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Small is Successful (2023)

A glimpse of a raven flying between branchesThe tip of a raven's wing in flightTwo ravens flying over a car park

A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.

Gall’s Law, from The Systems Bible (John Gall, 2002)

I am overly fond of citing Gall’s Law. It is one of the few ‘laws’ of systems theory and software development I know of that is generally correct with very few exceptions. It’s also one of the most widely ignored and disregarded laws of software development.

How many projects have you been involved with where the scope was much too broad at the start?

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Topic Bad Writing

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