Obliterate and Simplify. Elon Musk's new spin on some age-old themes.

For those old enough to remember, who is with me thinking Michael Hammer's seminal 1990's Harvard Business Review article that kicked off the Business Process Re-engineering movement is as relevant today as it was way back then?

The article called "Reengineering Work: Don't Automate, Obliterate" hammers home the point that work that does not add client value should be?obliterated, not?automated.?

In my humble opinion, it's mandatory reading for anyone involved in tech, and particularly for those involved in the inane world of e-discovery that I would argue, still, in 2021, delivers much churn but little value.

The MIT Computer Science professor hammered his point so persuasively that it became rapidly absorbed into my, granted, spongy, impressionable, young brain. It then infiltrated my DNA, pervasively influencing three decades of justice technology work.

Today, in 2021, it's still astounding to see how many processes don't deliver any real outcomes or are performed because 'we've always done it that way'.

Such processes need to be killed, not automated.?

This philosophy is as salient now as it was back in 1990 as we are reminded by Elon Musk in his recent video about his 5 step approach and in particular, his Step 2 'Delete the Process'.

But wait, there's more. Musk's Step 3 is 'Simplify', which triggered another dizzy trip down my memory lane to Edward de Bono's beautifully elegant "Simplicity", another seminal text for anyone involved in technology, which is, well, just about everyone these days.

Thanks for the memories Elon.