Vision without execution is daydreaming

For those who haven't been paying attention to the news, Bill Gates has decided to take a step back on his active involvement in Microsoft and increase his focus on his foundation. You can say what you want about Microsoft and Gates' business practices or technologies but one thing that is undebatable is Gates' effect as a Technical Leader and visionary.

In one of my personal favorite leadership definitions Steven Covey defines leadership as communicating to people their worth and potential so clearly that they come to see it in themselves." A great quote, similar in power to today's lead in from Bill Gates that "vision without execution is daydreaming". Bill has been a galvanizing force for Microsoft and the technology industry as a whole for some time and while it is doubtful that his decreasing involvement spells the immediate downfall of Microsoft it certainly indicates change is coming. Ray Ozzie is another great technical leader and visionary, the father of Notes and then Groove Networks he has a definite track record. But when it comes to attracting and retaining talent, even my Mother knows who Bill Gates is.

Technical leadership is an important aspect of any company. There needs to be a Yin and Yang relationship between business and technology. If that relationship gets out of whack in either direction a companies ability to execute suffers. If the business has too strong a voice then things like deadlines and functionality get pushed. If technology has too strong of a voice functions that may not be long term valuable get pushed, beeding edge technologies and increased risk are pushed. In reality there needs to be a set of trade offs between both sides to get the best possible solution.

This active conversation between business and technology is one of the big reasons for agile methods. By going through stories for prioritization and assigning costs for each along with a fixed velocity a team can concentrate on delivering the most reasonable business value in each release. Research from The Standish Group has shown that only 20% of functionality that goes into a system is Always or Often used and the majority (64%) of things that are created are Never or Rarely used.