What Is Your 4 PM Question? Why the Next Implementation on Your Roadmap May Fail for Reasons No Vendor Demo Will Reveal
In April 2010, I moderated a roundtable at the 3rd Annual Business of Government Summit in Washington, D.C. The topic was transparency in government procurement. One of the panelists was Karen S. Evans — the former CIO of the United States Government under the Bush Administration, who had overseen the development of more than $70 billion in federal IT spending. Tim Cummins, then CEO of IACCM (now President of World Commerce & Contracting), sat at the same table.
Karen had seen technology deployment at a scale most CIOs will never encounter. She had managed federal enterprise architecture across agencies, led cybersecurity initiatives, and established programs designed to leverage the government’s buying power. What she understood — and what the roundtable explored — was that transparency in procurement was not about open data or dashboard visibility. It was about whether the organization actually understood the layout of the field it was operating on.
A year later, in April 2011, I stood at eWorld and presented “The Changing Face of Procurement: The End of Functional Silos.” Slide 11 carried a directive that still hasn’t been absorbed by the industry: “You begin to act like a CIO.” I cited InformationWeek’s description of the modern CIO — “a CIO with the well-rounded skills to be a trusted business leader, and a CIO who spends a good deal of time communicating with constituents, both internal and external customers.”
That was 2011. The slides also covered what CIOs were grappling with at the time: the need for innovation, poor existing resource utilization, looking beyond technology to user engagement, and rationalization of existing platforms. Every one of those challenges persists today — amplified by AI, agentic systems, and cloud complexity.
By January 2025, I documented the full arc in a post titled “2011 To 2025: The Evolution Of How The C-Suite And Boardroom Views Procurement.” The CIO’s view had evolved from “tactical support for IT purchases” to “strategic partner in technology sourcing.” The metrics had shifted from cost reduction to value creation, agility, and risk management.
But the 80% failure rate hadn’t moved.
The CIO’s view evolved. The readiness gap didn’t. The industry upgraded the CIO’s expectations without upgrading the diagnostic that determines whether any of those expectations can be met. That is the subject of this memo.
The Pattern You Already Know
Gartner projects that 40% of agentic AI projects will be scaled back or canceled by 2027 due to cost and value gaps. McKinsey reports that 70–80% of digital transformations fail to meet objectives. These are not technology failures. They are readiness failures — and the CIO absorbs the career consequence.
Every vendor demo shows the platform working. No vendor demo shows your organization working with the platform. The gap between capability and absorption is where implementations die — and it is invisible in every RFP, POC, and analyst quadrant.
The 4 PM Question
In the late 1990s, Canada’s Department of National Defence contracted 90% next-day MRO delivery. They were achieving 51%. Every framework said to optimize the ordering process. Every process map showed a clean workflow.
One question changed everything: “What time of day do orders come in?”
Answer: 4 PM. Service technicians — incentivized for maximum calls per day, not procurement efficiency — were sandbagging orders until end of shift. Dynamic flux pricing meant a $900 part at 9 AM cost $1,000 at 4 PM. Small suppliers had customs clearance gaps. Couriers had cutoff windows.
No process map captured this. No technology could fix it. The answer was behavioral: self-learning algorithms, UPS integration, pre-formatted customs documentation. Result: 51% to 97.3% delivery accuracy, sustained over 7 consecutive years. 23% cost reduction.
If a platform had been deployed to “optimize ordering,” it would have automated failure at 51%. The technology would have worked perfectly — on the wrong foundation.
What Phase 0™ Gives You
The Hansen Fit Score™ measures 23 organizational characteristics before any technology decision is made. It answers the question your vendor cannot: Is your organization structurally capable of absorbing what you are about to deploy?
Dimension
What It Reveals
Incentive Alignment
Are cross-functional teams pulling in the same direction?
Process Maturity
Can your processes scale across business units?
Data Quality & Ownership
Who owns the data — and is it trustworthy?
Change Capacity
Can the organization absorb one more transformation?
Governance Readiness
Does oversight exist where behavior happens?
When a Fortune 50 Director Stress-Tested This
In February 2026, the Director of Global Strategic Sourcing at McDonald’s challenged the Hansen Fit Score™ publicly against three established frameworks: O’Brien’s 5i model, Cullen’s contract scorecards, and Kraljic’s matrix.
Over 72 hours and three platforms — from a Gartner discussion to Procurement Insights to direct message — he tested every assumption. His conclusion:
“The DND example really lands — that’s exactly the kind of concrete evidence that makes the argument tangible.”
What converted a skeptic at Fortune 50 level was not the methodology description. It was the specific story of a specific question that no framework prompted — revealing behavioral drivers invisible to every process map in the building.
What Industry Leaders Are Saying
“Your ‘Phase 0’ framing is exactly right. Before choosing anything, organisations must confront whether they are structurally capable of absorbing it.” — Phil Fersht, Founder, HFS Research
“We were baffled as well. I luv the ideas of asking the robots. I want Gartner to be successful in this Age of AI, but they are very flat footed.” — Paul Baier, HBS Executive Fellow for AI, HBR Author, Forbes Contributor
“It is very strong and executable… most readiness methodologies have only the score, while your methodology gives the client what to say and how to move forward.” — Vera Rozanova, Five-Time CPO, £120M+ Career Savings
Your vendors will tell you their platform works. Your integrators will tell you the implementation plan is sound. Your analysts will tell you you’re in the right quadrant.
No one in that chain is asking: What is your 4 PM question? What is the behavioral driver inside your organization that will determine whether this deployment succeeds or fails — and has anyone measured it?
