YES, There Will Be Life After COVID-19!
No question, COVID-19 is deadly. The toll it takes in human lives is unknowable. How much damage it will do to individual countries and to the global economy is anyone’s guess. To modernize Thomas Paine’s quote from 1776, “These are the times that try one’s soul”.
However, there will be life after COVID-19. As nations have done so many times in the past, we will rise like the Phoenix and make the world an even better place than before the Pandemic.
At some time in the not-too-distant future, not only will we have learned to live with COVID-19, we will find new ways to live and dream. While we deal with the problems of the present, we also need to leverage this time to prepare for a better future.
What Does the Future Hold for Businesses?
Will online business thrive in a society that continues to practice social distancing out of fear of contagious diseases (remember, COVID-19 is just one bad actor in a cast of many)? Probably.
Will we be required to wear devices that track our vital signs and report any anomalies to “big medicine” to alert the authorities of hitherto unknown pathogens? Maybe.
Will the economies of the world ever recover? ALMOST CERTAINLY!
I consider a return to the “old normal” as the unlikeliest of outcomes simply because we have learned how devastating a pandemic can be. The fact that we had been warned in detail by experts for years that it was a possibility, so what?
We don’t learn from probable futures; we only learn from a clear and present danger. Only after we have survived a catastrophe do we accept that it really can happen. But what next?
Change the Future
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To Thrive in This New World, Business Analysts Must Define a “New Normal”
I usually stay away from predicting the future, but I’m pretty sure I’m not going out on a limb to claim that we will be living in a “new normal” (whatever that means) in our personal as well as professional lives.
The one prediction that I am comfortable making is that the global economy (and that of nearly every country in the world) needs to be rebuilt.
Every Organization Will Adopt New Ways of Doing Business
In the aftermath of the pandemic, we will dust ourselves off and work out ways of coping with and then taking advantage of the changed situation.
Every organization needs to adopt new procedures, new protocols, and new systems to thrive in the new normal.
That is where the people wearing the Business Analysis hat shine.
Business Analysts Excel at Defining “New Futures”
We have been dealing with change all of our professional careers. That’s what business analysis is all about. We define the future. We have the tools, skills, and abilities to do it better, cheaper, and faster than others. But make no mistake; it will not be easy.
Machiavelli wrote,
It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.
Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.
This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.
Business Analysts of the World!
Consider this Your Wake-up Call.
- This Is Our Unique Challenge. Change is coming.
- Use the interim to get ready for the upcoming battle.
Our job always has been and still is to define a better future for organizations. That hasn’t changed because of a pandemic; it is now more crucial than ever. Change will always happen.
Now is the time to sharpen your weapons, work on your methods, and add to your bag of tricks. The world needs the likes of you. Prepare now for what lies ahead, whatever that might be.
From one Tom to another: Thank you for sharing your observations. I appreciate the depth of your response and agree totally. Lean is ideally suited for competitive environments, but poses dangers for collaborative efforts. When all countries struggle with the same challenge, competing for limited resources costs lives.
I have always contended that every solution creates its own set of problems. This pandemic is revealing problems with our current reliance on global supply chains (which significantly reduce costs in times of plenty but fail miserably during global threats). Any proposed “new normal” cannot ignore that reality.
My significant takeaway from the situation is reinforcing the importance of building reserves (a JIC or Just in Case approach) versus total focus on Lean approaches (JIT or Just in Time by nature). How we do that will only be tested when the next “crisis” pops up.
Tom Hathaway
Thanks for article Tom. I agree with the thrust of it. COVID may be the defining event of our generation.
Some commentators and politicians have described the current crisis as “A War”. I agree with that description, but would add that it is a novel kind of war: it is a quiet war against a silent, invisible and inhuman enemy. Previous generations recovered after wars (WW1 and WW2) and that took time. Like them, we will recover but we should not expect things to be the same. The “New Normal” will not be the same at the “Old Normal”, it rarely is.
Like you, I’m going to avoid predicting the future. Instead, I am going to suggest a process. What I think we should all aim to do is look at what we would like to retain from the “Old Normal” and work towards preserving that, while at the same time identifying what we think was defective and work out how we can improve on that. We will not all agree on all the objectives, and that is good too, but we should aim to understand our own priorities so that we are in a position to promote what we want while making pragmatic compromises.
So, what should we do in the meanwhile, especially those whose work patterns are disrupted or who find themselves “at a loose end”? My suggestion is that we use the opportunity to ask, and maybe answer, two questions about this crisis. In our opinion: What has worked, especially what has worked “better than expected” or in an unexpected way? On the other hand, what seems to have worked less well than we expected? Make the notes now, from your own observations and experiences. Use whatever “tools” you have at your disposal (Process Models, Data Models, Organisation Structures, whatever you know) to document and understand what you see. Those notes can form the foundations of your opinion of what should be retained or enhanced and what should be changed.
For what it’s worth, here are some of my observations:
Things that have worked unexpectedly well: Re-purposing production facilities eg Whisky distillers providing alcohol for hand-sanitizer and informal social networks organising “doing things” (often doing the organising over the internet)
Risks that have been highlighted: The risks to health of global transport in with a disease which may take 14 days to show any symptoms.
Things which have caused unexpected problems: The absence of “buffer stocks” (reduced in the interests of “Lean”) causing problems when extended supply chains are disrupted. Have some of the systems developed by Globalization proved to be vulnerable and “brittle” rather than flexible as we believed?
And I’ve noted the quotes from Thomas Paine and Machiavelli. I may use them myself in the future. 😉