Have you noticed the rush of companies going agile? The many calls for transformation? As we enter an age of uncertainty, firms are desperately searching for the tools to keep pace. The problem is that most of our existing frameworks, developed during a more stable era, don’t work as well in dynamic conditions. This isn’t to say the old frameworks and the tools that went with them are completely irrelevant. There will always be a need to understand industry structure or to use your resources to create new advantages, but when the world is changing fast, we need different tools.
Business strategies often fail. This is well-know by now: According to studies, some 60–90% of strategic plans never fully launch. The causes of derailment vary widely, but execution consistently bears the blame. While that can be — and perhaps often is — a fair diagnosis, it isn’t the whole story.
In 2014, topcoder.com, a platform for crowdsourcing digital talent on a project basis, asked for technical advice on how to glean useful data from bison photography. Participant were asked to develop an algorithm to use structured and unstructured data such as time stamp or GPS from photos posted online to develop procedures that helped to pin-point the migration patterns of bison herds.
