Random Thoughts

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.

This past Sunday I was waiting for the bus and noticed an advertisement that caught my attention. A varied assortment of coffee capsules with 40% off. I got up, scanned the QR code and swiftly closed the purchase. This got me thinking; would I have bought the capsules if a salesperson would have persuaded me over the phone? Most likely not. And this is because there is a fundamental difference between pushing and pulling. When someone pulls is making his own choices and is in complete control of his acts and thoughts. Pushing, on the contrary, leads to distrust and lack of motivation. This phenomenon can also be observed in the workplace.

“You have to do A (because I say so)”. Pushing work in this manner leads to unsatisfied and unmotivated individuals, a win/lose situation. The manager might get his people to complete the assigned work, but it will cost him dearly. Burn-outs and sick leaves will climb and thereby increase the working environment toxicity. On the contrary, when an individual pulls work he feels motivated and delivers results that often exceed expectations. A win-win setting is created. In this situation, the manager works alongside the team and ensures that they have all the required tools and knowledge to carry out the work. And he also removes any impediments the team may encounter along the way… (where have I heard that before?).

There is a graphical manner to quickly visualize these concepts. Imagine a game in which three individuals must transfer as many balls as possible between two buckets with the condition that each ball must be touched by all six hands before it can be dropped off in the receiving bucket. In the first situation, the manager is feeding the balls to the team, one at a time. Once the first ball has been placed in the bucket, the manager feeds (pushes) the second ball, and so forth. In a second situation, in which the manager does not intervene, the team quickly realizes that they can handle more than one ball at a time. In this setting, the team picks new balls at their convenience, in a self-organized manner. You can rapidly figure out which situation yields the highest output of collected balls. In conclusion, a team – or an individual – that pulls his work will be not just more motivated, but also more efficient (more with less). The virtuous circle is then closed; higher motivation leads to higher output, which leads to even higher motivation, and so on.

To wrap it up: think of a company’s vision. Is it something that should be decided on the top floor of the HQ office and trickle down to the rest of the organization? Or should it be a joint inclusive effort from all the workforce? Stephen Covey wrote that he once was in a hotel in which he felt extremely well treated. Every single employee went out of his way to ensure that he had an unforgettable stay. Upon checking out he asked a member of the staff how they managed to keep up such a great service. As Stephen suspected, every single hotel employee participated in defining the hotel’s vision. A valuable reminder that pulling – in this case, a company’s vision – can lead to long-term win-win states.

As the worldwide vaccination against covid-19 is slowly progressing, I had to reflect on a statement given by the Dutch Minister of Health, Hugo de Jong, back in early January 2021. Due to poor risk management and non-optimal decision-making, the Netherlands kicked off the vaccination campaign a few weeks later than his European neighbors. Mr. de Jong claimed that the country could have started vaccinating people earlier but was not agile enough to take decisions back in November 2020. Agile enough. I am quite positive that he used this term in the sense of someone being able to move quickly and easily rather than referring to the manifesto written 20 years ago. It got me thinking. Can politics be run in an agile manner? Politics differ largely from country to country and are influenced by a large amount of environmental and cultural factors. However, and for the sake of simplification, one can carry out a preliminary assessment by measuring the degree of adherence to the three laws of agile developed by Steve Denning (author of the reference book Age of Agile).

Does it comply with the Law of the Customer?

In other words, is adding value to their customers (citizens) the top priority of politicians? At the end of the day, politicians are responsible for proposing, supporting and creating laws or policies to govern the land and, by extension, its people. The degree of success they achieve may be measured against the actual value delivered to the citizens and the efficiency of resources used to achieve the set goals. Assuming that political programs are developed to serve the citizens in the best possible manner, then the adherence to the law of the customer may be directly linked to the fulfillment of these programs.

Does it comply with the Law of the Small Teams?

This is about descaling complex problems into small pieces, working in small cycles and getting direct feedback from the citizen. A political cycle is defined by the time between two elections, typically four years. Therefore, the most direct feedback can only be given every four years by casting a vote. This is anything but frequent feedback and leaves the customer with a feeling of despair. The pandemic has been an example of how the involvement of too many stakeholders played against a quick and unified response. After the initial discoordination, the Dutch government launched an initiative to create the Outbreak Management Team, a small group of knowledgeable SMEs who report directly to the Ministry of Health. Overall, and despite some baby steps in the good direction, the adherence to this law fares low.

Does it comply with the Law of the Network?

Organizations that fulfill this law function as a fluid network, with communication flowing up, down and sideways. Ideas can come from anywhere. On the contrary, political systems are rather hierarchical with inflexible communication channels and responsibilities, similarly to what occurs in some large corporations. Even though politics are making efforts to increase their accessibility (Twitter has been a game-changer in this aspect), it is still a long way until they become truthfully fluid.

In short: politics are currently not run in a fully agile manner. On the positive side, there is plenty of room and opportunities for further development in this field; on the less positive side, some of the usual dogmas are going to be hard to change.