Simplification, listening to teams
Simplification, listening to teams
Processes keep piling up
Processes keep piling up
And no one removes anything. Complexity can make work feel pointless. As tools and approvals accumulate, people lose sight of the value they create. How many processes in your company have never been questioned since they were introduced?
And no one removes anything. Complexity can make work feel pointless. As tools and approvals accumulate, people lose sight of the value they create. How many processes in your company have never been questioned since they were introduced?
At a mid-sized industrial company with 800 employees, we identified 11 different tools used to track a single project. They included Excel, MS Project, Power BI, the ERP system, Teams, Jira, Salesforce, SharePoint and DocuSign.
The starting point
Each tool met a legitimate need when it was introduced: a particular problem, a request from finance or a customer requirement. Taken individually, every decision made sense. But no one removed anything.
Our approach
The hidden cost of accumulation became clear at another mid-sized company. Its CFO showed us a €500 purchase order that had been held up for eight days. It needed three successive approvals, from the manager to the executive team. The purchase was for office supplies.
We asked how long the approval process had existed. No one knew. When we traced its history, the explanation emerged: a supplier dispute six years earlier, a budget overrun three years earlier and an invalid signature two years earlier. Each layer had solved a real problem. None had been removed once that problem was resolved.
The process handled 140 orders a month, with an average of 15 minutes per approval and a fully loaded hourly cost of €65. If every order went through all three approvals, that would mean 105 hours of work, costing €6,825 a month, to control €70,000 of purchases.
The starting point
Each tool met a legitimate need when it was introduced: a particular problem, a request from finance or a customer requirement. Taken individually, every decision made sense. But no one removed anything.
Our approach
The hidden cost of accumulation became clear at another mid-sized company. Its CFO showed us a €500 purchase order that had been held up for eight days. It needed three successive approvals, from the manager to the executive team. The purchase was for office supplies.
We asked how long the approval process had existed. No one knew. When we traced its history, the explanation emerged: a supplier dispute six years earlier, a budget overrun three years earlier and an invalid signature two years earlier. Each layer had solved a real problem. None had been removed once that problem was resolved.
The process handled 140 orders a month, with an average of 15 minutes per approval and a fully loaded hourly cost of €65. If every order went through all three approvals, that would mean 105 hours of work, costing €6,825 a month, to control €70,000 of purchases.
No one removes anything.
No one removes anything.
Article
Article
No one removes anything.
Article
Complexity does not always come from where we expect. Ask an executive team what limits agility and the answers are often the same: the GDPR, industry standards and employment requirements. Complexity is seen as an external burden. Looking at the actual work can reveal a different picture.
The cost extends beyond lost time. Managers spend a substantial part of their day feeding reporting systems. Teams wait for approval on decisions they could make themselves. Over time, this can erode engagement.
The task is to distinguish what protects the business from what slows it down—and to remove what no longer serves a purpose.
Complexity does not always come from where we expect. Ask an executive team what limits agility and the answers are often the same: the GDPR, industry standards and employment requirements. Complexity is seen as an external burden. Looking at the actual work can reveal a different picture.
The cost extends beyond lost time. Managers spend a substantial part of their day feeding reporting systems. Teams wait for approval on decisions they could make themselves. Over time, this can erode engagement.
The task is to distinguish what protects the business from what slows it down—and to remove what no longer serves a purpose.
