How do you look at your business history of change?

Submitted by Patrick Grote on Thu, 11/09/2006 - 2:13pm.

The script for the current Iraq war was written before it was even begun. According to Post-Saddam Iraq: The War Game , the invasion of Iraq was all planned out. It was a war game instituted to study what to do when Iraq was invaded.

The conclusion of the war game was sobering:

The results of Desert Crossing, however, drew pessimistic conclusions regarding the immediate possible outcomes of such action. Some of these conclusions are interestingly similar to the events which actually occurred after Saddam was overthrown. The report forewarned that regime change may cause regional instability by opening the doors to "rival forces bidding for power" which, in turn, could cause societal "fragmentation along religious and/or ethnic lines" and antagonize "aggressive neighbors."

This is exactly what has happened.

As I read through the report I was amazed to see the parallels to our own business of IT support. I got to thinking that maybe some of my older presentations might include glimpses into the future.

Since I have saved all the presentations I and others created during my tenure, I popped them out of the archive and started looking at them. A number of things became very clear to me:

Business Goals Change Frequently: Even though our company does the same basic function it's dozen years, the specific goals have changed.

My Ideas Get Recycled: It's funny to watch my ideas pop up in other's presentations. I should feel flattered, but I think they're all pretty much themes of the same idea.

The Worst Case Rarely Happens: In the presentations there are warnings that if a certain course of action isn't taken we'll experience dire circumstances. Rarely did those come to fruition.

I didn't come across a Sadam war game moment, but it was sobering to see how little you progress at times in a large corporation. Let me rephrase that. It's sobering to see how little progress all units make in a large corporation.

On our team, we are distinctly different than we were in 2000. We've needed to do this to deal with cutbacks, turnover, etc. Some of the business units haven't been that quick to change.

Take some time and look over the old presentations you've given. Have you or your team changed?