Topic

How to master the Art of Simplicity - an Agile Principle

Response

The principle is:

We have mastered the ART OF SIMPLICITY, which is maximising the amount of work not being done.

How an organisation retains the art of simplicity depends very much on their size and financial position. Organisations with a strong balance sheet have a tendency to chase too many opportunities at the same time. Whilst organisations with a challenging balance sheet are pressured to make decisions with a short term view, which typically results in them scaling back investment in new investments, in favour of supporting existing proven offerings. Unfortunately, this leads to adopting internal mature structures and processes, which are complex and poorly aligned with the task.

Whatever the organisation’s financial situation, they must breakdown complex offerings, products or solutions into smaller units of value. Typically referred to as Features. The breaking down process forces the Agile team to truly understand the value of individual features, which enables them to invest their time where it is most valuable as part of an incremental multi-value (minimum) release strategy.

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