Systems · September 08, 2026
Stop making bad work faster
In 1990 Michael Hammer told companies to stop using new technology to make obsolete processes faster. We now have far better technology and appear to have preserved the mistake. Most bad corporate processes were never designed. They accumulated, one control and one spreadsheet at a time, until nobody could explain why any of it existed. The current generation of automation tools can strip enormous amounts of manual work out of arrangements like that, which is not the same as removing the reason the work exists. Drawing on the AICD's 2026 Director Sentiment Index and research from McKinsey, Deloitte and Microsoft, this piece sets out what to ask before approving the next business case promising thousands of hours saved, and why saved hours are a poor measure of anything on their own.
