A complex system is not the same as a system that delivers advanced functionality.

• Complexity within software refers to the characteristics of a software system and its ability to change over time.
• Functionality refers to the capabilities a software system exposes.

In my experience, we often overlook this distinction more than we realize. I’ve seen engineers brag about how complex their system was as evidence of their skills or their team’s capability.

We also tend to think of these characteristics as orthogonal, but I disagree.

We can't really build an advanced system if we've already built a complex one.
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Team-Building Exercise

Quick caveat: I'm still very much learning how to implement and act upon the thoughts in this week's article. These are some of the ways I've been doing so recently, but it's all still a work in progress!

If you have any other ideas or feedback, please reply to this email!

While the shift in language might seem pedantic, this week's exercise is about shifting your language when describing functionality versus the characteristics of the system that supplies that functionality.

• Try to refer to functionality along a spectrum of basic vs. advanced
• Refer to the systems along the lines of complexity, maintainability, and cognitive load

You can't always do this tough. No one will fault you if you describe a user feature request as complex.

However, make sure you view it as a complex problem and try to focus on how to simplify the problem so that it becomes manageable.

What I've found is that being intentional with this language acts as a guide in documents when describing changes we need to make to a system to achieve some new behavior.

• e.g., if someone reads "basic functionality" (or something similar), they can put on their "think about the behavior" hat
• Conversely, if someone reads "highly complex, they start thinking about how the system is trying to implement that capability
• This highlights when a seemingly basic feature add is creating complexity, and more thought or refactoring might need to be applied to the system

I'm still developing my thoughts and ways of working through this too, so your mileage may vary.

Here are some more resources from me to help you build better teams!​

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