What Are We Actually Trying to Achieve?

When I first got into the tech world, it all felt like a giant funfair to me. Flashy advertising everywhere, the next big innovation around every corner, the next big thing you simply couldn’t afford to miss. To this day I associate that period very strongly with the big data boom of 2014. Everything revolved around technology. The question of what you actually wanted to achieve with it came up far too rarely.

In my work as a consultant I saw this happen often enough. Clients hired us with the clear goal of introducing a particular technology. Hardly any of them wanted to stop and critically question what they were actually trying to accomplish with it. The result was usually disillusionment. Because technology doesn’t run on its own. You don’t just bring a tool into your company and magically become the market leader.

The Same Game With Every Hype Cycle

Sadly, I have to admit that this pattern repeats itself with every hype cycle. A new technology hits the market, decision-makers panic and act fast, because nobody wants to be left behind. And it’s in exactly that crucial moment that they ignore the most important question:

What are we actually trying to achieve with this?

As an employed consultant, you ask that question reluctantly. It delays project kickoffs and means your own employer earns less money (the poor, poor consultancies). That’s exactly what I disliked about my earlier jobs: not telling the (whole) truth, just to sell as many project hours as possible. Whether the whole thing even made sense didn’t really matter.

And even today, whenever I look at requests for proposals, I notice with some regret that most of them essentially build their entire strategy on a tech vendor’s marketing brochure.

Will It Ever Change?

I don’t think so. But do I firmly believe there are companies that want to do things differently? Absolutely.

And those are exactly the ones I want to help, so they can make the best decision for their venture. The kind of decision that means in 12 to 18 months you’re not sitting there thinking, “Damn, why did we saddle ourselves with such an expensive tool that barely delivers any value or doesn’t even solve our problem?”

Because the right technology doesn’t start with the technology. It starts with the question nobody likes to ask and that still decides everything.