Podcast Episode 8: Episode 209: Escaping the Complexity Trap

Description

Complexity is a well-intentioned trap that all churches fall into. In this episode, the team unpacks what they call the Complexity Trap, the moment when tools meant to support ministry start creating friction instead. Jon describes the first two steps of Elon Musk’s 5-Step Algorithm to help simplify your requirements and they apply it to real ministry functions like baptism forms and children's check in.Listen to the complete episode to hear their discussion and visit the show notes to find the resources they mentioned.

Transcribed Content

Hey. We're here with another Rockcast episode. We're really excited about our topics today. I'm Emily Forman. Jon Edmiston and Nick Airdo are here with me, and let's just dive right in. So today is an exciting day. We're gonna talk about our version updates and some of the cool things coming out in v '19. Yep. We also have maybe one of the most important features in Rock that you never configure. We'll talk about coming up here really soon and then some community announcements. Mhmm. Nick, what do you think about our version update? Well, let's kick it off with v 19. Development is wrapping up, and I'd say we're moving to alpha testing within three or four weeks, give or take. And there's some cool features in there. I think John was going to touch on a few of them. Yeah, we've talked about the big features. AI, which is going to be in preview mode. And we've talked about the connections piece. But two smaller features that I think people are really going to that were just completed actually in the last week. One is on event registrations, we have a feature that will prevent duplicates. So it helps people from not registering the same person twice. Now, of course, there's some limitations. It's hard to understand if that's the same person. But if the form fields kind of match a person already into the database, we can stop it and say, Hey, hold on. That person might already be there. That sounds an awesome feature. Yeah, highly requested. Related to that, but a little bit different, there's also features on event registration that would prevent or allow you to put some filters on who can register for an event. So you can put filters on age, you can put filters on grade, you can put a gender, and there's also another one, data view. The person has to be a part of the data view. Now, again, you have to be very careful because the fields you give us have to match whatever the criteria the data view is. Otherwise, we can't magically just know that. But it really should help grandparents registering themselves for kids' camp instead of the child. I've heard some stories about that. Yeah, which happens. And it also affects the dropdown. We have the family members in the dropdown. We're still gonna show you all the family members, but if you pick one that doesn't match those criteria, we'll kind of warn you and say, hey, you can't do that. We felt by removing it from the list, you might be freaked out and starting to add people back to a family that simply isn't there. So there's those features for event registration. But we also have another feature, which is enhancing the security of communications. And it's really the history of communications. So picture this. You're a staff person. You go and look at the communication history. On that list of all the communication, nothing changes. You'll see it just you do today. But if you go to click on one of the communications, you'll have some additional options of how you configure that security to see the details, the actual body There's of the one setting, three modes. There's a lax setting, which is kind of what it is today. Hey, if you can see the block, you can see this communication. There's a moderate kind of setting, which says, hey, we're going to look and see if you have security rights to the communication template or the system communication template that's based on that. And if you don't have those rights, we won't show it to you. That'd be good for things giving receipts, And stuff then there's a strict, which is basically unless you sent it, you can't see it. And to kind of give you a level up on that, unless there's a new security verb on the block that says can view everything. And that'd be good for your communication director who needs to see maybe everything, but the rest of your staff don't. That's a great idea. Yeah. So that's gonna give an improvement to that. You might ask, well, why it isn't on the list? Two reasons. One, it kind of is nice to know, did that person get a giving receipt? We don't know what the value of it is. So there's a lot of knowledge that I think a lot of people might want there. And performance. , trying to do all those security checks across tens to hundreds of thousands of emails. Could slow things down a bit. Yeah. And at the end of the day, it's , if that person really shouldn't see that, then don't give them access to the page. They shouldn't be there anyways. It's just trying to balance out ministry use with good security. I'm glad you brought those up. We've been talking about the big features, but these seem very high impact features too. Yeah. And I think, Nick, you had some other features I finally got to play with the real time check-in manager roster block. And now that's a block that a lot of careful design and talk discussions had gone into it, mainly regarding attempting to press a button that might be vanishing because somebody else is pressing a button to check somebody in or mark them present. And I think the team did an amazing job with the decision and how basically they gray out if somebody else is doing it. It goes out until you press a button, then it vanishes. I thought that was kind of genius. So I was really happy with that. I think the community is going to love that. A lot of lessons learned on using Asana and clicking something, and all of sudden your thing just got, that wasn't the one I meant. When it comes to the check-in manager, the roster is probably the biggest part of that. So that's now next gen. And there's a new theme for the However, check-in there's still some other parts that aren't next gen yet. And we're going to slowly start taking away those, the charts. The charting is still the older blocks. But really, the