IT Strategy with Donald Rumsfeld

In a 2002 Department of Defense brieifing held by Donald Rumsfeld, then Secretary of Defense, regarding WMDs, he stated “there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know”

Whilst Rumsfeld has provided almost 20 years of chuckles with that soundbite there’s actually plenty to learn from this way of thinking when you are putting together an IT strategy for the coming years.

There are certainly going to be a number of milestones on your roadmap that you already know need to be done, and you know how to get there – these are your known knowns. Then added to the roadmap are your known unknowns. These could be things in your crosshairs that you know about, but might not know if they are achievable – perhaps due to lack of capability, funding, management buy-in etc.

Finally, you’ve got your unknown unknowns – such as the raft of volte-face strategic decisions that came about from the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic. Most of us never knew we’d be finding ways to enable people to work from home forever, and if it could even be achieved or not.

In fact according to psychoanalytic philosopher Slavoj Zizek, as well as sociologists Oliver Kessler and Christopher Daase there is a fourth category – the unknown known – the things or knowledge that we pretend to not be aware of – or the things we do not like to know.

If you manage to get all these things into one cohesive vision you will end up with a robust set of strategic directives – make sure to thank Donald Rumsfeld when you do.