Product Management and the Foggy Labyrinth

The difference between Complication and Complexity

Product management is extremely difficult, even in the best of times. The difficulty comes in two distinct flavors of complication and complexity, intermixed in different proportions. And those two different flavors are fundamentally different.

Imagine the problem space as a labyrinth that you must navigate to arrive at your goal. Complication can be thought of as how many hazards there are and how much the paths twist and branch. Crucially, though, the walls are well defined: at every point it’s clear which way to turn to avoid the walls, or how many different paths you have to choose from at this branch point, or when you’re about to step into a hazard.

Complexity is the degree to which the labyrinth is shrouded in a deep, perhaps impenetrable fog. Where the walls are, where the branch points are, and where the hazards are is no longer clear until you are right upon them. The general direction of the goal is your only beacon for you to rely on. Unit for unit, complexity is significantly more difficult than complication.

Complication rewards velocity, organization, and execution. The path is clear, so you can move quickly down it without fear of going off road. Keeping track of the general direction of the goal will help you tend to take the fork that is more likely to get you closer. There’s nothing particularly difficult to reason about, so putting your head down and focusing on “turning the crank” is sufficient to make forward progress.

Complexity rewards judgement, thoughtfulness, and reason. Any given step could have you collide with a wall or fall into a pit, so it’s important to carefully consider each move. Take each step tentatively, and as you think you can make out shapes in the fog — perhaps a hazard is just ahead — be willing to pause and reconsider your path. Velocity in impenetrable fog in unknown parts of the labyrinth would be foolhardy.

Understand your problem

For any given problem it’s important to understand the mix of complication and complexity so you can pick the correct mode of action.

1. If you’re in a non-complicated and non-complex problem — a wide open room with no fog — point toward the goal, strap a rocket on, and light it!
2. If you’re in a complicated but non-complex space, carefully considering and re-considering each step before you take it would lead to moving unconscionably slowly. Focus on execution above all else.
3. If you’re in a non-complicated but complex environment — something more like a foggy wide-open field — then you may be able to move more quickly than you could in a more complicated environment, since you know you’ll encounter fewer obstacles.
4. If you’re in a complicated and complex environment you should move as carefully as possible.

Of course, situations are rarely at one of these extremes, but rather some mix.

Reducing complexity

Whereas complicated is often fundamental to the problem — it’s hard to move walls, after all — complexity isn’t. Complexity arises primarily due to the novelty of a problem space. As the novelty of the labyrinth fades the complexity will diminish.

For example, when you return to parts of the labyrinth you’ve already visited, you’ll be more likely to remember the positions of the hazards, walls, and branches, giving you the confidence to move more quickly. In effect the fog will have lifted somewhat.

And it’s not just learning from parts of the labyrinth that you’ve already visited. To the extent that you’ve already explored a similar labyrinth and can generalize your learnings, or that you have a guide who is familiar with this labyrinth, or that it is a labyrinth that is well-traveled by others, the fog will not be as dense.

Complexity is a frustrating thing to to deal with, and it can be tempting to view it as a failure to define a goal crisply enough, or to make simplifying assumptions aggressively enough. But complexity is an unavoidable fact in novel problem spaces. The worst thing you can do is pretend it doesn’t exist.

Note: The original version of this essay, confusingly, used the concepts of complexity for the easier type, and ambiguity for the harder type, instead of complication vs complexity. I’ve updated the essay to use the word “complexity” in the sense it is used elsewhere, including the cynefin framework, complexity theory, etc.