You Want a New System. Fine. What For?

I've noticed that businesses are often much better at describing the software they want than the problem they want it to solve.

"We need a new CRM."

"We need to automate this."

"We should probably be doing something with AI."

Fair enough. But none of those tells me what I actually need to know.

After more than twenty years working in software, I've learned that the most useful part of a technology conversation is usually the bit that happens before we start talking about technology. What is the business trying to improve? Where is the current process getting in the way? What would you want to be different once the project is finished?

What are you really trying to change?

Technology is an easy place to start because it is tangible. You can compare platforms, look at demonstrations and make a list of features. A business problem is usually less tidy. It might involve a process that has changed several times over the years, information sitting in too many places, a team that has developed its own way of working, or a system that was perfectly adequate five years ago and isn't anymore.

A business might come to us wanting to automate something, for example, and discover that the process itself needs simplifying first. Another might think it needs a new system when the real issue is that its existing systems aren't connected properly. And sometimes a new application really is the right answer. We don't know which it is until we've understood the business well enough to make that decision.

How do you know whether the project has actually worked?

This is where having a clear business outcome becomes particularly useful. If a team is spending too much time entering the same information in several places, the aim might be to reduce that administrative work. If customers are waiting too long for answers because information is difficult to find, the aim might be to give people a much clearer view of the customer. If management is spending days pulling together reports, the aim might be to get the right information in front of them much sooner.

And yes, this applies to AI too

AI has made this particularly relevant because businesses are understandably keen to understand what it could do for them.

But "we should be using AI" isn't a business outcome.

The useful conversation starts with what you want to improve. Perhaps there is a repetitive task taking up a significant amount of someone's day. Perhaps your people are spending too much time finding and interpreting information. Once you understand that, you can decide whether AI is actually the right tool.

It might be. It might not. Either way, you've made the decision for a reason rather than because AI happened to be the technology flavour of the month.

The only way we work

At Verasseti, we don't have a technology package to push, and we’re not waiting for a problem to come along and justify it.

We start by understanding the business, the people, and what needs to be different- for them. From there, we can work out whether the answer is commissioned software, an existing platform, or a combination of things. If there's one thing that experience has taught me, it's that the best solution isn't always the most complicated one. It is the one that solves the problem properly.

So before you start choosing software, I'd suggest starting with a much less exciting question.

What do you actually want to change?

Once you have a good answer to that, we can figure out the rest…