I recently heard about new findings in the world of cosmetic alteration that made me breathe a sigh of satisfaction.  New evidenc shows that Botox injections may actually speed up wrinkles as opposed to slowing them.  The reason, they’re finding, is that since Botox effectively paralyzes the muscles that would cause skin to wrinkle, the muscles surrounding the paralyzed muscles work extra hard to compensate, which accentuates the skin wrinkles in the surrounding areas.

To be clear, I don’t take joy in the newly-developing wrinkles in these faces.  However, it is evidence of something that I know to be true.  The human body is a system that works together in specific orchestrated ways.  The whole is much greater than the sum of its parts.  As medical science progresses, we find out more and more about how things work, and uncover more questions at the same time.  We know a lot but we still don’t have the whole thing cracked because there are complex and elegant interactions between parts of the system that we will only learn over much more time and observation.

The human body is not alone in its systematic engineering.  Many aspects of life fall into this category, and software is one of the most visceral examples.

When it comes to architecting a new system, upgrading an old one, or even adding features to an existing solution, systems thinking is a crucial part of producing good results.  By taking the time to understand the system, liabilities can be avoided, or at least foreseen and mitigated.  This results in software that is efficient, sustainable and scalable.

Unfortunately, all too often we are faced with situations where shortcuts have been taken, or “cosmetic” solutions have been applied.  Similar to the new findings regarding Botox, the failings of these bandaids are often only revealed over time and use.  Sometimes we are able to salvage an asset, but there are plenty of times when the damage has resulted in crucial data being lost, costly downtime, and loss of customer confidence.

The net/net is that while the financial and time cost is higher (generally between 25% and 35%) for a more comprehensive, system-conscious solution, the risk of cutting corners is much higher when you consider not only time, cash and revenue lost, but the additional cost required to fix the problem and possibly retrieve lost data will end up costing much more in the long run.