Week 11
This weeks lesson highlights the importance of strategy. Technology investment is often the biggest budget line item for a company. It certainly is for my company. Investment Management is driven by technology. And the ever changing regulatory environment requires continual changes to technology to keep up. Enterprise Architecture (EA) can really be at the forefront of ensuring that the dollars spent on technology go farthest towards reaching business goals. However, without a strategy, even EA will not ensure that goals are met.
Strategy can also be useful in other areas of life, even for simple things. This week I am at a nosework camp for dogs in Big Bear, CA. We compete with our dogs every day to find specific scents that are hidden. These are called hides. The events are timed and you often don't know how many hides there are. One of today's events was to find 8 hides on and around an outdoor basketball court. You got 45 seconds to find the first hide, and then 30 seconds for each of the remaining hides. You get 1 point for every hide found. If at any point, you go past the 30 seconds without finding the next hide, you time-out and get zero points. You can also stop at any time by calling "finish" with the points for each of the hides you found.
The first part of strategy is what direction to go. Everyone has the same starting point, but as long as you stay in the area, you can go any way you want. Do you let the dog run free and follow, zig-zag around, circle the parameter first and then go inside, up one side and down the other? I decided to let the dog choose either left or right, but then circle all the way around the court before going to the middle.
The next strategy is timing. My dog Kit found the first hide in 9 seconds. We then had 30 seconds to find each of the next 7 hides. She found the next two very quickly as we moved around the court. Then there was one spot where she seemed unsure. I was pretty sure a hide was there, but rather than spend more time to figure it out, I had her continue on. She found the next hide before 30 seconds was up. After the 7th hide I called finished. We got 7 points, and didn't time out. We didn't win the competition, but we placed well. The strategy worked.
This weeks lesson highlights the importance of strategy. Technology investment is often the biggest budget line item for a company. It certainly is for my company. Investment Management is driven by technology. And the ever changing regulatory environment requires continual changes to technology to keep up. Enterprise Architecture (EA) can really be at the forefront of ensuring that the dollars spent on technology go farthest towards reaching business goals. However, without a strategy, even EA will not ensure that goals are met.
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| Kit racing the field in search of a hide |
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| Kit working hard to find the hide |
The next strategy is timing. My dog Kit found the first hide in 9 seconds. We then had 30 seconds to find each of the next 7 hides. She found the next two very quickly as we moved around the court. Then there was one spot where she seemed unsure. I was pretty sure a hide was there, but rather than spend more time to figure it out, I had her continue on. She found the next hide before 30 seconds was up. After the 7th hide I called finished. We got 7 points, and didn't time out. We didn't win the competition, but we placed well. The strategy worked.
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| Evie found a hide hidden somewhere on one of three cars in 9 seconds. |
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| Evie takes first place. Happy Mom, |
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