After years of working with companies like Pfizer, Dell, and USAA, I saw how employees were overwhelmed by complexity and desperate to cut through it. But where to begin? Simplification needed a methodical—yet simple—approach.

We dug deep into how teams handled complexity, discovering that simple frameworks were virtually nonexistent. Beyond Six Sigma and Agile, teams lacked a straightforward approach to everyday work and didn’t want another lengthy, multistep process. We also realized that teams viewed simplification only as deletion, missing other paths to simpler outcomes.

Enter MURA. I developed MURA in 2015 to give teams a practical approach to making work easier. Yes, it’s a clunky acronym—one that sounds like an old printer brand, not the key to transforming your work. But MURA provides an effective, memorable framework for simplifying tasks and projects. It’s easy to apply and keeps complexity at bay. Imagine streamlining everything from reports to big, tangled problems by applying these four principles:

MURA is a quick litmus test........

© Fast Company