We're Not Moving Fast Enough

"If you feel like everything is under control, you're not moving fast enough!" Mario Andretti

Often I will hear a CIO tell me that their organization is not moving fast enough. "How do you know," I'll ask him. Organizations commonly want more speed, but do not have the measurements in place to tell how fast they are moving, or better still, how fast they are moving in the right direction. How quickly are they covering the distance from their goal (or milestone)? What are the alternatives that could enable them to move faster, and is that really desirable from an ROI or cost of other programs denied perspective? Putting metrics in place that give indication of progress and rate of progress are a good first step towards moving "fast enough". The incremental step is to have leading indicators or metrics that are proscriptive in that they give indication of corrective alternative actions/decisions that could increase the speed when it falls below the targeted level.