Few businesses these days take on any project without weighing the costs against the benefits or evaluating the return on investment (ROI). In this analysis, most organizations consider aspects such as level of effort and total cost of ownership, which includes startup costs and ongoing maintenance and support.

Taken together, these analyses can help a business understand whether a proposed project is worth the effort.

Among Sir Isaac Newton’s laws of motion is that an object at rest tends to remain at rest, and an object in motion tends to remain in motion, unless acted upon by an internal or external force. Physicists call this phenomenon inertia.

Organizations can experience inertia as well. Sometimes it takes a great deal of effort to get an organization to change course. Even when an organization recognizes the need to change, it can be difficult to overcome the organizational inertia to implement that change. Finances, office politics, fear of change, and other factors can all keep an organization on its current path, even if that path is not the best one.