2023: The Year Where Nothing Really Changed

For those who like things staying the same, 2023 was nothing less than the ideal year.

During 2023:

• People kept on calling for meetings only to read what they had sent by email two days before.

• Failed projects carried on despite the plethora of signals that indicated the only possible solution was to kill them with fire.

• Millions of words in documents were written only to be skimmed through.

• Milestones were helplessly missed.

• Consultants were overpaid.

• Bombastic titles like “Senior VP, Product Solutions Management Operations Architect” were provided.

• Someone who was not even remotely ready to lead people was assigned to do that.

• Spreadsheets rife with errors were mass produced and consumed.

• Reality stayed more complex than what everybody wished.

• Brittle strategies were devised.

• Engineers and sales stayed largely unaligned from January to December with a brief alignment around summer where everybody was happier because holidays.

• The Big 3 ruined something beyond repair.

• Compliance with standards was declared with fanfare without providing the slightest evidence.

• Nothing really went to plan.

Here’s for a 2024 full of the usual nonsense we would not know how to live without and we secretly hope nobody will ever, ever fix.

Otherwise, what would we complain about?