Don’t make it complicated {memo}

Good Morning | 10/19

TL;DR

Remember to document your research, learn about responsive web design, and to not overcomplicate your process when a simple solution will suffice.

Good Mornings!

Hey team — hope you all had another good weekend, and you’re preparing for this beautiful fall weather. It’s been a little chilly in the mornings, however, it’s been great for my morning routine to start my days outside.

/lifting Soylent/ — here’s hoping everyone is remembering to do what you can to find your happy place, get your energy out and connect with friends and family who love and cherish you.

Good Reminders

I read a few of these notes over the weekend and thought it would be a valuable reminder for us to always be self-aware when we’re participating in over-engineering, over-designing, or over-researching problems and solutions that could instead be solved with rudimentary and simple solutions — thus allowing us to redirect that time & energy to focus on other priorities.

• Problem 1

  When NASA began with astronauts launching into space, they discovered that the pens would not work without gravity (or zero-gravity), as the ink would not go down to the surface on which it was — I wish to write.

  • Solution A

    • To solve this problem, it took them 6 years and 12 million dollars. They developed a working pen: under zero gravity, upside down, underwater, virtually any surface including glass, and in a range of temperatures ranging from below the freezing point to exceeding 300 degrees Celsius

  • Solution B —

    • The Russians used a pencil

• Problem 2

  One of the most memorable case studies in Japanese management was the case of the empty soapbox, which happened at one of Japan's largest product companies. The company received the complaint from a consumer who bought a box of soap and it was empty. Authorities immediately isolated the problem of the assembly chain, which transported all packaged boxes of soap, to the delivery department. For some reason, a box of soap went empty down the assembly chain. High officials asked their engineers who will find a good and quick solution to the problem.

  • Solution A

    • Immediately, engineers jumped into their work to devise an X-ray machine with high-resolution monitors managed by two people and thus monitor all the soapboxes that went over the line to make sure they were not empty.

  • Solution B

    • When a line worker in a different small company faced the same problem, he did not enter into complications of X-rays, robots, or computer equipment; instead, he bought a powerful industrial fan and pointed it toward the assembly line. He turned on the fan, and as each box went through the fan, the empty ones just flew out of the production line.

The goal is to never get overly complicated. This doesn’t mean diving into complex solutions is automatically incorrect, however, it is important to know the difference between the time values of each & every solution.

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As always, I’m here if you have questions or concerns, or just simply want to say hi.

I hope you have a good rest of your day and an even better week.

Cheers,
Vincent