Agile Principles: Simplicity is Essential

In 2002, Jim Johnson of the Standish Group (made famous by their Chaos Report of software project “success”) presented findings of features and functions used in a typical system. The number of features that were never or rarely used totaled a whopping 64% while sometimes, often and always weighed in with 16%, 13% and 7% respectively. For those acquainted with the Pareto principle (80/20 rule), notice how the often and always used features - those things we should concentrate on building for our customers and those things things that bring us the most value – is exactly 80%. In other words, a great deal of our effort is generally spent creating things that customers do not use or want.