The C-Suite Sweep Series
This is Part 1 of a four-part series examining why each C-Suite role needs a different entry point into the same readiness question:
Part 1: The CIO — What Is Your 4 PM Question? (this post)
Part 2: The CFO — The Cost of Skipping Readiness
Part 3: The CEO — The Right Diagnosis, Wrong Instrument
Part 4: The Board — The Governance Gap Before the Budget
Access Parts 2, 3, and 4 through the following link, which includes a 30-minute diagnostic conversation to identify that driver. No cost. No commitment. Just the question that determines whether your next implementation succeeds or joins the 80%: The C-Suite Sweep Four doors. One room. The question no one is asking.
Procurement Insights
The C-Suite Sweep — Part 1 of 4: A Memo for the CIO
Posted on February 25, 2026
0
What Is Your 4 PM Question? Why the Next Implementation on Your Roadmap May Fail for Reasons No Vendor Demo Will Reveal
In April 2010, I moderated a roundtable at the 3rd Annual Business of Government Summit in Washington, D.C. The topic was transparency in government procurement. One of the panelists was Karen S. Evans — the former CIO of the United States Government under the Bush Administration, who had overseen the development of more than $70 billion in federal IT spending. Tim Cummins, then CEO of IACCM (now President of World Commerce & Contracting), sat at the same table.
Karen had seen technology deployment at a scale most CIOs will never encounter. She had managed federal enterprise architecture across agencies, led cybersecurity initiatives, and established programs designed to leverage the government’s buying power. What she understood — and what the roundtable explored — was that transparency in procurement was not about open data or dashboard visibility. It was about whether the organization actually understood the layout of the field it was operating on.
A year later, in April 2011, I stood at eWorld and presented “The Changing Face of Procurement: The End of Functional Silos.” Slide 11 carried a directive that still hasn’t been absorbed by the industry: “You begin to act like a CIO.” I cited InformationWeek’s description of the modern CIO — “a CIO with the well-rounded skills to be a trusted business leader, and a CIO who spends a good deal of time communicating with constituents, both internal and external customers.”
That was 2011. The slides also covered what CIOs were grappling with at the time: the need for innovation, poor existing resource utilization, looking beyond technology to user engagement, and rationalization of existing platforms. Every one of those challenges persists today — amplified by AI, agentic systems, and cloud complexity.
By January 2025, I documented the full arc in a post titled “2011 To 2025: The Evolution Of How The C-Suite And Boardroom Views Procurement.” The CIO’s view had evolved from “tactical support for IT purchases” to “strategic partner in technology sourcing.” The metrics had shifted from cost reduction to value creation, agility, and risk management.
But the 80% failure rate hadn’t moved.
The CIO’s view evolved. The readiness gap didn’t. The industry upgraded the CIO’s expectations without upgrading the diagnostic that determines whether any of those expectations can be met. That is the subject of this memo.
The Pattern You Already Know
Gartner projects that 40% of agentic AI projects will be scaled back or canceled by 2027 due to cost and value gaps. McKinsey reports that 70–80% of digital transformations fail to meet objectives. These are not technology failures. They are readiness failures — and the CIO absorbs the career consequence.
Every vendor demo shows the platform working. No vendor demo shows your organization working with the platform. The gap between capability and absorption is where implementations die — and it is invisible in every RFP, POC, and analyst quadrant.
The 4 PM Question
In the late 1990s, Canada’s Department of National Defence contracted 90% next-day MRO delivery. They were achieving 51%. Every framework said to optimize the ordering process. Every process map showed a clean workflow.
One question changed everything: “What time of day do orders come in?”
Answer: 4 PM. Service technicians — incentivized for maximum calls per day, not procurement efficiency — were sandbagging orders until end of shift. Dynamic flux pricing meant a $900 part at 9 AM cost $1,000 at 4 PM. Small suppliers had customs clearance gaps. Couriers had cutoff windows.
No process map captured this. No technology could fix it. The answer was behavioral: self-learning algorithms, UPS integration, pre-formatted customs documentation. Result: 51% to 97.3% delivery accuracy, sustained over 7 consecutive years. 23% cost reduction.
If a platform had been deployed to “optimize ordering,” it would have automated failure at 51%. The technology would have worked perfectly — on the wrong foundation.
What Phase 0™ Gives You
The Hansen Fit Score™ measures 23 organizational characteristics before any technology decision is made. It answers the question your vendor cannot: Is your organization structurally capable of absorbing what you are about to deploy?
When a Fortune 50 Director Stress-Tested This
In February 2026, the Director of Global Strategic Sourcing at McDonald’s challenged the Hansen Fit Score™ publicly against three established frameworks: O’Brien’s 5i model, Cullen’s contract scorecards, and Kraljic’s matrix.
Over 72 hours and three platforms — from a Gartner discussion to Procurement Insights to direct message — he tested every assumption. His conclusion:
What converted a skeptic at Fortune 50 level was not the methodology description. It was the specific story of a specific question that no framework prompted — revealing behavioral drivers invisible to every process map in the building.
What Industry Leaders Are Saying
For a full collection of independent industry voices on readiness-first transformation, see: The Case for Phase 0: Industry Voices on Readiness-First Transformation
The Question for the CIO
Your vendors will tell you their platform works. Your integrators will tell you the implementation plan is sound. Your analysts will tell you you’re in the right quadrant.
No one in that chain is asking: What is your 4 PM question? What is the behavioral driver inside your organization that will determine whether this deployment succeeds or fails — and has anyone measured it?
The C-Suite Sweep Series
This is Part 1 of a four-part series examining why each C-Suite role needs a different entry point into the same readiness question:
Access Parts 2, 3, and 4 through the following link, which includes a 30-minute diagnostic conversation to identify that driver. No cost. No commitment. Just the question that determines whether your next implementation succeeds or joins the 80%: The C-Suite Sweep Four doors. One room. The question no one is asking.
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