Business complexity is all the caveman's fault

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that

the total entropy of an isolated system can only increase over time.

In layman’s terms, to all you execs out there whose business relies on IT, things are only going to get more and more complicated.

You want an example? Ok, when was that magic iron triangle of People, Process and Technology first used? The answer may surprise you, but before the early caveman had developed speech to communicate, they still needed to find a way to work in a collaborative way to eat – the business value being to stay alive. After all, one man alone with a small wooden spear is not going to be enough to bring down that huge woolly mammoth. So one day, a single chap, the first of the people, thought of a way to work together for a result, or as we know it, a process. In his head he had the people and the process but no simple way to communicate it. That was until someone had developed the technology to paint on walls, and so our man drew a picture of the process for others. People together, grab spears, throw spears at mammoth, bring down mammoth, they all eat!

Man had suddenly developed, and it was on these seemingly small and insignificant advances that civilization, as it is, was born. Today, that process of eating seems so much simpler, but it isn’t! Going out for a meal as a customer can all be done on a smartphone. Bring up TripAdvisor to find a restaurant, call Uber for a taxi, pay for the meal with Apple Pay. But think about everything that really goes on behind the scenes for all of that to happen. Farmers, food suppliers, logistics, wholesale operations, purchasers, chefs, waiting staff, drivers, cloud providers, developers & IT Operations staff. If our caveman were to be asked to draw all of that process on the wall, firstly, he’d need a bigger cave, and secondly, he’d never be able to comprehend it. To him it would seem chaotic and unnecessary. Surely his way was a much leaner way of working, and he’s right. No-one living today could expect to define that end-to-end process and remain sane!

But the demands of society today are also much more complex, that complexity as a result of our development and advances. Oh, the irony that the first step to this point was a simple cave drawing! So as we move towards a shiny bright tomorrow, are the complexities ever going to get any simpler? In a word – NO! The Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that much. All we can ever hope today is to make it seem apparently simpler to our end user to give them business value, and so we require further advances in our technology to allow that to happen, but new technology is expensive, both to buy and to maintain.

So the choice would seem to be down to 3 stark options. Get back to basics (Go to the caveman routine and remove the technology). Keep striving forward (Look to the future, but be prepared to pay for it

There is a third way. An additional statement to the Second Law of Thermodynamics is that

an isolated system can remain constant in ideal cases where the system is in a steady state (equilibrium) or undergoing a reversible process.

Again, let me translate into layman’s terms for the execs out there, if you want stability for your business, you either need to either find a balance between the things that disrupt your business, or revert back to where you started. I don’t see many shareholders or board members wanting to be interested in taking more than a few steps backwards in their business, which means you need equilibrium.

As in our food chain example before, the driver for change was business value, in this case, the need to eat. Over time we have looked to ways to improve our diet balance, food sources, new flavours & recipes and balancing this with everything else that goes on in our busy, complicated lives. Our business value changes and develops as our society becomes more complex. To help us (apparently) simplify and manage our lives, we have introduced new technology to meet that business value. That new technology shift in turn, introduces opportunities for us to shift our lives and discover new business values and drivers. Our society is eating itself into a cycle of complexity and technology – Entropy.

The demand and need for business value will always be there because the people desire it. This is the pivot point of the disruption. At either end of the pivot point are process and technology. As processes become heavier, they require heavier technology to balance the process. It’s all a bit like being on a see-saw, but all the time adding greater and greater weight to either end. At some point, the see-saw is going to break at the pivot point.

There is another way we can balance the see-saw. Instead of just throwing more weight behind one end or the other, we remove weight from either end. We can lean our processes. We can reduce redundancy and complexity from our technology. It can be a difficult balance to maintain, especially as we are always changing the weight at either end.

So exec’s, before you go and sign that blank check for expensive new technology, think, is there another way? Can I balance my complexity in such a way that it is not as complex, not as expensive and keeps my business stable? Think like the caveman, keep it simple and do just enough! My suggestion is to go to The Open Group IT4IT page and look to see how you can drive IT Digital Transformation keeping Business Value at it's heart whilst maintaining lean and balanced IT services.

Steve W