roster is the meat. That's what really people wanted to have next gen. And of course, we'll get to the rest of them. I think if you look at the release notes, you're going to see a ton of Obsidian blocks coming in 'nineteen. The team has been hard at work. Actually, I just had a meeting yesterday on that where now we have some AI templates that are helping us extremely reduce the impact of how hard it is to do Obsidian Block conversions. In some cases, Buzz does everything. So it's pretty cool. I'm really excited about that. That's great. Well, can we talk about this mysterious feature that you may never configure but is so important? Yes, we should. So picture this. You're sitting in service and you're an attendee, so let's have some empathy here. We always think of ourselves as staff, but let's have some empathy, and we're an attendee. And service is just starting, and a pastor goes up there and makes a impassioned plea for the importance of baptism. And maybe you're not baptized. And he says, Take out your phone. Register now. And you do, because you're a good attendee. And he really convinced you that this is something you need to do. So you just jump onto that QR code, you jump right in, and then you get the form. And you start going through the form. And you're , okay, name. Yeah. That makes sense. I gotta have my name, email. Yep. Probably need to email me. Phone? Okay. Maybe that's a better way of contacting me. And then you get to address. It's , okay, my address shirt. Date of birth? Mhmm. Okay. Maybe. T shirt size? What? Now from a staff perspective, you're , well, of course, we're gonna give you a T shirt so that you can be covered in. And but the person doesn't know that. And I'm not sure if you're me, truly me. Every time somebody asks me for my T shirt size, I'm right smack between two sizes. I'm thinking, wonder what brand it is. And I don't know. Should I do the large or should I do the extra large? Well, I'm gonna get all wet. Maybe the the the your brain is starting to go a million miles a second. And now you're just , literally, this would probably might be me. what? Let me think about this later. And, , we're in the middle of service here. , I'll come back to this. That is exactly what we don't wanna do. That ministry milestone may or may not happen now, all because of a form. And I bet a lot of our forms for baptism contains those questions. I don't think it's a stretch. I think you're probably right. I would also probably be thinking , is it 100% cotton? Is it gonna shrink? Exactly. Tribalent. I the tribalent. Is it Plastisol printing or is it gonna be, My brain just starts spinning. Yeah. Well, why do we do this, John? Well, it's wired into us. And the feature that we're talking about that we're not saying is simplicity. Oh, And I think it's important that we think about this because here's the point I think we need to make. None of us are good at simplicity. None of us. If you think you are, you're in denial. 12 step program. What's the first step? Acknowledgment. Admit you have a problem. And we need to all admit we have a problem. Now some of us vary in the scope of how bad that problem is. There's some people I know that they're extremely that love complexity. However, none of us are good at it. And I think one of the the key points to think about is complexity doesn't happen because our people are careless, not at least always. Sometimes we think it's a careless problem. Sometimes it is, but not always. It happens because sometimes people are being careful. That's a good distinction. Well, what about this other thing? What about this edge case? What about I don't want get in trouble for not collecting that? And that's where we start to have tension. So four ways that complexity can of seep into what we're doing. We confuse data collection with ministry. Rock can capture this, but should Rock capture this in this moment? Is now the best time for this? Another one is, I kind of mentioned it before, we design for edge cases. Well, for 2% of the time, I need to know that so I can do this. It's , well, maybe we should talk about whether we should really capture that. Another one, is very common, is we inherit complexity from somebody else. Oh, that's true. So a lot of times when we entered into a position, we inherited all their processes and all their forms. Now, right now we're talking about in the context of form submissions, but let's not leave it there. That is just 5% of what we're talking about. It's a good example, but we're not talking about forms. But we've inherited a lot of processes. Now we talk internally about this concept. I call it the Mowgli concept from The Jungle Book. If you remember back, especially to the original Jungle Book, there was a snake, and the snake had these eyes that would hypnotize Mowgli. And that's what the existing things are. That's us being hypnotized by what is, and we don't see the complexity in it. Because we didn't design it, it's just there. And so we always talk about internally being very, don't get hypnotized by the current what is or what someone said. Always debate that. So sometimes we inherit it. I think another, the fourth one, is we miss the step of empathy. We think about ourselves, we think about our role, we think about why we might want that piece of data for something that we need, but we're not being empathetic to the person who might be in the middle of service trying to figure out that they just want to get baptized. And some of those things that we wanted might help us, but it doesn't help them. And again, we are all on the complexities, the simplicity spectrum. Realize you are. Now you might be a little bit further than some, but no one is on the good side of simplicity. I've not met someone that who naturally just goes, this espews simplicity. Now I've met some people of the opposite who spew complexity, but we all have to realize we're on that. Now when I was doing communications and working in graphic design, I was really passionate about graphic design earlier on in my church career, went to Photoshop World, all these things multiple, multiple times. There is a graphic design principle that says, When you think you're done, double the white space, and your design will just be better. There's a tension to always want to crowd things, which is analogous to