Why Change is a Fact of Life in IT, And How to Mitigate the Attendant Risks.

Think about this for just a moment. When the automobile was invented, the idea was known. The idea was to free horses from transport duty, have less… Mess in the streets that horses generate, and move stuff. Over time, “stuff” became differentiated into “people”, “goods”, and “major shipping”. Though the transportation industry eventually spawned off many other industries such as farm equipment and military vehicles, it stayed relatively true to its purpose and true innovations in automotive transportation became fewer and fewer. There has not been a geologic shift in automotive technology in my lifetime, and only undependable oil prices and politics are shaping up that change before I die… Many decades from now. Even so, a part of the whole is being modified, but the vehicle is remaining virtually unchanged otherwise.

And the reason for the stability of automobiles is simple. They knew what the end goal was. They knew that it had to transport people and goods, it had to be reliable, and it had to use a readily available fuel source. During World War II, when that fuel source was in scant supply due to competition for the resources and military vehicles burning much of it up, Germany (and no doubt others) converted vehicles to wood burning with relative success… That’s as close to a major innovation as we’ve seen.

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