12
Defining Large and Complex Solutions
“At its heart, engineering is about using science to find creative, practical solutions. It is a noble profession.”1
—Queen Elizabeth II
1. https://www.brainyquote.com
Overview
Building large-scale and complex systems is one of the most difficult and challenging endeavors today. In addition, as we described in the last chapter, many such large systems have an unacceptably high cost of failure. This has created a barrier to Agile adoption, as the need for a more rigorous definition and validation of solution behavior may appear to conflict with the Agile Manifesto’s value of “working software over comprehensive documentation.”2 Clearly, the people who build these systems need both.
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