Tools and Software

Most SaaS tools present as the easiest solution to all your problems. For a single user, that might even be true. But get a team involved — without a clear process and the right people at the table — and you've just handed everyone a bucket of 300,000 Legos and walked away. In this episode, Toby and Chris break down the requirements trap, the hidden cost of anchoring to your old system, and why pushing people into the tool before defining the process is sometimes exactly the

Most clients walk into a consulting engagement expecting magic. What they get instead is a mirror. In this episode, Toby and Chris unpack why technology implementations so often disappoint not because the software is wrong, but because the process underneath it was never examined. From the "kitchen analogy" to the AI cuteness trap, they lay out what process debt actually costs and what to do before you ever call in outside help.

In the physical world, a carpenter who wastes 70% of his wood gets fired. In the digital world, we call that same waste "Process Debt" and ignore it. Digital scrap is invisible, it’s the "zombie" systems, muted channels, and skipped foundations that erode your team's sanity. The truth? You don’t lose to bad technology; you lose to skipping the boring foundations that make good technology usable.

Buying is easy to present; trying is how you ship real outcomes. This piece breaks down “try vs. buy,” how to spot and grow triers, why tiny experiments beat shiny decks, and the simple fixes (think box-fan energy) that slash process debt and compound results—especially when 2% of your org works on the business, not just in it.

A sore knee sent us spiraling into worst-case thinking—then a PT said, “You’re just tight.” Sound familiar at work? When handoffs creak or reports slip, we rush to replace systems instead of rehabbing the flow. In this episode we unpack the culture of buy vs. try: why shiny tools get credit, how soft-tissue fixes (handoffs, cycle time, rework) deliver real speed, and a five-step play to run “try” like a product launch. Stretch the work before you swap the joint.

SaaS-fished is what happens when glossy demos and executive FOMO lure teams into buying tools that can’t fix broken workflows. Skip the slideshow, get a sandbox, run a paid short trial, and design the process first—then pick the software that actually fits.

Organizations rarely die from one bad system. They bleed from dozens of forgotten ones. Define the job, assign an owner, and ship one Fix-It Friday win every week until the zombies starve.

When a community bank replaces people with phone trees and chatbots, it doesn’t just save money—it breaks trust. Somewhere, a spreadsheet looks great while a 30-year member gives up on trying to talk to a human. This is what happens when technology is installed without purpose: efficiency replaces empathy, and relationships become metrics.

RACI fails when truth lives in email. Make a single system of record per domain, separate reports from one-off analysis, and wire RACI to the tool that actually changes state, not the meeting.