Christopher Global

Today's fast-paced business world requires us to embrace uncertainty and build flexibility. We are all familiar with uncertainty and ambiguity. Corporations have to deal with this every day. There are always changes in details, requirements, and business deals. Nevertheless, the process for dealing with uncontrollable change shouldn't change. Let's discuss what that should look like.

In any change (ambiguity or uncertainty), understanding the root cause is the first step. Most of the time we talk about a high level, here's the problem, do we have a solution. Most things in an organization are often domino effects. We're not very good at the research process because we're only interested in performing our own tasks. The process of root cause analysis is similar to that of research. This document should unveil the end-to-end history of the problem, use case, dependencies, risks, and a solution the team can implement to pivot their direction confidently. 

Second, we already discussed this, which is exposing the related risks and dependencies. In terms of the domino effect, we must understand what this impacts, how it affects what’s already in place, and where we are going. Having an ad-hoc meeting with transparent conversations is the easiest way to accomplish this. Toxic positivity is not allowed. The problem must be explained, the root cause must be identified, and solutions must be developed.

The third is, of course, solutioning. There are two parts to solutioning: business and IT. Workarounds affect more than one area and also have a domino effect. With every workaround, technical debt accumulates. Every workaround also changes business deals. To have that deep conversation, you have to understand the solution from end-to-end.

The process is simple and lightweight. While we can go deeper and more process-driven, simple can be quick or it could be all you are able to handle. There are no theoretical solutions here, just put it to use and get to work.