I’ve got simple on the brain. KISS is such a great acronym for just about anything in life. Keep it Simple Stupid! I say it to myself all the time. Why complicate things needlessly?
Processes are such a great place for simplicity. However, there are two ways to get simple in a process that can conflict with each other:
- Minimize the number of steps involved.
- Make each step intuitive.
To minimize steps, you often need to include a few complicated ones. The caveat here is that complicated may not be complicated today. It may, in fact, be simpler than the current process. But is that complicated step more complicated than you want it in the future? Does the complication make it impossible to automate?
I once was involved in a process automation project. We spent months trying to make an online system replace the manual excel spreadsheets that were in place. The sticking point became that the client refused to remove “highlight the cells a specific color based on a complicated set of rules” as a requirement. There was no possible way of turning this overcomplicated requirement into something simple enough to automate – or even hand over to non-specialized resources.
To make each step intuitive, you end up with the long-form process description of “how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.” Each step, by itself, is intuitive and natural but collectively the process grows a bit unwieldy. There’s nothing simple about a process for making a sandwich that involved 20 easy steps.
As with anything, the answer lies in balancing the various needs of both process and users. Making things simple can actually be quite complicated.
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