When a piece of technology isn’t working—maybe the features and functionality no longer meet team needs, maybe it doesn’t integrate with other critical technology, maybe the company behind the technology isn’t keeping it up to date—for most of us, our first instinct is to replace it. Surely we can find something better that meets our needs and we can move forward. 

Sometimes that’s true. 

More often, though, the real need is larger than that. Technology tools don’t exist in a vacuum—each individual tool is part of a tech stack, which in turn is an integral part of the organization. 

The cost of replacing or adding an individual tool—selection, implementation (including moving critical data), any new integrations, training—makes complete sense if that’s the right choice for your organization. But if it’s not, that approach incurs a lot of costs without you and your team ultimately seeing the outcomes you’re hoping for. 

This is just one example of the challenges faced when leading with technology as the solution to the problem. 

Instead, the most important question to ask as you review any technology challenges is, “What are we aiming to achieve?” 

• It may not be a technology change that’s actually needed to achieve that outcome.
• Technology may be only one part of the ultimate right solution. 
• Rather than replacing existing technology, you actually may need to look in other parts of your tech stack for the solution. 

Just switching out the technology is never the goal—it’s always in service of something. So you have to start there. Some potential goals you might have:

• A need to decrease technology costs by consolidating your stack
• A need to consistently address a new and critical customer need at scale to maintain or increase existing revenue
• A need to make your recruiting process easier for candidates so you can hire more quickly 

If you have numbers associated with any of these things, like “10% revenue growth” and so on, you have an even more specific and actionable aim. 

So now you have these goals. Excellent. You know what you’re aiming for to guide discussions of technology and decision-making. Even more importantly, as you’re considering technology changes, you also have a starting point to understand the implications in areas like:

• How people do their work
• Effects on the customer experience
• Potential results, positive or negative, on revenue

When you start with the goals, when you know what you want to achieve, you place technology in the right context to make effective decisions based on real outcomes that will drive the organization forward toward a more successful future.  

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