Simplicity oversimplified
Lean business thinking, whether in manufacturing or supply chain or any other areas, even services, always requires engagement of people – participation of all. In such an exercise which is not confined to any one group of specialists, the cliché that almost always surfaces every now and then is, “Please keep it simple.” It does help to ensure that all the people buy into the initiatives to follow. However, during the discussions, often this quest for simplicity is overly gold-plated with typical quotations that favour simplicity. Someone quotes Confucius, while someone Leonardo da Vinci.
Albert Einstein’s profound words of a caution, “Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler” are very meaningful. So is George Bernard Shaw’s classic quote. He had said, “Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it.” But these quotations take a backseat.
Do not get me wrong. The importance of simplicity is unquestionable. Simplicity is an excellent value to embrace and uphold. When practiced properly, it is a virtue of the practitioner too. Users need their gadgets to be simple to use. General population can be quickly mesmerised in politics by only those slogans which are simple to understand, and which deliver the emotional appeal quickly. Simplicity rules the day-to-day routine. Advertisements evoking an action from large populations must carry a simple message, else they fail. Simplicity is simple to advocate and simple to understand. But above all, simplicity is psychologically convenient to manage (till one fumbles), and that convenience is unquestionable. Yet, when someone becomes overly persuasive about simplicity to the point that the original problem one is trying to solve becomes secondary and simplicity becomes the primary pursuit, the coach or leader needs to become wary of it. That very convenience and comfort associated with simplicity can be detrimental to the process of developing a solution to a problem.
Typical Oversimplification
As a lean professional, perhaps one of the simplest (or seemingly the simplest) tools that one comes across is the 5S methodology. Often this is picked up as the first step to introduce lean manufacturing or the Japanese management systems to the workforce unaware of the lean toolkit. If one has not really heard of 5S or known before, the concept immediately appeals them. Why? For a simple reason. 5S is simple to understand, seemingly common-sensical and effective and there is nothing controvertible in the basic concept. The target audience undergoes the required sensitization too. Yet – quite often, neither is the system meticulously maintained later nor are the productivity and quality gains, attributed to 5S as a potential promise, realised nor something equally easy and effective to hold the promise of overall lean philosophy follows leading to a substantial benefit in terms of financial gains which are normally the basic prime motive. Not that this happens everywhere but does happen in many cases.
Even a suggestion that SMED (also popularly called quick changeover methodology) is simple and can speed up production without any extra cost turns out to be often futile because the delays, holds-ups and production losses are often more due to ineffective planning and scheduling, or flurry of such other causes not linked to machine set-ups. But addressing ineffective planning and scheduling is often a lot more complicated than simply embracing SMED.
Whiteboards on the shopfloor, daily or weekly reports, work instructions, standard operating processes – take any entity like this – and there will be a split audience, some that prefers simplicity over complexity and others who prefer more information everyday adding to growing complexity.
How to deal with this?
First of all, it is best to recognise, in and with the team, that:
1) Businesses are complex. Complexity is often inevitable.
2) Complexity versus simplicity is a wicked problem – not a tame one. That is – there is no clear and correct solution. Some people will always find something overly complicated, while others like it for the value it gives.
3) As outlined in the book Hit Makers: How to succeed in an age of distraction by Derek Thompson, Raymond Loewy’s MAYA rule (Most Advanced Yet Acceptable) that guides one to balance familiarity and novelty applies. Combined with it the power of repetition works too. (Ref. Thompson, Derek (2018) Hit Makers: How to succeed in an age of distraction by Penguin Books). Slowly and steadily a small layer of novelty and complexity can be added to the all-familiar simplicity.
Therefore, it is best to develop a solution, which , at the beginning, is definitely likely to entail some complexity for the audience that craves simplicity, gradually over a period of time by taking the audience along with the developers. Sounds familiar?
That is exactly why spiral lifecycle, agile methodology, iterative development principles in general are more effective in the software world. User requirement analysis and user experience design have started assuming a lot more importance in the recent past than before and one key reason for it is this very complexity that is inevitable. (Yes - notwithstanding it, often waterfall lifecycle is chosen. The reason for such a choice is not surprising. While it appears to be suitability, it actually is its simplicity. It would be superfluous to discuss why ultimately waterfall often does not work as intended!)
Broadly it is desirable to introspect at the outset if one is working in the role of
1) a problem-solver or a designer or a developer of some solution or
2) a user of that solution
I often give an analogy of a credit card or something similar. The users who are practically just a general population with no specific expertise, must have a product in hand that requires no special skill or knowledge to use it. However, to design a product – say a credit card – one must consider hundreds of aspects ranging from the resilience and strength of materials to the security requirements and their implications. Complexity is inevitable and the more one embraces complexity at the design stage, the more remarkable is the output for users usually.
Imagine a doctor saying to their patient, “Don’t you give me too many details of your symptoms and pains. Just keep it simple so that I can quickly prescribe the treatment.” It would be hilarious and ludicrous to say the least.
As Adam Grant says in his famous book, “Think Again – The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know”:
“As consumers of information, we have a role to play in embracing a more nuanced point of view. When we’re reading, listening, or watching, we can learn to recognize complexity as a signal of credibility. We can favor content and sources that present many sides of an issue rather than just one or two.”
(Grant, Adam. (2021) Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know. pp 171)
Using collective wisdom by recognising and accepting complexity to start with as a team of “designers”, avoiding binary bias and looking for the entire spectrum of grey shades upstream – while designing – often saves an awfully long time otherwise wasted downstream in delays, repairing and redesigning. Of course, it saves money too. Isn’t that how Lean Business basically needs to operate? Afterall delivering the desired value or exceeding it by keeping costs within budget and reducing the time to deliver the value to beneficiaries of it, is what lean thinking is all about.
Another beautiful quote, perhaps not as often cited during the routine discussions on simplicity as many others are, attributed to none other than Albert Einstein is relevant, “Three rules of work: 1) Out of clutter find simplicity; 2) From discord find harmony; 3) In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
The true route to perfect simplicity is via a series of milestones of diminishing complexity!
Nilesh Pandit
18th October 2022
Comments