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Identifying something that's over-engineered

by Brett Guerringue

How do you identify a project management methodology or process that is over-engineered? How do you draw the line to minimize time/effort wasted on building a tool or process that may be unnecessary?

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6 Comments

  1. Very good question indeed. Engineers are keen on building systems, bringing their talents and sometimes a lot of passion to implement THE system, putting everything their career brought as a valuable experience and proved efficient in past situations. But we often forget to start from the beginning, which are the needs. And the needs are themselves driven by the risks not to meet the project target. There is the key to define a good management system, and to avoid building an over-engineered system. How to recognise it: when you see that your efforts running the system do not bring any added-value / does not prevent any real risk, that means you probably went through the line. I suggest to start with a system that keeps you on the safe side at the project ramp-up (always very exposed and you do not know all the conditions yet), and then you can lighten your system and cut features without added value.
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  2. A good start would be to compare the costs of weighted risks (ie corrected by the probability of occurrence) on the project to the costs to run/maintain the system (eg one data controller full time for the project duration, one quality guy, Microsoft Power BI licenses, …). For sure the management system costs should not be higher than the costs of weighted risks.
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  3. To spot an over-engineered process, you can ask 3 questions: 1. Is the methodology/process supporting common goals? 2. Does it help me to focus on critical aspects of my work? 3. Is it from the business perspective a must or a “nice-to-have”? Few ways how to obey the over-engineering: 1. Ask: “What would happen if we omit X?” and if the answer is: “Nothing,” or “Nothing critical to business objectives” then you’re likely over-engineering. 2. Make requirements transparent. Don't try to find the golden rule. 3. Be clear about business goals. Talk about expanding the scope of work and give the exact reasoning behind it to the rest of the team.
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  4. Hello, Very interesting question. When I first read it my initial thought was of course- ask an AI tool, it will bring you the best answer. But, as an expert in communication skill training and organizational strategy consultant I would like to take my answer to another level of thinking- and that will be don't ask the system, you better ask the people. in other words, it is all about what you ASK for, or more correctly- what the project team asks for. When you truly understand the NEED of the team and the system, you will then better build an efficient methodology and process that will support it.
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  5. "In-Genio" is a latin phrase with meaning as "Given by Birth". In-Genio gave birth to "En-Gineer" and to the approach of solving human society requirement using simple way as the nature could do only. The simplicity lays inside beauty and vice versa, the beauty lays inside the simplicity. All comments are using different words to describe the simplest procedure necessary to attain wished quality, wished objective. However, the term "over-engineered" itself seems to be an oxymoron if we apply above mentioned etymology of term "Engineer". In my managerial and engineering practice I learned that, the simplest way how to achieve the best definition of an problem is, to correctly read and correctly name the reality applying proper etymology of used words. This is the shortest way how to grapple a handle of an issue's instead of its fringes.
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  6. In addition to everything that has already been said - an important indicator of process quality/efficiency is the feedback of its users. Thus it is very useful to give people easy ways for providing constructive feedback (positive or negative) and encourage them to do so. Subsequently, it is necessary to have a process for applying relevant feedback to increase effectiveness. Of course, that process must not be over-engineered :)
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