These principles are designed to help me build better systems, products, and solutions.
The order matters — skipping ahead usually leads to wasted effort.

1. Question Every Requirement

   • Ask: “Why does this requirement exist?”
   • Every requirement should have a clear owner — not just a vague department.
   • If it’s not grounded in physics, logic, or legal necessity, it can be challenged.

2. Delete Before Adding

   • Remove steps, parts, or processes that don’t clearly serve the end goal.
   • If you never have to add something back, you’re not deleting enough.
   • Complexity grows naturally; reduction requires deliberate effort.

3. Simplify and Optimize

   • Don’t optimize what should not exist.
   • First remove clutter, then simplify what remains.
   • Optimization is valuable only when applied to what’s essential.

4. Accelerate Cycle Time

   • Speed up processes only after simplification.
   • Faster cycles mean quicker learning and adaptation.
   • Be careful: a broken process made faster just fails sooner.

5. Automate Last

   • Automate only after questioning, deleting, simplifying, and accelerating.
   • Automating waste locks in inefficiency.
   • True efficiency is automation applied to a lean and validated process.

Many projects collapse under the weight of unnecessary complexity.
Following these steps in the right sequence ensures progress that is both fast and sustainable.

My team once built an automated system to speed up document approvals.
It was state-of-the-art: fast servers, sleek dashboards, even AI-powered suggestions.

But after launch, approvals still took weeks.
Why? The real bottleneck wasn’t speed — it was the fact that no one actually needed half the approvals in the first place.

When we eliminated the redundant sign-offs, the process shrank from 12 steps to 4.
Only then did automation truly shine, cutting turnaround time from weeks to hours.

The lesson: never automate waste. Simplify first, then accelerate.