Analysts at Gartner have urged IT leaders to adopt a 'pattern-based' strategy to driving business change.

The analysts say that there are four parts, or disciplines, to adhere to in order to make such a change, which seem to be just about paying attention to business trends and changes - something that makes sense even to Sneak's addled brain.

Regardless of that, however, the analysts have used a lot of clever terms to jazz it up. These include: pattern seeking, optempo (operational tempo) advantages, performance-driven culture, and transparency.

"A Pattern-Based Strategy provides a framework to proactively seek, model and adapt to leading indicators, often-termed 'weak' signals that form patterns in the marketplace," Gartner said, once again muddying Sneak's waters by suggesting that 'leading indicators' were 'weak signals'.

Val Sribar, group vice president of Research at Gartner, said, "We believe that significant market advantage will be gained by organisations that adopt all the disciplines needed to implement a Pattern-Based Strategy, and by those technology providers that seek to enable this transition." Sneak recommends waiting for the tech solution.

Ironically while discussing transparency, which Sneak always assumed was another word for clarity, the analysts added, "If organisations can proactively evolve transparency from a once-a-quarter financial-results event to using it to set the right expectations of seeking new patterns and responding with consistent results, this proactive use will enable them to enter new markets, gain access to funds that competitors can't access and demonstrate differentiation to customers and suppliers", at which point Sneak totally gave up and defenestrated himself.

Punters can find out more about pattern-based strategies at one of Gartner's upcoming symposiums. Sneak will stick with his own PBS, which in his own small little world, means making sure that his socks match.