Berg on Holmes on Homes

Ok, I admit it. I’m an HGTV junkie. You all know what I mean. It’s time to come clean.

There is one show in particular that has, well, inspired me. Perhaps you’ve seen it, too? It’s called Holmes on Homes, and it follows the travails of hapless homeowners who’ve been duped by disreputable contractors and are left holding a pile of worthless work in progress. Mike Holmes and his crew come in like the cavalry to sift through the shoddy, typically half-done project to reveal inadequate or improper work that usually has to be ripped out and redone. In Mike’s words, “I can’t leave it. I gotta fix it.” Why? Without a solid foundation upon which to build that new kitchen, a finished basement or the backyard deck the homeowners always wanted, the final product will be inferior, no matter how nice it may look on the outside.

If any of this is resonating with any of you, well, good. Because there’s no stretch in drawing a parallel between the vignettes I so enjoy watching on Holmes on Homes and the many, many inferior attempts at building the supporting infrastructure for so many companies. Stories of failed implementations running into the tens of millions of dollars (or more) are legendary. The reasons for failure are many, but at their core exists a universal theme: in their zeal to get the project done, the project team forgot, was unable – or decided not – to do the hard work of creating a solid foundation.

It is in that spirit that I reintroduce this blog, formerly “BPM Insights,” as “Foundations.” Over the coming months, we’ll share with you our own stories of success and failure, and introduce many of the fundamental tools and methods required to build a strong foundation for any operational initiative.