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

Simplicity is about what you don’t have to implement versus what you do. In Agile, simplicity is essential, in fact in life simplicity is essential.

Let me tell you how we can add value in two ways -

1?? By doing valuable work

2?? By not doing non valuable work so that we can do more of valuable work

And that is what the intent of the principle.

Simplicity really helps you get things done quickly and effectively and also it helps you understand how little you need to do in order to be successful. If you build something that’s too simple you can always add to it. But if you build something that’s too complex, there’s nothing you can do to get back that spent money.

Teams can either spend an amazing amount of time building a complex system that will handle all possible scenarios - or it can do only what is needed right now, get it right, and get it out the door. Stick to simple, do the simplest thing that works.

Take a design example: Don't spend time in building a sophisticated design in the beginning. Build a simple design which should be sufficient enough to satisfy the business users requirement and then later build upon it based on user feedback.

Coming to the Coding: Just build what the customer needs. Avoid gold Plating, avoid building additional features on top of what customer has requested to make him happy, which the customer might not be interested.

A good place to start in maximizing simplicity is to focus on what’s going to bring you the most value to your customers with the least amount of work.?