How to Build the Right Kind of Boring Systems

Have You Ever Thought You Had the Perfect Solution?

Have you ever thought you had the perfect solution only to realize it was a bad idea? There’s a reason why slowing down enough to think it through first is wise. Last week I asked ChatGPT to create a code snippet for How Work Happens Here.

ChatGPT delivered instantly. I tested the code, confirmed it did the job, and I was ready to check it off the to do list. Then ChatGPT did what an experienced human tech team member would do. It commented that while my approach was lightweight and usable, I might consider one change that would make it more architecturally sustainable. And that’s where one simple quick solution morphed into a complete admin backend.

I'm a huge fan of utility tools that clients never see. Building them at startup makes sense because we're thinking about all the manual steps we’ve done during our implementation. We anticipate where customers are likely to need help. We know where we can simplify the boring steps that make the experience effective, responsive, and repeatable.

It’s Hard to Unsee the Right Thing

To be honest, I knew that building the backend for How Work Happens Here was the right thing to do. 35 years of lessons learned and habits are hard to ignore.

But I wanted to skip that step for the moment anyway. I found a shortcut to get the immediate job done. And then along came a more responsible solution that I couldn’t unsee. I’m glad that ChatGPT encouraged me to slow down enough to reconsider my decision.

What started as a quick coding request became the right kind of boring.

Boring is an interesting word. When I first starting thinking about it as a topic, I wondered if it was the wrong word choice. Boring says dull, uninteresting, and ignorable. It’s more a feeling than something you can touch or see. Boring is the word we might use to describe a payroll system or inventory management.

Well-Designed Boring Is Good

The more I thought about this conversation the closer I came to appreciating the right kind of boring.

An employee doesn’t care about the company’s payroll system, but they do appreciate the paycheck it consistently produces. We have confidence that our local grocery store will have the eggs they advertised at a bargain price. How the eggs traveled from chicken to shelf is boring.

Our trust is earned because the outcome is consistently delivered. We don’t have to understand how the payroll system works or how chickens lay eggs. Someone cared enough to build a boring system.

We’re all going about our day-to-day work where fast and remarkable are rewarded. It’s easy to convince ourselves that the unseen props that make the outcome possible are less important.

No one notices them. No one applauds the grocery store because they stock eggs. But imagine what would happen if the inventory system was non-existent, that each egg shipment relied on someone first finding the chickens. That’s what happens when we value the short-term outcome over the long-term foundation.

I could easily have skipped the unflashy backend tool that I built.

Step: Each new customer could be added to the database manually.

Step: Then we could manually execute the code that generates their unique link.

Step: We could write the welcome email every time and search through the database to find the company’s token.

Step: Then we could copy and paste their link into the email.

Step: When the customer forgets their link because that’s what humans do, we could generate another one and send a new email.

Step: Customers have questions. No problem. We could reply to them as soon as we search through past support emails, looking for the same question and answer.

Once you see the future, it’s nearly impossible to ignore it.

Boring Doesn’t Mean Ignored

It’s better to invest in the right kind of boring in the beginning. That means not only building it but constantly paying attention to it.

It’s like the gardener who tends to the rose bushes day after day. They’re doing the work that no one sees. They feed the roots. They make sure there is just the right amount of water. They pull the weeds. They inspect the leaves for pests. They aren’t focused on growing one flower at a time. They’re building the right reliable foundation below the ground to produce healthy flowers season after season.

Our customers appreciate the flower.

We build the unseen foundation.

The Bottom Line

We’ve all dealt with hasty decisions that someone made in the moment. It’s okay if it was your decision. I have made more than a few of those myself. The future costs are high, and someone is paying for that quick decision.

Here’s my one question for you today.

Think about something that you consistently deliver to your clients. Where can you build the boring, reliable foundation that no one sees but everyone appreciates?