Does the "Silver Bullet" exist?
I have seen this scene repeated over and over in my career. Executives get behind buying big name brand systems that are sold as the solution to "all your problems".
The cycle starts out with systems that are completely inadequate for the company's needs so employees start creating supplementary solutions to bridge the gap. Usually, in today's environment, it is spreadsheet(s) solutions. The process then becomes very convoluted, costly, long, difficult and error prone.
So some big system salesman comes along with the "Silver bullet" solution which is sold to the executive level. The system takes forever to implement, is costly and, then, only a fraction of its horsepower is used. Users again start to supplement with spreadsheets and the process starts again.
I ask how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time! Why not solve this with an "island hopping campaign"? Build smaller solutions customized to your operations and create data bridges to other "islands". People get more robust solutions to their needs of their area's processes. The solutions can be more easily modified when processes change without wholesale revamping large systems at high costs.
Work smart. Have creative solutions and be more effective. High ho silver away!
