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Similar to Gall’s law, this adage, coined by aerospace engineer Edward Murphy, suggests a correlation between a system’s complexity and its chances to fail. The more components the solution relies on, the more steps it asks a user to follow, the more explanation it requires, the more likely it won’t work.

The same principle can be applied when analyzing the development process. The more objectives your project has, the more people or teams that are involved, the more dependencies you have, the more assumptions you’re making…the more likely something will go wrong. In both cases, other things being equal, the simpler, more straightforward path has a better chance of success.