You may have heard the phrase “progress over perfection.” This is not a new concept. Winston Churchill was quoted as saying, “Perfection is the enemy of progress.” There are also quotes from Mark Twain and the French writer Voltaire that are similar.
The idea behind the phrase is that perfection is elusive, and trying to attain it is actually counterproductive. I don’t think the phrase implies that we shouldn’t have perfection as a goal but that we need to recognize when we arrive at a point of viability. That’s the point where you know whatever you’re trying to do is going to work pretty well, but there will likely be issues that pop up and improvements to be made after launch.
Progress is the Goal of IT Strategy
In the managed IT services world, every client is on a path of technology improvement. Progress is the goal because even if you have an IT system aligned with all the right practices and processes, something is always changing. Cybercriminals find a new way to attack. The way people work evolves. The business itself changes.
When we work with companies to develop their unique IT strategy, we not only provide recommendations for improvements that are needed in their IT environment, but we also help them with change management.
Change management is the process of predicting how a change will impact the business, its employees, and its customers and then preparing how to respond to those impacts.
Laying out the steps for IT improvement is straightforward. Change management is hard.
Impact Analysis is Part of IT Planning
It’s our practice to perform an impact analysis when we’re planning out IT changes. It’s the impact analysis that closes the loop from design to utilization. It’s the process of thinking out what happens next.
For example, adopting a new application might mean that other systems need to be updated in order to make them compatible with the new software. That not only requires a decision about new infrastructure, but it could also mean that business processes need to be modified.
Or let’s say we’re implementing a new security control like MFA. We must plan for that day when the company’s employees can’t get to their account in any way except with the authentication.
Behavior Changes Require Lots of Communication
Behavior changes are probably the most difficult changes to manage. It takes a lot of communication to make sure that people not only know what’s happening but they know what to do.
The hybrid nature of the modern workplace has brought its own set of difficulties to change management. You have to be more intentional with communication because everyone isn’t sitting in the same set of cubicles together. You don’t get the same acknowledgment, so it’s more difficult to make sure that people understand what’s going on.
However, change management is something that can be learned. You can learn how to craft and deliver the right message, provide the right training, and use documentation to maximize consistency.
Impact Analysis Facilitates Decision-Making Process
At Accent/VC3, impact analysis is not just to guide clients through an IT project. It’s just as important for helping business leaders in their decision-making process. What we don’t want to happen is for executives to get overwhelmed by the complexity of it all and become paralyzed.
Doing nothing has its own set of impacts. Imagine the possible impact of not using MFA… a cyber-attack.
Planning and implementing IT improvements must be a collaborative process if it’s to succeed. What we do is keep executives focused so that we can continue to escort them down a path towards improvement, compliance, or technology innovation – whatever the business objective is – putting progress over perfection.
🔎Related: IT Project Process: 3 Steps to Help Your Next IT Project Run Smoothly
