Are Dinosaurs in Our Sandbox?

It’s a sunny, hot mid-afternoon as Sully (my two-year-old grandson) and I make our way across the hot pavement to the sidewalk as fast as his little legs would carry him. We finished the short 50-yard walk to our neighborhood playground that's complete with slides, swings, climbing bars and not a bit of shade. Sully insisted on taking three dinosaurs with us—Tyrannosaurus Rex, Stegosaurus and one of which I have no idea what it is. They are small plastic dinosaurs but large enough he can only carry one in each hand. So Pops is carrying the unidentified one.

After we set the dinosaurs loose to scare and intimidate all of the normal creatures in the playground, we begin to slide and climb on the bars and platform. Then he sees the sandbox, so we quickly gather up our dinosaurs and into the sand we go. We take off our shoes and slip into the sandbox full of sand that is now sticking to us like glue. Yuk, I didn’t even know there was a sandbox over here!

The dinosaurs are having a tremendous battle and I am not really sure which one is winning, but there’s lots of noise associated with each time they ram their heads together. Just as quickly as the battle started, it ends and Sully is now burying all of the dinosaurs. “Come on, Pops!” he says as he invites me to help him. As we start to dig our second hole for T-Rex, we dig up two plastic toy soldiers. Of course Sully is immediately enamored with them, which leaves Pops has to complete the remaining dinosaur burials.

It really caught my attention how quickly Sully shifted all of his focus from his dinosaurs to the newly discovered toy soldiers. He discovered an unexpected pleasant surprise by laying down his dinosaur and digging right in his sandbox.

We are in a similar position today in our profession. We are still playing with our dinosaurs—ChargeableHoursaurus, DataInputsaurus and Historiansaurus to name three of the biggest ones we see today. Yes, they are alive and still rumbling within our profession, but do not overlook the fact that they are still dinosaurs.

The great news is, just like Sully, the very client sandbox we are burying these dinosaurs in, is full of new toys that clients are needing and wanting. Our client sandboxes are full of hidden treasures if we start digging. The faster we dig, the more treasures we are going to find. Cybersecurity and testing, internal controls, project management, cost savings consulting, data analytics, dashboards, strategic advice and planning, advisory services, merger and acquisition due diligence, customer analysis, digital transformation, process re-engineering, real-time KPIs, data scrubbing, problem solving, automation and lots more to come as technology evolves.

The more dinosaurs we bury, the quicker we can discover new things. What’s in our client sandbox? Dinosaurs? What has yet to be discovered? Do we have someone else digging in our sandbox? Let’s face it, playing with dinosaurs can be a scary game.