A team decides to improve a process.

Naturally, it creates a twelve-page procedure, three approval levels, a tracking dashboard, two forms, and a committee to supervise implementation.

Nothing has actually been tested yet, but the system is already impressive.

Gall’s Law offers a warning:

Complex systems that work usually grow from simple systems that worked.

Successful complexity tends to develop gradually. A small version works, people learn from it, and additional pieces are added when they are genuinely needed.

Starting with the full elaborate system often creates complexity before anyone understands the problem.

Begin with something small enough to test.

A simple system can grow.

A complicated failure mostly produces documentation.