Agile swear words part 5: Just
It's rarely 'just' as simple as that
A reminder
This is part of a semi-serious series of words that should be removed from the agile lexicon. Follow the links below for earlier entries.
The only f-word I won’t say: Agile swear words part 1
Commitment-phobia: Agile swear words part 2
My vendetta against the v-word: Agile swear words part 3
Let’s leave grooming at the altar: Agile swear words part 4
Just dangerous
There are few phrases more dangerous when discussing a change than “It’s just...” The speaker is almost definitely underestimating the difficulty of what’s being considered. Today’s systems are large, complex, inter-related beasts. It’s unusual for any meaningful change to be simple, particularly one that requires substantial debate, the kind where “It’s just…” may get raised.
“It’s just creating a new endpoint” can turn into six months of work as the change is discovered to touch every part of the system and requires buy-in from five different teams.
“It’s just updating a URL” becomes a nightmare of managing redirects, cache invalidation, and broken links across a dozen services, somehow causing performance issues as well.
‘Just‘ is a red flag that you’re reaching for over-simplification, and your future self is in trouble. Things are rarely ‘just’ straightforward.
Just agile?
It could be argued that ‘just’ isn’t an agile swear word, that simplification happens everywhere. I’m not sure that’s true. In waterfall environments, planning happens up front and, whatever the many issues with this approach, the one thing you won’t have is recourse to dumbing down the size of the change.
Just as guilty
‘Just’ is a word I’m as guilty of using as anyone, and I’ve spent the last few years trying to train myself out of it. I’ve reached the point where I (usually) catch myself saying it and back up.
‘Just’ is a trap that puts you at risk of having a fixed-scope, fixed-date, fixed-quality conversation when you’re operating in uncertainty. It does a disservice to the complexity in which most teams operate, and makes future conversations more difficult when this complexity is uncovered.
The word ‘just’ often surfaces when the problem to be solved is not well-defined. I once had a stakeholder conversation that started with them saying it was ‘just’ one problem with the user experience in our software. I had a feeling that what seemed to him rather straightforward was masking a more significant issue.
As the team dug into the problem, they discovered three distinct problems, and when we went back to the stakeholder to understand more, it actually turned out that the problem he wanted solved was a fourth. If we’d taken the ‘just’ path straight away, not only would we have not solved the problem, but we’d have wasted months of effort on the wrong thing.
Just as well…
So, what can we do about our ‘just’ problem?
Next time someone says “It’s just” when talking about an upcoming change, ask them about the assumptions they’ve made. Why do they think this is easy? Make sure the change is well-understood and that there are people involved who can raise any concerns based on a detailed knowledge of the area concerned.
If you find yourself saying “It’s just…” then check yourself. State your assumptions out loud, and ask for feedback. Actively engage with people who know more about the space than you do.
Some agile swear-words are actively harmful and need to be removed. Some are red flags that indicate a lack of consideration. This thinking needs to be addressed. It’s just that simple.