Which Friction Should You Smooth Out?

When we try to solve a problem, we tend to look at the problems that are easy to see rather than the root cause. Among these, one we are especially prone to focus on is friction.

Is that friction a high-priority friction?

For example, a "friction" such as "the process of applying to a contest is not smooth" is certainly a problem. However, in many cases, I think "reducing that friction" is rarely the high-priority problem. In the case of a contest, low numbers of applications are more often caused by the prize money or the eligibility criteria being poor in the first place.

But friction is rough and unpleasant, and as a problem it is easy to understand and easy to notice, so we end up trying to solve it. In the case of a contest, instead of working on the design of the contest itself, we take on things like improving the website or adjusting the wording.

Of course, if it is the part of the whole flow where the most friction arises, reducing that friction leads to solving a major problem. This is because smoothing out the bottleneck raises the throughput of the whole.

However, not every friction is a bottleneck.

So when we feel friction, I think we need to ask, "Is this friction a high-priority friction (problem) within the whole?"

(1) The whole

I wrote, "Is this friction a high-priority friction (problem) within the whole?" and what we should also care about is the "whole." Which part is the biggest bottleneck changes depending on where we draw the boundaries of the whole, that is, what scope we set.

And how to define the scope depends on the purpose.

In the case of startup policy, if the purpose is "to maximize investors' returns," the scope becomes the maximization of investors' profits, and it would be fine to resolve the part with the most friction within that scope.

However, if the purpose is "to maximize the number of startups," we need to look at the entire cycle in which startups are born as the scope. In that case, the friction that investors feel may not be the most important friction (though it might be).

Still, a single friction within such a whole remains a problem, and since investors tend to have loud voices, the investors' friction may sound larger than it really is, and we may end up trying to solve that problem. If political resources are abundant, it may be fine to solve such problems, but if political resources are limited, we should surely spend our resources (time and manpower) on resolving the friction that truly matters.

(2) The order

That said, there are times when we cannot approach the biggest bottleneck from the start. In that case, we need to make an effort to approach the bottleneck in the shortest possible order.

If solving the first friction lets us solve the next friction, and after that we can solve the friction that is the bottleneck, then the first friction may be a small one.

Also, in many cases there is not just a single cause, and there may be times when multiple problems need to be solved at the same time. Even so, we still need to be conscious of the order.

If we cannot think about the order, it means we have not grasped the whole. In that case, the first thing to do may be to work on grasping that whole. Without that, we would end up solving whatever frictions happen to come to hand.

(3) The type

Another thing to be careful about is, "Is this friction really one that should be solved?" Particularly when tackling a different kind of problem from before, or a problem an order of magnitude larger, I think simply continuing to remove friction will not get us to a solution, and efforts that change the structure itself significantly are probably required.

If you eliminate the friction on a factory production line, the volume of products certainly increases. But if the market needs a different product from before, what that elimination of friction gets you is a large quantity of unsellable products and a large inventory. What should really be done is not to eliminate friction but to make a different kind of product.

Friction is easy to notice, but it is better to stop and think about whether it is really a friction that should be solved.

Summary

There is no doubt that each friction is a problem. However, with limited resources, we cannot eliminate every friction. That is exactly why, while recognizing friction as friction, we need to prioritize in tackling it, and we also need to consider whether the friction should be eliminated at all (that is, whether we need to change the very thing we produce).

Even when we decide that a friction should be eliminated, I think we need to consider what scope to use to grasp the whole and in what order to tackle it.

Although this is basic to problem solving, I too tend to forget it from time to time. But while looking into some policy-related matters, a few thoughts occurred to me, so I wrote them down as a memo.