july 2024
- question every requirement
- delete any part of the process you can
- simplify and optimize
- accelerate cycle time
- automate
This algorithm allows for maximum efficiency when developing production ready products. I was first introduced to it when reading Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson last year (a book i highly recommend).
The goal is to build out your design first. It doesn’t matter how it’s created but just get started building it out. Start with an extremely rudimentary framework. Use the framework to piece flesh onto it with little to no care about complexity. Ideally, simplicity should always be present, but it isn’t a priority now. The priority is to launch your design into existence. We will fix it later.
Now that you have “something” it’s time to make it ready for production. This is where the algorithm comes in. No complex design will survive in today’s world so we need to trim off fat anywhere we can. Thats why we review our requirements. Ask yourself, who made it, why is it here, why is it necessary? Any requirement you identify has the slightest chance of being worthless, scrap it. This is cutting your design to a dangerously thin final product, but this is good, *fat = complexity = long term failure. *
This process will continue. Once requirements are removed, now any other “parts” of your design can be removed. We’re continuously removing fat here. You may need it later though, so don’t be afraid to remove too much. That is a good thing. *“if you do not end up adding back at least 10% of them, then you didn’t delete enough.” *
It’s now time to simplify and optimize. This can only happen after the previous steps are completed though because why optimize something you’re going to delete? Your waisting efforts and thats the last thing needed in production. Once the key components are automated, now you speed everything up. But remember, this is only after the previous steps. It would create harm if we spent time accelerating a failure point that should have been deleted.
Now finally, automate. This comes last, you must wait for everything to be shaken out. Now you have a design that can be rapidly produced with the aid of automation. Automation shouldn’t be thought about early in the process because it will slow down the key requirement: to just get started. If you spend all your time thinking about the end product you will get nowhere. No designer has ever thought about the end design and watch it appear. Continuous iterations is the path to your final product, but to start this path, you must start bland. Don’t focus on the the cleaning and automating, focus on the framework, the vision, the organs allowing it to function. Then you can critique the skin around it.
