The Myth of simplicity in Agile!

Is there anything you can remove from the equation?

The art of maximizing the amount of work not done- is essential.

This is one of the Agile Manifesto’s principles: Simplicity.

When I think about this principle, I remember Google’s landing page. When we go to Google’s landing page, it is just one Search button with a white screen. It is beautiful in the way it works. Just because we have more and more features, it does not make a software pleasant and enjoyable to use.

Nothing left to take away

This question demonstrates the principle rule of simplicity: Is there anything you can remove from the equation?

This is the core vital question for measuring simplicity. Many innovative products have disrupted their space by removing something. In an industry where recorders were the most popular product, Sony removed the recording function to launch a new product: the Walkman. Software such as Simple Analytics or Fathom Analytics creates a niche for developers who want less data from their users.

Simple thinking can lead to safer plans, better communication, and easier implementation. The power of simplicity is apparent throughout history, where strategists, scientists and artists endeavoured for simplicity.

Less is more

Famous architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who is considered one of the pioneers of modernist architecture, had this famouse aphorism: less is more. His approach was to arrange the necessary components of a building to create an impression of extreme simplicity.

Division

Breaking is originated from simplicity concept, Like dividing Epics into user stories, user stories into tasks and tasks into sub-tasks.

By dividing a problem or product into smaller elements, you can then reorganize them to find a solution or form a new product. Dividing a laptop into smaller elements and extracting the screen will give you a tablet. You may want to keep the keyboard but separate it from the screen — that’s what Microsoft did with the Surface. Dividing a fridge and extracting a drawer will give you a cooling drawer. Dividing food into its nutrients will give you nutritional supplements.

In literature, the power of simplicity is also around. Thomas Aquinas, Italian philosopher writes:

If a thing can be done adequately by means of one, it is superfluous to do it by means of several; for we observe that nature does not employ two instruments where one suffices (Aquinas, [BW], p. 129).

Newton remarks that:

Nature is pleased with simplicity, and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes (Newton 1687, p. 398).

And the following passage from Einstein, writing 150 years later:

The grand aim of all science…is to cover the greatest possible number of empirical facts by logical deductions from the smallest possible number of hypotheses or axioms (Einstein, quoted in Nash 1963, p. 173).

As we have seen, simplicity can lead to innovative thinking and improve decision-making. On the other hand, complexity is often used to impress rather than to be helpful. We can all easily get caught up in the bias of complexity. This does not mean all complexity should be eliminating from our lives. Complex experiences can be enriching and exciting.

Marketers are well aware of the attraction of complexity, and exploit our complexity bias by making their products sound more sophisticated and their brand more valid and allowable.

Rather than fully eliminating complexity, we should be mindful of the way we control it in our life, in our work, and in our creative projects. Watching a complex movie, enjoying the complex flavor of a cup of tea, or studying a complex topic can all give us rich experiences; but on the other hand, an hyper-complex project plan may lead to mistakes and hide fundamental defects.

References:

• Aquinas, T., [BW], Basic Writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, A.C. Pegis (trans.), New York: Random House, 1945.
• Newton, I., 1687, The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (Principia Mathematica), New York: Citadel Press, 1964.
• Anne-Laure Le Cunff, The power of simplicity: how to manage our complexity bias
• Anne-Laure Le Cunff, Systematic inventive thinking: the power of thinking inside the box