I had several conversations recently on the topic of the ever-increasing abundance of complexity in our organizations.
- The enormous and growing complexity in our technology stacks, with duplicated, overlapping capabilities creating an unintelligible maze to navigate. One colleague told me “we don’t even have a way of visually representing our overall architecture because it is so complex, with 500+ “core” applications”. There is also the reality that “while companies are getting better at setting up technology, there’s a graveyard of undeployed functionality that is not in sync with underlying strategy or processes”.
- The growing complexity in our data due to duplication, error, overlap and multiple incomplete sources of truth. “We thought we had it bad when it was Excel causing the problems, now we have numerous overlapping applications, databases, data lakes, mining and analytics data sources, all giving us different and inconsistent information and inferences”.
- The over-engineered complexity, legacy, local differences and nuances in the “work” to be done and associated working practices. The “business processes” themselves. “We assumed that a common global system would automatically create a common global way of working. We were wrong”.
Complexity is killing us.
Complexity is the enemy of efficiency, effectiveness, customer experience, employee experience and progress.
It is time to put simplification before any other “ation” . . .
While we fail to focus on simplification, we are fixated on the “digitization”, “automation”, “transformation”, “AI-ification” etc (you get the point . . . 😉).
As an example, I had a fascinating conversation about reducing DSO (Days Sales Outstanding), the perennial drive to collect cash on-time, or earlier. Amongst all the technology, data, process and working practice ideas, there is a very simple yet powerful lever to massively improve DSO, with ZERO capital investment or “project” effort. It is just one example where a focus on simplification and focus on the basics can have an asymmetric impact.
“Champagne results for lemonade effort” as I heard it expressed this week . . .
So, it was serendipity which brought me face to face with a brief article by Michael Martino, “The importance of simplifying processes before implementing digital solutions”.
It applies to complexity in technology and data as well as in processes. They are all interrelated.
Michael makes the point “if you’re digitizing a flawed or overly complex process, you might be making things worse, not better. Simplifying your processes before you digitize them can be the difference between a successful transformation and a costly, time-consuming failure.”
He flags three common pitfalls;
- Duplicating existing inefficiencies
- Increased friction for customers
- Missed “elimination and combination” opportunities for automation and integration
He describes simple steps towards greater simplicity;
- Map the current process, “end to end” (I would go further to encourage mapping the discrete “journeys” of the process to get to the true complexity in certain streams (by customer segment, product type, spend category etc))
- Identify pain points and bottlenecks, ask “Why?”
- Challenge assumptions and remove redundancies
- Test and validate
Finally, he offers some valuable and highly practical advice . . .
- Involve stakeholders and the “people who do the work” early.
- Prioritize quick wins. Think “Pareto”.
- Think about scalability across the organization.
- Use data to guide your simplification efforts.
Simplification is worth the effort.
Steve Jobs famously asserted “simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”
Simplicity is not “simplistic” . .
Let’s resolve to put simplification first, ahead of the other “ations” . . .
Thanks for reading . . .
