It is very complicated.
It can be anything. It can be a program, a script, a process, an integration or any other situation, problem or context you may confront in your day.
Do not let someone trick you. Do not confuse complicated with complex. Things can be complex without being complicated. When people try to complicate things, they are masking their root motivations.
Complicate – make something more difficult or confusing by causing it to be more complex
Complex – consisting of many different and connected parts
As a product manager, if you hear these words, or some variation of them, alarm bells should go off and you should proceed with caution. Complexity is a weasel word that, in my experience, is too often used to put up blockers, protect one’s “turf,” or undermine collaboration.
At the most basic level, when you hear this, the person who is telling you all about how complex the issue is, is really just trying to prevent you from understanding what’s going on. There can be many reasons for not wanting you to understand what’s going on, but none of them are ultimately acceptable. The inability to understand is crippling to a PM. After hearing this, and since you’re the ultimate, truth-seeking PM, you need to roll up your sleeves and get to the bottom of the situation. The reality is that it’s going to be messy, but probably not for the reasons you are being told that “it’s complicated.”
