Commitment comes from involvement; involvement comes from simplicity

"Without involvement, there is no commitment."

Stephen R. Covey

What I've noticed with Toyota veterans is the emphasis on keeping approaches simple.  More sophisticated techniques are used only if necessary.  Don't use a fishbone diagram if 5 Whys is sufficient.  Don't use a fancy electronic tool if a simple physical board is sufficient.

The reason for this is that the more sophisticated the techniques, tools, and approaches, the less people are able to participate and therefore the less commitment you will have.

In Transforming the Mature Information Technology Organization, Dr. Robert Zawacki uses the following formula:

Effective Decision = Right Decision x Commitment to the Decision

As a simple example, would you prefer a 100% solution with a 20% commitment to doing it OR an 80% solution with a 99% commitment to doing it?

The value of the more sophisticated technique is presumably that it facilitates a more correct decision.

The problem with the more sophisticated technique is that that it is more likely to reduce commitment to the decision due to the limited number of people who understand and participate in it.

This is why I have some concern with techniques like Real Options or even economic analysis of cost of delay.  Does the additional correctness compensate for the possible (maybe even likely) reduction in involvement and commitment?  And I would expect that the answer to this is different depending on the level of the problem as well as other factors.

Two responses come to mind in order to increase involvement and therefore commitment:

• Create simplified versions of techniques that are more approachable to novices at the expense of some degradation of correctness. This could be a spectrum of versions from simplified to sophisticated.
• Educate and develop people's problem-solving capability so that they can understand and participate using more sophisticated approaches.  We get the value of the more sophisticated technique without losing the value of the commitment.