When we start to build a Rolls Royce........

We, the people of India or Indians or desis, are a proud lot and there are certainly enough reasons to be (and enough not to be as well). Historically, our country has been the purveyor of knowledge, of discoveries, and even some very clever inventions and innovations to this World. However, I daresay, we as a country have never been known for our punctuality or for our ability to meet time targets in anything we do. We seem to be always late..... We somehow simply and mysteriously "hasten slowly" as a nation... Let us analyse this.... Are we constantly late because we are not industrious enough? Do we dither? Do we procrastinate? Do we make haste and end up tripping over ourselves? Or do we simply don't care for time? My sense is none of above (but some of you may make a case for "a li'l of all the above!"). I feel as a country we are so brilliant a people that we start to build, at least in our minds, a "Rolls Royce" even for the simplest of tasks assigned to us - at every step and for every little thing. We shoot for the most elegant of solutions, the most complex of logic, the most bells and whistles of features, the most exotic of schemes, the most esoteric of principles or simply assign ourselves the mother of all tasks. Let me start with an example from our recent history as "we the people". Take our Indian constitution - it is longest written constitution of any country in the World -when first presented in 1949, it had 395 articles and some 117000 words. It has undergone some 94 amendments in 60 years and has become even longer. Contrast this with the US constitution - it was all of 4 handwritten pages when presented in late 1700s. Not surprisingly, it has been amended just 27 times in just over 220 years. Pls note that it underwent the first 10 amendments (what is popularly known as the Bill of Rights) within the first 5 years itself as part of the suggestions that came from the initial debates. We often attribute delays in India to "politics" and "government or bureaucracy impeding progress". I say it is our ingenious Indian mind adding to complications by making brilliant suggestions even before something takes off. And all we are trying to do is help.... Isn't it? Maybe not. The net result is, 1. We won't even get started, 2. We will get started too late to finish on time, or 3. We will get stuck half way through something in a complex web of details. And once in a while someone providentially arrives with an uncomplicated mind, takes charge and simplifies matters and lo and behold, everything starts to move. Somehow, this Nation has been fortunate enough to have some of most uncomplicated minds as well. Here are a few examples from our history...... 1. Krishna - simplified it for Arjuna 2. Mahatma Gandhi - simplified for a whole nation on how to fight for freedom 3. Babasaheb Ambedkar - simplified it for a community by showing salvation lies in education (do u see that book in his hand in every one of his statues?) 4. TN Seshan and his successors - simplified elections (?) 5. Mr. Sreedharan and team - simplified Project management even for a complex one like the Delhi Metro (at least the first phase) 6. Dr. Manmohan Singh and Mr. P V Narasimha Rao - simplified economic liberalisation/globalisation for India 7. Dr. Abdul Kalam - simplified missile technology. ---------------------------- Global examples A few global examples that have made a big change for the World per se are 1. Malcolm Maclean - simplifies shipping thro' containerisation (arguably the single biggest invention that changed the modern world) 2. Apple and Steve Jobs - simplified computing in '84 3. Microsoft and Bill Gates - looks like they simplified everything!! 4. Apple and Steve Jobs again! - simplified how we listen to music. ---------------------------- Back to us Indians.... In my personal experience have found people delaying projects beyond the target date waiting to perfect that presentation to the 95% level of perfection when the boss would have been happy with an 80% preliminary draft that would have been delivered as committed. People also do not get started on something because in their mind the end solution is too complicated or they could not find the solution to the prospective problem that would come at the 90% elegance level but would still do the intended job. It never occurs to people that sometimes getting something done on target to an 80% level of elegance is probably good enough for most applications. Have seen many an automation project delayed beyond imagination as people are loathe to using some small percent of manual interface at least in the first cut prototypes. What we fail to understand is even the Rolls Royces have been perfected over many decades and no one probably thought of every elegant solution on Day One. And then there is technology to help to make it more and more elegant as we go along apart from improvement ideas we will get from various people once they see something working. Or better yet, the end user or customers may be perfectly happy with what one makes on time but with less elegance than what one originally had in mind. Try it.... Next time you are struggling to meet a target or see someone struggling, see if you can simplify it or at least uncomplicate it. May be it will help save a lot of time, money and efforts and also help meet time targets. Why start to build a Rolls when an 800 cc would do just fine.....