“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”
-Leonardo da Vinci
This post inspired by: Why Good Programmers are Lazy and Dumb found via the Scobleizer.
I’ve often said “It’s my laziness that leads to my efficiency.” I don’t like doing repetitive tasks so if I end up stuck with one I’ll always find the quickest way to get it over with. In terms of being lazy AND dumb, it’s always good to assume your user is dumb and in order to create an application that is simple to use, you will have to think dumb and thus, “be dumb” [just for a little while- don't worry!]. Here are a couple of personal examples where my laziness lead to much higher efficiency:
Sales Order Management (SOM) System at IKEA
Before: Agents would write down all their order numbers and the dollar value of the orders on little slips of paper. Supervisors would walk around collecting these slips every few hours, key in the sales into an Excel spreadsheet and every week generate agent sales reports. Cashiers would come around every few hours, collect these slips, key in each order number one by one, print them, sort them into large ($) orders and small orders, sort them by province and process the orders. Average order processing time: 4 days.
After: Agents would simply click a button which stored relevant order information into a database. Supervisors and agents could view [much more detailed] live statistics of daily/weekly/monthly sales. Cashiers would click one button to print the large orders and another for smaller orders; orders were printed sorted by province. No more paper, data entry, manual sorting or walking around. Much more detailed statistics were now available. Average order processing time: 1 day.
Weborder Auto-booker (E-Order Slayer*) at IKEA
Before: Hundreds of online orders came in daily, were printed and then manually booked by agents. This itself was quite a lengthy process. Once a dozen or so orders were booked an agent would call the clients. If it was too late to phone clients in a certain region they would be called the following day (if there was time). When items were not available, an agent would have to notify the client and they were usually yelled at. Average weborder processing time: 6 minutes.
After: Orders are saved into a database and then automatically booked by the system. Orders are then sorted by value and province and a call back list is generated showing regions and total order value amounts. When items were not available an email was automatically sent to the client. No more paper, data entry or manual sorting. Much more detailed statistics were now available. Average weborder processing time: 2 minutes. Multiply that 4 minute savings by 150-300 daily.
*I didn’t give it that name.
Needless to say, both these systems saved the company thousands upon thousands of dollars. I usually got a pat on the back and sometimes a “Good job!” as a reward for my good work. No, I’m not bitter… ;) Another incident was at Merck when they gave me a task which they thought would take me a couple of days. I was finished within a couple of hours. I have a few other stories [which I don't feel like typing up] where I was too lazy to do something so I figured out a better way.
Laziness is one of the keys to my success. Tip of the Day: If you’re doing a repetitive task and computers are somehow involved, there’s usually a faster way to get the job done! :)
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