Simplicity is underestimated.
In order to understand what this really means, we need to first understand another concept: Efficiency.
A lot of people often talk about efficiency, without really understanding the real meaning of it.
According to the Merriam-Webster, "the ability to do something or produce something without wasting materials, time, or energy".
So, if I had to simplify this concept in a few words, I would say that efficiency is to produce without waste.
Now, waste is the spending of any more resource other than the strictly necessary to perform any given action.
In the IT industry, it is often common to people to focus on the technology without looking at the technical cost of it. Technology, does not come for free. A system requires specialists to develop it, deploy it, tune it and then people to maintain and operate it. It is not uncommon for people to create a larger problem from the use of technology than the original issue that technology is being aplied to solve.
Few weeks ago, I had a meeting to present a solution to a problem we had in our environment. The problem was around the meeting rooms. In our company, meeting rooms are shared resources, and often are used by different teams in a daily basis. In each meeting room we have a TV connected to a Mac-Mini, a conference microphone, a webcam and a telephone. With different teams using the resources frequently, it is common to have problems. The solution we found, was to create a card with two sides. One green and one red. In the red side, we have options for people to select where the problem is located. Each card is kept in the door with the green face out. If anybody using the meeting room find an issue, the person just turn the card to the red side and mark the option(s) where he had the issue. When I was explaining the concept, the first reaction that I received was someone saying that they should implement it using a tablet. An application in the tablet would be responsible to call the support team. Ok, lets analyze the suggestion. You need to build a complex application (some will say it is not complex, but when compared to a two color card, even a hello world would be considered complex). Next, you need to ensure that the tablet will be functional at all times. Third, you need to ensure that the connectivity is in place. Another issue, someone needs to be in the support room to pickup the call, otherwise it wont work. Can you see ? Two solutions, both solves the same issue. Look at the difference in complexity. It is a common mistake from people in IT to always try to solve problems using technology. And this is a larger issue than we actually think.
A solution like this is based on trust. People will use a solution if they trust that solution will solve their problem. If a solution fails to solve the problem, people will stop trusting the solution and, even if you make it right later, people will not use it. A simple solution have a better chance to be used when compared with a complex one.
Technologists love systems and new technologies. They will find all sorts of reasons to justify the usage of the latest piece of tech. If you use technology as a supportive tool for your business, and not as something that will give you a business edge, you need to keep it simple.
Toyota have a very interesting approach to the use of technology. Use only reliable, thoroughly tested technology that serves your people and processes. It is normal to implement a process manually before involve technology. This enable people to understand the process making it easier to implement something to automate it. Inside Toyota, new technologies are often seen as unreliable and difficult to standardize and therefore endangers the "flow". People will not replace a technology unless the amount of benefits surpasses the costs. Even when the benefits surpasses the costs, it will face a series of tests to ensure it will perform as planned. The idea to keep supportive systems with low complexity is the closest to efficiency I can imagine an IT area can achieve.
In some ways efficiency is simplicity.
In order to understand what this really means, we need to first understand another concept: Efficiency.
A lot of people often talk about efficiency, without really understanding the real meaning of it.
According to the Merriam-Webster, "the ability to do something or produce something without wasting materials, time, or energy".
So, if I had to simplify this concept in a few words, I would say that efficiency is to produce without waste.
Now, waste is the spending of any more resource other than the strictly necessary to perform any given action.
In the IT industry, it is often common to people to focus on the technology without looking at the technical cost of it. Technology, does not come for free. A system requires specialists to develop it, deploy it, tune it and then people to maintain and operate it. It is not uncommon for people to create a larger problem from the use of technology than the original issue that technology is being aplied to solve.
Few weeks ago, I had a meeting to present a solution to a problem we had in our environment. The problem was around the meeting rooms. In our company, meeting rooms are shared resources, and often are used by different teams in a daily basis. In each meeting room we have a TV connected to a Mac-Mini, a conference microphone, a webcam and a telephone. With different teams using the resources frequently, it is common to have problems. The solution we found, was to create a card with two sides. One green and one red. In the red side, we have options for people to select where the problem is located. Each card is kept in the door with the green face out. If anybody using the meeting room find an issue, the person just turn the card to the red side and mark the option(s) where he had the issue. When I was explaining the concept, the first reaction that I received was someone saying that they should implement it using a tablet. An application in the tablet would be responsible to call the support team. Ok, lets analyze the suggestion. You need to build a complex application (some will say it is not complex, but when compared to a two color card, even a hello world would be considered complex). Next, you need to ensure that the tablet will be functional at all times. Third, you need to ensure that the connectivity is in place. Another issue, someone needs to be in the support room to pickup the call, otherwise it wont work. Can you see ? Two solutions, both solves the same issue. Look at the difference in complexity. It is a common mistake from people in IT to always try to solve problems using technology. And this is a larger issue than we actually think.
A solution like this is based on trust. People will use a solution if they trust that solution will solve their problem. If a solution fails to solve the problem, people will stop trusting the solution and, even if you make it right later, people will not use it. A simple solution have a better chance to be used when compared with a complex one.
Technologists love systems and new technologies. They will find all sorts of reasons to justify the usage of the latest piece of tech. If you use technology as a supportive tool for your business, and not as something that will give you a business edge, you need to keep it simple.
Toyota have a very interesting approach to the use of technology. Use only reliable, thoroughly tested technology that serves your people and processes. It is normal to implement a process manually before involve technology. This enable people to understand the process making it easier to implement something to automate it. Inside Toyota, new technologies are often seen as unreliable and difficult to standardize and therefore endangers the "flow". People will not replace a technology unless the amount of benefits surpasses the costs. Even when the benefits surpasses the costs, it will face a series of tests to ensure it will perform as planned. The idea to keep supportive systems with low complexity is the closest to efficiency I can imagine an IT area can achieve.
In some ways efficiency is simplicity.
No comments:
Post a Comment