Archive for June 8th, 2012

Let me kick off this brief discussion about the KISS system with one basic fact….

The more Complex Something is, the more likely it is that it will fail

Now let me expand on this with an example….

Let’s assume you have been tasked to design a prison.  This prison will hold just one inmate – for life.   So let’s start with the most basic of prison ideas.

You build a prison made up of four walls – the walls are 20 feet tall and 3 foot thick, with no windows or doors.  Into this walled box, you put the prisoner.   With no tools available – the chances of escape are very slim (other than somebody landing a helicopter in the prison or throwing a rope over the wall).  Its simple – it works – it’s almost escape proof.

But, you need to feed the prisoner, and give them a view – so you build a door and a couple of windows.  Now, they have a means of escape – the doors and windows become ‘weak points’.

So to compensate, you make it even more complex – now you have to place guards at the doors and windows, and complex locks.  But by making it more complex, so it becomes easier to escape – there are more options.  Locks can be picked, guards can be bribed.

So the cycle of making things more complex grows, until you have a system so complex that you have introduced 100 ways to escape, and another 100 ways to protect the 100 soft points.

The KISS principle in Business

I am sure you have heave of KISS – “Keep It Simple Stupid!”.   I often find that simple works – keep it as simple as possible, which leads to fewer problems in the long term.

Software for instance grows to be so complex with so many wiz-bang features that a program can end up with millions of lines of code, and millions of possible bugs.  Whenever a change is required, all of the actions of the software have to be considered to see what any changes will break – and things can easily be forgotten.  Which is why there are never ending patches in Windows and Microsoft Office Products.

Sometimes it’s too easy to get wrapped up with having the most features, buttons, menus, options, configurations, colours, languages, and choices.  But this means more time and cost for design, development and maintenance – and more problems for you and your customers.

So maybe, keeping things simple (at least to start with) is a design and sales tactic worth considering in your next project.