We enjoy a richness of choices, bountiful and readily. We are bombarded by the minute, and in the everlasting quest to gain an advantage to make our lives better, simpler, and more efficient, for just about everything and anything. You had no idea you needed the new device, service, app, feature, etc.
In the workplace the number of tools available to ‘improve’ the efficiency and effectiveness of doing business is ever increasing. The proliferation of systems, tools and apps ensures organizations now have more to support and manage. We do the same with processes and operating procedures. When it comes to developing products and solutions, organizations look to add on, because they believe their customers want and need more, and that more is better. But do they? And is it? While adding more features and functions may initially be well received, by some, how much is used by the majority of users, and to what lasting benefit?
As we add more of whatever, it is yet another element for us to understand, learn, operate and manage. How many apps on your phone have you mastered? One certainty of any addition, is that we further deplete our one single scarce resource – time.
As you ponder adding an additional app, process, feature, or variable into your already saturated environment, product features, workplace, or home, consider asking yourself if this will enhance the experience for you or the people you serve. What if you chose to eliminate something instead? How will you benefit? Inevitably, subtraction may add value from many more dimensions, other than time?
