There was a farmer who noticed that one of his five apple trees produced significantly more apples than the other four. In fact, he estimated that 80% of his apple crop came from this one tree—even though it was only one of five trees in his small orchard.
He thought, “if only I could get the other four trees to produce the same amount of apples as this one tree—I could greatly increase my harvest and profits.”
So he decided to study what made this one tree different. He knew all of the trees were purchased from the same place and planted at the same time. They were all fertilized at the same time in the same way and received the same amount of sunshine. Then he noticed that because of the way the irrigation was set up in his orchard, this one, hyper productive tree was getting more water than the other four. He quickly went about modifying the irrigation so that all of the trees received the same amount of water as the tree that was producing more apples.
What the farmer stumbled across was a principle used in design thinking and problem solving called the Law of the Vital Few. It is also called the 80/20 principle, the Pareto Principle and the Principle Factor of Disparity. The principle holds that most of the characteristics of any system are affected by a few vital qualities. One frustrating example is that the majority of traffic jams are caused by just a few drivers.
When debugging software and apps, computer scientists often approach the problem by assuming that 80% of problems are caused by 20% of the code. This allows them to focus on and correct the vital few errors that are likely causing the majority of the bugs.
Creative thinkers can use this principle to improve problem solving and increase productivity. By its nature, creative thinking often takes a scatter gun approach to generating ideas. And while this approach helps to create a lot of ideas very quickly, the majority of them may miss the mark so completely that they are useless. By focusing first on the vital few qualities that cause the biggest impact—creative efforts can be more focused.
An example of this is the way advertisers focus on a very specific, narrowly defined target market when creating advertising. If you ask most manufacturers who should buy their product that will tell you, emphatically “Everyone!” But a good, creative advertising professional will tell you that advertising should be designed for and laser focused on the specific, narrowly defined target market that is the primary buyer of the product. By studying the primary buyer, advertising can be much more creative, interesting, and engaging.
Keep this principle in mind the next time you tackle a complicated problem. By focusing on the vital few qualities that have the most impact—you can more easily come up with better solutions.
Dusty Crocker, PhD, is Professor of Professional Design Practice at Texas Christian University.