But the complexity of our lives keeps increasing as a result of all sorts of technology. The working-at-the-beach-future predicted in TV ads nearly a decade ago are now reality, as many companies have adopted wireless connectivity. Even if we avoid real work on vacation by tucking away the laptop, our "always-on" cell phones and wireless email has made summer life complicated. This adoption of technology -- and much of IT and its initiatives -- begs the question from users and management that singer Avril Lavigne asks: "Why'd you have to go and make things so complicated?"

 

At the very least, complexity fosters anxiety, avoidance, and confusion. For IT professionals, we must be aware that the end result of complicating stuff manifests itself in many IT projects that do not go as planned, not because of poor technology or the software, but because of the people who must use it or its results in their daily lives. Training alone cannot improve outcomes. There has to be more to enhance technological outcomes.
 
Recently, I heard a presentation that suggested IT professionals are not committed to eliminating complexity. Bill Jensen, a thinker and researcher about the topic of Simplicity, maintains that simplifying is possible starting from the way we communicate, the way we plan, and certainly the way we approach change in our organizations. Bill is not only a passionate advocate of reducing the clutter of complexity in the corporate environment (and personal lives), he researches and writes about this topic on his website (www.SimplerWork.com) and in some popular books like Work 2.0.

 

To add a sense of urgency of why adopting simplicity is more essential than ever, Bill establishes some ground rules. 

 

What are the priorities for simplifying? Jensen explains that fundamentally every simplification effort has three elements: courage, difficulty, and yield. The goal is to balance courage and difficulty of the simple-cleansing process to achieve the highest yield of improvement. For many of us, we would call this process ROI or even Project Portfolio Management, although the definition of simplification projects may not directly correlate with an existing or new IT project.

 

How do we simplify? We must be user-centric in all that we do. For example, Jensen uses the "know, feel, do" exercise for every effort. "Know" means head or the intellectual part of the message or project, "feel" means heart or the emotional investment in outcomes or responses, and "do" means hands or articulating the specific action or accomplishment desired.

 

Jensen goes one step further by encouraging us to be mavericks in our organizations by signing contracts committing to simplicity and then embracing it entirely. By this he asks us to stop attending fruitless meetings and to ignore many of our emails. He prods us to abandon much of the CYA complexity in our lives for the betterment of our organizations and likely happier personal lives.

 

As you enjoy much deserved time off this summer, consider how IT should be improving our lives or even pick up one of Jensen's books. Business is starting to comprehend the importance and urgency of this simplicity message. In a recent BusinessWeek interview, Alan G. Lafley, CEO of Proctor and Gamble said it simply. "It's Sesame Street language -- I admit that. A lot of what we have done is make things simple…"

CHAIM YUDKOWSKY, CPA, CITP, is Chief Information Officer at Textilease Corp., a uniform and first aid services company serving the Southeast. He may be reached at 301-937-4555 or cyudkowsky@ByteofSuccess.com. Chaim is available to speak to your group or business on a variety of technology topics.