June, 2021

When looking at a process that is complex, slow or has many steps, we often try to simplify each step or the flow between the steps.

But a better way to look at it, is from scratch: what is the simplest way to do it?

Amazon had early on a checkout process with multiple steps that asked for your name, address and billing information every time you were shopping. Tasked with simplifying the process, Amazons second employee made a plan to simplify each step so it would go faster, and was quite proud of the result. But Jeff Bezos had a different idea: “I’d like to buy this with one click”. The first solution steps seemed extremely complex and cumbersome in comparison. So Amazons 1-click checkout was born, and it massively reduced the churn in the checkout process right away.

Steve Jobs has the same mindset. When Apple bought a DVD burning company, the executives at that company knew they had to simplify the process to please Steve. So they reduced their process, of which the manual was several thousand pages, down to a lot simpler process of a few hundred pages manual. But when they met Steve, he said: “Here’s the burn icon. I want to drop a file here and click ‘burn’”.

By starting with the view of the existing complexities you’ll end up focusing on the details that doesn’t matter in the big picture. In a complex problem there are always so many moving parts and things tangled together that will harm your ability to see the problem clearly.

So instead look at it from scratch - what should it look like?

The 1-click process will give you a giant leap, while simplifying exisiting complexities will give you incremental gains. Which will you chose?

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Resources & References

These examples are taken from the book Effortless by Greg McKeown