By the time Jane arrived, Dave and Judith had already been over the question several times. A little out of breath, Jane sat down, sipped some of her famously strong coffee from the mug she always carried, and said, "So, what do you think?"
Judith began, "It comes down to Quasar or Elise. Quasar has a long list of big clients. Clearly they can do the work — they've done it before. On the other hand, Elise and her team have the know-how, and some clever ideas. And from their work on Marigold they know the business and everyone involved."
Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS)
solutions are more likely to work,
but custom solutions are
more likely to give you the edgeJane sipped. "Tough choice."
Dave wondered if Jane ever slept. "Elise's proposal intrigues me," he said. "It could be the key to same-day approval. I just don't know if they can do it. Quasar has done it."
"Not same-day approval, they haven't," Judith said. "They've done big systems successfully, I'm convinced. But we need same-day approval."
Jane, Dave, and Judith are making a choice between a low risk, tried-and-true approach with little innovation, and a higher-risk, innovative approach that could provide competitive differentiation. Something similar is happening right now in hundreds of organizations around the world. It's always a difficult choice.
Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions are more likely to work, but they're less likely to give you the edge. Here are some thoughts to prepare you for the day when your turn comes to make this choice.
- Compliance has a downside
- An organization that overvalues compliance by its employees risks inhibiting their ability to innovate. Find a way to communicate to employees that compliance is important in some areas, and that creative differentiation is important in others. Off-the-shelf employees make an off-the-shelf organization.
- You aren't buying a toaster
The term COTS is misleading — it suggests near-zero risk, as if the project were a toaster. There are no guarantees in complex projects. If "…you want a guarantee, buy a toaster." [Eastwood 1990]
- Your situation is one-of-a-kind
- Every product, service, and organization is unique. Their uniqueness creates risk. Using a vendor or technology that has been successful elsewhere isn't a mitigation strategy for the risks that arise from uniqueness.
- To run ahead of the herd, you must leave the herd behind
- To gain a competitive edge, you must do something different, something unique. Nobody ever got ahead by doing what everyone else was already doing.
- Make uniqueness a strategy
- Processes that won't differentiate your organization are candidates for COTS. But if you want to differentiate your organization, you'll have to do something different. Focus on processes that matter in a customer-visible way.
Customer expectations are rising continuously. What delights customers now will soon become the bare minimum. COTS helps you catch up when you're behind, but it can't put you in the lead. Top
Next Issue
The article you've been reading is an archived issue of Point Lookout, my weekly newsletter. I've been publishing it since January, 2001, free to all subscribers, over the Web, and via RSS. You can help keep it free by donating either as an individual or as an organization. You'll receive in return my sincere thanks — and the comfort of knowing that you've helped to propagate insights and perspectives that can help make our workplaces a little more human-friendly. More
Footnotes

Back
Your comments are welcome
Would you like to see your comments posted here? rbrenDJpmhgyaDTwBQXkhner@ChacmGoYuzfZpOvDQdRkoCanyon.comSend me your comments by email, or by Web form.About Point Lookout
Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and
found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.
This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.
Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.
Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.
Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.
Related articles
More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:
Retention
- When the job market eases for job seekers, we often see increases in job shifting, as people who've
been biding their time make the jump. Typically, they're the people we most want to keep. How can we
reduce this source of turnover?
Have a Program, Not Just an Agenda
- In the modern organization, it's common to have meetings in which some people have never met —
and some never will. For these meetings, which are often telemeetings, an agenda isn't enough. You need
a program.
Learning
- What have you learned today? What has enriched you, changed your understanding of the world, or given
you a new view of history or the future? Learning something new every day is a worthy goal.
How to Make Good Guesses: Tactics
- Making good guesses probably does take talent to be among the first rank of those who make guesses.
But being in the second rank is pretty good, too, and we can learn how to do that. Here are
some tactics for guessing.
Rescheduling: Project Factors
- Rescheduling is what we do when we can no longer honor the schedule we have now. Of all causes of rescheduling,
the more controllable are those found at the project level. Attending to them in one project can limit
their effects on other projects.
See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness and Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming May 14: Working with the Overconfident
- A cognitive bias known as the Overconfidence Effect causes us to overestimate the reliability of our judgments. Decisions we make based on those judgments are therefore suspect. But there are steps we can take to make our confidence levels more realistic, and thus make our decisions more reliable. Available here and by RSS on May 14.
And on May 21: Mismanaging Project Managers
- Most organizations hold project managers accountable for project performance. But they don't grant those project managers control of needed resources. Nor do they hold project sponsors or other senior managers accountable for the consequences of their actions when they interfere with project work. Here's a catalog of behaviors worth looking at. Available here and by RSS on May 21.
Coaching services
I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenDJpmhgyaDTwBQXkhner@ChacmGoYuzfZpOvDQdRkoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.
Get the ebook!
Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:
- Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
- Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
- Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
- Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
- Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
- Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )
Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info
Follow Rick
Recommend this issue to a friend
Send an email message to a friend
rbrenDJpmhgyaDTwBQXkhner@ChacmGoYuzfZpOvDQdRkoCanyon.comSend a message to Rick
A Tip A Day feed
Point Lookout weekly feed

- Your stuff is brilliant! Thank you!
- You and Scott Adams both secretly work here, right?
- I really enjoy my weekly newsletters. I appreciate the quick read.
- A sort of Dr. Phil for Management!
- …extremely accurate, inspiring and applicable to day-to-day … invaluable.
- More