When the right answer is to change very little 

Sometimes the right call is to change very little, which means you fix one process, retire one spreadsheet and leave the rest alone. That's the case when your problem is small, your business is about to change anyway, your data isn't ready or the fix would cost more than the problem.

Why is doing nothing a real option?

Every change has a price in money, attention, upheaval and the risk that it goes wrong. A good decision compares that price with the price of leaving things as they are, and if the second is lower then the first shouldn't happen.

Let me say it plainly - doing nothing is rarely listed as an option. Vendors earn from projects so their advice leans toward projects, your team likes to look busy and you worry that standing still looks like falling behind. So small problems get large solutions, and that never sits right with me.

A fair comparison puts the do-nothing option on the table beside the others with its own cost and risk written down. Sometimes it loses clearly and sometimes it wins, but either way your decision is better for having been made.

In which four situations should little change?

The first situation is when your problem is genuinely small. If the gap costs you a few hours a month or a rare error then a project is out of proportion. A written checklist may be all it needs.

The second is when your business is about to change anyway, say you're moving premises, merging with another firm, launching a new line or changing who runs a team. A fix built for the old shape gets redone soon after, so wait and design for the new shape. Why would you pay twice for the same fix?

The third is when your data isn't ready. New software, reports or automation on top of messy, duplicated or disputed data will only give you wrong answers faster, and tidying the data is the real job even if it's a small and unglamorous one.

The fourth is when the fix costs more than the problem. This sounds obvious but it's missed all the time because nobody measures the cost of the problem. Put a monthly figure on it first using your own numbers and then compare that with the full cost of the fix, including the time your own people spend.

What does little usually mean in practice?

Little doesn't mean nothing and it's the smallest change that removes most of your pain, which in practice tends to be one of these -

• Fix one process that causes repeated errors and write it on one page.
• Retire one spreadsheet that duplicates another source you already have.
• Name one owner for a task that currently belongs to nobody.
• Agree one definition for a number your people argue about.
• Set a date to look again with a measure that would change your mind.

These changes cost little and take days. Often they shrink the original problem enough that you don't need the bigger project. If you still do then the small change makes it cheaper and clearer.

Say your business finds that one report is rebuilt by hand each month and takes half a day, and someone proposes a new reporting system. You'd set the half day against the full cost of the system, the time to set it up and the time to learn it. If the system costs far more than the hours saved in a year then the better move is to tidy the source data and write down the steps for the report.

That small change removes the biggest part of the pain and leaves your choice open. If your business grows and the report becomes a heavy task then the written steps and clean data make a later system cheaper to choose and set up.

Write the review date in your calendar before you leave the meeting, because a decision to change little is only as good as the follow-up that checks it still holds. That's my view anyway, even if it costs me work.

How can you tell caution from avoidance?

Both look like not acting, but what stands behind them is very different.

Caution has a reason you can write down, such as the data is not ready or the merger closes in the spring. It has a review date, it names the evidence that would change the decision and someone owns the follow-up.

Avoidance has none of that and it sounds like not now, too busy or let's see, which repeats for months while your problem stays and its cost quietly adds up.

Here's a simple test you can run on yourself. Write one sentence that starts with I am not changing this because, and ends with and I will look again on. If you can't finish that sentence then you may be avoiding the decision, so finish it or take the action.

A good adviser will tell you when the answer is small, even when a larger piece of work would pay them more. Ask any adviser what they'd recommend if you had no budget at all, as I'd want you to ask me, because the answer tells you a lot!