In a blog post, consultant Kevan Hall (who specializes in speeding up complex companies) asks the question, are we drowning in cooperation? As an alternative to oceans of emails, endless meetings, micromanagement, and meaningless corporate values, he advocates smaller teams, more localized controls, and implementing faster and simpler ways of working: what others might call agility.

Certainly more agile business practices will continue to prevail in large organizations. But globalization and the increasing scopes of projects cause teams to span across geographies, with multiple currencies, languages, and cultures. Organizations are moving more towards a project-driven approach that requires broader teamwork and collaboration, for the sake of satisfying a large scope of work, meeting compliance requirements, streamlining enormous accounting problems, and allowing businesses to compete in global marketplaces.

Although we would love to see fewer emails and shorter meetings, we work with companies for whom avoiding the complexity is not the answer–these companies need elegant solutions to complex problems.

In his manifesto, “Elegant Solutions: Breakthrough Thinking the Toyota Way,” Matthew E.May writes:

Elegance is the simplicity found on the far side of complexity. An elegant solution is one in which the optimal outcome is achieved with the minimal expenditure of effort and expense.

We see the standardization of process as an elegant solution that is extremely effective. With Project Workforce Management, we can apply the most efficient best practices and enforce them through automation. Clearly define roles within the process (empower the workforce) and communication should become easier, help productivity and mitigate risk and issues, which will automatically cut down the number of meetings and emails.