complexity. So I would say whenever you're done with your process or whenever you're done with your form, reduce half of it. At least try to, and you'll probably start to get on the way to simplicity. Now, what is simplicity and how do you achieve it? Oliver Wendell Holmes had this quote that said, I do not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity. That's kind of a confusing quote. But basically, what he's saying is, you're going to have it easy somewhere. Do you want it to be easy before the action that's happening? That's what we're kind of doing as staff. We're making it easy on ourselves. We're not being rigorous on that effort. And if we do that, we're putting the rigor on the other side of the action. And what he's saying is I don't care about how hard it is before the action. I would give my life for the simplicity that comes after that. And I think that's really important. Somewhere that effort's going to live. It's either going to live pre or post. And I think just understanding that is , you can't skip this step. It's going to happen. It's just a matter of where you want to happen. Yeah, that's a great point. And lean manufacturing is kind of a way that Toyota and the people who are most excellent in manufacturing, they have a process called lean manufacturing. Then there's a principle that says everything that does not add value to the customer is muda. It's a Japanese word, muda, which means waste. So we have to go through and try to remove that waste. Now, in lean manufacturing, there's three types of waste that classify. Unavoidable waste, which is , well, it's waste, but you have to have it. So you can probably accept that, but you cannot be convincing yourself that too much of it is avoidable. Necessary, but not ideal. So those are the ones that you should probably tackle. Try to get rid of that. And then there's this pure waste. And so some of those form fields are kind of pure waste, and we'll kind of unpack that. So as you look at a form field or a step in your process, you have to ask yourself, does this directly serve the client? In this case, the attendee. Does it directly serve them? How does it help them? The form field or maybe a process step. And if it doesn't, consider removing it. Or move to step two. Does it enable better care? It could be where I was , Well, it doesn't help them in the moment, but later I'm gonna be able to do something with that. That's gonna provide an amazing amount of care perhaps. Or are we collecting this just in case? That's a great point. I mean, sometimes we're guilty of that. Right? We definitely are. Yeah. I can think of several instances where that's the case. Or maybe it was useful at one time and isn't anymore. It's easy to forget about those things and just assume that they used to be necessary. Yeah. And Elon Musk said and says, The best part is no part. So, and there's great stories. You should read his autobiography. It's really great. So in a sense, the best form field is no form field. The best process is no process. Or the best step in a process is no step. Now Rich Hinckley says, Simple is not easy. That's true. We don't usually start with simple. And I think there's a distinction to be made too, between simple and simplistic. Sound the same word, right? Yep. But they're very different. So, simple is very hard and you have to toil over. Simplistic is just something that's so basic that it serves neither the goal, but it might be perceived as simple. But if you don't get the goal right. So I would say that there are some church management systems that are very simple looking, but they're very simplistic. They can't achieve the ministry goal. That's interesting. That's an interesting distinction. So in some cases that might actually work for a church. I kind of think of that as , if Rock is Legos, they're DuBlo's. Sometimes that's good enough. Little infant, that's probably maybe even better for you. Right? Yep. You're not gonna swallow it. Not many teenagers playing with Duplos. Right. So when you become a teenager, you need to move to Allego. Yeah. Or not invite your friends over. Be a embarrassing. Now our goal with Rock is for it to come out of the box as Lego and allow you to use it as techniques if you want to change it. That's our goal. I'm not saying we're perfect at that, but that's our goal. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It seems the complexity just creates obstacles for people. And the difference between that simple and simplistic sounds it might be thought. Right. And I think sometimes we can sell ourselves that we did something simple and we actually just did it simplistic. And that kind of goes into lot of theories that are out there, cognitive load theory, which basically says, you can only keep a certain number of things in your head. What that number is has changes and depends on who you talk to. The guy who started this, he says three to four things you can keep in your head. I've heard it argued up to seven, but I think there's a lot of studies that are showing that that number is dropping. I would not be surprised by that. Because of our attention deficit disorders that are induced through social media, through And we're kind of fooling ourselves if we think we aren't susceptible to that. All of us are right now. I highly recommend someone go look at the curriculum for schools, elementary age schools at the beginning and the founding of the country. it would look a master class, a master level. what those kids were reading, this is crazy. And we've dumbed ourselves down, all of us. And now we've done it even worse with social media and now AI. That's true. I found some old primers in my in law's attic that were from 150 years ago. And it was kind of a little embarrassing if you read through it and try to understand some of the vocabulary that they were using as a very young child. Yeah, I'm reading a book that my kids read in high school. It's very intimidating. And they're , This is the best book on the planet. I'm , I mean, it's not that book, but it's a very difficult book to read. I'm , Oh, man, I'm not feeling very smart right now. So even an unnecessary field on a form or unnecessary step in a process steals from that form, steals from that process. I think we need to think more about how we think. Think about how our brain