Every organisation undertaking a digital project aims for simplicity and speed. Yet, the outcome is often the opposite. This gap between intention and reality is one of the most frequent problems in digital projects. However, a digital project doesn't become complex overnight. Complexity gradually sets in, through decisions, new needs, and compromises.
Why are digital projects becoming increasingly complex? What mechanisms explain this increasing complexity? How can we prevent a digital project from gradually losing its simplicity?
In this article, discover the main causes of digital project complexity and the levers for preserving their simplicity over time.
Why do digital projects become more complex over time?
One of the reasons digital projects seem so complex is that digital technology has a «knack» for making problems invisible for much longer than so-called physical systems.
Let us take the example of a point of sale, a workshop or a logistics space; the inconsistencies are immediately noticeable by the majority of staff: a wrongly listed product, contradictory labels, an empty shelf. These signals trigger a rapid reaction, precisely because they are visible.
In a digital ecosystem, the same types of tensions (redundant data, obsolete processes, interfaces that gradually diverge from actual usage) remain silent for longer. Visible to a minority of employees, the immateriality of digital naturally shifts the moment when an organisation perceives the need to act. And when the organisation has perceived the need to act, it is often too late and necessary to resolve the existing tensions before truly building the new project.
Digital technology amplifies what the organisation allows it to do, for better or for worse. The immateriality of data and digital tools offers a false sense of freedom and ease: it masks mistakes, allows individual tinkering and, above all, makes it possible to work together. delays awareness of malfunctions that have nothing to do with digital technology.
The multiplication of stakeholders complicates a digital project because it increases the number of people who have an interest or a claim in the project. This can lead to longer decision-making processes, conflicting priorities, and a greater need for communication and coordination.
In a digital project, as in any project, multiplying stakeholders can increase project complexity. The accumulation of features, layers of information, and approval levels often results from decisions made by several different teams. Every addition to the project satisfies a stakeholder, meets a real need and seems necessary at the time it is decided. Taken individually, each feature is necessary, but these requests can sometimes be contradictory.
This mechanism is amplified when the project involves multiple teams with distinct approaches and objectives, such as marketing management, IT, business teams, and communications. They each contribute to the perimeter from their own perspective but in the absence of shared prioritisation criteria and a stabilised overall vision, contributions add up without being arbitrated.
Why does a digital project reveal strategic challenges?
To this complexity of stakeholder coordination can be added a sometimes more structural difficulty: the digital project reveals strategic choices that the organisation had not yet had to make.
An organisation whose business model is based on sales via physical distributors will be faced with a question that digital technology will make inescapable: how do you develop an e-commerce channel without undermining a distribution network that has been built up over time? In this case, the complexity of the digital journey is not a design problem: it reflects an unresolved strategic decision. The digital project is the indicator, not the cause.
This phenomenon affects organisations of all sizes and levels of maturity. It is not a sign of poor governance, but rather of governance that has not yet integrated digital technology as an integral part of the company's strategy and treats it in its own right.
Le rôle d’un Product Manager (or Product Owner, depending on the organisation) is precisely to limit this accumulation of complexities. It doesn’t just involve managing a backlog or coordinating teams, but maintaining an overall vision of the product, arbitrating between sometimes conflicting requests, and also raising the inherent questions of the project (business, governance, etc.) that management must be able to answer.
How to simplify a digital project?
Simplicity is sometimes perceived as a constraint: fewer functions, fewer pages, fewer cases covered. This reading underestimates what simplification can achieve: more robust systems that are more widely adopted and easier to develop. On the other hand, it presupposes the development of three specific organisational capabilities for an organisation, which are not related to graphic design but to method, governance and the culture of arbitration.
Set a clear intention
A digital project becomes complex when it aims to cover everything. Precisely defining who it is for and what it should allow people to do constitutes a structuring framing exercise. This intention serves as a filter for all decisions.
To organise the trade-offs
Complexity rarely arises from a lack of ideas, but from an inability to arbitrate between them. Structuring who decides, according to what criteria, and within what framework, prevents the gradual accumulation of features.
Comparing the project to real-world usage
Simplicity cannot be decreed; it must be verified. Observing users in real-life situations quickly identifies the gaps between the initial intention and the lived experience.
To rely on a Product Manager
If you don't already have a Product Manager in-house, now is the time to recruit one or hire a temporary one. Product Manager freelance. A Product Manager can maintain the focus and the overall vision for a digital product, prioritise needs and make decisions. It is precisely a role that aims to simplify the smooth running of a digital project as much as possible.
This structure can be put in place gradually, regardless of the organisation's initial maturity.
Can a digital project be prevented from becoming complex?
The answer is yes, but it is more accurate to talk about managing complexity than complete elimination. Every digital project evolves: needs change, uses transform, and new constraints appear. This evolution is normal and does not constitute a malfunction in itself.
Conversely, an organisation can prevent this complexity from building up to become a hindrance to the project. This requires maintaining an overall vision, regularly arbitrating requests, questioning features that have become unnecessary, and confronting decisions with actual usage rather than mere assumptions.
Preserving simplicity is therefore not a goal achieved once and for all. It is ongoing work that accompanies the entire lifecycle of the digital product.
Digital simplicity is an achievable result. It requires specific organisational conditions – a stated intention, governance for trade-offs, and a practice of testing – which can be built progressively and methodically. The organisations that achieve it are not necessarily those with the most significant resources, but those that have structured their capacity to decide and prioritise.
As digital technology plays an increasingly important role in the relationship with users, employees and partners, the ability to produce simple, coherent experiences is becoming a sustainable differentiating advantage. Not because it is rare, but because it is based on trade-offs that few organisations have yet formalised.
Keeping digital simple is demanding. It is also, for this reason, one of the most structuring projects an organisation can undertake - and one where a clear method makes the biggest difference.