Via negativa

Some organisations think that technologies make things easier unequivocally.

They can’t see that further technological adoption leads to increasing complexity, which, in turn, increases the future probability of encountering problems.

It can become a vicious circle: more technology, more complexity, more problems to deal with, and so on. This brings us back to the issue of solutionism.

Via negativa

If your organisation simply thinks than adding technologies will make things easier, they also fail to see that we improve systems by removing parts, not by adding. In other words, we improve systems via negativa (negative way).¹

You already know this concept through the contemporary saying: “less is more”.

In practice, we can see that the advanced practitioner might use a narrower set of tools than the neophyte to refine his craft.