My "Why?"

I have always been a ‘data guy’. As a Scout in the UK, I had a passion for Ordnance Survey Explorer maps which beautifully represented the environment we were playing in, enabling us to ‘see’ beyond the horizon. After getting my degree in Mapping Science and Environmental Science I managed to secure a role with Ordnance Survey where I got to work on the data which helped to create the maps! It was an amazing time of my life.

I was always interested in the technology that enabled this capability and used that interest to move into the GIS team within OS and then became aware of how people reacted to the technology in combination with the data. It was a profound realisation – that the tool with the right data helped people to achieve more. When the purpose for the data was understood and applied towards meeting aims and objectives, the outcomes were amazing.

I moved to work with Esri UK – focusing on helping get people access to the technology which enabled the data & information. During my time with the PreSales team, then Technical Solutions Group and finally Customer Success, I was lucky enough to travel extensively and got to help lots of people and organisations across the UK and into the US. It was this which brought me to New Zealand when I joined the New Zealand Esri distributor, Eagle Technology.

I transitioned to implementation – still focusing on maximising the value of data & information – and helped organisations such as CERA – the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Agency by providing GIS as a Service which helped contribute to the success of the recovery and rebuild programme. Yet another example of using data & information to drive great outcomes, enabled by people and technology.

Alongside this was some confusion about why more organisations were not using the power of knowledge through data & information to solve their problems. Statistics like 70% of change programmes fail really intrigued me. As I investigated this, I realised that people were the problem! The technology could do anything, but cognitive bias – both conscious and unconscious, ego and hubris got in the way.

The frameworks that people are taught to use and were considered as accurate and authoritative were letting them down. The gap is consistent – data & information is missing from the model – and yet organisations keep trying with what they have, hoping for a different and successful outcome and people seem to be unaware that the frameworks are not working for them.

When you consider the 70% failure rate from the government perspective – both local and central government – you quickly realise how much public money is being wasted when outdated frameworks are applied to problems and the result does not deliver the expected outcome! That has to change – public money, hard earned through taxes is too valuable to be wasted in this way. The estimated cost of failed change projects is between $50Bn and $75Bn per annum.

It's similar in the private sector too! Large consultancies want to charge extortionate hourly rates to deliver strategies. Why haven't they transitioned to a value based model which forces them to create valuable outcomes beyond documentation and spreadsheets?

In terms of technology - there has been almost no change in the methodologies used to create business cases, or to model the organisation for a decade plus. Whilst around us we see Augmented Intelligence, Robotic Process Automation, Machine Learning, 5G, DataOps and many more advances being made - the models of our business remain unchanged and inaccurate. Any new tools that are released, perhaps taking advantage of the internet to be SaaS based, remain relient upon decade old frameworks.

When you perceive information as an asset, and an asset which has enormous value, and you see that this construct is missing from the way we currently plan for change or model our activities, that is something to be passionate about. LINQ is the result of that passion.

LINQs unique value comes from including the data & information into the knowledge creation needed to understand the impact of change on the business. Building a model – a Digital Twin – of the organisation which includes content (data & information) as well as the people involved, the work that goes on and the systems (technology & other) used, creates a complete view of the business.

When you can see the value of creating, storing, using and managing the content that people need access to, to perform their role, and the content they create as a consequence of that role, you immediately contextualise the value of the tools (systems) they use, the work that they are doing and how this is all connected to the purpose of that work – creating value for the organisation. This perspective means you value data & information beyond its monetary value. Characteristics like quality, completeness, accuracy and accessibility all become hugely important when you connect the outcomes that people create to the ability for a good decision to be made.

The common frameworks that are used today, Business Process Modelling in particular are not only too technical for the non-IT savvy leaders we tend to have today (87% of leadership), they do not have a good construct for the data & information needed to ensure processes deliver good outcomes.

LINQ solves that. It creates a complete view of the business providing insights into why work is done – connecting it to business outcomes, the value of that work, the value of people, the value of systems. This provides the opportunity for analysts to help decision makers understand the potential for and the impact of change using the model. High confidence in the impact of change removes decision paralysis and accelerate impactful change. When the methodology enabled by LINQ is applied to business change, transformation, continuous improvement, process excellent, project prioritisation, the 70% of change project failure statistic is confined to history.

That’s my why.

At times it feels like this...or trying to push a snowball up a sand-dune in the Sahara desrt!

Any yet I remain convinced that this is a challenge that needs and deserves to be solved, so I continue to wake up each day and take action to help get the knowledge that this level of opportunity exists today and that failure shouldn't be acceptable.

I'd love for you to share my why and help me tell my story to as many people as possible. I truly believe that many of the major challenges faced by humanity today, including COVID and Climate Change will be solved by the better application of one of, if not the most valuable assets we have ever had access to - the data & information that we create, collect, use, store and share on a daily basis.