"Analysis paralysis" is a real thing, so I partly agree with you. Sometimes you have to take parts of a large concept and "dick around" with it to discover the

"Analysis paralysis" is a real thing, so I partly agree with you. Sometimes you have to take parts of a large concept and "dick around" with it to discover the unknown unknowns and how not to do it, then feed that back into analysis. After a number of iterations of this, you converge on a baseline architecture that you try to support future change without being excessively focused on YAGNI. Over-focus on YAGNI often leads to architectures that are so inflexible that when you DO need it, you can't add it without a demolition crew[1]. People should also remember the context in which YAGNI came up: Kent Beck, Ward Cunningham, Smalltalk, and the C3 project. This particular combination of people, project, and process made YAGNI feasible. And the C3 project, which spawned XP, was not as successful as folklore would have it[2]. It's not always so. Imagine if YAGNI was the focus of Roy Fielding and the HTTP specification, which has lasted remarkably well because of allowance for future change in the architecture. Scrum and other processes that claim adherence to the Agile Manifesto work best in certain contexts, where code turnaround can be fast, mistakes do not take the company down and fixes can be redeployed quickly and easily, the requirements are not well-understood and change rapidly, and the architecture is not overly complex. Many other projects don't fit this model, and people seem to think that so-called "Agile" (which even the creators of the Manifesto complain is not a noun), and mostly Scrum, is the sole exemplar of productivity. The fact is that there are many hybrid development processes, described by Steve McConnell[3] long before the word "agile" became a synonym for "success", that may be more suitable to projects that have different dynamics. An example of such a project could be one that does have well-defined requirements (e.g. implementing something based on an international standard) and will suffer from a pure "User Story" approach. Let's be much more flexible about how we decide to develop, and accept that you need to tailor the approach to the nature of the project, based on risk factors, longevity, and other factors, and not on dogma. And let's not underplay the extreme importance of a well-thought out architecture in all but the most trivial of projects. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_aren%27t_gonna_need_it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_aren%27t_gonna_need_it [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Comprehensive_Compensation_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Comprehensive_Compens... [3]: https://www.amazon.com/Rapid-Development-Taming-Software-Schedules/dp/1556159005 https://www.amazon.com/Rapid-Development-Taming-Software-Sch...