top of page

How do we simplify our work in complex environments?

Writer's picture: Stephen AngoodStephen Angood

Pareto Principle the 80/20 Rule

Agile advocates maintaining simplicity but how do we do that with complex problems?


Maintaining simplicity is perhaps the least understood of all the agile principles, without focusing on this it's likely that you're working on the wrong thing, so let's talk about it.


Maintaining simplicity is really about maximising the amount of work we don't do, it's about focusing on delivering the right value and outcomes to our customers.


Have you heard of the Pareto Principle?


Vilfredo Pareto, was an Italian sociologist and economist who during his studies realised that in general 80% of a nation's income was in the hands of only 20% of the population.

Vilfredo Pareto (1848 - 1923)
Vilfredo Pareto (1848 - 1923)

In 1941, Joseph M. Juran, a Romanian-born American engineer, came across the work of Vilfredo Pareto. Juran applied the observation that 80% of an issue is caused by 20% of the causes to quality issues and popularised Vilfredo Pareto’s work.

Joseph M Juran (1904 - 2008)
Joseph M Juran (1904 - 2008)

You may know this as the 80/20 rule. It basically states that approximately 80% of the outcomes or outputs comes from approximately 20% of the causes or inputs.


A good example of this is Microsoft Word around 20% of Word's features account for around 80% of the benefit. Other examples are 20% of criminals commit 80% of crimes and 20% of drivers cause 80% of all traffic accidents.


Now the figures of 20% and 80% are of course not exact it's approximately 20% and approximately 80%.


So the idea is to find and focus on that 20%. Now it doesn't mean that the other 80% isn't important just not as important as the other 20%. To help, we can start by building better and deeper relationships with our stakeholders and customers to uncover why they want or need something.


When we understand why something is important it makes it easier to ask the right questions and discover new possibly better solutions.


Peter F Drucker contended that the most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of the wrong answers, the truly dangerous thing is asking the wrong questions.

Peter F Drucker (1909 - 2005)
Peter F Drucker (1909 - 2005)

So when we're asked to build something don't assume that what's being asked for is the right thing. We first need to understand why something is needed and continue conversations until a mutually agreed understanding and consensus is achieved.


We also need to understand the end to end journey of the work we need to deliver and break it down. Now Jeff Patton's book, User Story Mapping, is a great read on this.

User Story Mapping - Jeff Patton

Maintaining simplicity means communication and collaboration so why is that? Well it’s because we can only get to simplicity by removing unknowns, erroneous activity and waste reduction.


Simplicity is an investment in time at first it might seem like a whole lot of work but the investment more than pays off as long as we all have maintaining simplicity as a shared goal.


It can often mean approaching your work in a new and different way. Simplifying your process might mean sacrificing formal structures so perhaps consider having it as part of your teams working agreement.


If you haven't got a team working agreement, then create one. They're just a short list of things that the team all agrees on around things like communication, collaboration and decision-making. They are great for bringing teams closer together, building culture, psychological safety, transparency and trust, all of which you need in order to find the simplest way forward, together.


If you’d like to read a blog on working agreements then leave a comment below.


It can also mean spending more time with your clients and customers as it cuts out the middle man/lady where requirements can get lost in translation and you can both make faster decisions reducing decision latency. If you’re not aware of what decision latency is and its disastrous effect of delivering value then read this blog.


Also, take a cue from Einstein when he said ‘make everything as simple as possible but no simpler’ meaning make things simple but don't take so much out of your product or service that it no longer works.

Einstein - make everything as simple as possible but no simpler

Occam’s Razor is a mental model for problem solving it states that;

Among competing hypothesis the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected

It favours simplicity over complexity until disproven.


So, try simplifying your work, you’ll find it’s not as easy as the word suggests but ultimately is hugely beneficial.

17 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All
Fake agile!

Fake agile!

Comments


©2024 by SPA Agile Consulting Ltd.

bottom of page