What’s the simplest thing that could possibly work?
This is the central design question for strategy and innovation.
Put another way: what’s the least complex solution, without cutting corners?
Einstein supposedly said: “Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
But this is harder than it sounds. Especially when a funder says “this would be good if it could only do x as well.”
(I hear this whenever I’m pitching a new concept.)
And you can go too far: some commercial organisations use “What’s the lowest performing product someone will buy?” (My team use a few more swear words to disparage that approach).
That approach is economically valid if you’re in a very protected rentier position just looking to extract value from a market. Like a toll road operator, your strategy boils down to price elasticity of demand calculations, and the innovation is more on how to close competitive options and force more people to use your poor product.
But the rest of us don’t have that luxury.
Innovation is Darwinian.
Complexity is a tool to prevent competition.
But novel simplicity is disruptive.
Keep it simple, stupid.
Price elasticity of demand… or, said another way: “how much pain will the customer take before they stop spending money on something?”