"mistakes hide in complexity"

Quote from page 80 of "Leading Lean Software Development":

In a nutshell, mistakes hide in complexity, and they are exposed in simple, well-factored code

Clearly this quote applies to making the code readable. What other areas can you think of where simplicity matters?

For example, I think of architecture.

Here are some places I see simplicity matters:

1. Too many features in a code base. Extra, unneeded features are rampant, and and they dramatically drive up costs.

2. Architecture needs to be simple, and also loosely coupled.

3. User interaction. Simplicity rules!

4. Dependencies in the schedule - why not decouple a schedule into logically decoupled workflows instead of creating a complex schedule with lots of dependencies.

5. Code, of course, as you mentioned, must be simple.

6. Simple workflow - getting something done should not involved a complicated trip to innumerable specialists, but a simple path through the system

I'm sure there are a lot more....

Mary Poppendieck wrote:1. Too many features in a code base. Extra, unneeded features are rampant, and and they dramatically drive up costs.

I see what you did there.

Other facets of simplicity:

- documentation
- development (and specification) processes
- infrastructure issues (how hard is it to get what you need)
- QA/UAT/post-deploy issue tracking/resolution

David Newton wrote:

Mary Poppendieck wrote:1. Too many features in a code base. Extra, unneeded features are rampant, and and they dramatically drive up costs.

I see what you did there.

LOL!