Unecessary complexity is a common cause for waste and excess costs. Here are some excerpts from a book called Systemantics that discuss the impacts of complexity. They are amusing and thought-provoking.
– Le Chatelier’s Principle: Complex systems tend to oppose their own proper function. As systems grow in complexity, they tend to oppose their stated function.
– The Fundamental Theorem: New systems generate new problems.
– Laws of Growth: Systems tend to grow, and as they grow, they encroach.
– The Generalized Uncertainty Principle: Complicated systems produce unexpected outcomes. The total behavior of large systems cannot be predicted.
– As systems grow in complexity, they tend to oppose their stated function.
– A complex system cannot be “made” to work. It either works or it doesn’t.
– A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.
– A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over, beginning with a working simple system.
– A complex system can fail in an infinite number of ways. (If anything can go wrong, it will.) (See Murphy’s law.)
– The larger the system, the greater the probability of unexpected failure.
– Colossal systems foster colossal errors.
