Gall’s Law
Etymology
From physician and systems thinker John Gall, whose 1975 book "Systemantics" (later "The Systems Bible") stated the maxim. The rule bears his name, an eponym drawn from that aphorism. Its wry tone is characteristic of the book’s satire of how large systems misbehave.
noun phrase · /gawlz law/
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked.
What it names
A caution against designing complexity from scratch: it tells you to grow a working thing incrementally rather than launch an elaborate one whole, because grand designs built all at once tend to fail all at once.
Example
They tried to ship the full platform in one release and it collapsed; Gall’s law would have started them with one boring feature that actually worked.
Related idea
Pairs with emergence: Gall’s law is prescriptive advice about building, while emergence describes the unplanned order that complex systems exhibit once they exist.