Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication

 

Leonardo de Vinci said these words some 500 years ago. The words of a visionary. Fast forward to 1960, the KISS principle – Keep It Simple, Silly (or Stupid, depending on the source) – states that most systems work best if they are kept simple. In other terms, unnecessary complexity must be avoided. This postulate resonates well with other famed quotes of Albert Einstein "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough" or French writer Antoine de Saint-Éxupery “It seems that perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away”. We aim for simplicity in an increasingly Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous world (VUCA, an acronym coined in 1987). As a society and as individuals, we face a constant challenge: to be able to simplify in a complex environment.

In the recent history one can find examples of how simplicity has led to successful stories. I recall that my first cell phone, back in the mid-90s, came with a thick booklet of instructions. Operating the phone – not yet smart – required some serious reading and testing. As technology advanced, phones became smarter and simpler. As a matter of fact, Apple’s cofounder Steve Jobs developed a phone with a revolutionary user interface that made an instructions booklet unnecessary. The user was able to operate the phone and test its functionalities in a simple manner. The customer valued the iPhone’s simplicity. It is not surprising that the message displayed on the wall of Apple’s marketing department reads “Simplify, Simplify, Simplify…” with the first two words stroked-trough…

Project management is a discipline affected by the shift towards simplicity. An example of this can be seen in the evolution of the number of pages in one of the most used resources, the PMBoK (Project Management Body of Knowledge, from the Project Management Institute). From the 1^st ed., released in 1996, until the 6^th ed., released in 2017, the number of pages has steadily increased until reaching an staggering 978 pages for the 6^th ed. The 7^th and last edition to date, released in 2021, has knocked this figure down to 370. The decrease of the number of pages is a consequence of a shift towards simplicity and a focus in performance over processes; the 49 (!) processes in PMBoK 6^th ed. have turned into 8 performance domains and 12 project management principles. It is a step in the good direction and opens up the door to further simplicity in the coming years.

Along these lines, I would like to recommend the Project Management Handbook by Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez (Harvard Business Review), who is able to address project management from an outsider’s perspective in a pragmatic and hand-on manner. As he writes, a simple framework and a common language are key elements to the success of almost any endeavor.

Last but not least. Simplicity derives from a standard with which we are all equipped: common sense, although Voltaire said in 1764 that common sense is not so common. Surely we have experienced conversations at work that have spiraled towards complexity. Before we know it, parallel arguments and theories are thrown in about topics that add little in solving the real issue; on the contrary, they add up complexity. In these cases, applying a dose of unbiased fact-based common sense is often the first step in the right direction. It is not my intention to claim that the application of simplicity is a silver bullet for all issues. But amid a bombardment of  dozens of methodologies and practices, it is important to make sure that we do not neglect something as valuable as common sense.