Simplifying Your Startup

Any kind of business process must go through (V)ertical + (H)orizontal simplification. Vertical Simplification (VS) To complete a task/process/work there are always series of steps. When you make a list of all the steps, it just gets the work done. Vertical simplification forces you to reduce the total number of steps. Each step is audited thoroughly and the input / outputs are audited carefully. The goal is simple - reduce total number of steps to save max time. Horizontal Simplification (HS) There is a limitation to Vertical simplification. Beyond certain number of steps, you cannot compress / reduce steps. In HS, we kind of create two horizontal lanes:

  • Lane One - Customer Experience

  • Lane Two - Internal Process

Now we distribute the VS list based on each lane. This allows us to look at the entire process from a customer's point of view.  It also forces us to simplify tasks both vertically and horizontally!