On a personal level, as I pondered the question, I realized that for the past couple of decades I’ve been so immersed in the struggle for excellence and continuous quality improvement – in how we do our jobs and in the quality of the outcome – that I’ve never really stopped to assess our progress on the journey.

Everything is so much more complex than when we started – computing platforms and tools, the businesses we support, our national and international economies, and the geo-political environment in which our enterprises operate. Comparison is difficult, and maybe not all that relevant! Maybe what really matters is how much we can improve over yesterday!