Yesterday my post was that “complex is stupid” because eventually complexity in design and functionality of companies, products, systems, solutions, societies and organisations reaches a point where the law of diminishing returns means that a layer of complexity has a cost greater than its benefit.
The key action to avoid complexity is to follow the KISS principle, the Keep It Simple, Stupid” principle. The phrase was coined by Kelly Johnson, lead engineer at the Lockheed Skunk Works, creators of the revolutionary Lockheed U-2 and SR-71 Blackbirdspy planes. Johnson is recognised as one of the most important, most interesting, and most influential people” in the first century of aerospace
The principle is best exemplified by the story of Johnson handing a team of design engineers a handful of tools, with the challenge that the jet aircraft they were designing must be repairable by an average mechanic in the field under combat conditions with only these tools. Hence, the ‘stupid’ refers to the relationship between the way things break and the sophistication available to fix them.
Johnson coined is KISS principle over 50 years ago. It is an elegant and effective principle, but one that goes mostly ignored by the majority of companies, companies full of elitists trying to prove that they are clever.
Although for those that apply the principle there can be big rewards. A little company out the back of San Francisco comes to mind – Google.
Google applied the principle very early in its development with:
- Adding a simple count of backward links in the ranking algorithm
- The way they “tied” their servers together
- The clean, simple and un-cluttered user interface
What should embarrass the majority who don’t apply the principle to their product, system and process improvement is that it has been around a lot longer than 50 years.
The principle most likely finds its origins in similar concepts such as Leonardo Da Vinci’s:
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication
Albert Einstein’s maxim that:
everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler
Antoine de Saint Exupéry’s observation about perfection:
It seems that perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away
- In the webosphere Google is the stand-out case study
- In the grocery retailing sector, Aldi adopts a range of business process practices that lower the cost of doing business and lower prices for consumers. These range from limiting the product range within a category, merchandising from opened shipping inner cartons, fast double-sides bar-code scanners, placement of shopping bags directly into trollies, and customer trolley return for a token redemption.
- McDonald’s revolutionised the fast food sector by offering a simplistic product range that was easy to consistently replicate and developing simple up-sell systems such as “would you like fries with that”
- In weaponry the loose tolerances of the AK-47 make it the most reliable assault rifle ever built and the most in demand.
- The cable tie or zip tie. This product has no parts, can be mass produced for cents and has applications as wide as a cutting tool or a hammer. It is a remarkable testament to the wow of simplicity.
Applying the KISS principle to all aspects of you life, career and business is one of the most powerful ways to increase success. If you own or manage a business then starting today and never letting up go through every strategy and every process and cut the complexity out of it.
You will be truly astounded by the results.
By Business Process Improvement Consultant, Jason Bresnehan.