is interpreting something because it is a computer. God It's created computer, much better than this thing in front of me. But we still have to piece things down into pieces. We still have to look at it, and our brain still has to make sense of something. We don't look at a form and all of sudden understand exactly what it is. Our brain is literally breaking it down in pieces. And so we have to think about how we think, because we're making people think about what we just made. That was a lot of thinking. It is. Which goes to the book, Don't Make Me Think. Yeah. Great book. Steve Krug. So how can we start applying simplicity? Well, I think it's just understanding these concepts that what we do has impact. We're making people think. Every field that we have there is someone saying, Am I doing this right? I want us to be correct. the T shirts example, , I wanna say the right thing. I wanna get the right T shirt. And so we're not thinking about that. I can promise you, I'm not thinking about that. And that fatigue that comes from that. So it's not just a matter of just do better. It's having to really think about this and read some of these books. Is a solved problem in a sense. And just understanding other frameworks the paradox of choice. The more choices you have to make, I think in America, we assume the more choices we have to make, the happier we'll be. And actually, research and the science says it's the opposite. When we have too many choices, we find it very difficult to choose it all. Experience tells me that's true. Yeah. There's a book called The Paradox of Choice, and the author talks about the box of chocolates. If you open up a box of chocolates and there's 30 options, people have a hard time. And even though they might pick one, they struggle with the fear of missing out. And afterwards, did I pick the right one? People are much happier if you give them a box of chocolate with no choice. That's true. I know sometimes I use the example of the In N Out menu versus the Cheesecake Factory menu, and I know which one I'd rather approach. Oh, that Cheesecake Factory menu is It's so overwhelming. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the paradox. So we have to use these techniques to get it better. The other thing is we can use other algorithms that are already there. Elon Musk has a five step algorithm for this kind of thing. And the good news is it's five steps, but you only have to remember two. And the first thing is make the requirements less dumb. It gets right to the point, doesn't it? Right. So simplify your requirements and make sure that every requirements should have a person's name on it. Not a department. It's not that the kids ministry needs this. You have to identify who said that. And if you read the autobiography, because he gives explicit examples about how if the department's name's on there, you still have chaos. And so that person has to justify that it's there. He also warns that you have to be very careful about requirements that come from smart people. Okay, dig into that a little bit. Because you're less likely to question them. Oh. So how many times have you heard it said, well, senior pastor Ted said that we have to have this. No one pushes back on that. Yep. And you need to. Because you have to figure out, well, did Ted say that? What did he mean by that? And perhaps, I mean, he also might be wrong. Yes. It's okay. Don't go pushing back with force. No. Use your interpersonal skills, all of them, at this point. But I remember when I worked at CCV, our senior pastor's name was attached to almost everything. And he got so frustrated. He's , Don did not say this, or Don said this, but he meant this. And it was something that was a tension. Sometimes the people did that for protectionism. , I just don't wanna get it wrong. I don't wanna get in trouble. Sometimes it was because that's what they wanted it to do. So if they tied his name to it, then there was agreement. And it wasn't that they were doing it nefariously. Sure. Or maybe someone just misunderstood what someone said and it took off on its own path. So then the second step that you have to remember is delete it. Just eliminate it. Just get rid of it. He says, If you're not adding back 10% of what you removed, you're not doing it right. You didn't delete enough. So make the cuts deep and then bring back only what's missing. It'll come back if it's needed. Yeah. It's the poor, they'll always be among us. We say that sometimes with an issue. It's , well, can't reproduce it, disclose it. It'll come back if it's really important. But if you're not adding it back, you're not doing enough. There is a Frenchman, Anton de Saint Eggs du Paris. That was very good. Yeah, how to get the phonetics of that. Perfection is finally attained not when there's nothing more to add, but when there's nothing left to take away. And I think that's perfect. Yeah, I think he was an aviation designer. So delete, delete, delete. So I said five steps. The other three, which you probably don't need as importantly to this conversation, is simplify, accelerate, automate. So read more about that. You can just chat GBT, Elon Musk's five steps, and how it might apply to the Church. So let's just jump in. , let's just do it. Okay. So let's do it. Let's go back to the baptism example that you had at the very beginning that made me cringe. Yeah. How can we apply it there? So do we need to know their name? Yes. Probably be nice, right? What about email and phone? Probably at least one. You probably need to be able to connect with them. Yeah. Maybe both. Right. So maybe try to get it down to one. Convince yourself. Try it. Maybe it doesn't work, but you can adjust it. You're not putting it in stone. Which would you probably pick? Just curious. It's a great question. I know right answer. Depends on the church. If you're a calling church, you'd probably want to give them a call. But people screen those anymore. I'd probably go for email. I'd probably go phone and But just I'd have to make sure I enabled SMS. Right. without that, you'd have a mess. What about address? No way. I don't think I would include address. But I might need it because then when we put them in a small group later You might. You're not putting them in a small group now. Right. Okay. Yeah. I think we can all agree