In the past several weeks the term “complexity” has come up in more than one setting. At work, we’re asking questions across the organization about what things can we make less complex on the assumption that complexity is “bad”. We’re also looking at some new system development that in and of itself is highly complex. In the past 2 days, I’ve run across the same statement on complexity:
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. The inverse proposition also appears to be true: A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work. You have to start over, beginning with a working simple system.
—John Gall
I’m thinking I keep running into this term for a reason – that the world is becoming increasingly complex in a negative way and that we need to start living, working, designing, thinking, etc in terms of much simpler ideas and practices. After all we’re interacting with a highly complex world that at the moment seems not to be working as it should Perhaps it’s time to scrap it and start over with something really simple.
