A few years ago, at a round table where we were discussing lessons IT departments learned after the COVID-19 lockdown, a fellow CIO said something I’ve kept in my mind ever since: Keep things simple.

Keep things simple… Keep – things – simple. How hard can it be?

It turns out, sometimes it is not that simple, and I think in many cases it is because of the concept that we have of what simple is.

I’ll explain myself (or at least I’ll give it a try).

From a certain point of view, simplifying a famous quote could look like this: 2B || !2B. It is short, it uses 9 characters, and it says exactly the same thing that Hamlet said on Act 3, scene 1. Well… it does and at the same time, it doesn’t if people who will be reading it are not able to understand it.

Instead of making it simple, for most people it will look like a math expression, or the WIFI password, or a fax machine name. It will not make sense, except for those who have programming experience and know that the expression || means OR and ! means NOT and also is familiar with Shakespeare’s work. Wouldn’t it be simpler to write “To be, or not to be”?

Are We Really Solving the Problem?

It may sound absurd, but we do things like this sometimes without even realizing that we are over complicating things, so here communication is key.

Whenever we come up with a genius idea on how to solve a problem, we need to be sure that not only it works for those who will be dealing with it, but that it actually makes their life easier (and, come on! That’s the ultimate goal of technology, right?).

We need to understand that our part in the communication process as IT departments is more on the listening side, and then confirming that we understood correctly, and then when the time comes for us to provide a solution, we need again to listen to all the feedback to be sure we are really solving the problem. Simple, right?

“Meanwhile” Should not Last Forever

Sometimes we face multiple limitations, constraints and restrictions when trying to solve a problem, and we end up implementing the “only solution we could find”, or a temporary fix that remains there for ages, and after a while our solutions becomes a complication when we need to upscale, migrate or integrate with other solutions.

So here planning is crucial.

We can’t be ready for everything, but we can tackle the thing on the go and solve the immediate problem fast. However, we then need to make sure that if there’s something that we need to revisit, we revisit it within the strategic planning process. That way, all those Frankensteins we are creating just serve their purpose and they are removed from the ecosystem before they become a major problem. As simple as that, don’t you think?

Finding Problems for the Solutions

This one might be trending.

When a new tool becomes available and the urge to use it causes implementing something that might not necessarily be the better option, additional tasks, steps, activities and what not end up being required and instead of achieving efficiency, teams end up spinning wheels without progress.

This also will have a direct impact on one of the most valuable things I consider IT teams need from their organization: trust.

Causing people to work more to achieve the same results, adding additional steps to processes, poor or inefficient communication, frequent systems downtime, overpromising and underdelivering will cause this fundamental element of human relationships to be lost or diminished.

The Wrap

So next time you are about to do something, take a minute to think if it is really the simplest way of doing it or if you are overcomplicating it in any way, not just at work but also in life. The best solutions are usually the simplest ones.

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

Leonardo da Vinci