I’ve been a proponent (much to the chagrin of some of my team mates) of the idea that organizations don’t understand the problems they’re trying to solve for quite some time. This sounds absurd on the face of things – why would an organization sink time, money and resources into a solution for a problem they don’t understand?
Fact is, most folks participate in “blind solutioning” (fixing a problem where only the symptoms are well known) and aren’t aware of the damage they cause – I’ve been met with anger, disbelief and denial whenever I try to gently bring this to the surface. Like it or not, so many projects start out with an assumption that a product is the answer before any time is spent determining what needs to be rectified in the first place.
There is a great interview of two chaps that illustrates this well – http://innovations.ziffdavisenterprise.com/2008/04/stop_thinking_solutions_start.html
I plan on digging into this more in the coming weeks – stay tuned!
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