I’ve always been a fan of moving fast, especially in the enterprise world. Some problems need a quick solution. Let a problem linger long enough and the people it hurts will route around it with duct tape and workarounds - that is almost always a disaster.

The Last Speed Rush

When the data/Business Intelligence craze burned through enterprises, it offered something that felt radical at the time: quick answers. People finally got the analysis and visualization they had been asking for, sometimes for years. In my hands, Tableau became a tool for fast, valuable wins. It was not perfect and there were plenty of potholes to avoid, but what it offered was immensely valuable.

So valuable, in fact, that it created tension between the data world and the IT world. IT moves slowly and methodically, with security and supportability at the center. None of that is bad, but it pulls against speed and quick wins. In those early days, Tableau often connected directly to production SQL databases with credentials that had too much power, running on infrastructure with too little visibility, in software environments with too little documentation.

Tableau was not the problem, and neither was the rigidity of IT. The real problem was that no one was prepared for the change. It has been 15+ years, and I am pretty confident most businesses have not learned the lesson. They are still struggling with the same problems, just with different tools and a different coat of paint.

AI Is the Next Speed Rush

Now we are back in that same spot again with vibe coding and AI-driven tasks. This is a tool that could let the business move so much faster. We should be putting it in the hands of anyone who wants it, giving them a place to play with it and a long leash to drive value from it.

But we did not learn the lessons the first time. Our data and systems are still hard to access. We still do not have a process for giving controlled database access. We still cannot quickly and easily create sandboxed environments. We have not been documenting what we are rigidly building, and we still have far too little insight into what is going on in our infrastructure.

“Make it work, make it right, make it fast.” — Kent Beck

The most important item on your software development/IT backlog is not feature XYZ. It is enabling AI safely, securely, and quickly.

Related: Shadow AI Is the New Shadow IT — what happens when you don’t.