address. What about date of birth? Absolutely not. But if I had it, then I can personalize my ministry for the rest of eternity. I can I can say but I could say, , , happy birthday? I just sent a happy birthday message this morning to somebody because I And those are great. But they wanna take one step. So let's do what we need to Collect it later. Get that one step across the finish line. Sure. Okay. But what if they're four years old, Emily? Can we baptize a four year old? Are there parents there? I don't know. It might depend on the church and the parents. And you can have a discussion when they arrive. I imagine when they show up, if they look they're four, the person that's there, the volunteer or staff member can sort it out. Yeah. So we could probably change it there. Okay. What about T shirt size? Because we give everybody a T shirt. We got to give them the T shirt. Is it drop shipped the second form gets filled out? We're gonna order them on demand. Right. But I wanna be prepared for them. It wouldn't be nice to have a little basket for them or something. Have a big cupboard back there. Yeah. I think you can buy enough shirts in advance. I think if you do a very simple pro con, that's not gonna hold up someone from being baptized. And if you can manage it right in the moment, you're gonna be fine. Yeah. I also think too, I just see the piles and someone says, Just go get a t shirt. And then , Okay, I feel better about this. That actually is probably better. Yeah. And the thing is, you said, we probably bulk order these. We probably have every size. If you don't have every size on hand, you're kind of lost anyways. You have another problem then. How often do we change our baptism shirts? Probably every three to five years, just order a boatload of them. You're gonna get a discount. So I think we just simplified that form. Great. Okay. So let's let's do something else. Let's pick another example. What do you think? Check-in? Yes. Check-in is one of the most complex things, and I can authoritatively say this, because I've not only worked at a church for thirteen years, I've worked outside of a church for I've worked with hundreds of churches on check-in, probably the most complex thing. Now, for good reason, here's the people's most important goal: keep the kid in the same class every weekend so that they can establish a relationship with that person. That sounds a very reasonable And ministry that's a great goal. I doubt no one's arguing with that goal. How we achieve the goal is how is where we have the problem. It does seem most churches have different ways of trying to get to that. Yeah. It's it's weird. Lots of them. There's not a lot of commonality about how to achieve that goal. There's also a lot of arguments about how what is secure. That's true. It seems there should not be so much diversity in what is secure. To achieve that goal, we often do all kinds of crazy things. We create groups that the kid has to check into, and that group is specific to that one instructor in that one location and that one schedule. And then the complexity of trying to manage that, especially across years, is really, really difficult as they graduate. Also, it's common that people don't come at the same service time. Now they do most of the time, but when they don't, the whole thing falls apart. And there is so much, I'm just gonna call it what it is, brain damage that we put in to achieve this goal that is not necessary. Here's one thing I know because we did it at CCV. You don't need all that. And you can still achieve the goal. And I think better and simpler. And that is allow people to check-in at the room. Wow. That's radical for what I've seen in some check-in systems. Humans are creatures of habit. Prove , do we not sit in the same rough area in the service? Parents drop their kids off in the same room if they can. Yep. And part of that is creatures of habit. Part of it is the parents actually want the same thing. Most parents, there might be a few that are just clueless and don't understand that. But for the most part, I think we care about our kids. We want our kids to go in the same room. And if not, we're creatures of habits. We're just gonna do it anyways. And sometimes the kids are wanting that. Right? , may be that the rooms have different, , themes or, , locations or something. And and I know at least when my kids were that age, they had strong opinions about wanting to be in, , the bunnies class or whatever it was. Dude, for us, literally, Cardinals, Saturday 04:30. And if we didn't get them in time for that And it was full? You heard about it. You regret it until next weekend when you do it right as And a you have the same problem when you have the rigid check-in. Because when the room is closed, there's a fire cap. That's true. You can't add them. That's true. And you still have the override, which you can still do if they show up. And we've had parents thinking they checked into that room automatically and they go to the wrong room. If they go to that room and it's closed, they know. Right. Now the the common objections are cost. And when we did it, the cost was astronomical more because we had we didn't have iPads back then. I picture that. We had kiosks at every single room, but the family ministry said it's worth it. Yes, there's a cost, but it's worth it. Simplicity, the gain of people to actually do it, the cost savings in terms of labor. If you think it's costly, you don't know what you're spending in labor costs. Labor cost is probably one of the highest costs you have in a church. That kiosk or iPad is cheap Yeah, no, for there's no excuse for cost. So, trust me, it happens. I witnessed it. And I lived it. Our kids went through the whole ministry and we took them to the same room every week. And I don't think I'm different to anybody else. So, but wait a minute. How about if somebody comes for the first time? how do you handle that in this Well, of you gotta get them into the registration. And that's a problem you're gonna have either way. But what we would do is get them registered, and then you can either Some churches would just point them at, Okay, now go down the hall and there's the rooms. We would actually walk them to the Yeah, room, that's nice. Then whatever room you walk them to, careful because you just cemented in. That's