Building Organizational Muscle

The beginning of a new year offers the opportunity to move forward with a clean slate. For many people, this clean slate includes creating New Year resolutions to promote mental, spiritual, or physical health. However, as resolutions are made and gym memberships boom, here is one essential reminder: muscle doesn’t grow overnight. Instead, it is a slow process where muscle fibers add on one layer at a time.

This month, it is crucial to keep this lesson in mind as organizations begin executing on their 2022 strategic, operational goals and particularly technical investments. Personal fitness growth and technical evolution are far more similar than you might think, with media promises for fast results and silver bullet products to solve the problems quickly. In order to have a sustainable technical environment, including your organizational Cloud journey, the “systems” (users, engagement, processes, technology) must be built with a purpose – one layer at a time. We often focus on creating a finished product rather than the process of creating sustainable outcomes. This prioritization causes technology evolution projects like cloud migration, infrastructure consolidation, system modernization, etc., to be rushed or done incorrectly. Breaking tasks into smaller pieces allows for more creativity, innovation, and success later.

An organization’s technical environment can no longer be have a “point in time” and “refresh” approach, but instead a building process to create optimal growth, learning, and success opportunities.