This is the automatic response of a colleague when someone comes to her with an idea or new technology. Ideas are the easy part. Shiny new technology is the easy part. The hard part is integrating ideas and technology into everyday behaviour. So where’s your plan?

Too often we employ the ‘field of dreams strategy‘ and realise it doesn’t work too late. Behind the ‘where’s your plan’ question are further questions like why this? why now? what’s the problem you are solving? who is it for? and so on. All quite basic questions and often viewed as boring, but all critical to knowing what you are doing.

And sometimes we can only answer those questions in the short term, for what we can see now. Sometimes we know that the answers will evolve over time, which is fine, but acknowledge that upfront.

In our ongoing conversations about going digital, our refrain continues to be ‘the tech is the easy part.’ The building blocks around the idea or technology are the hard part. Whether it’s data governance or ethical reviews or organisational culture change or just the need for continual communication.

Bring your ideas, but let’s make a plan.

Photo by Med Badr Chemmaoui