The Complicated and The Complex

The news from the Gulf Coast is not good. Strong wind and rough waters are hampering cleanup efforts along Louisiana's fragile coastal wetlands. Oil is still flowing to the surface 50 miles off the coast and 5,000 feet underwater. Like many parts of engineering - - this particular problem has the look of what happens when the complicated meets the complex.

The May 2, 2010 edition of The New York Times addresses this in an article entitled It's Complicated by David Segal. Segal writes the following:

What we need, suggests Brenda Zimmerman, a professor at Schulich School of Business in Ontario, is a distinction between the complicated and the complex. It's complicated, she says, to send a rocket to the moon - - it requires blueprints, math, and a lot of carefully calibrated hardware and expertly written software. Raising a child, on the other hand, is complex. It is an enormous challenge, but math and blueprints won't help. Performing hip replacement surgery, she says, is complicated. It takes well-trained personnel, precision and carefully calibrated equipment. Running a health care system, on the other hand, is complex. It's filled with thousands of parts and players, all of whom must act within a fluid, unpredictable environment. To run a system that is complex, it's not enough to get the right people and the ideal equipment. It takes a set of simple principles that guide and shape the system. For instance: Teach everyone the best practices of doctors who are really good at hip replacement surgery.

"We get seduced by complicated in Western society," Ms. Zimmerman says. "We're in awe of it and we pull away from the duty to ask simple questions, which we do whenever we deal with matters that are complex."

Segal concludes with a warning:

But complexity has a way of defeating good intentions. As we clean up these messes, there is no point in hoping for a new age simplicity. The best we can do is hope the solutions are just complicated enough to work.