Do we have a Toolism epidemic on our hands?

So BBRT provided me with a unique opportunity to meet many of the consultants, 'solutions', and tool providers out there trying to satiate finance organizations' appetites for improved systems and data availability and transparency. And so I had the opportunity and pleasure of speaking with and exchanging ideas with some pretty smart consultants. Unfortunately, I also met several who were on the other end of the spectrum.

The software and consultant industry has astutely figured out the art of packaging. Calling a software a solution sounds much more impactful, right? My favorite is Business Intelligence. I'm not sure if this assumes that the vendor knows something about your business and also has some intelligence, or that by installing this software, you, as the user, will somehow be transformed with this gizmo into a more intelligent business or more intelligent business user. Both seem to be highly implausible outcomes.

The fault is not, however, with the consultants and software providers. They are filling a market need, and many may, in fact, provide useful tools and services. The problem is with practitioners (yes those of us in finance and IT) who have believed the 'solutions' marketing hype and feel that implementation of a software or adoption of a scorecard, KPI, (insert latest fashion here), etc will solve our problems. I describe this disease as Toolism - a condition that leads to an addiction to, over-reliance on and ultimately a belief that tools will solve our business problems.

There is no silver bullet or panacea to what ails your organization. These tools should merely play a supporting role as enablers of a process. The key, therefore, is to understand what the process should be.

Let me illustrate by using American Express. When we began corporate portfolio management at American Express, we used a rudimentary excel plug in to collect and view our investments (the tool actually evolved over time into something fairly sophisticated). We used it for almost 3 years and collected information on thousands of company investments every year. The tool was low-tech but effective. As our corporate portfolio management effort became more sophisticated, we realized it was time to get more advanced. And what these three years with this simple tool gave us was invaluable. We had a process which we understood and which we knew the good, the bad and the ugly of. As we moved on, it was imperative to continue the good and remove the bad and ugly. Having understood the process, we could use a tool to enable it. Going for the tool straightaway would have been a colossal waste of time, money and effort and we'd probably have never gotten as far as we have.

What worries me most about our fascination with tools is when I speak about Corporate Portfolio Management, and the audience invariably hasn't undertaken this discipline, but the first question I get in the Q&A section is "Do you have a tool to enable this?" If you are thinking about portfolio management in any capacity, a tool is a phase 3 or phase 4 goal. The early days require you analyze your current resource allocation practices and galvanize support for the effort. Matt Light of Gartner still has the most succinct and eloquent rationale for not over-emphasizing the software - "A fool with a tool is still a fool."

Is your organization struggling with Toolism? Or has your organization recovered or is recovering from Toolism? Any consultants, software vendors, etc out there who have perspectives on this?  I'd love to hear all of your stories. And remember, you can help stop the spread of Toolism.