How can we tackle making improvements to a complex process?

1. Question the requirements. The most common error is to optimize a thing that should not exist. School teaches us not to criticize the assignment, but this is a crucial first step. The requirements are definitely dumb, no matter who they came from, especially if they came from someone smart.
2. Remove unnecessary process steps. If you’re not occasionally adding things back in, you’re not removing aggressively enough. The line of reasoning that adds things just in case leads to unchecked accumulation.
3. Optimize. Simplifying is the third step, and should only be done after the two above.
4. Accelerate cycle time. If you’ve done the above three things and are still going slowly, go faster. But not until.
5. Automate.

He notes that he’s done these backwards and it doesn’t work.

Always remember, however, that there’s usually a simpler and better way to do something than the first way that pops into your head.

Donald Knuth