We are all dealing on a daily basis with technology complexity – may it be that we have outdated systems or just too many different technology solutions. The luxury of a clean and low-complexity tech stack is though today more important than ever before. If you did not take the recent years to clean up your technical debt, it will be difficult to go into the future. And this is most apparent when it comes to Gen AI.
Technical debt impacts innovation
If you have technical debt, a too complex tech stack, your team is heavily occupied with keeping it going. With making sure all vulnerabilities are addressed, ensuring that integrations work, data flows the right way – and let’s not forget coping with the regular updates and upgrades to all platforms that regularly happen. And if you don’t address these, your technical debt will only grow more over time.
I am a firm believer that today we cannot afford anymore a best of bread technology stack but that you need to be more targeted and deliberate on your technology decisions. At the same time, I don’t believe that the old days of one-size-fits all and your monolithic HCMs are back either. The truth is in the middle – and that makes it much more difficult to decide, to strategize and to build a roadmap today more than ever. Yes, there are more choices than ever before, some of these truly exciting – but that makes it even more difficult. However, I won’t get into details around that here and now. If you are interested in how to strategize and plan your tech stack, let me know. Happy to either connect on it or write in a focused post about it.
The promise of Gen AI – and where it leads you wrong
Now, with Gen AI you often hear the promise that it will solve all of the above as it can integrate with all of your technology stack, can lay on top of it. But these are the flowery promises of an overexcited tech industry that also needs to find money to pay for their investments. If you don’t believe me, please at least go in with a test and learn rather than all in. The solutions out there are not ready or come with unforeseen additional complexities. Just one example: In the good and in the bad, Gen AI once connected to a data source will go through it all and make it all available – including the stuff that you didn’t know was still there or is actually there. Nothing can hide – and this will require a lot of pre-work to clean up your data and access model – and privacy. And once it is “out there” it is too late.
Clean up and Innovate with Gen AI
So what to do now if you have technical debt? – well, the way forward is not as easy as if you don’t have technical debt, but there is still a viable way forward. It starts though with a clear view of your future. Analyze your tech stack and identify the core systems that either could be at the heart of a future, simplified tech stack or identify the technology that adds today and tomorrow the biggest business value. Take one of these as your nucleus to start to invest and innovate with Gen AI. And do it targeted to achieve what your business needs to achieve. The time for focusless test & learns is over by now. Sorry.
This is not an easy undertake but you are not alone. There is still a big number of companies that have technical debt and need to find a way out of it. But even many of the companies that don’t have this technical burden are not out of reach: Still today there are more companies that test & learn on and with Gen AI than having a clear AI and Gen AI strategy they are following.
The chance to catch up and leapfrog is still there.
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