Rant: Avoiding the Problem Duck Hunt

Just a rant.

"I've got me a shotgun... let's go find a duck!" 

I call that a "problem duck hunt."  You have a solution, and you go hunting for a problem.  When a flock of "problem ducks" fly by, you fire away, hoping to hit something.  Doesn't really matter what you hit. 

Software vendors do it all the time.  It doesn't matter what the tool is, the tool vendors will shop around for general problems and attach their tool... Look at all the good things our tools do!

My view: Tools do squat.  People do work.  Tools help them. 

If the people aren't aligned, incented, supported, and empowered to solve a problem... the existence of a tool will make very little difference.  The lack of a tool can slow them down, but the presence will NOT speed them up.

So when I saw this banner ad, from a competitor, I had to post this blog.  I blotted out the names of the competitor and the analyst that they used.  I suppose we do it too.  I'm ranting about the tactic. 

In case you can't read the ad, the headline says "Business Process Management and SOA" and in small print, "Follow the SOA Roadmap, learn from <analyst> and others how to tightly couple your IT efforts with business goals."

SOA and BPM are good, but they don't align IT to business.  People do.  Those people are performing a function.  The function is called Enterprise Architecture.  A SOA tool is used by an Enterprise Architect.  A BPM tool is as well.  Nice when they are together.

But the tool doesn't solve this problem.  The people do. 

Technorati Tags: Enterprise Architecture, SOA, BPM

Comments

• Anonymous
  April 30, 2008
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  May 02, 2008
  Nick I completely agree with you. It's the people who do the work. But then the question is this. How do you cost-justify the tools to allow people to do a decent job? What proportion of any benefits is it fair to attribute to the tools?

• Anonymous
  May 03, 2008
  The comment has been removed