the room. Literally, if you're back for your second visit, what you don't wanna do is mess around. You're , Well, I don't know the process, but I know that room worked last week, so it's gonna work this week. So make sure you're not taking him to the closest room. Yeah, that makes sense. Some churches would actually take him to a special room that has the best teacher. And I'd say that, well, that's interesting. But just remember now you made a process that now you had to go undo later. Right, that kid's gonna always want that room, that can't be the solution for every new incoming kid. And the parents of, I think in the animal world, it's called imprinting. You've imprinted them to that room. So now they're only going to that room. So trust me, human nature will take care of this problem for you. Now there's some people who say, well, there's a security aspect to that because I don't want people to be even in the hall without a check-in label. Sure. And I would say, okay, there's a point to that. How hundreds and hundreds of other churches can do it and not have kids get stolen? I would just say have security in the hallways who's looking for , what are you doing? And the vast majority of the service time, there's gonna be no one else in the hallways. Yeah, and I'd say parents heading down a hallway with kids with no tag, safe. Yeah. Parents walking down a hallway with no kid and no tag, unsafe. Maybe just a good conversation. Yeah, or keep an open eye on that one. Because if you got kids with you, it's , well, now if I walked into the hallway, I mean, was staff and I had a staff badge, but if I didn't have a staff badge and there's a new security person, I start walking down there with no kids, I'm not gonna get interrogated, but they're gonna keep their eye on me. Yeah. And that's what they're trained to do on the security team. Right. We just simplified this whole process. Wow. Now to make it even further easier, with NFC check-in, you don't even need a computer. You just need a printer. That's a great point. You just need a printer. That's true. I forgot about that. And printers, oh, they're expensive, but they're not nearly as expensive as is the is the staff resources you're spending on complexity. That's true. And that printer cost over time, , it's way down. Yep. Right. And they're , well, you have to maintain them. But you actually don't have to maintain them that much because they're not getting nearly as many prints. A centralized kiosk with the one printer is printing nonstop. The ones in the rooms don't get printed on a twentieth of central one. I can attest to that. That's how we did it. We ran IT for that. It wasn't a big deal. But with NFC check-in, it's super easy. And also too, can't tell you how many features we've had to add to Rock just to solve that problem. Yes. I bet that's one of the most commonly requested feature enhancement areas to solve process problems this? It's fixed itself a bit because there's really no more features to add on. Although I say that, and I'm just going to get a feature request in my email today. I know it. I think I've heard of one swirling. Yeah. But that's a solved problem. And I don't think there's a way you could convince me otherwise. Because we actually, I don't think this, I lived it. We had to check-in in every It's single not a theory. Right. We just opened a new campus. It was a little bit of work. Right? Afterwards, it was actually really easy. And also too, think about this too. If a kiosk has an issue, it only has a small impact on your space. That's true. If a centralized kiosk has an issue, it has a larger impact on your space. It's a much bigger deal. So anyways, think we've proven that point now. I think we have too. So you mentioned earlier that every requirement needs an owner. Yes. Can you unpack that a little bit? Yeah, so if it doesn't have a name on it, you need to get a name on it. And then that person has to justify why it's needed. What's an issue outcome that depends on this? What breaks if we remove it? Challenge them, though. They shouldn't even have to be challenged. They should be challenging themselves. , what happens if I don't have this? Can we handle this at a better time or place? I think you identified some of those things even in the baptism example. Right? There's a better time for that. For sure. I was thinking about that, though. What if someone said on that baptism form, well, the T shirt kinda reminds them that we're gonna provide a T shirt. Otherwise, they're not unclear, , Do I need to bring my own clothes? Do I bring And again, I would say there's a better time and place for that. That's in the reminder email that they just got. , Oh, by the way, we'll provide you with a T shirt. That's exactly right. Or whatever method they found that form by, you could have it as an announcement that accompanied it on the web form page, whatever that looks . Don't worry, we'll provide you with all the stuff you need. And worst case scenario, they show up in their own baptism clothes and they get a T shirt , Oh, well. And that happens all the time when you're doing live baptisms on the spot. Let me tell you how much people remember the things that you've told them anyway. So that passive reminder because they filled out a T shirt size, they're not gonna remember that any more than they would if they were told another way. Yeah. Don't make them read a wall of text in an email. Yep. You don't have to tell them it's a tri blend. Yep. Dieter Rams has a he's a very famous designer, and his stuff really inspired a lot of modern design. , Apple is very much just came from Dieter Rams' foundation. He'd always say less is better, which is, again, exactly what you're saying. And I think he inspired Apple, and I think Apple's genius at this, So the first iPhone got a lot of negative feedback because it didn't have a keyboard. I mean, I can still remember some pretty smart people saying they would never use an iPhone because it didn't have a keyboard. And did they prove the industry right? Proved themselves They proved their own point. Yeah. What about when they removed the headphone jack? Yeah, that was a big deal. And it doesn't matter. Does any phone now that you buy new have a headphone jack? Mean I haven't seen one. Even my Android doesn't. So in a sense, Apple makes a calculated