Picture credit: Dharbigt Mærsk
I first coined the term The Trillion Dollar Bonfire a few years ago to describe the massive global waste of resources caused by poor management of information and the lack of properly joined-up management.
In those days though [2005-2006] nobody else really talked about trillions of dollars so I usually got very strange looks when I referred to The Trillion Dollar Bonfire.
However, the global financial crisis has now brought the concept of such massive sums well and truly into focus and our everyday conversations. It has also shown that we live in an increasingly joined-up world.
The Trillion Dollar Bonfire thrives on poor thinking and poor information management, it really is like a worldwide bonfire that sizzles away and regularly explodes in our faces, year after year.
Please consider these perspectives:
- the global financial crisis [since late 2007] has cost the world many trillions of dollars; I firmly believe that the crisis was facilitated by the poor quality of information available to the financial institutions, markets, regulators and governments.
- the global market for IT goods and services now exceeds three trillion dollars per year – but we still see research that puts failed IT investment levels running between 50% to 75%; I firmly believe that the IT-centric paradigm has failed to deliver because it is fatally flawed. We need to move forward from the 1990s thinking. If we don’t, unexpected cost and disappointment will still be the most likely outcomes of investment in technology.
These problems won’t go away until we start investing our energy and resources into properly joined-up thinking and creating effective information systems.
Those entrusted with managing enterprises, sectors and economies should be duty bound to do everything possible to protect stakeholders by extinguishing The Trillion Dollar Bonfire as quickly as possible.
To beat The Trillion Dollar Bonfire we need to:
- understand interconnectivity/ interdependency
- stop focusing on IT and start creating truly effective information systems
- actively engage joined-up management for a joined-up world.
If we do not, then we will continue to pay the frightening cost of the inevitable consequence of answering the wrong questions and fighting the wrong battles.
The first step in finding better solutions is to begin by asking better questions.
