied?