Keeping the OSS executioner away

With the increasing pace of change, the moment a research report, competitive analysis, or strategic plan is delivered to a client, its currency and relevance rapidly diminishes as new trends, issues, and unforeseen disrupters arise.”
Soren Kaplan
.

By the same token as the quote above, does it follow that the currency and relevance of an OSS rapidly diminishes as soon as it is delivered to a client?

In the case of research reports, analyses and strategic plans, currency diminishes because the static data sets upon which they’re built are also losing currency. That’s not the case for an OSS – they are data collection and processing engines for streaming (ie constantly refreshing) data. [As an aside here – Relevance can still decrease if data quality is steadily deteriorating, irrespective of its currency. Meanwhile currency can decrease if the ever expanding pool of OSS data becomes so large as to be unmanagable or responsiveness is usurped by newer data processing technologies]

However, as with research reports, analyses and strategic plans, the value of an OSS is not so much related to the data collected, but the questions asked of, and answers / insights derived from, that data.

Apart from the asides mentioned above, the currency and relevance of OSS only diminish as a result of new trends, issues and disrupters if new questions can not or are not being asked with them.

You’ll recall from yesterday’s post that, “An ability to use technology to manage, interpret and visualise real data in a client’s data stores, not just industry trend data,” is as true of OSS tools as it is of OSS consultants. I’m constantly surprised that so few OSS are designed with intuitive, flexible data interrogation tools built in. It seems that product teams are happy to delegate that responsibility to off-the-shelf reporting tools or leave it up to the client to build their own.

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