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Question? Principles (Simplicity)

Last post 07:41 am February 11, 2014 by Bhuvan Misra
4 replies
10:43 am January 30, 2014

Could you please explain following sentence from the "Principles behind the Agile Manifesto"?

source: http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html


{ Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential. }


12:10 pm January 30, 2014

Maximizing the amount of work not done means minimizing waste. A product should be fit for purpose and efficient and economical in terms of resources used. Those resources are then available for more constructive purposes.

Efficiency and economy breed simplicity and the reduction of future waste.The simpler a product is, the less there us to go wrong and the less technical debt is likely to be incurred.


12:15 pm January 30, 2014

Mehdi,

I wrote a blog post on this exact subject:

http://scrumcrazy.wordpress.com/2012/08/24/agile2012-qa-ron-jeffries-an…


03:16 pm January 30, 2014

@Ian + Charles: Thank you both for your prompt answers.

The Authors of "Principles behind the Agile Manifesto" apparently forgot to apply "Simplicity" when phrasing this sentence!

Mehdi ;-)


07:41 am February 11, 2014

The concept of simplicity manifests itself in the Agile thru experience gained in Lean and Kanban as well. Some of the ideas I can relate with based on my current understanding are:

# Minimum Viable Product ~= Create what is necessary, no more, no less. You Aren’t Gonna Need It, Achieve Just Barely Good Enough
#Limit Work in Progress ~= Do as many things at a time as are practically doable.
# Eliminate Waste ~= Extra features, partially done work etc.

--Bhuvan.


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