It is so easy to lose sight of business vision in favour of a quick win — often with devastating consequences.

Tactical decisions are taken in the moment, usually with the aim of delivering a quick solution to an immediate problem. However, more often than not, these decisions jeopardize a company’s long-term strategic goals. The vast majority of IT projects on which I have worked over the years have fallen prey to this temptation at one point or another.

It takes a leader with a cool head and nerves of steel to stare down looming deadlines and and hold fast to their vision with zero compromise. It is these leaders who change the world.

The Visionary’s Quandary

‘We need you to build us an airplane that can transport our company’s products from the warehouse to depots all over the country,’ the Business Visionaries said to their team. ‘How long will that take?’

The Tech Team of engineers thought about it and said, ‘The airplane will take roughly two years to design and construct. However, we will also need to build a private airfield, with a hangar, tower and runway. That will take at least three years. ‘

The Business Visionaries considered this. ‘Okay,’ they said. ‘What can you give us in eighteen months? We have fifty depots all over the country. But, if we can start transporting goods just between the warehouse and the very closest depot in the next eighteen months, it’s still a win. Then we can onboard the rest of the depots in a later phase.’

The Tech Team considered this and said, ‘If we use existing designs, and go straight to construction, we can give you an airplane in eighteen months. It won’t be the big cargo plane you want but it will probably do the job. There’s still the question of the runway though. And, really, it’s the permits that will take the longest. A private airfield needs permission from the Aviation Authority and the airplane itself needs to meet all sorts of compliance criteria before it can be declared airworthy and take to the skies. Aviation is highly regulated. That could take a anywhere up to a decade.’

This made the Business Visionaries extremely nervous. ‘We need the ability to transport goods within the next eighteen months. Otherwise the project will fail.’

‘We could build you a large truck to transport goods between the warehouse and the nearest depot. Six months or less. Would that solve the problem?’

The Business Visionaries were in two minds. ‘That would add additional costs. Also, it would delay the actual plane construction by up to six months. And then, what would we do with the truck after the plane is built?’

The Tech Team shrugged, ‘Scrap it, I guess. No need for the truck once the airplane is operational.’

The Business Visionaries shook their heads. ‘That is a waste of money and it delays the project unnecessarily. Tell you what. Why don’t we build the plane over the next eighteen months. But, instead of flying it, we will drive it to and from its destination, just like a truck — until we get the airfield built along with signoff from the Aviation Authority.’

The Tech Team thought about it. While the idea seemed silly, they could not think of a compelling reason to refuse this request. So, they agreed and launched the project.

Difficulties presented, of course. For a start, the airplane travelled slower than a truck when on the ground. However, the Business Visionaries disregarded this, as the long-term intention was to fly the plane anyway. Twelve months in — and six months before go-live — they encountered a show-stopper. There was a mountain pass between the warehouse and the depot along with a tunnel through which traffic had to navigate. The plane’s wingspan was too wide for the tunnel; it would never get through.

The Tech Team escalated this to the Business Visionaries. Initially, the company’s executives were furious. ‘Why didn’t you think of this twelve months ago?’ they demanded.

Once they calmed down, they grudgingly acknowledged that this was nobody’s fault. In a world with so many variables and unknowns, the team could hardly be expected to anticipate every possible twist in the road, so to speak. This did not change the fact that they were six months away from go-live and now unable to transport goods from the warehouse to their nearest depot; the project’s only phase-one goal.

‘Talk to us! How do we solve this problem?’ the Business Visionaries asked their team.

‘I guess we could reduce the wingspan on the airplane,’ one of the designers ventured. If we angle the wings backward by forty-five degrees, and also reduced the length of each wing by six feet, it will fit through the tunnel. In fact, it would give the vessel a more streamlined appearance and actually look quite cool.’

This pleased the Business Visionaries and they gave their team the go-ahead.

The project launched and the ‘airplane’ made its first delivery via the mountain pass and the tunnel on-time and on-budget. It took several hours longer than a truck would have but the visionaries looked to the future, when they would fly their goods to depots all over the country.

Three years later, the Aviation Authority approved a local airfield for a different private enterprise. When the Business Visionaries heard about this, they approached the airfield’s owners and asked if they could rent a hangar and fly their plane from that airfield. A deal was struck and the business made the necessary applications for their airplane to be declared airworthy.

Unfortunately, this was the moment they discovered that their airplane actually could not fly at all. The change to the wing structure had ruined the aerodynamics irreparably. They asked the team to put the original wings back on the airplane, only to discover that this was, sadly, impossible. The team had been forced to change so much of the vessel’s structure, to accommodate the wing changes, that it would be both faster and cheaper to redesign the airplane from scratch.

The Business Visionaries could not bring themselves to do this. They had invested too much in the project to declare it a failure now. The vessel was extremely slow. In fact, it was unable to transport goods by road to any depots that were further afield. Instead, it continued to trundle between the warehouse and that single depot for years, until the company was finally acquired by a more successful competitor.