move, takes some arrows and improves to be right. Not on everything, but gosh, can't think of too many things they're wrong. I remember people trashing the iPad thing as the most silly device. It's , I couldn't live without my iPad. Well, we take risks every day, right? You have the risk of being the same and not doing anything new. Or you have the risk of trying something new and maybe having to adjust it in the future. which risk would you rather take? Yeah, and try and you can always add it back. You're not cutting half the stuff, back to the cut half your or double your white space, and you're probably doing better. Cut half your process steps and or form fields. Right. And with the headphone jack, they created another solution, right, with a wireless headphone or AirPods or earbuds that everybody has now. So it's not that they created a problem with no answer. Yeah. I think summing it up, Steve Jobs said, Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple, but it's worth it in the end because once you get it there, you can move mountains. Wow. That's really something to consider. Simple isn't easy. It's hard. But it can make a huge difference in the end result, which is moving people through the steps they need to take for ministry outcomes. Yeah. You're gonna do the hard work anyways, you might as well do it upfront, because that's what we talked about. And back to our baptism example. Mean, that example is a little bit simplistic, right? Many baptism forms have many more fields than that. How many people did not get baptized because of a form? That would be an unknowable number. But how many more might be baptized if you reduce your form is something you can test. Right. It's unknowable, but it's greater than zero. It is. So that is a truly sad thing. The fact that our lack of care in designing forms and processes is impacting people's salvation. It is so easy to add one more form field. Yeah, I'm pretty big on one more thing. But that's not always the thing. And it's not even that maybe about processes. Maybe it's even about your sermon. , if you add that one more thing. One more point? One more, yeah. Sometimes I leave a sermon and I'm , Well, that was a lot of points, but I'm not sure what the one thing I'm supposed to do is. Yeah, that's a good point. So what can we do right now? How do we apply some of these principles in a way that helps us understand them and move forward differently than we have been in just this week? Yeah, think first thing, admit you have a problem. we go back to that. I think we all have this problem. Yeah, I hope that some people realize maybe now they have a problem because we all have it. And not to be ashamed of it, but you might even ask somebody, maybe a friend, On a scale of one to 10, how complex do I make things? But you gotta be okay with the answer too. So first we have a problem. Second of all, we might be acting out of fear. It's safer sometimes to have more of these things. I mean, , Oh, I might get in trouble if I didn't ask that one thing, or I might get challenged or pushed back by so and so if I don't ask for their birth date, because I know they're really passionate about that. Or the T shirt person who works at the baptism is gonna be , I wanna have baskets of It's , sorry, I wanna get you more people there. And then we will worry about the quality after that. Quantity when it comes to baptism is gonna be better than the quality of the church process. Yep. But I would say tactically, need to pick something this week to try to make more simple. Take these ideas, tactically implement them on one thing. Yes. Don't wait until you have the solution to everything. It'll never happen. Just start with one thing that's in front of you today. So that's step one of the plan for this week. Do do something. Do something. Yeah. Set up two. Well, I mean, we don't want have too many steps, but one step I might do, we need to make this simple. I might actually plant a seed with the children's ministry if you have that overly complex check-in. Yeah. And it might be something as simple as , Hey, can we just try it on one campus, one room, one age range? I think you have to try it on a range because if it's one room, it might cause confusion. Pick your smallest campus and just to say, let's let these be free birds and see what the birds do. That's a great idea. And I think if you cast the vision of what it'll mean if it actually works, I think it'll be game changing for the kids ministry. I mean, you could probably free up one, two resources who's not just worrying about all that complexity and reports. And those people can be used for ministry instead of administration. I know the goal is still ministry at the end of the day, but there's a lot of administration that make that happen. I don't think, just let the free birds do what they do and you'll get the same result. That's a great idea. Wow. Okay. I think we have a lot to think of. And also when it comes to the requirements, just make sure you've got a named owner. Yeah. For sure. That was the other item that we mentioned. So those are three good, easy points to start with. You may as well take that step. Yeah, in fact, actually naming it as an owner might actually make them not want to have their name on it that you It might actually be a tool to get rid of it. That's a great point. Okay, well, I'm just gonna put your name on this so we come back to this. You're the one who said we have to have it. Oh, wait, what? Yeah, and at that point, they might go, No, that was the senior pastor. Okay, well, I'll go tell him you put his name on it, and I will go confirm with him. That's right. I mean, there's a rude way of doing that, and there's a nice way of doing that. Yep. Definitely in all of this, you might step on a few toes. So use your best communication skills. But let's put the empathy where it needs to be, which is on the person. That's right. And don't forget to cast a little vision. Don't just jump in with a chainsaw and break something for someone when they don't know why. Yeah. It's that guy from Argentina, was Millie. He a chainsaw. He goes around and it's Don't don't be that. I don't know. That actually might be a good idea. , we should let's see it some mini chainsaws or some Fisher Price chainsaws and make a point. Because you can't you can't