We Judge the Parts. We Rarely Judge the Fit.
When we build something important, we look for the best parts.
We hire the strongest candidate. We select the most capable software. We appoint the most experienced partner. Each choice is defended on its own merit, and each one, on its own, is sound.
Then we are surprised when the whole does not work.
The parts were never the point
Design is about putting the right things in the right place.
The word that matters is place. A capable element in the wrong position does not add value. It creates friction. A strong individual in the wrong role clashes with the people around them. A powerful system in the wrong part of the architecture duplicates work rather than removing it.
Design happens when individual elements are integrated and positioned in a way that they complement each other, and the overall set objective is met.
That last part is easy to miss. The measure of good design is not the quality of each element. It is whether the arrangement meets the objective.
Why fit gets missed
It sounds simple. Yet we struggle with design, because we don’t focus on the basics.
The first basic is the end goal. Without a clear end goal, there is nothing to judge fit against. So we fall back on judging what we can see, which is the quality of each part.
The second is learning about the elements in detail, all their properties. We often know what an element is called, not how it behaves. We know a person’s title, not how they work under pressure. We know a system’s feature list, not what it demands of the processes and data around it. Fit depends on properties, and properties take time to learn.
The third is creatively structuring the elements together to meet the end goal. This is where most effort should go, and where the least usually does. We assemble by habit, by precedent, or by whatever the last project did.
Skip the first two, and the third becomes guesswork.
A familiar example
Consider an organisation replacing its core business system.
The selection is thorough. The software is capable. The implementation partner is experienced. The project team is made up of good people. Every element passes scrutiny.
Two years later, staff are running spreadsheets alongside the new system, processes have been bent to suit the software, and nobody can quite say what went wrong.
Often, nothing was wrong with the parts. The end goal was never sharply defined beyond “replace the old system”. The properties of the existing processes, the data and the people were not understood in detail. And the pieces were put together the way such projects are usually put together, not in the way this organisation’s objective required.
Every part was evaluated. The fit never was.
It is not only systems
The same pattern shows up in team design, product design and even family structures. Wherever there is more than one part, the quality of the parts is the easiest thing to judge, and the least reliable guide to whether the whole will work.
The questions that remain
Here are some questions to ponder.
When you last made a major selection, how much of the evaluation was about the element itself, and how much about where it would sit?
How well do you really know the properties of the elements you work with every day, including the people?
And where in your organisation are good parts underperforming, not because of what they are, but because of where they have been placed?
