Simple but no simpler

Helping people to learn is all about simplicity. But it's easy for a love of simplicity to become the fetish of minimalism. Minimalism is aesthetically pleasing but bad for learners. Simplicity should focus on chemistry not being catchy.

The best apple crumble in the world?
I've been making apple crumble for thirty years now. It's the first dish I ever cooked on  my own as a ten-year-old in Home Economics class. I still make them and, last week, I made my best one yet. How is it possible to be making, thirty years on, tastier versions of a dish which contains only four ingredients (apples, sugar, flour and butter - plus spice, if you're feeling adventurous*)?

Simple as possible. . .
Here's how school taught me to cook apple crumble:

• Take equal parts flour, sugar and butter
• Rub this into crumbs
• Put crumbs on top of sliced apples in a dish
• Place the dish in an oven and cook till it's golden

Thirty years on and I still remember the recipe. It's a model of simplicity. But it's only good for children.

. . .but no simpler
When I made my first apple crumble, I felt like I was being my mum, which was fun. Make-believe is fun. The barely game of pretending is fun for adults too but we're usually past the stage of pretending to be mummies and daddies. We want to pretend to be Heston Blumenthal or Ferran Adrià.

Pretending games for grown-ups
The simple recipe only allows you to copy the crumble. An adult would want to make it their own, to make it better. We want new super-powers . This means teachers and trainers of grown-ups channeling Kathy Sierra. Or Amy Hoy. Perhaps even making yourself obsolete (with a hint of Microwave Learning Objectives).


As everybody says, simple is good. But brevity can come at the expense of more than meaning. It can kill any sense of fun and play - or, learning, as we like to call it when we're at work.

Design Thinking
So where should we look for answers to our simple vs simplistic problem in the Greatest Toolshop in the World?

Design Thinking seems to be an umbrella term for a whole load of related approaches to problem-solving and innovation (I've included some links at the foot of this post). A particularly useful one for unReal Trainers is Systematic Inventive Thinking.

The basic idea of SIT is that you break down any product or service into its component parts and then monkey around with them to see what you come up with.

Making a better apple crumble
At first glance, there are only a few ingredients to an apple crumble. But, in SIT, we're not thinking of ingredients but components. Here's a possible list of components for an apple crumble:

• fruit
• sweetener
• fat
• flour
• flavour enhancers (eg spice, salt)
• dish
• cooking utensils
• temperature
• colour
• time
• work
• presentation
• other ingredients

I could go on but you get the picture. (Can you think of any more? I can think of at least five. . .)

Playing around with any of these could potentially result in a better (or far far worse) crumble. In my case, after experimenting with oatmeal and walnuts, I learned that doing the following would result in the lightest, tastiest crumble imaginable (NB there's a clue to a couple of the missing components in the list above here):

• Mix the flour, oatmeal and butter together first. Add in the sugar later.
• Place the 'crumble' mix in the freezer for a half hour before topping the fruit and putting into the oven

(Now, ahem, 'my' secret's out. Did you spot two more components in 'my' crumble innovation?)

Simple doesn't necessarily mean short
There's a danger of confusing brevity with simplicity. For blank-slates and children a focus on brevity makes sense.

But for every bit of 'new information' we're giving as 'input' in workplace learning, there's a hinterland of habits we're trying to improve. It's not so much that our old dogs can't learn new tricks. but that they have to unlearn old ones too.

Think simple like a chemist, not like a jingle-writer.

I don't think there's anything that you can't get better at. Because there isn't anything that can't be broken down and done differently. Simplicity in the form of minimalism hides this fact. There are two pictures of houses above - which one is the simplest?

Anything can be broken down and done differently Which  means it can be done better. Watch and see:

How People Count Cash? - MetaCafe

Design Thinking links to get you started:

What is Design thinking?

From Fast Company, the magazine about innovation

Definition of Design Thinking

Might as well be entitled 'lack of definition', nobody seems to be able to put their finger on it.

Noise Between Stations

A neat and tidy-ish definition for those who prefer that kind of thing

Thinking about Design Thinking

Another definition, or rather a list of attributes

Why Design Thinking won't save you - sense as always from Peter Merholz (Adaptive Path) who points out that you can and should be adopting viewpoints and ideas from everywhere (just like, erm, designers)

(There aren't any unbiased or non-proprietary links to SIT on the net, so I haven't included any here. Do a web search and you might have more luck than me. I heard about it through a podcast which I've now lost. I'll post if I can find something decent.)

*Spice had dangerously exotic connotations in our house...
Note: It would be more accurate in the above to say, "I still remember 'a' recipe," not "the". There's an important difference between what they taught me and what they said and did.