take it out of your mind. That guy Do we need some Rock chainsaws in the promo shop? Yeah. Orange. Yeah. Orange Rock chainsaws. Yeah. At least a little desk icon for it. But to make sure that they're safe. Yes. Maybe not operational. I think his literally was. Really? I mean, he it definitely was , I'm not sure if the chain was what the chain status was. But Well, keep an eye on the promo shop. You never know what might show up there, I guess. We're gonna make a bloodbath of our processes. Oh, boy. That we're gonna put that through a good debate. The bloodbath. Okay. Alright. Just a few announcements. The RX twenty six is coming up. Our hotels are already the main hotel for the event is already about 50% sold out. And that's the fun hotel. Right? That's That's the fun hotel. That's where the cool people are staying? Yes. And I promise it's gonna be where people are hanging out. So if you're not staying there, you're probably gonna be heading that way. In fact, we might have some after hours events happening there. We will have after hour events there. Yes. So more on that later. Not in this episode. And don't forget it's November, so it's a different time of year this year, which should be a very nice time of year here in the Phoenix area. Yep. Mhmm. So back downtown in Phoenix. And early bird registration is the best pricing you can get for our conference every year. That's up on March 27, so that's coming up pretty soon. Ends in, , less than a couple weeks. I know. So get your tickets. If you're thinking , oh, I'll think about it after Easter. Well, you are going to be in a different pricing bracket. So Mhmm. Just get that knocked out. We appreciate your generosity, but we'd you for you to save money. We would. That's why we have that. But the reason we actually, move our pricing brackets along is the closer we get, the more we have to lock into head counts, put deposits on things, and, , what we have to put in place, changes significantly. So if you're coming, just sign up. And here's another point. Sometimes people think, I know I'm gonna bring four people. I'm not sure who those four people are. Well, just register four people on your team. We always work with churches to, , move a registration between people if that happens. So no big deal. And then we have a couple classes coming up. So if you're wanting to take the master class, we have an in person session of that coming up in May, and we have a virtual lava class. Now one thing I definitely wanna mention is with the masterclass, just because your team has taken masterclass in the past doesn't mean every person on your team today might not need that same training. So don't forget as new people join your team, that basic Rock masterclass and understanding is really critical for the long term health of your team and your system. So this is the time to sign up. I think it's the first one we're having this year. So it it might be a a long registration list. Make sure you'll wanna sign up early. Yeah. I'd say the master class is a gift for the person who attends, but it's also a gift for the cohort who's left behind. They come back, and they know a lot more, and they're capable of a lot more. They sure do. And what? They make connections with the community, especially the in person classes. We see these cohorts of people that move through, , the rest of the community, the rest of their time there. And they're really powerful. They help each other constantly. And those relationships in a community are invaluable. Yeah. There's one group that was in the first master class, and they meet up at the conference. I mean, how many years ago was that? Oh my gosh. Six, seven? Probably. And they're still Tight. Yeah, which is cool. That's exactly what this is all about. That's right. So you can swing the in person class. It's the ideal experience. We have some after hours things that we do that aren't possible on a virtual class. And so highly recommend doing that in addition to getting your tickets for the conference. Also, have to mention we hit a milestone this week. A milestone? A milestone in the Spark repository. So our GitHub issues that were open moved to zero this week. Zero issues. Zero issues. Hasn't happened since the inception of the first issue. We've That's which is probably day two of our It probably was. But our average for a while was 300. I know. And we did a lot of work to pull that average down to basically one page in GitHub as much as possible. Yep. But, oh, man, huge shout out to the team that's been working on that. They've worked really hard. They sure have. And what a fun thing to be able to say. And, , the number you can't have no issues. , that's not possible in any product and especially a product Rock that has so many features and so much flexibility. But, , just watching the team triage and work through those since that zero milestone, they're just doing a great job of staying on top of it. Yeah. No. I feel I need to do one public safety announcement Thank for the you. We are not asking for more issues. This is not to say, Hey, we have none, so take that one that you didn't really care about, but that you saw, but you don't really need, and do not submit that. Let's still keep it. Issue costs money. Yes. And so that's why we're really adamant about don't turn in false issues and don't turn in well researched issues. And for the most part, community does a good job with that. But this is not a point to say, Well, I've always had this little minor annoyance. Please don't. Please continue to keep doing a good job that you're doing now of understanding the difference between an issue and an enhancement. Yeah. Yeah. There's a different place for enhancement requests. Yeah. And overall community is doing great. But let's keep it that way. Absolutely. Yeah. That's probably a good caveat, but huge celebration point. So I just wanted to make sure we didn't forget to mention that. I hope that by having zero, it makes it a little intimidating to add the issue. , oh, no. Oh, you're that guy, Trust me. We're thinking it. Oh my gosh. True. Not true. Yeah. Exactly. So a little bit of truth there maybe. Alright. Well, this has been a great conversation. I think that some points about simplicity are ones we can all apply this week. So really, really great to be able to talk about that. Yeah.